bulldog1935

Made a 4th plunge into the Darker Side. As much as I liked my Smith Plugger matched w/ Quatre 1-power finesse rod, I missed it on Smith FO-56 S-glass rod, and picked up this black BC420 to match with the 1-power. Followed it through two 5-day Yahoo auctions with price drop. When it didn't come back for a third time, had my noppin broker Masamichi contact the seller, and he found it for me on Mercari. This is mostly a tale of casting the black Isuzu small-frame synchro reel. I first loaded the deep stock spool (2 small centrifugal blocks) with YZH 10-lb for backing, and topped with a working layer of 5-lb Ultragreen mono. Casting loaded 1/8-oz jighead required full-time thumb, like the good old days. But even with full thumb and the little 5'4" rod, the little reel rocketed 1/8 oz past 100' - total fun, and a feeling of power. Swapping in the TryAngle braid spool w/ mag brake crossed over into Nutso. Final mag adjustment w/ PE#1 casting 2 g - consistent high-arcing 80' casts into the wind with zero backlash (no thumb). My target for this reel is 3+ g, which is where the little rod takes off, fishing half the distance the reel will cast its light end. The nutso part, synchro reels aren't supposed to do this - this result gives my Steez w/ Roro-X spool a run for its money.

I'm a C2000S fan, like the lower gearing than available in USM import. Spool capacity is just right. This is Vanquish, but will be this same size and spool. I also have JDM Stradic in 1000 and C2000SHG (latter is same spool and gearing as USM 1000). Both great reels, but this is finesse.

How'd you do that? Everyone else's money market accounts lost money for four years. These appreciated in value. and in a way, were paid for by these, which doubled their value over four years, and were sold. There's also a pretty good argument that fishing a better reel for 12 years is cheaper than buying another inexpensive reel every 6 years. (may not be as instantly gratifying as opening the second reel box) Factor in what portion of the price goes into the box, marketing, shipping, 20-something-overhead - a better reel is getting more for your money. Of course in 100 years, the box will be worth more than the reel (true for everything).

My new reel is a '20, so it probably doesn't count.

Seems like a no-brainer to add $20 to the ante and get a JDM Stradic from Digitaka.

as long as we're all saying something different. Skipping is something you can practice in your back yard, and it's about as fun as practice casting can get. Everybody has some overhanging shrubs or bushes to aim at the roots. It's a centrifugal cast, technically a reverse spiral (looks like a snail on its back) - the skip part, you don't bounce it on the grass, may bounce it on the water, but you end up low and horizontal. You begin moving the rod straight up, back and down to make a circle, loading the rod, and finish in a forward sidearm. Here's a video, this guy is showing it off - it doesn't have to be this energetic. But it's all in the rod tip. Don't get in a hurry with your cast. Work out the basic cast with the shortest, lightest-tip rod you own, and the lightest weight that rod will cast - you don't need a hook - go to town. When you're confident, take it fishing, with real world lures and weights. ps - if the rod won't do it with the light weight you're trying, you'll know quickly - it will arc way up. Main reason I like S-glass here, they typically fish below their low-end rating.

wow

Distributing Torsion strain is the reason for more guides in the tip third of casting rods

Fewer guides, no torsion on the blank

My river kayak niche is entirely round reels and short rods. The shorter, progressive rods let me fish down to 4 g, and have the butt power to turn a big bass trying to go under the kayak. Nothing compares to S-glass for skip-casting overhang. Longest rod on this boat is 6' MH graphite frogger. Shortest rod is 5', composite graphite-butt/S-glass-tip, just for skip casting. Here fishing 5'6" S-glass. The bass took me from the overhang on the right bank to the watercress, where the rod kept her out of the stalks. The Japanese, btw, continue to make these new, and every new batch has different qualities.

If you're going to Japan, bring home a Zonda https://noppin.com/yahoos/detail/l1117891174 My friend Jeff just bought his first ever Freespool reel - it's not this Ted Williams direct-drive combo (Shakespeare). He couldn't stray too far from the style, though. https://noppin.com/yahoos/detail/j1115215391

I would go with the new Stradic

@ghost - very nice reel collection, doing what a reel collection ought to do. The Ray's Studio SV spool is still really versatile, and lets you fish threadline braid with a wide lure weight range. Rather than giving up anything, look at this spool swap as adding new range and capability. When I began studying BFS for my salt winter niche, I went with 34 mm Daiwa because of the spool options out there, and especially, because the lighter fixed-inductor spools (Roro-X, AMO) take the last gram from the light-end capability. Matched with the right rod, this one will cast 2 g past 130'. The fixed-rotor spools do give up the ability to fish over 1/2 oz. BTW, Steez (with Roro-X) was the first Daiwa I bought since 1978. I didn't consider Daiwa after '85, when they wouldn't support parts on my Millionaire 6H, and went to Lew's. Jun Sonada's copy on JapanTackle talked me back into Daiwa, and the last I added was Silver Wolf - these 3 reels swap spools.

