bulldog1935

The only thing that's more fun than rigging a kayak is building a bicycle

I always pick rods to fish near their bottom end, but most every rod I own also fishes well-enough at its top end, and happy to have the range option on kayak. Only rod ever that seemed to cry uncle at its top-end rating was para-taper Falcon Glass, 1/4 to 1/2 oz. But since it's glass, it's not going to break.

Can't get more specific than my two rod-length extremes (not counting 14' surf rod). My shortest rod, just under 5', is 3-power, specific for close-skip-casting from river kayak under cypress overhang. The continuous 1-pc blade has S-glass tip and carbon butt (not counting surf), my longest is 9'1" finesse spinner for shore fishing, rated 1/32 to 5/8 oz a few weeks ago, this caught a few dozen seatrout fishing weightless-cork/ 4'-dropper rig.

They do quiet and smooth-out (run-in) with use - they're also now in my mini-surf.

I'm a huge SV fan, because so much time priortizing 1/8-oz lures inshore - the light weight keeps them in the zone above the grass, where heavier lures would drag up grass every cast. As the bottom drops, I move to heavier weights, also big topwaters and suspending jerkbaits for winter. Two main differences between SV and MagZ are magnet strength and inductor mass. SV uses stronger magnets and lighter inductor mass, MagZ magnets are slightly weaker and the inductor is thicker and heavier. This plays out as SV casts lighter weights farther beginning at 3 g, MagZ casts heavier weights farther beginning at 7 g. Both use a similar principle of moving inductor for start-up nonlinear brake. SV Boost changes the early nonlinear-brake profile. A soft spring lets the inductor move halfway and retracts slowly, a stiffer spring moves the second half and retracts quickly. This gives the SV Boost better distance casting heavy weights than SV brake with one "average" return spring biased toward lighter weights. I have MagZ magnets in SLPW-Zillion (based on '22 HD) and also '18 Ryoga, which fish new BFS spools about the same as SV, maybe an extra linear mag notch or 2. I have the older generation of MagZ magnets in CV-Z. There's a big difference between the older magnets and the newer generation of both MagZ and SV magnets - I found the older MagZ magnets unreliable casting below 9 g. (Though I found a very sweet spot casting 3 g on CV-Z with linear-mag fixed-inductor).

Haven't seen any news on the next Daiwa Zillion - current models are still '21 SV TW and '22 HD, both with 34-mm spools. (New Steez has 32-mm spool).

actually, Daiwa is talking about Black Sea Bream (Kurodai) - the stuff of sushi size and shoulders compare to redfish and black drum Silver Wolf is a magsealed Zillion with increased LW pitch to allow fishing threadline braid down to PE#0.4 without line dig. The stock 1000S SV Boost spool has working capacity for 10-lb fluoro - the spool capacity is greater than Daiwa rates it. You can't find a better choice for 20- to 30-lb braid. It will cast an extreme weight range of 3 g to 1 oz. @Tennessee Boy has a couple of these and likes them as well as I do. It's a workhorse reel.

To me (and JAFTMA) PE#1 is 20-lb braid. It's the same diameter as 10-lb braid in USM what's not practical is fishing 3/8- and 1/2-oz lures and dragging up grass every cast. 1/8 oz keeps your lure in the zone on top of the grass and BFS casts it into next week A TX inshore neubie from PNW spent a fishless year on the coast, reporting on Texas Kayak Fisherman forum. When he bought an Alphas Air and followed my lead, he brought home fish every trip. Also, this time of year, you have two choices - imitate 6" mullet for the few big fish that are willing to eat them - or fish tide passes and imitate tiny glass minnows, where 200 redfish are sipping them like candy - this lasts into April. The new summer mullet under canal lights are also this tiny.

your friend missed out He could fish 20-lb braid and MinnowZ on 1/8-oz Texas Eye jighead on any ML inshore rod.

