newapti5

Wait, I thought their blanks are made by NFC, Mr. Loomis's company, are they not? Just curious.

I have a 7' MH Sniper rod. To be honest, not my favorite rod, but no complaints on the sensitivity department either. The thing that I don't like the most, is the ACS style reel seat.

I am not ashamed to admit this: there're many times I caught a bass because of backlash. They call it "professional overrun" for a reason.

I could be mistaken, but it seems that the Scorpion MGL is based on the frame of Curado K 200. They are pretty much identical, except the spools and different paint jobs. The new Curado 150 seems to be based on the popular SLX frame, which is slightly smaller than Curado K 200's frame. The new Curado 150 also has the Silent Tune feature that Scorpion MGL doesn't have.

You are still keeping your spinning setups, right? So there's your answer.

I use MH rods on topwater lures all the time. If I am making a long cast with stretchy mono, I found that M rods or moderate action rods are too soft to make a solid hookset, especially when the bite happens far away from me. But if I am using braided lines for topwater, that's a different story.

First of all, I think these two specific reels are catering the US market, thus their line capacity estimates might be so as well. Secondly, what is considered as a "full" spool might be another factor - some company may base the line capacity estimate on a spool that is fully loaded to the brim; the other may recommend leaving a 1/8~1/4 inch gap to the brim on certain reels' spools. And finally, I don't think there's an industry standard of what "150" or "200" stands for. For years, a Daiwa 1500 spinning reel was as big as a Shimano 2500 reel. These are all my guesses.

If the moderators allow it, it'd be nice for us to share the gems and trustworthy sellers we encounter on Aliexpress, or the traps we should avoid. Just saying, because I did found some very nice stuff with great prices, among other disappointing results.

Aliexpress is just like eBay, which provides a selling platform for businesses. There bound to be trustworthy sellers and liars cheaters on it, so I think it would hard to say whether Aliexpress itself is safe or not. You just need to read the feedback and review scores.

The only difference is basically the T-wing. IMHO, if you're using heavy lines, say #15+ mono or fluoro, T-wing will have some noticeable advantage on casting distance. For light lines, I didn't see much difference.

After 3~4 days, dirt and sands would definitely have already gotten into the inside of the reel. Given that's a brand new reel, I won't suggest using it until having it cleaned thoroughly, inside and out, either by professionals or yourself. All those sands and dirt will be like sand paper rubbing on gears if you keep turning the handle.

I used them on my topwater reel. They're quite nice compared to other mono, less memory easier management, but the diameter is thicker than the same poundage mono from other brands. So shop with the diameter not the pound test I guess, the #10 line is just as strong as #12 line of other brands.

I seldom paid MSRP for my fishing gear, but I think the most discounted deal (not the best gears) I got is during Thanksgiving 2019. Apparently, Pure Fishing made a mistake: they marked all those gears that were intended for 50% off as $50 a piece, which includes all their brands like Abu, Fenwick, Penn... They corrected that mistake within hours, but not before I grabbed 5 rods and 2 reels, $350 for MSRP $2,100 worth of gears. They shipped them all out to me as usual, so I must give them credit for keeping their words.

After browsing post in this topic, and thinking really hard to come up with my answer, I just realized one thing: I have too many reels; I need to stop.

Yes, I am not expert on these DIY spools, but I do have 6, 7 different models of them. Like I said, if you are not aiming for BFS, try their long-cast spools. They are just as light as the BFS spools but deeper, with a larger line capacity. They are great for long range casting of light lures, say under 1/2 oz, and they are SV design(or at least try to be), with a inductor that can twist. With that being said, if you want to use it to cast or skip heavier lures, you can change the inductor on the DIY spools to regular inductor, which is thicker, or you can just get a stock spool of Fuego CT. I think some of the sellers on Aliexpress are selling the Fuego CT stock spools separately. You will have to do a little search-around on it.

If I could have only one spinning reel for bass fishing, the bigger the better, as long as it is around 7oz or under.

Aliexpress or eBay. Besides the stock spool, you can also try the Ray's studio DIY spool. They are made for a variety of Daiwa reels, and the one that suits Tatula CT would be the one for Fuego CT as well. For $35, they are much lighter than the stock spools, and if you don't like the BFS shallow version, they also have the deeper long-cast version.

I was just browsing this post, and thinking "no one mentioned the Morethan PE Special?" Besides that, a dozen of SV103 or TDZ Type-R would be nice as well.

Yes, sturdy fishing rod tube. I've been eyeballing that lefty Steez for awhile, and $300 is a decent price for a Steez.

Disappointing Prime Day deals? Sierra is coming to save the day. They finally put those high-end Daiwa stuff on clearance sale, which includes left-handed Steez SV TW for $300, Zillion HD for $200, and BLX rods for $200. Pretty much all half-off of MSRP. My wallet became a lot thinner this morning.

Amazon.co.jp is selling Chronarch Ci4, left handed, 6.2:1, for $160, shipping included. The seller is Amazon itself, and only a couple of them left.

If distance is your goal, I suggest the Shimano route instead of Daiwa. With a little over $100, a curado can really bomb it out there, without much of thumb work, as long as you set it right.

Beautiful scenery, gem clear water, warm temperature of Spring, no swimmer or boater messing around, and most importantly, abundant smallmouth to catch one after another, it truly is "heaven on earth" like he said in the video.

A little follow-up: After I put in the MR128 bearing ordered from Aliexpress, the tolerance is noticeably smaller, and I believe this bearing is now providing support while under load. So yes, personally I'd recommend to upgrade Lew's P2 support to dual bearings support if possible, and preferably to a ceramic hybrid or other corrosion resistant bearing given its location.

Thanks for all the detailed info and measurements. Great insight on the purpose of that bushing. Now I think it's similar to what Quantum does to their reels. Instead of putting a bushing there, Quantum just uses part of the frame to limit the pinion gear's movement while spool is removed. The reason I brought up this issue in the first place, is that I don't think this P2 thing is exactly same as Shimano's X-ship. X-ship reels have a very tight tolerance between those 2 pinion bearings and the pinion gear. Yes, the pinion gear also piggybacks the spool, but without the spool, the pinion gear is still tightly hold in place with those two bearings. When being cranked, a X-ship reel makes the pinion gear almost like a continuous beam with more than 2 supports , which can support greater loads theoretically. In comparison, this P2 supported pinion gear is still a regular beam with 2 supports. But of course all these are on paper. In reality, I have some Abu reels outlast some Shimano's in smoothness.