bulldog1935

I always bought Seaguar bulk spools on ebay - there are so many garage-inventory sellers w/o overhead. I use so little fluorocarbon now, I go to Japan for Toray ExThread mainline spool charges, and YGK leader.

A lure that shouldn't be overlooked for shore casting salt is a basic gold spoon, Kastmaster, Johnson's Sprite. They cast like a bullet, flash, and act like baitfish. The flash will often double for a bait ball, and fish may take a larger lure when they're eating smaller bait. Johnson Silver Minnow spoon (esp black nickel) imitates a crab as they flutter to the bottom. My dad's bread-and-butter saltwater lure was Spec Rig, a pre-tied hair-jig tandem, and he's caught every possible inshore mixed double on them. A couple of soft-plastic recommendations, Z-man Texas-Eye jighead for 3" shad bodies, and TSL Grasswalker on weighted swimbait hook. You can also tie your own killer tandems on (2"or) 3" swim shad, such as Tsunami SS3 and WildEye shad - use 20-lb fluoro leader and tie a double-surgeon's loop for the unequal legs. Best night combo is glow in front and blue in back. 15-lb fluoro is plenty. Since you probably want to fish a spoon on a swivel, best choice is fish this with a stainless or titanium wire leader - toothy fish like blues and mackerel can't bite through them. If you consider yourself backlash-proof, you can get more distance casting braid, and add a short fluoro shock leader. But you should be thinking 20-lb braid (832). To load this on a deep spool, fill it halfway with 20-25 yds 20-25-lb mono backing, and load your working braid on top. A good low-profile leader knot for braid to backing (improved Allbright) will pass through your LW guide. Fluoro is always a better mainline and leader choice than mono in salt, because it's denser and sinks, while mono floats. Of course, I'm not suggesting you run out and buy all of this, but you know how you like to fish, and giving you ideas of what works routinely. Think about rock jetties for fishing in the day, and lighted piers for fishing at night. The idea here is get farther away from the beach, and access deeper water. Jetty structure provides bait focus, and pier nite-lites draw bait.

@Greenback Hunter you can get the same lure presentation finesse in a high-geared reel by adding a longer handle. Simply, you're moving your hand farther to complete a rotation.

@FrnkNsteen I've discovered I fish walking baits best with moderate retrieve (just by keeping score), though a moderate IM6 rod is more important - that's going to be a very personal technique thing.

I love catching redfish on light tackle. also love eating grill-blackened half-shell redfish fillets But when the light take grows shoulders on the first run, and the first broach shows the black tail of a sow speckled trout, it all changes from fun to pandemonium excitement.

When I was 14, fishing the jetties with my dad and neighbor - neighbor handed me his Ambassadeur and said try this. I was so embarrassed by the result, it has never happened since. I did get one on a single tip wrap in 2018 - swapped in spare reel and fished a great morning. Didn't mess with the other one, just cut it out and switched to braid.

@ATA All the Japan X-braids are made by Izanas, and at the same diameter, their breaking strength doubles 832. Each Japanese brand specs their own FEP-based coatings. Duel and YGK coatings have held up well for me. Seaguar and Yamatoyo have not. Varivas coatings seem to run extra tough, and is easiest to find, because they have both US website and Amazon store. If you're adding to a JDM cart, you can usually get better prices. My freshwater finesse reels have Super Trout Advance #1. Varivas lines labeled "Casting" also have extra-hard FEP coating, intended to help prevent line dig. My frogger has YGK Oddport #2, which, with updated version YGK Sinji, stands above the herd for both extra strength and tough coating, and priced accordingly (and you gotta admit 100-m pentagram colors finishes sharp on this spool). As I get around to replacing braid (about 3-yr life), adding reels and BFS spools, I'm working my salt reels over to Varivas Seabass Si-X, because it has the toughest coating on any braid I've tried, and I fished them all hard. These happen to be more round reels, but I have two Daiwa Zillion w/ Ray's spools also charged with #1 and #1.2 Si-X.

deja vu

So far, we have on topic facts, and off topic bad recommendations. And what do I know. take up fly fishing, slap the water, 10 years from now, maybe you can do this

I went to salt finesse because blind-fishing a fly rod is obstinate, unless you're working moving water or on a phenomenon that concentrates bait and gamefish. e.g., my best fly rod blind fishing was 50 white bass on consecutive casts (seemed like a good place to stop), and another day with 40 small flounder on consecutive casts (could have caught more, but it was a cold December day, and a 15-mi boat ride home) - it was all about right place and right time (ok, good technique). This tackle can even make fly-rod sight-fishing obsolete, and will cast a 2-g jighead or micro-plug past 130'

