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I have 6 or 7 Presidents and they are decent enough for the price I think. But that said I also have Daiwa Legalis and it's cheaper cousin the Revros, and both of those are better reels than the Presidents I think. I have a Supreme XT casting reel and while it doesn't really hold up against my TD-Z's and Steez reels, I will have to say that at $160 or so it is a very nice and smooth reel, a far better reel than it's better known competitors, such as the Revo SX (yes I have one of those too). I would peg it right around the same territory as most all of the LEWS stuff.

If you think the Vendetta is an amazing rod, I wish I could be there to see your reaction when you get to fish with something that is actually good. At that price point try a Falcon HD. I've bought and tried just about every US market ABU rod there is. I was sort of brand loyal for quite a while. Imagine my consternation when I got around to fishing other brands only to find that almost any of them we're better than my Vengeance, Vendetta, Veritas, Volatile and Villains. They tell me that the $400 Yablai is good, but I'm not spending the money to see. To be 100% honest The Villain is a pretty well constructed rod and is not horrible. I still use a couple of mine for spinner baits and a few other things where sensitivity is not required, but well constructed or not it, like all the other of ABU's American market offerings, they too have all the sensitivity of a broom handle. On the other hand, if you find the Vendetta amazing, do yourself a favor and don't stray far from the ABU lineup. It will save you a ton of money.

Lucky you..I actually bought one, used it once. It's probably the 2nd worst rod ever second only to the Vengeance rods.

Again you are correct and spite of my giving you a bit of poking about it, you are giving sound advice. My rule of thumb when fighting the fish is to try to keep my rod pointed down somewhat and never higher than a 30 degree angle or so. That keeps the load on the backbone of the rod instead of the tip. And then I move it towards pointing it at the fish as I reel in the slack and then pull the fish with a more sideways action keeping the rod down. I do this based on exactly the principle that are talking about. You are 100% correct that the closer that you can keep the rod pointing toward the fish, the better off you are. The trickiest part is when you get the fish to the boat where it not really possible to point the rod at the fish to land it. at that point you just have to bend down and get it while holding the rod behind you but still at a low angle. Of course in an ideal situation you have a partner who won't mind lending a hand with a net. This all sounds pretty picky I guess to the guys using IM6 rods who are used to boat flipping their fish, but a high end HM rod will not take much of that kind of abuse.

Right you are...I should have been more specific I suppose and said that you will trash the rod if you tried putting 24 lbs on the rod. On the other hand, I can't ever recall actually fighting a fish by keeping the rod pointed directly at the fish. I'm not 100% that would even be possible without bringing a step ladder on board the boat so that you could keep that rod pointed at the fish as you brought it up next to the boat.

To me the lack of a hook keeper is a plus. I'd rather put my own on where I like it to be with the option to move it. Also the Fuji hook keepers function as either a Texas rig type keeper or a treble hook keeper depending on whether it is folded up or left down. I hate it when I they put a Texas rig keeper on a rod I'm wanting to use as a cranking rod and have to try to wedge a treble hook into it likely dinging the finish as I do. If fact I'd pay extra just to have them not put a keeper on a rod.

I have a Z-bone that I really like. I too bought it on sale for about $350 and am happy with the price. It has all Titanium Torzite guides (yes, the small ones). and I love the X-Ray blank It is well balanced and very light and I am in love with the action. The cork is not that great and the workmanship... meh. I think that at the list price of $550 it would most definitely be overpriced though. I can build them myself at least as well, using top of the line Carbon Fiber handles and build them cheaper too.

To answer the original question, the last rod I bought that I regret was either of a pair of St Croix Legend Tournament rods. Heavy, clunky, poorly balanced, and to me a really weird feel to the actions. They didn't fish as bad as they feel , but still I've used them maybe twice and will probably never use them again. The last reels I regret buying weren't too much regrettable really. On a whim I bought a few of the KastKing reels when they were first coming out. Terrible reels. Any of my old $40 Diawa Laguna reels put them to shame. But, as I said, not too much regret. They are cheap reels and I guess not worth that much regret. I'll probably give them away to someone who has no money at some point. Or donate them to the DNR so they can use them as loaners for the city kids who come out on outings and want to try fishing.

Yeah, I think I might have mentioned that back when you soliciting opinions on that Vengeance rod. in my opinion among the worst rods out there.

Most of my reels max out at about 9 lbs of drag and can't recall ever having them locked down, even when hauling in 10 and 15 lb stripers/hybrids (and the occasional accidental 30lb Flathead cat) 24 lb of drag is just marketing hype, you'd trash your rod if you ever actually pulled 24 lbs on it.