I've had success with Every spool bearing upgrade. Along the way I've tried some I don't like (full zirconia), but ultimately improved every reel with spool bearings I do like. The ABEC is not the object. Reducing the moving mass and inertia of the spool bearings is the object. Here's the Hedgehog Studio page with 1150 + 1030 upgrades that fit your Tatula 300 https://www.hedgehog-studio.co.jp/product-list/89 Here's the bearing load-range chart. Whether you're upgrading to full-size hybrid ceramic (e.g., my surf Ambassadeurs), or through the range of micro-ball sizes, you're going to see 5% to 15% improvement in cast distance and light end. From the links above, Air HD are a very good trade-off between distance, life and load range. Same size bearings are in my Super Duty G's and Alcance. These aren't Hedgehog, but are equivalent bearings - IXA MBS bearings from KTF. Last note about unshielded spool bearings - you need to add a drop of (racy) bearing oil about every month of use. Distance is simply the direct empirical means to measure the result - you can't measure the other gains, such as reduced effort to make accurate casts. That said, there are times and places where improved distance can double your fish-catching chances, e.g., being able to fish both the far slope and near slope in a tide pass.

I bought a Cetus on a whim to match a first XUL Rockfish rod. This reel fished 7 years in salt finesse. 4-lb Kamikaze copolymer and several hundred schoolie speckled trout with a bycatch of snook and redfish. I was thinking throw away reel, and it turned out I bought a tiny beast. Tica makes all Daiwa's low-end reels with optional A/R, along with the big Daiwa surf reels. I retired this reel when I made the switch to braid and Shimano worm drive, and @Eric 26 has this reel now. A friend gave me the "pimped" Cetus - SLPW parts.

The only 500 Shimano is Vanford, and it's USM only. It's also not the worm drive series with Stradic and larger Vanford sizes, but is locomotive drive - it's Shimano Soare 500 wearing Vanford markings. Two versions of Soare 500 are still sold in JDM. There is still one micron-frame spinning reel in production - Tica Cetus. A few of us here are fans. and btw, I just looked this up - '22 Soare BB looks like worm drive from this photo So maybe Vanford 500 FA ('24) is also worm drive. (Vanford 500F - '20 was definitely locomotive drive). @T2DM and yeah, maybe not worm drive - I translated the image above and it doesn't mention worm drive.

@softwateronly The 7'3" is simply an all-around rod - I would recommend it for any bass fisherman. Late last year I added the 8'3"L for shore fishing, and like the previous rod, I modified the grip for my long fingers with cork tape and X-shrink I fished this at the end of last month in lightest 3-g microjig niche, where it excelled. Compared to my Yamaga Blanks BCIII 82/B, with its long moderate mid, the long fast mid on the Abu Baitfinesse gives up just a bit of distance, but it's excellent for working lures. The Abu Protytpe series really stands out.

I don't know of any conversion for older 5000A/B to berings, other than swapping to 5000C sideplates. They do sell bushings to replace the bearings on 5000C adding a ps - I checked Mike's Reel Repair in BC - seems like if anybody made this upgrade, it would be them - they don't make anything like it. But it's interesting, they followed my lead and are offering full-silicon-nitride ceramic for -C series reels https://www.mikesreelrepair.com/3x10x4-full-ceramic-bearing/

Yes, I'm running full silicon-nitride ceramic - these are much quieter than zirconia, no oil, no salt concern. Unlike zirconia, they also load-rate with steel - I ran SiN loose-ball in bike wheel hubs for 10,000 mi.

This was the first time for me, and in the dark yet. Glad I made the choice to swap 7-g lure to 9-g, solve and recognize the difference (and it was casting 3 g in the back acre). Every other reel I've set up in the back acre has performed exactly the same on the water. My last backlash was 2018 because I had a one-turn tip wrap. No other reel has backlashed for me. Even the CV-Z wasn't crazy, but it was a concern trying to get distance in the dark. I had Ryoga and CV-Z roles backwards. I had the ryoga casting 15 g on MagZ PE#2 spool and it was landing beyond my sight in the dark - shoulda had them flip-flopped. The older CV-Z magnets run full-time at max, while Ryoga and SLPW-Z are both running about 5-6 /20.

