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Choices. Look at the last few rods I've bought: all casting rods 5'10" MH/F 6'3"" M+/F 6'1" ML+/XF with solid carbon stinger tip 6'9" ML/R Right now among a couple of others, I am looking for a 6'6" MH/XF and a 6'6" H/XF. I have these in the Daiwa TD-S series but am looking for better. It's easy to buy American if I want yet another 7' to 7'4" MH/F stick. But I already have a couple of those and I'm just not one of those Tournament kind of guys who buys 6 of the same thing. I usually buy 1 or 2 of each specific size and style I want. St. Croix might come close on one or two of those rods, but the truth is I am underwhelmed by the last two SC rods I've bought (LTB) and really don't want to risk paying $500 just to see if I like the very top of the line stuff better. I am looking for rods in the $200-300 range new or used. In short, I want the same choices as I would have as a fisherman in Japan. I want some BFS rods, some L and UL action casting rods, a selection of rods that are 6'-6'10", stinger tips, and XF tips on more than one M action model. If you don't know what I mean, compare what Megabass USA offers here as opposed to what they offer the rest of the world. Check out the rod selection at places online like the 7seas Pro Shop. I understand that they make what sells best here, but I am buying rods for me not everyone else. I'd be happy to see everybody here buying their 7'4" H/F and MH/F made in the US. I'd gladly buy made in the US too, but they are not selling what I'm buying.

Yep, that is also true. I have an 8'6" H spinning rod with a size 40 reel on it that will pretty well bring in anything that needs brought in.

I have the Pflueger Supreme XT reel and it seems like a pretty good reel, at least on par with most of the Lews stuff and the Revo SX. I don't really use it that much because I have it paired with a 7' Abu Volatile MH Inshore rod. It is a great combo for fishing the thick weeds because that rod is really more like a MH rod with a H backbone, and being in the Midwest, I just don't usually have the sort of thick salad that you see down south. I also use it some for trolling big DT27 crank-baits. My point isn't that one SHOULD choose to use casting gear to go light, it is just that you can legitimately do so if you want to. There are so many people that believe that the light baitcasting set ups are somehow a compromise used by people who have some sort of mysterious aversion to spinning gear, and that spinning gear is just better at light work that the casting gear. That was undoubtedly true 20 years ago and likely true even 10 years ago, But today that is just not so. If the cost is a primary concern, I'd say that you'd be better off with spinning gear as you say, but I would not say that spinning gear is just better at it, just better at it that price.

My bad, I though braid sunk too. I have always used mono, and more recently fluorocoated. see there kids? That's why you should always take what you hear on the internet with a grain of salt...

I like a XF tip for top-water, a F tip for big single hooks and jerk-baits, and moderate or Moderate/F for just about everything else. Mostly I think, because I am old enough that I came up fishing with fiberglass rods before there were graphite rods and the more parabolic moderate actions still feel normal to me. My first fishing rod was actually a True Temper baitcasting set-up with a steel telescopic rod...LOL, It's hard to describe the action on that one. It was a big deal when I was about 12 or 13 and my Dad graduated me to a Zebco 33 Combo. It wasn't as nice as his Johnson Century set-up, but I was on my way... I always use mono for top-water baits because braid sink and will sometimes pull the front end of the lure down with it affecting the action of the bait. Of course in the real world that altered action might be just what the fish want on that particular day...

Anyone who is familiar with Continuous Improvement processes in industry can tell you that the first 80% of something is relatively easy to attain. Most benchmarks fall in the 80% range. To get to around 90-98% costs about double. After that each 1% or fraction of it can again double the cost. Applied to a fishing reel, if $100 gets you to 80% of the theoretical perfect reel, then spending $200 will get you a significantly better 98% reel. A 99% reel will cost $400 a 99.5% will cost $800. As there is no actually perfect you can continue to improve things by increasingly smaller increments by paying more into infinity. There is definitely a diminishing return of improvement over cost as the quality goes up. What matters is where you feel like that cost is more than what you are willing to pay for the improvement. Some folks are fine with 80% reel. Many others will choose to pay $200 for a reel 18% better. A few are even willing to pay $1600 for a reel that is about 1% better than that. It's all up to you. THIS!

