kayaking_kev

I went to go buy one last season at a local store for $10 last year and they had about 30 of them and every one had the most crooked guides I ever seen and the reel looked useless, so I bought Cherrywood HD on sale instead for $15.

You would probably be better off with the Kaden 744c for 1/2 oz. I had the 744c back in February of 2020 and it would do good with those weights. The 743c would handle 3/8 oz. fine, but if you're wanting to throw a lot of 1/2 oz. go with the 744c. The Sierra has a softer tip than the Kaden, better for moving baits.

Dobyns Champion 704cb Glass is awesome for shallow cranks and small trebles, it throws the DT4 great. It has some power issues with a DT6 sometimes. It's the most parabolic rod out of the bunch. I just sold mine is near perfect condition for $150. I also have a Tatula 7 ft. Medium / Regular and that is decent at shallow cranks, not quite as good as the Dobyns, but it's has more power and better at throwing Medium divers. I liked to throw the Whopper Plopper 90 with it. I'm also selling this rod though. The Dobyns Fury 703c was the 1st of 14 Dobyns I owned, I liked it so much I bought the 663c also, but it's a lot like the Tatula rod above. I learned from fishing a lot of shallow rivers that when fish can't dive deep, they like to jump out of the water a lot more with fierce head shakes, and I like to have a nice limber rod because of this. Especially, when they are river smallies. The rod could throw squarebills decently, but I preferred it as a Jerkbait, Lipless, Single Hook Moving Bait rod. Their both already sold and replaced with custom rods. I built a custom rod on a Phenix X-10 Blank and it fits between both of them nicely. They are available in a production models as well for $200 on TW, but maybe you could find a used one for $150. It weighs a lot less than the other rods.

That's crazy, my cheapest X-Ray Build was $200, but that had a CFX Grip & G2 Reel Seat. I added in the $10 Excise fee they charge for every blank and split the $35 shipping between the 3 blanks, so I counted each blank as $95. I even spent $150 on the X-Ray blank that I got from you that I built on and that was basically a free blank.

There's some really nice "big brand" blanks out there that are not available for custom build, but there there are some nice custom blanks out there also, and a huge variety of in between. I wish I could get a Conquest 843c blank and build it with carbon grips and the real seat that I want. If I were to try to have someone build something close, but with a different blank, it would cost around $600. But, I haven't seen any custom blanks that look like the Conquest or Shimano Spiral X designed blanks. I was able to get some X-Ray blanks made by Gary Loomis and built one with Torzite Guides and G2 Carbon Grips for $300, but it's still not near as light as my Conquest 843c, and they are quite bulky. The ML X-Ray I built is at least twice as thick in the bottom section as my Dobyns Xtasy Mag Heavy was. The sensitivity does more than hold it own though. The better value = Build Your Own

Those things are really buoyant, so keep that in mind, it will probably make the chatterbait swim higher in the water column and you may need to slow you retrieve a bit. I can't stand fishing those thing weightless or even with light weight on them because they take forever to fall, and I don't have the patience.

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/search-tackle.html?sort=no&start=0&count=30&searchtext=the+closer I'm not sure the exact size, but I would bet the 1/4 oz. is at least 1/O or 2/O. I have some 1/4 & 1/8 oz. and I thinking even the 1/8 might even be 1/O. Gary Dobyns even left a review on them.

Sierra 735c is the best I have used + lifetime warranty + there is always a 20% off sale somewhere. IROD's Fred's Magic Stick, I hear is really good and I wouldn't hesitate to get one. The new Tatula's aren't near as light as the Original Tatula's. My 7'0 Tatula M/R weighed the same as my 7'0 Dobyns Fury MH/F.

Cork over EVA, but Carbon over both. I love the NFC Carbontex Soft Touch Grips and the American Tackle G2 Grips are pretty nice also.

Lew's Hank Parker Speed Stick = $40 On Sale Dobyns Fury Dobyns Colt Daiwa Aird-X Lew's TP-1 I have a Daiwa Tatula 7 ft. Medium/Regular for $110 Shipped.

6'6" for Jerkbaits and 7'0" for most everything else. That's my preference, but I have a 6'0, 7'3, and 7'6 rods also & they have their place.

I tried it once, but I'd rather tie a knot than have to clean my spool afterwards with alcohol to get the sticky stuff off left over from the tape.

That's funny because I was thinking about building a X-11 sometime in the future for XD 6, 3/4 oz lipless, bigger whopper ploppers and other heavier deeper divers. It's weird because it's even lighter than the X-10, which came out to 3.9 oz. after I built it even with Winn Grips on it. Do you have the factory X-11 or a custom? The X-10 is in between the Dobyns 704 glass and the Tatula 7ft M/R. It's not quite as whippy with a little more power than the Dobyns, but more parabolic and not quite as powerful as the Tatula. All 3 are great cranking rods, I just like the lightness of the X-10.

