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I used the KK line the year before last (bought about 55,000 yards) and changed back to the P-Line Flouroclear last year. I had tons of line breakage issues that I didn't have with the P-line and don't have now with the P-line. I could see in a few instances where the line was thinner in spots. Maybe the KK Flourocoat is better now. If it works for you congrats because the price was/is certainly right. But for me, after I figure in lost baits, it was a pretty expensive experiment. Expensive enough to keep me from buying any KK line again.

That's how I always have done my older Daiwa reels as well. Even my old TD-Z's. I figured that Daiwa just got tired of people locking down the spool and then complaining that they weren't getting good distance and so decided to hype a new marketing feature the "No Adjust Spool Tension Knob".

That's a good question. About 40 I think. But some of them see little use like the down rigger trolling stuff. and the big 9ft steel-head river rods. Many of them are specialized, like the 4 crappie rigs 9,10,11,12 ft. ML and L rods and a couple of 8' Light rods that I only use for trying to catch early Walleye feeding on shallow rip-rap on the river. I have a 6'6" H-XF that I use for little other than vertical jigging 1oz. lead spoons for Striped bass. I could cut the number I have down to maybe 10-12 and get 90% of my fishing done. My sons and I get together a couple time a year at various places for a week of fishing, so after a while I ended up with enough gear to pretty much go anywhere to fish for anything.

I use three different ML rods right now and they are keepers for me. For the Ned and things like 1/8 spinners and mini crank baits I have come to believe that the rods made for Inshore fishing are best. I have 3 Abu Volatile rods ML-XF 6'10". Rated 1/16-3/8 oz. they are very whippy and get good distance, but being Inshore rods they also have more backbone than your ordinary 1/16oz. BFS rod. They are rated to 6-12 lb. line. Falcon makes a similar rod and you could also check out some of the Abu Garcia Japanese market stuff like the Stinger series. I also have an ABU Villain Gen1, which I unlike some, really like. I like them enough that I bought 6 of them in various configurations. It is, in my opinion a great all around rod in the ML-F class. 6'9", pretty typical 1/8-1/2 oz. baits and 6-10lb line. The action on these remind me of the Carbonlight rods, but the Villain is more sensitive and balanced and to me feels more lithe and quick. For the ML-Mod rods I have Daiwa Original Generation Black Labels. 6'9", 1/6-1/2 oz. and 6-14lb. line wt. This is my absolute favorite rod for top-water lures up 5/16oz. and small jerk baits too. There are a hundred other choices out there you can be sure. The problem is that just because I like a rod doesn't mean that someone else will see it the same way. There are some higher end rods that make my ML stuff feel pretty clunky, so if you have the cash and the desire to spend it this way, check out some of the Megabass and Shimano/Jackall stuff and maybe the Daiwa Steez and Heartland Rods. Abu makes some really nice rods in their Fantasista series as well.

For Casting...Daiwa, Megabass, and Abu. For deep trolling... Daiwa For light trolling ...Fenwick and Daiwa Spinning..Daiwa, Fenwick, Abu Crappie...B&M, OZARK, Fenwick, and BPS I use mostly Daiwa reels for everything casting, but I do have an Abu REVO SX that I use for vertical jigging and 1 Pflueger Supreme XT that I use for throwing 1oz. top-water stuff with. The spinning and crappie rigs are all have Pflueger reels and the regular spinning rigs are Pfueger and except for 1 Daiwa.

I always keep a couple of different dental type picks in my tackle bags. You know the ones with a different crook or bend on each end. Best I've found for picking bird's nests and I am not particularly boasting when I say that I am pretty much an expert on the subject.

Whoa there...Abu might not be in the same league as SC when it comes to $500 rigs but they are close and they definitely make gear that outshines the rods you fellows are talking about here. I find the ABU Villains in the ballpark with the Avids and I prefer them to some of the Legend T's simply because they are light and balanced where so many of the LT rods are not. ( I have several of both Villains and LT) I would put some of the Abu Garcia Fantasista series rods head to head with many of the St. Croix rods, or any one else's rods at the $350-$400 range. Not to mention that Abu makes a ton of rods that most Americans have never seen or heard of because like most international fishing manufacturers, they realize that the American market prefers a very narrow range of gear (MH-F, 7' rods) and is largely unwilling to spend more than $100-$150 on it. In Japan and around the world Abu is well respected and sought after gear. Now, when you are comparing Abu rods to those like the Premier, Mojo, Bass-X, and etc. Abu is 100% in that league. Those are the $100 rods that Americans buy and Abu sells a ton of rods that compete at that level for $20 less. There is nothing all that special about the St. Croix rods at that price point. One may prefer Mojo Bass rod over an Abu Veritas rod, but hopefully that is because of some concrete personal preference rather that a misguided belief that one major company's $100 rod inherently better because of its name. After all just about everybody makes a decent $100 rod. The American market demands it.

