bulldog1935

that's line speed, and the whole point of a long rod

@Big Hands Intentional short rod (6'4' OL) intended for close sight fishing (to big fish - redfish) if you had that same rod blade in a single-hand grip, and tackling the same size fish, your single grip hand is in torsion. With the 2-hand grip, you can push on the rod butt with your rod-butt hand to reduce the grip torsion, and also pull the rod with both hands to lift and horse the fish.

I come from really old school, with fly rod and baitcaster in left arm, and spinning rod in right arm. With spinning cast, wrist snap is rewarded with extra distance. With fly rod, wrist snap is tailing loop wind knot, and with baitcast, wrist snap is start-up backlash. If you have any degree of ambidextrous, try casting bait with your other arm.

Shakespeare and Pflueger were literally never out of court between 1910 and 1966, when Shakespeare bought Pflueger. Hardy was also litigious in US, and sued Pflueger for copying their horseshoe latch, stopping production of 1st model Gem in 1935, and sued Heddon, stopping production of Heddon Imperial in 1928, which was a reverse-engineered St. George. Pflueger's better lawyers beat Hardy over Medalist similarities to St. George

I also fished steelhead rods inshore for two decades, both from drifting power boat, and kayak. On the power boat, they have the reach advantage of getting far ahead of hull slap. On the kayak, they help lift 3/8-oz JH above the shallow grass. For that, though, they're made obsolete by BFS and 1/8-oz JH.

hmmm (why it's called Show your Stuff)

While that's true, somebody also had to fill out the CN-23 form for Customs declaration to calculate the duty before they paid it - that takes staffing and time (brokerage). This is something they never had to do before on deminimus packages - on big shipments, the buyers hired their own import customs brokers. If you're able to pre-pay the duty and brokerage online during transit, you save additional COD charge, which is $15-20.

If the items cost more than $308 in USM, you're ahead of the game - same if they're not available in US market. Curious part is whether you had the option to pre-pay the duty + brokerage while the shipment was still in Japan and save $15 COD fee.

Interesting how parallel thread on TT forum has a dearth of negative assertions. I think @Eric 26 was right.

@newapti5 Ray's gets "cheapened" on some forums, but they copied KTF Kahen spool, who invented SV inductor and let Daiwa copy it. But Ray's went one better and invented their tapered SV inductor, which functions like SV Boost. I treat all my Ray's (and KTF) spools as general purpose for the thicker end of threadline braid.

I can definitely see how people want 36-mm spool for heavy niches. For me, I'm boned up on 37-mm mid-frame Ambassadeur bench mods, and 34-mm Daiwa floating spool, Steez, Zillion, and Ryoga 100. The 34-mm Daiwas are more versatile. That said, Ray's Studio makes a 1514 honeycomb SV braid spool that fits the Zillion 150. https://www.ebay.com/itm/112859854086

Worth noting that both Steez and Zillion have stainless pinion gears in all current models.

A/R roller bearings, especially Shimano's, get misrepresented on this forum, especially by AI members. Proper lube viscosity is critical in their proper function. Certainly in the heat, the wrong lube can become too thin and cause A/R to malfunction, both binding in wind, and not binding in pay.

no offense, since it's a likely a press fit with a detente stretch, that might pop the superglue joint - likely how the crack formed to begin with. I'd glue it in place with the smallest dab of Pink Zap CA+ - it wets everything it can flow to. Also, triple ziploc the CA - I use it to wet allbright leader knots, and get 2 years from 1/4 oz

ereplacementparts lists the part as discontinued, and none turn up in ebay or even google search. Might register on Tackle Tour forum and ask there.

1000-size spools are 34-mm, and swap between Steez, Zillion, and Ryoga 100. My '26 Ryoga shown above has 1000S spool loaded with PE#1.5. Any 1500 spool on this page fits Ryoga 150 (36 mm). https://japantackle.com/tuning-parts/spools-casting-reels/daiwa.html Here's a Ray's 1514 Honeycomb spool that fits Ryoga 150 https://www.ebay.com/itm/112859854086

If the drive is binding, the drag has nothing to do with it - the drag is totally contained in the spool, and doesn't affect anything about the drive. What makes sense is a worn bushing in p/n 15467 crossbar, or water in the main bearing, p/n 8553. Since the handle is fast water ingress, main bearing may be more likely than worn crossbar. p/n 8554 appears to be A/R roller bearing, and water ingress down the spindle is another route. Most reels do a good job of water-proofing A/R bearing, and there doesn't appear to be a replaceable seal in the rotor. If you see anything like rust, always remove the part from the reel, because acid from the rust is highlty corrosive to the rest of the drive. FWIW, Shimano X-protect are labyrinth seals that, the more you use it when wet, the more it slings water outward and away from ingress into the drive. Another reason you can't go wrong with Stradic.

