bulldog1935

@Cbump - you don't have an application for bass finesse, and I get that. But you completely understand the desire for salt finesse, and I get that, too. The biggest problem with the moniker BFS is people want to shoe it into a box - it ain't gonna stay in anyone's box.

@Stale KracKer you're wrong. Holy cow, you own a 1500C - what's that about (rhetorical). (and so is @Cbump who's been asking me about salt finesse) BFS has been here since the 30s - just didn't have the name until 2000. Just because you didn't know about it doesn't make it new and faddish. The name is already 23 years old. The trend is already 40 years old with a 90+ year history. https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/finesse-101.html

In addition to Avail, AMO makes their version of the 1500C and 2500C stamped alloy sheet frames that lower the spool 7 mm closer to the rod. The AMO version is about $75 cheaper, unless you find a sale price on the Avail JDM version. Replacing the stock plated-brass frames, these drop an instant ounce from the reel. With the other brass-to-alloy-swap parts Avail offers, you can get a 2500C down to 6 oz, and a 1500C to just under.

@WRB and @Stale KracKer The nice thing about kayak fishing, can't normally take out more than 3 rigged rods (plus a back-up in the hold). However, I cover a lot of niches from hill country headwaters to inshore and surf. That includes stream, bass, bass finesse, inshore, inshore finesse, surf and shore finesse. My Japan shopping goes back 20 years to fly tackle for those hill country headwaters, and also inshore. Ambassadeur and I go back to 1977, inshore, surf and reservoir bass, though I became a Lew's Speed Spool junkie in the mid-80s, and that lasted 30 years.

Japan has a fishing sub culture built around Abu round reels, from stream trout and bass, to inshore, surf and offshore. Of course, you know all this. Avail has been making Ambassadeur aftermarket parts since 1985. In addition to BFS, drive and trim upgrades, they make lightweight offset frames to lower the small-frame Ambassadeurs on a straight-seat rod. Japanese also make a range of rods with offset reel seats just for round reels. Some are offered as 1-pc rods, and many more offered as separate handles and matching rod blades. They all interchange between the different Japan rod and handle makers, using a common 12-mm butt ferrule that's the Japan standard. Here's a range of handles offered by Smith (in magnesium) and Bright River (aluminum). Other makers include Frog Products, APHL, Dowluck, Sam Lures, Scream, Line Slack, Robelson. Unlikely to find these at Digitaka, though Asian Portal does a good job of stocking Smith - they're mostly snapped up by Japan lure shops, and most sold in advance when a batch is announced. When batches hit the market, they normally sell out quickly. The Robelson offset handle is composite carbon+resin and very lightweight, but they're hens' teeth since the last 2021 batch. You can buy rod blades to fit the handles that range from multipiece UL stream pack rods to 8' 1-pc shore rods. Here's another good-looking lightweight handle/blade from Sam Lures, Light Trip 55L.J-ESCH, sounds like a stream rod, and looking all over Japan and Yahoo, couldn't find one remaining in stock - even had my Japan broker searching for me. I googled one in-stock listing and he called, but no stock.

hmm...

@redmeansdistortion - you have some nice reels to show-and-tell here also, bro. (photos are the stuff of internet forums)

I have the same rod as @FishTank and like this rod immensely. Great blank, very-well made, and light for glass. But you do feel the weight compared to graphite. I'd be worried 7'11" faster-tip glass would be tip-heavy. (My older Falcon Glass rods are 6' and 6-1/2').

The Akios barstock frames were made in two limited runs (first run included 5500), and they left the parts business, now selling only completed reels. The barstock frames have limited application because of the Akios 73-mm-long foot. Takes a custom split reel seat (L3 >70mm), or saddle bands on a long surf/tournament rod. custom 8' 2-hand rod..........................................................................14' rod But they drop the spool 8 mm closer to the rod than the stock Abu frames. The Zzeta frames are a bit easier to match with a 68-mm foot. Of course only Akios made LW barstock frames. The top guide bar also had freeplay because of diameter and key clearance in the end brackets. I solved that with square-section o-rings and the socket-flatheads, which I could torque to compress the o-rings - filled the gaps and centered the guide bar rock-solid. It's noteworthy my LW 6500CS Rocket will cast light lures to the same distance as my NLW 6500CT, both using the 8' 2-hand rod. Though 5500CT and 4500CT (only Zzeta makes 4500 frame) stand apart for extreme distance. Here's my 6.3-geared 4500CT on 8'9" shore micro-jigging rod.