I'm not really interested in saving the money I spend on gear. Money that I intend to save, I put in the bank and save. Money that I intend to spend, I spend on rods and reels that I like, and I happen to best like reels that are 6 oz or less, magnesium reels with light spools for the most part. That often means JDM stuff in the Diawa flavor for me. Some folks look at what they "need", but the truth is I don't "need" a reel at all. I can catch fish with a cane pole, or even a hand line, actually I don't even need that to catch fish, if I have a knife and some willow trees I can make fish traps. Or if no willows, maybe a spear. Really I don't "need" to fish at all. The gas station nearby sells superb bean burritos. The point is that I, and I suspect the rest of us, fish for fun. Now if folks have some kind of thing going on where they must have a "need" to buy equipment and then only the cheapest that they can get by with, it is OK with me. But as I have no such Puritanical inclination myself, I am allowed to buy whatever makes fishing the most fun for me without feeling any guilt whatsoever. Make mine Steez Pleez. 5.8 oz.

I sure hope so, I'd leave the chrome plated metal for those who prefer their reels to weigh 8 or 9 ounces.

The whole point is in fighting and landing fish. It doesn't matter nearly as much with Intermediate Modulus blanks, but I promise you that with something like a Toray 1100 or IM8 HM graphite rod, you will risk breaking rods if you don't keep that bend at 90 degrees or less. High sticking kills many many rods and the strange part is that many of the guys breaking them are then complaining about the poor quality of those $400 rods. They just don't realize. If a guy just can't help high sticking or boat flipping fish, my advice (not that anyone asked for it) to him would be to stick to the IM6 rods. They are way more forgiving.

I think it was already too late. ?

Hmmm...you ARE new to this aren't you? It starts with a $70 rod and progresses somehow to an $80,000 bass boat (which of course requires a $50,000 truck to tow it) loaded with $500 rod and reel combos and a small tackle store worth of tackle, lures, and gadgets. Then there is the wonderful world of fishing trips to places that you think are better to fish than the ones close to home. Get out while you can, take up a cheaper hobby most any of the others are...

I was cringing as I watched that video.

Yep, and plenty of time to hear the wife explain it all to you. Beautiful...

I wouldn't over think it. Over Thanksgiving I was in Texas fishing and I caught 6 Hybrid Stripers over 10 lbs. by dragging a shaky head across some flats. 4 of them I caught on a Medium rod spooled with 10 lb Trilene Flouro. The other two were caught on 12 lb Trilene. I also caught maybe 6 or 8 nice Large Mouths, most in the 4-5 lb range, a couple more like 7 and 8. All of them caught on 10, 12 or 15 lb Trilene. As long as you are not fishing vegetation, you should be pretty good with anything over 8lb IMO. Last year, my son brought in an accidental Flathead cat that weighed closer to 40 than 30 lb.s on 10 lb flouro.

Lots of stuff made for the Pixie, but I've never seen an SV spool,...I wish.

Kistler Z-bone is worth a look too. You can feel each individual pebble with that Loomis X-Ray blank. I love my Megabass stuff, but for sensitivity, the Z-bone wins hands down. Whoops sorry, I didn't realize this was an old thread that I had already opined within.

Kistler says they are using all NFC blanks now, except for the low cost model. My son has been a fan of Falcon for years but now makes his own. He's been using Liberty blanks. Made in the USA in the more or less $100 range. he says they are like his Falcons except for better.

It was ARK Rod in Harrison Arkansas. (Not the Same Ark that sells fishing rods out of Florida) ArkRod has gone out of business, or at least is no longer rolling blanks. Falcon says that they are now using proprietary blanks made overseas. I disagree somewhat with Spoonplugger on Falcon rods. He is right that there are other companies doing it better, the thing is that there aren't many better for around $100.

Falcon doesn't make blanks. They never did. They used to use American made blanks. (I can't remember exactly whose, but I'm thinking it was either Ark or ALX). But whose ever blanks they were, they no longer have access to them and have been using blanks made offshore for the last few years.

Like I said, probably a dumb question. I'm not really a spinning reel guy. I have maybe a dozen or so, but half of those are just the 20 sized Presidents on Crappie rods. The rest are on some specialty stuff that doesn't get used much, like mooching rigs, spin-fly rigs and etc. The who;e point of mentioning my spinning reels, is that I have never spent much effort shopping them. I would have thought that Diawa would offer some smaller spools on some of the reels at every price point.

Probably a dumb question, but why not consider the Diawa reels with smaller spools? If you only consider the reels with large spools, but don't want a reel with a large spool....?