bulldog1935

It's major on salt and surf rods (this is a kingfish trolling rod). I make indexed-hand-position padded kayak paddle grips with closed cell foam, spray 3m glue to roll-on the foam, and then X-shrink (always grab the paddle in the right place and no slip) and repair splitting foam grip on stake-out pole by simply shrinking over it I had a wonderful wide-range Japanese finesse rod with a rear grip too small for human hands - intended to split 3rd and little finger on Japanese hands, but on me, it split 2nd and 3rd fingers, and split them wide. I tested my build-up first with closed-cell foam and blue masking tape covered in X-shrink to determine if I liked the new shape. Nice, it's cheap to cut off, re-do and finalize. Final form I used beaver-cork tape, which is (much) harder than closed-cell foam, and X-shrink over it - ahhhhh. The trick to getting X-shrink right is to use boiling water from a tea kettle. Pour from the middle to each end. Amazon sells it in every size and color. Extreme grip, even wet. I've bought 3 different brands there, 5 different sizes I needed, WCER, Aventik, NFLNHB (?) - no differences in quality (looong surf rod).

one more pretty color flash on my braid-mod '78 4500C Since this photo, using a Kahara handle from the parts bin, I swapped the chromed-brass frame with later Abu black alloy to bring the weight down (good price from my ebay UK Abu parts guy). The red alloy Haneda Craft handle with alloy spindle screws reduces the offset weight and torsion in your grip. and good color match with the Bright River 5' glass red/black Concorde MM (quick photo above, not great color saturation). The bottom half of the rod blade is black, top half red, all red wraps.

TCS is the prettiest, here on two Valleyhill rods. oops, this split seat is Fuji SKTS

@biggin, your question doesn't have a meaning to me to me. Here is a high stick break of a casting rod, caused when a redfish came out of the water right by my knee, to eat my lure when I was taking it out of the water. I reacted with a high-stick set at the exact moment the redfish exploded - should have let him run before setting properly. You can see the 45-degree break, and the minor splintering. This had nothing to do with the line, and everything to do with the high rod angle, high strain rate applied by both me and the fish at the same instant, and the torsion that is always produced in a bent casting rod (guides on top). TX PE No. 75665 lil culprit dickens, under-slot and released (finished a great weekend with my 3-pc back-up) Adding a kudo to 13Fishing. This is the only rod I've ever broken - my fault. When I called about their discount replacement program, they told me fishing break is warranty, and sent me a new rod. Happy camper, Omen Green 7'1" ML is the least-expensive rod I fish, and will never be without one.

Solarome is Toray ExThread. They market that each dia/test receives its own formulation to optimize limp, low memory and abrasion resistance.

Any chance you over-tightened the spool tension knob? Will cause all those problems if too tight. Try backing off until freespool gives you side-to-side play in the spool and see how everything works. Then send it to Mike if needed.

@afterbiggins Two guides down indicates a high stick. Sometimes you have to high-stick to get a fish into the net, but you hope things are gentle with slow strain rate when you get there. (this is with a 1918 cane rod) Two things that break casting rods are torsion and high strain rate (jerk). The fish can provide the jerk with a sudden lunge, especially with you pulling the other way. The guides on top of casting rods produce torsion (twisting) in the rod blank. This is why casting rods need more guides toward the tip than spinning rods. High-stick concentrates the torsion strain within a short length of the blank. If it is a torsion failure, the fracture will be 45-degrees across the blank (may also show splintering from the twist).

since we made it around to JDM, the single-best fluoro I've cast in finer diameters is Toray ExThread, which @Team9nine has also recommended in the past. Like @Cbump, been through many bulk spools of Red and Abrazx, single-charge spools of Tatsu. Many good recommendations on this thread - you'll probably only see subtle differences in the top lines, limpness vs abrasion and line memory, greater diameter/test differences between the extremes.

Ouch. Kast King on Amazon was the worst, flattest braid I've ever bought, and relegated to backing spools. ----> @fish_burrito YGK G-Soul is readily available in US. While it's made by and based on Izanas X-braid, the outer strands include fluorocarbon fibers to make it sink.