Sorry I'm late, guys, been a nutso busy month - Russ, I caught one that size on a fly rod once, fishing from a dock on Lake Livingston. We made our annual Arroyo trip at the new moon earlier in the month. Our days included a 21-mi bike ride through Laguna Atascosa NWR (98.000 acres belongs to bikes and ocelots)... to get to a fabled fishy spot that's even harder to get to by shallow skiff or kayak - the dam on the Cayo, a tide basin limit far up the twisty shallow channel from the barge navigation canal. And it's ok, for the 1500 calories we burned, imbibed 700 along the way - the front bag fits an Ice Mule. In our 3 nights, the schoolies never arrived at our dock nite-lite on the navigation channel, but we made a fine fish fry, finesse fishing the nursery trout that live here, 15" to 18" - - first night stringer. Consider we each caught 6 under 15" for every stringer fish. Jerry at our bait shop got a charge of live shrimp, but (except for the drum below) these fish wouldn't touch it - everything was caught on 2" swim shad tandems, a few on 3-g metal microjigs, imitating the balls of glass minnows under our sodium lamp. The next night, we rounded this out with two more stringer specs, but the excitement was a 20" black drum, which made huge fillets. Susie cut them small to add to our last-night fish fry, along with oven fries, perfect cole slaw, and peach-blackberry cobbler. We ate like kings. Of all things, the drum was caught on Zebco, which likely improved the excitement. The big fish took drag from go, and made several runs against 3-lb drag set. The only way to recover line was to pump the rod. Must have been 10 minutes until we got a tail slap on the surface (they like the deep channel). Knew right away it was a drum and not a snook - UPS truck instead of drag racer...

You're going to be able to cast lighter by going to lighter line than 6-lb fluoro, try 4-lb or even 3-lb fluoro. When I began fishing salt finesse (spinning) 14 years ago, the best mainline available was 4-lb Kamikaze copolymer from Oz, fished on a 500 micron-frame reel. This light line landed 22" and 23" seatrout, and even a double on tandem with a seatrout and 24" snook (the tandem leader was 15-lb). The game changed w/ finesse braid, 10-lb mainline (PE#0.5), and 8-lb fluoro leader, running 1-lb drag set to match the rod. But if you're worried about threadline braid and backlash, you should be looking at lighter fluoro mainline. If you want to look over some rods, here are two categories at BaitFinesseEmpire (west coast importer/vendor). Trout https://baitfinesseempire.com/product-category/rods/trout-rods/ and Panfish https://baitfinesseempire.com/product-category/rods/panfish-rods/ If you get serious about this, might want to look at offerings from Smith, Ltd. https://www.smith.jp/html/03-trouttacle.html (Chrome/settings/language will let you read this in English)

I fish down to PE#0.8 (0.15 mm dia - 0.006") with no line dig problems on Big fish. When you get to these threadlines, talking diameter or Japan silk thread diameter scale makes more sense than talking USM-pound-test, which is all over the place, and really has no meaning. Note, this is on Steez SV TW and also Zillion SV TW matched with aftermarket BFS spools and bearings. Can go even smaller (PE#0.4) on Silver Wolf, which has increased LW pitch to lay line wider on the spool. Depending on my target niche, I also have Ray's SV spools that fish PE#1 and #1.2. Jun Sonada recommends PE#1 (equivalent dia = 4-lb mono) as the smallest braid to use on baitcaster w/o increased LW pitch, but I've had no problems fishing PE#0.8 on SV TW and aftermarket shallow braid spool.

I grew up watching my dad labor w/ 808 and 25-lb mono, while he watched me boat fish on spinning tackle. When I was grown, I kept him in Lew's baitcasters, which kept him fishing to 90 y-o. I did start my girls on Zebco UL-1 matched with Eagle Claw Featherlight glass. Our Rockport ritual was 40 nursery trout in the hour after sunset from Fulton Beach pier, after a meal at Cap'n Benny's - and an ice cream stop when we left the pier. They quickly made the move to spinning tackle in hill country creeks. Though they're too heavy for kids, the newer Zebcos with precessing spool pitch cast distance like you can't believe, coming from "classic" Zebcos. These start w/ Delta and go up to high-geared Bullet. Best buy in next-level Zebco is Omega Pro '11 models on Amazon - $48.

@newapti5 if you notice, takes 5 photos, each showing different subtlties. And except for a few friends, these are the guys I want to show off to.