I have heard the Recon blanks are slightly better than the M1, but I don't know as far as the factory rod and what components they have on them. I built a Phenix X-10 Composite and love it, I'm now selling my Dobyns Champion XP 704cb Glass and Tatula crankbait rod, because I like it so much.

1. The X-Ray 7109 is powerful and stout, but I have only been able to use it once so far flipping a jig, and I also cut mine down to 7'6". I'm pretty sure I saw that it will handle small swimbaits, but I have little experience with swimbaits so I can't speak on it. Every X-Ray blank that I have can throw up to their max lure rating or beyond, they are powerful rods, IMO. You might want to ask Michander about this blank as I traded him one for a SJ-736 and he may have fished it more and may be able to tell you more about it. 2. I've had pretty good customer service from them. I've always received my orders in just over a week, and even received a replacement for a damaged blank in under two weeks from the time I put in a request. 3. The NFC and G2 grips have smaller arbor sections that don't run all the length of the grip, their about 3" or so, the CFX grips arbor runs all the way through. My preference on the texture in the NFC grips, they feel smooth but yet have some grip to them. I didn't think I would like them more than the G2 grips, but I have came around and they are now my favorite grips. I didn't weigh all of them, I think just the G2 and the NFC grips. The NFC full grips weighed 26 grams, and if I remember correctly, the G2 split grips weighed the same or even a little more and I didn't weight the G2 full grips. I posted the weights in one Michander's recent post, but he may have them written down.

Agree with the other about the Sierra, the Kaden would be much better for those applications. I would throw in Phenix Bass Recon Elite Heavy Power 7'1 or 7'6 in the mix, they are some light rods, and Phenix doesn't get enough credit.

I used circle hooks on my neko rigged works for awhile and even caught my PB using one, but ultimately, I got sick of the hook up ratio and tried a bunch of other hooks until I found the Owner Sniper Finesse Neko Hook. Those things are all I will ever use now when I don't use barbless.

Looks like that Tatula 7 ft. M/R would fit in nicely with your lineup.

I bought a couple 3 packs last Black Friday and I think they are pretty good, I caught one of my first fish this year on one matching a craw. I got them for a great price then, but this is even better. What is the shipping price on them though?

Long story short, I kayaked long before I fished, decided to throw a line behind me as a I paddled after seeing so many fish all the time. I started catching a bunch of fish and had no clue how to tell a LM from a SM. Now, I'm hooked and I rarely troll and have taken 10 hours to fish a 3 mile stretch of river before. Lots of people around here troll for Crappie. I sometimes like to keep a Crappie line in my rod holder as I fish a spot or drift for Bass in the kayak. I also bank fish and I don't know about others, but I don't throw many crankbaits for fear of losing them and I rarely throw spinnerbaits. Depending on the season, Jerkbaits, Ned, Craws or anything that imitates them in early Spring, and a lot of Neko Rigged Worms and T-Rigs in the Summer, with some Lipless, Chatters, Spinners, and other baits mixed in there here and there throughout the season. My point is I think it takes a lot more skill to catch fish from the bank than it does trolling, but I have no problem trolling, but I can see how it can be annoying for other boaters as they seem to take up a lot of area.

Some more Red Eyed Shads and a few other things from the BPS Spring Sale.

I have one zebco 202 reel where you have to reel the lure almost all the way up to the tip of the rod for it to cast properly, but then it does great. I think someone else just recently mentioned something about trying to press the button a second time after you cast.

Dobyns Glass rods are Composite, or a mix of Glass & Graphite, but I think the Exprides might be also.

Thanks everyone! One of the biggest problems I ran into, if not the biggest was applying finish over a longer area, as I didn't have the same problem with guides. You can see in the pic below on the 2nd rod from the bottom, which was the first rod I built and is the most noticeable in the picture. You can see the unevenness or wavy finish after the decal section where the carbon fiber rod skin starts. This was the worst because I had the carbon fiber skin start to unwrap as I was applying finish to it and it became a pain. I later found out that by using a instant UV light resin on decals and rod skins before applying finish I could eliminate this problem. But, I still have a little problem applying finish over a couple of the decal sections. It didn't come out as even as I would have liked on a couple rods. You can't even notice it unless you run your hands down the section. I'm not exactly sure what I did wrong though, but have some ideas. Could it be the unsanded X-Ray blanks, even though I put down a layer of finish underneath the decals first to create a smooth surface? I didn't have any problem on my Phenix blank. Could my room have been to hot? It gets pretty warm, but I don't think over 80 F. Could I have spread the finish to thin or to thick? Could I have waited to long to apply the finish after mixing? Could it be a mixing ratio problem, even though I use syringes for precise parts? What else could cause my finish to get wavy like that?

I would see if the Rodhouse website has both of those rods in their rod deflection comparison chart so you can see how they measure up. I use the MB-733 for finesse stuff like Ned Rigs, but it's not the best at casting the lighter stuff, I wish it had a little more flex in the tip. Finesse Jigs like the Bitsy Bug would probably be really good on it.