Michigander

Oh, ok. I misinterpreted your "come join the party" to mean that it had started. No worries!

It says 8pm on the meeting screen....

So just saw Raymarine Element, uh Garmin, we've had a lot of good years together but I think you're dead to me.

Took me a couple years before it clicked. Now I wouldn't be without one.

That was my take away last year, lol. Thankfully, we won a decent tournament which covered the repairs. Green pumpkin Rage Structure Bug, 1/8 oz tungsten weight, and a 4/0 Twistlock hook. It'll get bit eventually.

A lot of these oddball techniques get developed in Korea and popularized in Japan. I was reading that the Jika Rig in particular was a shrimp rig originally.

Electrical tape over the arbor knot every time.

That is an option but I prefer the leader life for how and where I fish. I'd rather just delay the build and end up with exactly what I want.

I've got bigger hands and my Shimano Spheros 3000 is big enough. It's basically an old model Stradic. Also Shimano Safari reels are good too, very happy with mine.

The bite was off all season for me. I think the dramatic increase in fishing pressure from people looking for a safe pandemic activity really took a toll on how spooky the fish are. Had an awesome spring but once t shirt weather rolled around, the bite got hard and the bag weights in my local tournament circuit were way down over last year too.

I have two of these and I must have the fast sink version because they sink like a stone. If a weighted senko was a hard bait, then this would be it. Had a follower, no catches.

Nearest rod building store is about 2 hours away, might have to make a trip this week to get my momentum back. Was looking forward to having a completed build over the long holiday weekend since family gatherings are canceled this year.

Once I master the bait caster, maybe I will give that a whirl. Just switched from all spinning gear last winter, so it'll be a while before I get that good.

It's one of those things that once you know it's fine, but I didn't until yesterday. I get it now and am much better prepared for the future. Last night was just such a let down because the build is paused until I get new guides. I agree with you. The whole point of me getting into rod building was that I wasn't finding production rods that were meeting my needs, so it doesn't make sense to build a rod that won't work for me.

Jika was originally a Korean technique like a lot of these rigs, and Owner produced something for it. Makes sense since they're a Japanese company, they'll know about Korean trends before we do because of proximity. VMC was probably just playing on the US fascination with JDM gear and techniques, and figured we would buy more if it sounded more Japanese, lol.

Update, talked to my tournament partner and we determined that these guides are not going to work. Very frustrating. I'm mad at Mudhole for not posting the sizes and I'm mad at myself for not checking. At least I learned a lesson today, just wish I could have learned this before getting ready to place the guides on the blank.

Gotcha, just wanted to clarify because I said "catch" and that's a term that could mean a variety of things.. What size and brand are/were you using? And what size class of pike are you getting?

So I'm looking at the three casting guide kits I got (two Fuji and one CRB Elite) and all three of them go to 3mm ID running guides. They didn't say online what the sizes were and I didn't think to check. So my problem is that I use FC leaders but I've never had a guide this small. I'll have 15-20lb FC leaders on these, will they pass through the guides or do I need to return all of these and order bigger ones? Just measured my other rods that I use the same leader successfully and those are both using 4mm ID guides. I looked up some guide size charts and it looks like a 3mm ID guide is a Size 5 and a 4mm ID guide is Size 6.

You talking strikes or landing them?

No, I get it. I hated 7' or longer rods from shore, it's a huge hassle and there are a lot of casts you can't make because of trees/bushes.

I'd wager that his skill level is also pretty high.

I was looking at it from budget bin lures vs your ultra premium offerings, but yeah, "expensive" will totally vary from person to person.

You're getting an email when you log in? Sorry for the big text. Sorry for the big text. There's minimal formatting control on here on mobile.

The upgraded hooks and split rings on my surface lures are usually worth more than the lures themselves. LoL

Hmm... Unfortunately this is not a mainstream length/power combination so choice will be limited. Good candidate for a custom rod, but good luck getting one for less than $120 with out building it yourself. I'm literally building a 6'6" H rod right this moment, lol.