If you ever have an application question, go to JapanTackle and send an e-mail to Jun Sonada. He knows the answer, and has perfect English. https://japantackle.com/tuning-parts/spools-casting-reels/daiwa.html email to: question@japantackle.com https://japantackle.com/reel-archives/casting-reel-archives.html

A 5' progressive taper baitfinesse rod has limited butt power because it's a 5' rod, but not because it's soft, spongy, or para-UL As baitfinesse rods get longer, their top-end rating goes up.

Catch up with @redmeansdistortion - that's pretty much all he fishes, round BFS reels matched with stream and larger river baitfinesse rods. Stream trout fishing is where BFS originated, going back to 1985. Mr. Motoyama coined BFS (=Bait Finesse System reel) in his 2000 book on trout fishing - his books in the following decade were about BFS for (shore) bass fishing. I have these combos for endemic river bass (Texas brook trout) in our hill country limestone creeks, which also double up for tailwater rainbows. telescoping 5'5" UL This round reel is on a 1-pc 5'4" 1-power A stream/creek lure box and a wading bag All my 34-mm Daiwas are BFS-mod, though I aim them at salt finesse, shore and kayak Every finesse rod I've owned since 2010 is a progressive or super-progressive taper, very different from traditional UL para taper. From stream trout to shore/surf microjigging, these rods have powerful butt, long fast mid, and a soft tip for casting their light end.

I got your Black. OK, sorry, How about Back in Black? New SLP Works Zillion bought as 7.1-geared body only, finished out with my favorite (I know, not yours) Studio Composite handle, Ray's Studio SV spool, to fish PE#1 braid. A few details - I do my own gunsmithing, have gagets and concoctions around. I black oxide powder-coated the handle knob caps, also the stainless steel G-Nius hook keeper, and stainless handle-nut retainer screw. The handle nut retainer itself is black rhodium plated Isuzu part that I swapped out of my Headhunters reel. I love the trademarks on this reel, but they're tough to see, and even tougher to photograph. yep, it's black

My first Takamiya finesse rods from 14 years ago are still fishing, and one of my combos was Tony's bread-and-butter at Arroyo earlier this month. My buddy Lou's Major Craft fished through the tip over 3 hard winters - Susie helped. Lou upgraded it with Yamaga Blanks, but Y/B won't meet your ante.

I plead the 5th - without knowing how you plan to fish the rod, I can't make a recommendation. The UL rods would be choice for creek fishing,,, .,.. this is how I began a post that I backed away from last Sunday. You have to tell us how you want to fish the rod. BFS=reel, so any rod that fishes well with it is a "BFS rod" - inshore kayak, or shore/surf microjigging (yes, I have a high-geared BFS surf reel) If what you want is a creek rod, well, that's a stream trout/panfish baitfinesse rod. Look at Smith, look at Tailwalk, look at Major Craft - look at BaitFinesseEmpire. If you're shore fishing lakes or ponds, you may want something longer to cast farther. Since you're keeping it handy all the time, may not want to limit your upper range, letting you fish 1/16 to 5/8 oz, e.g.

The no brainer is $146 for a JDM Shimano Stradic. If you ever choose to fish braid, this reel will keep its line management accurate over longer, harder use. And boy, do I love my worm-drive Shimanos. But since you're not in that market, you'll find a low-end Daiwa built to fish harder and last longer than a low-end Shimano. At this price end, Shimano can sell smooth, but also at this price end, Daiwa builds tough.

@JediAmoeba - looking forward to photos of your new reel. The big spec tried to go under the boat 4 times, and I turned her each time - it was pandemonium fun. You end up palming the knob on a fish like this. My friend was freaking, because I don't fish kayak w/ a net, pulled her beside my leg, and put my hand under her belly to slide her into the boat. I really like the shorter Studio Composite handle on low-geared finesse - the big knobs and total weightless are the main reason - that's 88-mm handle on 6.3-geared Steez, I bought 92-mm for 7-geared SLPW Zillion. My 8.5-geared Silver wolf has 100-mm ZPI carbon (came w/o knobs), that I already had the knobs to match from another long story.

if you note in my first post, fish hate them, too. this is the handle (and spool) that will go on my SLP Works Zillion. I prefer this Studio Composite on 6- and 7-geared reels, and like longer handles on 8.5-geared Zillion. titanium spindles, carbon knob tubes, lighter weight than stock Daiwa handle+I-knobs. the snook hates them so much, it's jumping away from them and if you like anything about the Avail handle on my silver + sky-blue Zillion, it's also much lighter (and longer) than stock Daiwa, is offered with smaller (and even larger) knobs, and fits all DaiwaS/ShimanoA knobs.

@Lead Head I just wrote a pm to a fellow Zillionado this morning, copied here: will show and tell when it's all done next month. I also found this trim match easy to live with silver body.