What I found comparing CV-Z to newer Ryoga and Zillion HD, the newer generation of magnets kick butt. While my CV-Z swapping spools out-distanced everything in lawn casting, it fell apart on the water. Back-acre casting 3 g to 140' w/ SV1000S Boost. I set it up at Arroyo two weeks ago for 7-g dredging lures, SV1012 spool, RB-55 and metal microjigs. When the line got wet, it mid-cast backlashed every cast on 7 g. When I moved it up to 9 g, mid-cast problem completely disappeared. I'm only going to use MagZ spools on this reel from here on, and that limits me to 7 g low-end. The newer gen of MagZ magnets on Ryoga and Zillion HD will fish any BFS spool. I already have miles on my SLPW-Z (based on '22 HD), and it's a champ with SV1000S Boost, Ray's SV, and even fixed-inductor Roro and AMO (linear mag only).

And you yet may end up with more spools than reels. (MagZ Ryoga w/ KTF spool)

BFS and SFB often get confused. Best thing about BFS - nobody is in charge.

Here's one you don't see too often - KTF Ryoga with Kahen spool and IXA dual-race micro spool bearings. I'll fish this inshore with PE#1.2 and actually, it was Hiroyuki Motoyama who coined Bait Finesse System (the reel mods) in print in 2000. First applied to stream trout, and then to shore fishing for bass. BFS has since moved to salt shore fishing and offshore vertical jigging. It goes back decades, and before it had a name, it was simply called reel tuning. Don Iovino in US, Jun Sonada in Japan. The only problem with BFS is trying to pound the square peg into one's personal round hole. BFS is the modern version of threadline fishing using modified bait reels. Kinda the ultimate boon for anyone who'd rather be fishing modern braid. The term also gets grabbed by marketers, who always want to sell us N+1. If you want to learn more about the long, progressive-taper rods, that goes back to Wanless and Atlantic salmon in UK, and in the US, Ernie Schweibert, Dave Whitlock, and Joe Robinson. The rods give you leverage over big fish, while protecting light line - the opposite of UL tradition in US, which uses short para-taper rods that give small fish leverage over you.

On FEP-coated braids (like 832), if you need to cut any off, you feel it in the coating. Also, if the coating is locally bad, it won't glide when rolling an Allbright knot, but will peel and jam up the knot.

I obviously like my giant Avail and Studio composite handles and knobs. Both the handles and the giant knobs are lighter than the stock Daiwa handles and small I-shaped rubber knobs. The knobs are carbon tube, and the handle spindles are titanium. There are also grades of EVA, and you might be surprised by the quality of these. Avail handle Avail A knob; Studio Composite handle and knobs; Avail handle with S/C knobs I prefer the Avail handle in longer lengths, 8+ gears, and the shorter Studio Composite carbon handle in lower gears. The Ryoga bought used came with Avail handle, and I had the S/C knobs in the parts bin. Here's a BFS spool "kit" Avail just introduced for '24 Steez, which is 32-mm spool dia. Many people are griping about '24 Steez smaller spool, and also the new bigger price.

My bread-and-butter on SLPW-Z ('22 HD) is Ray's Studio SV spool fishing PE#1.2. Two weeks ago, I was fishing 15 g w/ MagZ1012, PE#2 and it was a rocket - I couldn't see my cast land in the dark. When I first set this up, went through SV Boost and (tiny) fixed-inductor AMO - on the latter, it took mag scalar set to 12, but it blasted out 2-3-g distance. (Ray's SV)

You'll find MagZ to boom out large lures and have no start-up problems. I've found the current generation of MagZ magnets are also strong enough to fish lighter SV inductor and even fixed-inductor BFS spools.

Firm beliefs should should stick with 1st person and never be applied to 2nd or 3rd person. Those of us who grew up fishing in the 70s naturally fished baitcaster and fly rod with left arm, and spinning rod with right arm. There are some natural advantages to growing up with this split use. When you get good enough with a fly rod that you only need a single back-cast for line speed to shoot past 70' (little kids ask why aren't you doing this? making whipping motions), you recognize fly cast is more in your line hand than in your rod arm. With spinning tackle, wrist jerk is rewarded with extra distance, but it's a bad habit brought to fly rod or baitcaster. With both, you should be loading the rod with smooth acceleration and total absence of jerk - jerk with a fly rod is tailing loop (wind knot) - jerk with a baitcaster is start-up backlash.