The year before last I thought I'd save some money and bought all KastKing mono and Flouro with which to re rig my gear. I don't remember exactly how many spools of what I bought but I usually buy 18-20 300yd. spools, a mix of 6,8,10,12,15,and 20lb. lines. I'm sure the KK mix was similar. I lost so many lures on that stuff that at the end of the year I bought 18-20 more spools of the P-Line Flourocoat that I had been using before. I don't normally like to knock different products, but in this case I feel justified. I had seen the reviews of the KK line warning me that it had problems and I had bought the stuff anyway and it was IMO even worse than what people had said. In places you could actually see the thin spots. I know I lost over $100 of lures due to line breaks. Hands down the worst and most unreliable line I've seen in my 63 years. I didn't have the problems before using the KK line and I didn't have the problems after getting rid of the KK line...Maybe that isn't scientific proof, but at this point, I know what I know and I know I'll not be buying any more KK lines.

No real goals for me, though I do aim to enjoy time spent outdoors getting away from the goals and score keeping that I've had to weather over the last 45 years or so of making a living. I like fiddling with the gear, running around in boats and catching fish. I like it more if I'm catching a lot of fish, but even if I get skunked I still will have enjoyed the day fishing more than I would have if I hadn't gone. No better way to ruin something you love doing than taking it seriously or God forbid, trying to make a living at it.

One of my sons lives near Dallas TX and there are plenty of good lakes within an hour or so, Ray Hubbard, Fork Lake, Tawakanee, Cooper, just name a few. Toledo Bend isn't a whole lot further.

Thanks, iabass8 has pointed that out. I don't have mine here to have compared them and was going by memory. a faulty memory it seems...it happens when you're old

Thanks for the correction..I haven't actually measured them, but I would have sworn that the CT was narrower than the SV-TWS. I'll be unloading them out of the boat in the very near future to get stuff ready for this spring and will check them out.

I think that the main reason people change to the fancy lightweight spools is to get better distance when casting very light lures. Those spools probably wouldn't help you cast frogs I wouldn't think. It does help with pitching, especially light stuff as the light spool is much easier to start turning without a big casting motion. I would think that for tossing heavier stuff like swim baits and frogs, something like the Zillion reels or maybe the non SV Tatula would be a better choice. In my opinion, the Steez series (and the SV stuff in general) is best for 1/4 oz to maybe 3/4 oz baits. The Steez A might be better, but I'm not sure never having had one. I know it is quite a bit heavier which I imagine would be a good thing as I can't imagine a Steez, being a very lightweight reel, balances a frogging rod very well. Mine feel at home on shorter (6'3" to 6'6") very lightweight Japanese style rods.

About that "No Adjust" spool tension knob...as far as I can see it is the same setup as I have on all my PX68's Steez OG and TD Z's. I think that the issue is that Daiwa reels are made so that you set them up by releasing the clutch, loosen the spool until you get a little side to side motion, and then tighten the knob to where it just stops that wiggle. The problem is that many people set up their reels by putting the bait on the rod and then loosening the spool until the bait slowly drops,tightening so that the spool stops as soon as the bait touches the ground. Or they use some other traditional method. This leads to a lot of people then complaining that they are not getting the great distances out of their expensive new Daiwa reels. Daiwa's answer was to simply set the knob at the factory and call it a zero adjust knob. In Daiwa world you set up the reel the way I said, and then use the brakes for all the adjustments. Of course if you buy a reel, you have the right to set it up however you see fit.

Yep, If the weather was too bad to go fishing you could always drop by the tackle shop and argue about stuff with the regulars. Those shops would order just about anything you wanted and you got to check out the stuff that other people had ordered too. That's the way you got to check out a lot of gear that the shop might not be able to stock all the time. One shop by me is still open, but the guy who ran it for 40 or so years passed away and his daughter is running it now, but not very well. I try to buy stuff there when I can, but there is never really anything there to buy. Some of the stuff hanging on the racks are left from 15-20 years ago. Sad.

No one more so than Amazon.

I won't shop at Amazon if I can help it...You should take a look at their HR policies sometime if Wall-Mart bothers you..