Looks like standard Shimano 4x7, with a half-nut (?) that removes the handle foot. Any Shimano 4x7 handle, or a Daiwa/Abu handle with a rectangular spacer will fit there. He'll also need a new Shimano 7-mm cap nut, and the retaining washer/screw that fits the cap nut should come with the handle. The handle will come with a keyed washer that fits on the shaft behind the handle. Showing this Tica, because it's also 4x7-mm Shimano-size shaft. 7-mm cap nut (they're all 10-mm hex-head). He can use an 8x5-mm Abu/Daiwa handle with a spacer like below, and some handles come with this for "universal" fit doesn't have to be a jigging handle, that's just the handy examples.

before we could make a recommendation, we would need to see the reel with the handle removed.

Hi @Chris at Tech, We fish the navigation channel in Arroyo Colorado (TX tropics) every winter. One side of the barge channel is lined with houses and docks/boat-lifts, with 4 miles of sodium spot lights pointing into the water. It draws winter bait - balls of glass minnows. The schoolie male speckled trout, which travel 20 mi/day to chase bait, sweep through the lights every night. The dock piers stack snook, and I've seen 40 on our piers, seen, hooked, and lost snook over 30". On this rod, I'll be fishing metal microjigs, 5 g, about 1" You look at the light on the water as a bowl, with bait "hiding" in the light, and gamefish ambushing from the dark. Fishing the light catches nursery seatrout that live here. Fishing the perimeter of the light bowl catches the schoolies, redfish, and snook. If no one is fishing the light on the adjacent dock, you cast past that light, and your retrieve maximizes snook attention along the dock piers. Susie with her 25" male schoolie spec, an 18" snook taken on a 3-g minnow plug, and the rod that casts that light lure past 130'. Even below-slot fish are a hoot on finesse tackle - this one was jumping off the table, and went back into the channel. Regards ps - my first slot snook, 6 years ago, 25" was on this XUL-rockfish/Cetus combo, 4-lb copolymer - a double with a spec on tandem jigs (20-lb leader). I since retired the little Cetus for braid on Shimano, and @Eric 26 now has the Cetus karma. This is also the most civilized fishing you've ever partaken. Stealth is important, so you sit together on the dock, smoke cigars, sip rum, and watch for fish sign. Somebody gets up and catches a fish, then sits back down. Everyone who wants gets a spec limit every night.

Fine braid won't Cast on spincast, it's too limp for the ejector pin to let it go. I rebuilt a friend's Abu 170 and lined it with 6-lb YoZuri hybrid - even that was too limp for the ejector pin to release the line. With the YZH, it was easy to solve by adding a casting algorithm - pressing and releasing the casting button while holding the line (the line is stiff enough for the pin to then release the line), then pressing the button again to grab the line with the rubber bumper, and cast. Proper ejector pin function is the reason Royal Bonnyl and Zebco monos are stiff and extra thick for their line test.

@VolFan - the way it doesn't end your day is having a back-up reel. My last backlash was Apr 2019, both casting into stiff wind and an invisible tip wrap with a 3/8-oz swim shad. Swapped in my back-up reel and fished a banner morning, including a 5-min stroll with a massive flounder, but never could get the hook set after a dozen tries. The best thing that morning, I put my friend Mark visiting from AZ on a hot tide pass, and he caught 20+ fish (the first 6 while I was re-rigging). Noteworthy, that was my last day fishing fluoro - I respooled that reel with braid, and have never fished anything else since.

one thing's for sure, if you have a line wrap on your rod tip, you need a whole lot more mag brake.

@TnRiver46 buying a '77 Ambassadeur is very different from buying a '77 (or '07) spinning reel. The former are built to fish into the next generation (and the next) - the latter are built to make it out of the store. This one did get a new A/R dog, and a better-condition used main shaft (because of boogered threads)

I think I'd file that one under "Do Not Buy This Reel"

Bushings are known to slow down a reel. Full-LW-BB reels such as Isuzu Kogyo synchro reels offer a swap-in spool bushing set just for that purpose. Going the other way, full-BB swap on Ambassadeur LW, (worm gear, idler gear), along with a lightweight spool swap, brings the normal lure-working range on these reels down from 3/8 oz to 3 g. In extreme load applications, bushings can wear badly, especially if thrust is added to the radial load. Antique fly reels with full-spool-width bushings often exhibit spool wobble from conical bushing wear.

There are a lot of good knob swaps out there for Shimano A (handle knob designation). Ebay is showing a dearth, especially with SDS Custom shut down in Ukraine. You might consider visiting "Express" website for cost-effective knob options. Hedgehog has a good diagram - if you have an inner plastic bushing (likely on Curado 70), it's easy to upgrade to a 725 ball bearing.

Nasci opened up Were just talking about Nasci on TKF forum, and I had this link already queued.

I don't fish anything lighter than 1 power, even for stream trout niche (includes endemic river bass). I'm more often fishing 2-power for bass finesse from kayak. @NavyToad is correct - call Dobyns and talk to them about how you plan to use the rod. Probably even smarter than sharing it with us. Although, we'd all like to hear your result after talking with Dobyns.