Randy Price

About 16 years ago my best friend and I were walleye fishing in N. Wis. and dragging jig and minnows on the bottom of the lake. All of a sudden he yells "there's one" and pulls and up comes a vintage '50's or early '60's rod and reel. Surprisingly the reel still worked. It was some old baitcaster with braid line. The rod had seen better days.

Catch a bass over 5 lbs, a walleye over 30", and a musky over 50".

I’m still regularly using my Shimano Stradic FG 2000 from around 2000.

Yep me too. Used to love watching his show back in the late '70's.

Like others have said. Many of our hobbies have to take a back to seat to life at certain times. In my '30's I really got into trap shooting and had several work friends that were just getting into it also. After 3-5 years most of the guys had switched companies been fired etc... so I didn't have any friends to shoot with. I also really enjoyed turkey hunting and archery deer hunting. Did a lot of that in my 30's and 40's but now at 55 not so much.

I have an Avid X and several original Avids. For the $$ IMO Avids are where SC rods start to shine!

If your budget is limited I would look at the St. Croix Mojo Bass or Premier. If it's not then the Legend line of rods is awesome.

I have the Mojo Bass and have been very pleased with it.

Shimano all the way.

For the money I would get a 6'6" St. Croix Avid MF with a Shimano Nasci with 10lb Seguar Smackdown and that would be a VERY good all purpose rod and reel.

I remember visiting my cousins in AR (where I'm from originally) sitting by a pond fishing and catching bullheads. We would cuss, smoke and look at dirty magazines we had found. This was in the early '70's way before the internet. We fished with Zebco reels and who knew what rods we used.

I bought a Ballistic LT and used it for a day and returned it. IMO it is no where near what a Ci4+ is. I paid the extra $ and bought another Ci4+.

I bought one last year and have been very happy with it. I'm primarily a Stradic guy with 2-2500 Ci4's, a 2500 FJ, 2500 FK and a 2000 FG.

I have been a Shimano guy for a long time. I recently bought a Fuego 2500 LT and haven't used it enough to form an opinion but so far it's ok. I've used Stradic spinning reels for so many years I think I'm brainwashed to them.

20 years ago I had a Compre that I really liked and then a good friend introduced me to St. Croix Avid rods and I've switched to SC rods for everything.

I was fishing at a local lake when two CPO's approached me and asked to see my license. I handed them my St. Croix Legend Xtreme with a Shimnao Stradic Ci4 while I got my wallet out. As I'm retrieving my license one of the CPO's says I'm sure this guy has a license, he gave just handed me a $ 600.00+ rod and reel to hold while he's digging for it. I started laughing and showed them my license. They both really liked the Legend Xtreme rod.

I'm 55 and had two really good fishing buddies but within a span of 3 years they both are gone. I'm in the process of trying to find another but it's hard to find someone that just fits right.