This is sort of true. I've found that there are still plenty of good private retail shops out there. There aren't any where I live and the closest decent places to me are a Cabala's and BPS about 35 miles away so I've had to buy online for quite a while now. I realized a long time ago that the small shops doing good business are making it by doing business online. A large number of these smaller brick and mortar places are running stores on the Big Auction site, and there are as well as many small non-brick and mortar shops that only exist online. Some others like Delaware here, and The Tackle Trap over at Tackle Tour attach themselves to forums like this one and provide excellent and personalized customer service this way. No, it's not as good as being able to hold that Megabass rod before you buy it, but it is a whole lot better than being limited to Cheapo stuff at Wally World and once you develop a relationship with the on-line guys, you get a lot better advice and personalized service than you will get out the puddin' faced sales droids over at the BPS. I'm an older guy and sure, I'd rather it like it was in 1970 when all the little shops were in high gear, but this is now and my advice is to stop looking to the accountants at the big corporations and find the fishing guys online who are just like the guys who used to run those little shops. After all, they still are the same kind of guys. At least that is how I see it.

I use the BOCA pliers as well. I've heard many say that they have problems with them but I never have. But then I'm a tool kind of guy.

I really like my St. Croix rods...now. At first I bought a couple of LTB rods, 7'1" medium F, and a (I think) 7' MH MF. I was very disappointed with the way they felt out in the yard. So much so that I avoided even trying them out for real until my sons and I organized a trip where we would all meet at Norfork Lake in Arkansas. I bought them along thinking maybe I would trade them for something. Along the way I decided to at least give them a shot...I was shocked at how much I actually liked them when I actually fished them. They were sensitive and felt alive and handled fish better than any other rods I have. They still feel tip heavy and clumsy when I pull them off the rack at home, but out on the boat where it counts, they are some of my favorites now... Lesson learned, flopping a rod around the living room or at the store really has nothing to show me about how well a rod fishes.

Most under-rated reel...I'd have to say the Daiwa Laguna. Under $50. Sure it's a Carbon frame and not the Mag-Z brakes, but it actually feels like a good reel and have proven themselves to be tough. I was looking to put together a couple of cheap rigs that I could hand over to my grand kids, nieces, nephews, my brother and other people who are not really fishermen. I just can't see handing over a nice Megabass rod and Steez combo to folks who don't really fish. I tried 4 different Kastking reels based on the hype and thought they all felt pretty cheap and unpredictable. As a result, they get a nod for being way over-rated. Also the Plfueger reels, both BC and spinning are punching well above their price. As for under-rated rods?...I'll go with the crowd on the Berekly Cherrywood and add the Fenwick Eagle to the mix. Both are very nice rods for the money. (and they go great with those Cheap Laguna reels). I think that the ABU Villain series is overlooked as well. Over-rated rods? Loomis for starters. I know everyone owes Gary Loomis a thanks for the modern fishing rod, but at this point the Loomis rods are way over priced. The same could be said of a lot of the Megabass stuff too, but at least with the Megabass rods you get a very nice looking rod. Both make great rods, but all Loomis and some Megabass are way overpriced.

For the price maybe it's just a second?

Not to mention that you could add those two extra bearings yourself for under $10..

The only issue with making your own washers would be making sure that the assembled drag stack is the same thickness as the stock setup. If it isn't it will probably affect the way the drag tightens as you torque the drag star. You might give the guys at The Tackle Trap a call. They might have some ideas for you. I know they have been very helpful to me. Could be that the set you need is the same set used elsewhere and simply not labeled as such. IMO the drag upgrade is worth it. The Carbontex drag is really smooth and consistent and it is a pretty cheap upgrade. As for bearings, most all baitcaster spool bearings are a combo of 4 or 5 different generic sizes. I know that the Pflueger Supreme XT uses a 5x11x4 and a 3x10x4. I'm sure that the regular supreme is the same. A lot of reels use those sizes and many in the same combination. The Daiwa OG Steez, and the Abu Gen 3 REVO SX, to name a couple. I like the ZPI ceramics and the Hedgehog HD versions personally.

I don't think that they are the same size. I have a Tatula CT type R and Tat SV-TW and for certain those are not the same. The fact that the reel is called a CT means that it a compact frame version whereas the SV-TWS is the full frame reel and it definitely feels different. Not better or worse, but different. I like them both and could recommend either. For my money the SV spool is more than worth the extra money in the SV-TWS. I believe that the SV-TWS is pretty much on par with the Zillion series, I don't really remember how much different the innards felt as I only used them a couple of times before replacing the spool bearings with ZPI ceramics and upgraded them to 11 bearing setups with Carbontex drag washers. Not that they were deficient out of the box really that is just what I usually do.