Micro swivel.

Super Trout Advance coating is made for coldwater toughness, and it's very good braid, but warmwater abrasion resistance is not great. The toughest I've found is YGK WXP1 (filled several reels when 1st version was closing out), Varivas Si-X, and newer Varivas Seabass X9.

Hard to beat Maxima UG, the standard for fly tippet and knotted leaders for more than a generation. I've also used their leader butt for tying wire-tippet leaders for toothy salt fish. In fluorocarbon, Seaguar has always been the knot-toughness standard (along with Umpqua and FrogHair). I use Seaguar Gold in 30- and 40-lb for surf leaders, and abrasion resistance is tops. In lighter fluoro leader, I'm stuck on YGK V10 (soft and tough) and V12 (max abrasion resistance), and throw in Seaguar Grand Max in lighter sizes. I also don't consume leaders by knotting lures (I knot flies), but put a perfection loop on the business end, to loop-on paper clips, micro-swivel snaps, and wire bite traces. I get up to a year life from leaders, which is a good test for toughness and abrasion.

No, even though the spindles were the same width, the location of the bearing on the spindle wouldn't reach the frame boss, and stuck out too wide to replace the palm-plate. I had the same idea you had, found it didn't work out, and gave me the excuse to buy a reel that has become a favorite for its light-end speed.

Careful - I think it's unlikely. I thought that might be the case with ZPI Alcance and Lew's LFS - both 34-mm dia, spindle widths appeared identical. Guessed their Korean pedigrees might give them a lot in common, and tried ZPI spool in Super Duty G. You can see how common they look - same size bearings, same spindle diameters and shoulder diameters. But the spool was centered in different positions on the spindle width, and the shoulder steps in different places along the spindle - essentially, one side of the ZPI spindle was too long for the LFS frame. And it's OK, my SD is great in its salt 1/4+-oz niche with braid stacked on heavy mono, and my Alcance makes an electric-fast reservoir BFS reel.

I'm not sure why people think there's a domestic market for fishing tackle in Asia's largest country, but there isn't - it's all made for export. Hong Kong is different (also Korea and Malaysia), and Tica was making offshore reels there 5 years before Daiwa entered the fishing reel market, and then contracted Tica to build reels for them. Tica puts their mark on the only micron-frame UL spinner in the market, a beast line of spinning reels for inshore to surf, and a decent big-weight baitcaster (and still a lot of offshore). I found one in Japan (Reply Badger, also sold as Frog Products Toy Machine Competition) that turned out to be a Japan-bench-tuned Ali Express reel, and I really like this round BFS reel for lightest-weightless-senko niche. I liked this reel enough coming off my bench, that I bought the A/E Sabre version in one-frame-size up, gave it similar bench tuning, and really like it for salt-finesse niche. Interesting on the Sabre reels, they didn't reverse-engineer one brand, but the drive-in swaps many Daiwa parts, and the drag-out swaps Doyo and Banax (Korea) parts - the silver/gray/gold reel has the lighter stock drag star from my ZPI Alcance. Both combos above also have Ali Express separate rod grips (Aioushi and CDZ), matched with high-grade JDM champion-ferrule finished rod blades (Bright River 1-power and Kuramochi 2-power). I like the lighter machined-from-barstock A/E grips better than the heavier die-cast JDM equivalent grips. Though the Japanese can style to excess... I'll edit in about A/E rods. They don't seem to know what a progressive rod is - all their rods are para, and none fish their rated low-ends. I don't like any of their UL trout rods, but my long PureLure Seabed baitfinesse is "can't pry from my fingers" - as long as you don't need to fish its "rated" 3-g low end.

@Joedodge The Carbontex will be thicker than the stock drag washers, and may be overall larger surface area (see my photo), but the weave texture of Carbontex reduces the actual contact surface. What you gain is more control over drag set, smoother drag - and nobody inshore ever needs double-digit drag.

I haven't found any variation in quality, and HPR Bearings (website and ebay store) pretty much covers every reel on Carbontex. What you'll find with Carbontex in Lew's, you give up max drag in exchange for smoother (low-inertia) drag start.