I, who am not a carpenter, posed this same question to my father, and my son who are carpenters and they both gave me the same answer. It did not agree with your take on it except that you are probably right that the nails don't care. (though a milled face is much better to the nails than is a forged face) The carpenter is buying the hammer, the nails are not. According to the carpenters, using the cheap hammer all day will result in a numb hand, sore elbow joint and wrist joints and over time likely a bad case of carpal tunnel. Apparently the difference in the handle ergonomics and the vibration dampening of the materials makes a lot of difference to the guy who has to use one that much. The guy who uses one occasionally around the house (such as myself) might not appreciate the difference. As that applies to fishing, I hear people saying the same kind of thing. "Why buy expensive gear, the cheap stuff catches as many fish and the fish don't care". We buy nicer gear because it is all about the fisherman. If you get more pleasure in fishing from knowing that you saved a few bucks...great, I guess money is your pleasure. Some others of us take more pleasure from using nicer gear when we fish than we do from money. I don't ever recall thinking about money when I'm fishing. To each their own for sure...but you can't say that it doesn't matter, that one is as good as the other, you could say that money is the higher priority for some.

In my opinion the peak was the Daiwa TD-Z. The magnesium body make it lightweight and everything else was still the the old solid quality stuff. I have 6 of them. I change out the spools for the more modern brakes and light weights and usually change ot the handles and drag starts to give them a little more modern look. Best made reels ever in my book.

Hmmm...I think I like your way better...

I have an 8' UL Fenwick Eagle that is one of my favorite Crappie rods..

What would be even better is if the US makers would start making something other than the narrow range of rods that they offer. I'm sure there are others besides myself who can't buy USA rods because I don't need another 7'+MH/F or a 6'10" M/F. The downside of this is that robots don't buy fishing gear,or anything else...neither do humans who have been put out of work by robots for that matter.

I'm not overall a big fan of Fenwick rods these days but I am a fan of the lighter weight Fenwick Eagle spinning rods. Very nicely balanced, sensitive and very lively compared to many other budget rods..

I'm a fan of the BFS stuff too, and have gear that works for these scenarios. But it just isn't suitable for everyone. Like a few have already mentioned, it can be very spendy. The Air stream is a 350-$400 reel and the appropriate rod will have to be imported for another $200 or so at least. So, for the fortunate among us who can (and would) spend a minimum of $600 to be able to "pitching (sic) small plastics from close range to logjam holes or undercut banks." you are 100% correct. However, for those who cannot spend that kind of money, a $120 spinning rig will do it just as well, maybe a little better even. Actually, thinking about it, pitching small baits into logjam holes and undercut banks describes what I do every year when Crappie fishing the spawn. For that a 9' B&M Light rod and a Pflueger President works just dandy. That means that a Bass Pro Crappie rod and a Trion would work just about as well...the latter combo might cost $60-$70. Not arguing that you are wrong, just trying to add some perspective to the conversation.

LOL, It would be some mild mannered sportsmen who used fishing casting reels to boost their masculinity I'd say. Try bicycle racing or rugby if you need that sort of cred. Half of fishing is done from a chair! Sort of like beating your chest over a checkers game. Sounds more to me like some fishing buddies trying to get your goat. I wouldn't pay any attention to it.......unless your the kind of sensitive individual that would use a sp....(Just kidding on that last line...)

I agree that having to fight the fish is the fun part. The thing is you don't have to do the common casting rig using a MH rod with 30lb line and a 15lb drag on. Fishing light isn't limited to spinning rigs these days. I know old habits tend to die hard and that many people aren't going to change theirs, but the truth is the old saw about casting down to 1/4oz and spinning below that, is just outdated and archaic these days. The truth is you can fish Casting just about as light as you want to and fish spinning gear just about as heavy as you want to. The most common rig I have in my hands is a M casting rod, using #8 or #10 line and a reel that has less than 9lb drag and not all the way locked down usually. Often it's a ML rod instead. I know that depending on what you are doing that just doesn't work, say... pulling bait and fish through salad, launching big jigs and etc.. But it is a great feeling pulling in a 15 lb fish on a lighter rig and having had to earn it. My son, a month or so, ago pulled in a Flathead Catfish that weighed nearly 30+ lbs on a M rod using 10 Lb line. It took him 45 minutes and when he was done he got a nice round of applause from the little crowd that had gathered from the neighborhood onshore. I'll admit that something like what he did is easier in a boat as you can use the boat as a sort of drag and help tire the fish.

I've caught plenty of schoolie stripers on my regular old Steez and TD-z that have 9lbs of drag using #8 and #10. It takes a while sometimes but why hurry through the whole point of going fishing to begin with. See, that is something I never understood. Guys will spend $80,000 on a boat, $50,000 on a truck to haul it.A couple of grand on gear, $150 fill up on the boat another $50 in the truck. Then they drive 2 hours to the lake, maybe pay a launch fee then fight the Googans for an hour to get into the water.....and after all that? The big concern is to hurry up and get that fish into the boat as soon as you can so that the fish that you will probably release anyway will not get off. Not me. Give me a good 1/2 hr. fight with a fish for my money. I don't fish for a living, I fish for fun, and the fun is the fighting the fish part.