FW kayak fishing, specifically TX hill country limestone rivers. These aren't for everybody, but just right for me. Noteworthy, these combos skip-cast under cypress overhang better than any others I know. The reels are custom, and raced to fish threadline braid. Top is Ambassadeur 4600 Express on Smith 6' MH graphite SS-60GMH (Reservoir Magnum), which is my frogger, rated 1/2 to 1 oz. 4500C on Bright River 5' glass MM Concorde, rated 1/4 to 3/4 oz. Smith Plugger baitcaster on Smith 5-1/2' glass ML FO56 (Top Water Light), rated 5 to 18 g, and stated to be optimized for 3/8 oz, but it fishes down to 1/8 oz for me - caught that bass I'm showing to Josh above, and had the backbone to keep it from going under my kayak. Though the reels and offset handles are on the heavy side, the short rod blades are progressive taper are anything but tip-heavy.

The free fall spool-tension set that you remember doesn't apply to modern reels. Modern reels with good brakes should be "zero" set. Free fall stop was the way you set the tension on Ambassadeur et.al. in the '70s (Lew's through the 90s, etc.) You want the spool as fast as possible if you want distance - you also want the minimum amount of brake that will get you there without backlash. In general, more centrifugal brake prevents start-up backlash with heavy lures, more mag brake prevents mid-cast backlash with light lures. @WRB and @FishTank have both described DC pretty well. DC applies brakes 1000/s which costs distance, and the real purpose of DC is preventing end-of-cast over-run for people who haven't mastered thumb ranging a spool. People who have found a DC perfect niche are usually casting lighter lures into the wind. I gave my buddy Lou the dual-brake Lew's on the right above to tinker and practice, and stopping the spool when the lure hits the water is still his biggest challenge. As far as the standard anti-distance comments, while we most always fish inside 100', being able to get to 100' is a reasonable target for any rod, reel and lure combo. Your fishing casts will then be low effort with increased accuracy and reliability.

From a search on Stripers Online, your reel is from an entry-level series, made in Japan, post-1978, that first dropped the name Mitchell. In that year, Garcia (USA) sold the Mitchell name back to Carpano & Pons, and, bankrupt from over-diversification, sold the entire company to Abu. The size was described as comparable to Penn 704, and the reel described as a workhorse by the Stripers Online members. ORCA collectors list the value as modest. Can't search better than this too-small 1978 ad, which can't be zoomed to readable copy. You'll have a tough time finding drag specs, but 4-6-lbs max is likely pretty accurate, and pushing it to complete max drag will likely cause drive damage. It should fish heavy mono fine in your target niche.

Last weekend (a week ago today). we had a 3-old-man paddle on East Flats. We paddled and fished 8 mi. Jim is 79 and fished longer and harder than both of us 65-y-os. Swinging my 3 baitcasters, BFS, ML, MMH, I never played out. My buddy Steve quit fishing because his 3 spinning set-ups, finesse, ML and MH, were taking their toll on him. No question jerk is part of spinning cast (while jerk = backlash on b/c). It was mostly a paddle watching small tailing reds until we got into the last drift heading back in - then we got into dinks on every cast. His good fish this trip was on a finesse spoon. I brought a spinning rig this trip for one purpose. Fishing off the RV park channel lighted bulkhead at night, casting light lures into coastal wind (got some action).

My dad grew up grappling catfish in Muddy Canal - when I was growing up, we had some fine times running trotline there all night. When Zebco was introduced, he was their market demographic (20 y-o). He fished nothing but 808, lake and inshore, until I was old enough to buy baitcasters for both of us (Lew's, which was synonymous with baitcaster, Falcon rods, which were peerless when graphite arrived). Before that, when he got a new 808, I'd get to pick my tackle (Mitchell 300), and to this day, he doesn't know how (or want) to use a spinning reel. (78th birthday weekend, 90th birthday weekend) My girls began on Zebco UL-1 and Eagle Claw Featherlight glass rods, and didn't take long for them to pick up spinners and fly rods.

I'm sure he has the wherewithal to identify the option early.