I've gotten a brand new Revo SX that had more than minute traces in it, the bearings were coated in grease. I figured they did that to make it seem super smooth or maybe to make sure the bearings didn't go dry and corrode on the shelf??

20 years ago I would have been thrilled to have just about any of the current Daiwa offerings available now. People were all agog when car makers started putting dual headlamps on cars. Oddly enough everyone seemed to love the big fins...go figure.

They did have them as of yesterday I just did a spool swap with MountainMan83 yesterday and one of the things he offered was a set of 33mm to 31mm, so he at least has those.

don't know that there is a right and wrong, more of whether it is the current fashion or not. I have some older rods that have a generous fore grip. As time goes on they have shrunk. As reels get lighter, the rods are all about shaving weight. Most all of the rods I've bought lately have no fore grip just thread covers.

I routinely run 6# and 8# FC and Florocoated co-poly on my light casting gear like the PX68. I see no downside at all. most of my gear I run 10# and 12# on Med rods, and 12 and 15# on MH. I do have a few rods set up with 20 # but they are specific set ups for specific uses. Punching into weeds, frogs, heavy swim baits etc. We are talking bass not sturgeon or lake trout. Most of my reels only have about 9lbs of drag and I've never noticed any problems. I've taken in 15lb catfish on #8 line using without that 9 lbs of drag being locked down. My son this year brought in a 30+ lb Flathead on 10# line. Try a lighter line if you think it will help...we're not hunting dragons here.

just a couple of things for starters. the length of the rear grip can depend on a couple of things. First is the intended use of the rod. If it is intended to be a jerk-bait rod or a slash bait rod it will probably have a short rear grip as the longer grip will get in the way. In other cases the grip length is longer on bigger heavier longer rods in order to help the rod balance. Split grip can also factor in balancing the rod The full cork grips are heavier and would destroy the balance of say a shorter Light powered rod. Usually with fishing rods the weight is a huge consideration. Companies go to great lengths to shave fractions of ounces off of a rod or reels weight and people pay hundreds of dollars for them to do that.But sometimes it's simply a matter of some people prefer the full handle and will take the extra weight. The fore grip is not needed on casting rods and for the most part has disappeared on the better quality rods. It is important on spinning rods though because most people put the leg of the reel between their fingers and hold the rod there. So on a spinning rod the fore grip is actually the handle. Some spinning rods have almost eliminated the rear handle.

Your bearings may not even be broken in yet. All of the major players use pretty good bearings at the factory including ABU and Lews. Now, I buy a lot of used top tier reels and no matter what the age or condition, I take them apart, clean them and then put a brand new set of ZPI Ceramics in them. I also customize them when I put them together adding bearings and etc. in some cases. I think that there IS a small performance gain to using the upgraded ceramic bearings, but it might not amount to much of a real performance gain in the real world . Whatever the difference is, it is more evident with very light spools because the mass of the ceramic bearing is lighter and so takes less energy to start them moving. Also the friction coefficients of ceramic bearings are lower than SS bearings. But I think that as the spool weight to bearing weight ratio increases the effects become almost insignificant. Also using oil on the ceramics tends to even up the weight difference as the oil makes the bearing harder to get started but it matters less as the mass of the spool increases. I have a few reels that I bought new including a Revo SX which I am not customizing or upgrading, so I just sent that one into the shop and had a pro clean it and do some polishing. The bearings are good bearings and the spool is relatively heavy so I left them in. I would think that the best thing you could do with your SX is to send it out to the shop when the year is done for you and have them do a clean and tune. Probably see a pretty big difference when it comes back. Way more than new bearings. You might want to try lubricating with TSI 321 while you are at it. Oil can really slow bearings down.

One of my sons has a couple of the SLX MGL reels and he likes them a lot.

I see what you are saying. I wasn't sure of what you meant based on where your post appeared. Personally I like to know about how the stuff works and the "improvements" they make in reels. I like the older reels better but am not averse to changes. I just try to figure out if the changes are real or just marketing features. I liked it better in the old days where companies didn't spend half of their product cost on trying to brainwash me into buying the "new and improved" model when they wouldn't have to convince me at all if they spent that marketing money on making better reels.