I found a coup in Japan - NS Akios barstock LW frame for my bench-made 6500CS Rocket, casting lures in surf on PE#2 X-braid (set-up backlash-proof with Avail internal mag brake - 9 BB on spool and LW). @Stale KracKer handles - Whiplash Factory on my CS Rocket, Haneda Craft on my '77 4500C bench reel in my first post I like Haneda Craft handles. 1500CI 4600C Express Avail handle on my 5500CT NLW

Factory tuned reels are in production, along with 2500CI. 30,000 of these are going first to Japan before being reintroduced here. https://japantackle.com/casting-reels/abu/reg0000344.html https://japantackle.com/casting-reels/abu/reg0000338.html https://www.purefishing.jp/product/abugarcia/ambassadeur-4500c4501c5500c5501c6500c6501c-factory-tuned.html The thing is, they're so easy to work on, and so many great aftermarket parts are made for them, older reels are begging for you to upgrade them.

IMO, the greatest engineering effort on that reel went into the marketing campaign. I like my truck fielding my phone and youtubeMusic playing my favorites from years of sitting at the computer. The only fishing App I could ever want is navigating a kayak in the fog. But there's a generation coming up who will buy into New App...

A decade from now, every baitcast reel will use their version of Daiwa's MagForce/SV patent - of course, they'll call it by their own hype-tradename.

Regarding CI4+, cheap is in the eye of the beholder. Japan-bench-made Twin Power has forged alloy rotor as one of the several upgrades over Stradic and Vanford. Exsence is the same reel in magnesium, and BB model is aluminum alloy (killer closeout prices all over Japan right now).

high sticking.

Any linear-mag-brake reel fits the bill. If you have a deep spool, back it with 20-25-yds 20-25-lb mono, and top with your thinner working line. Lew's TP will cast 1/8 oz - measured 20% less distance than Super Duty G will cast 1/8 oz. A $200 reel plus an $80 spool instead buys a JDM Daiwa Zillion Silver Wolf on Amazon, ready out of the box to fish 8-lb mono/fluoro.

Great place to keep the parts you take off the reel - can return the reel to original if I might choose to sell it, or more likely, offer the parts to someone who wants or needs them. btw, the crossover is right about 100 years - after that, the box is worth more than the reel.

I fish an 8' 2-hand rod for lures in the surf - 1/4 to 1 oz, it's very powerful and light in hand. Not recommending a $350 custom surf rod, but showing the use. I fish 11' and 14' rods for spider weights and meat, rated 1-4 and 2-5 oz. Tsunami AirWave are excellent surf rods for the price, and offer rods covering both ranges. These are two different functions, and if you pick for the heavy stuff, the rod may be no fun for lure fishing. Many friends use steelhead rods for surf-lure rods, including Tyler, the owner of CorpusFishing website. When I was younger, caught plenty of fall bull reds on spider weights and meat, simply fishing long bay rods in the surf. Got spooled a few times - all part of the fun. Both summer and winter, seas are calmer, and mean tides lower, allowing you to wade closer to the fish. Spring and fall have bigger tides, currents, and waves.

Hadn't fed the bait monkey since March, and this month, put a $200 cart together at FishingShop.kiwi to get free DHL - mostly lures, and mostly salt. General range on the salt lures - what's missing are double-ups, and 7-10-g metal jigs with profile glow. 77-mm Ima K-Ta mullet on top - in 58 mm, this lure has caught fish every time I tied it on. Left center are Maria Blues Code current drift-twich baits - the red/gold is profile glow. Right-center, the Eclipse Drift-Pencil 75 profile glow (sinking bait that acts like a rolling bait). just below it, Ima Koume60 golden mullet twich bait - another that catches fish every time it's used. Bottom, Ja-Do Graver H mullet fishes fast and slow. All of these will fish Arroyo channel at night and tide passes in the day. Here's what you'll like better, a nice range of finesse spinnerbaits for our clear rivers and even clearer reservoirs. Left, Ima Zinx Mini and Pro Factory Mini Spin. Right Evergreen Mondo Fry and Jackall Deraspin. One nice narrow floater/diver, and a very productive finesse spoon that's candy (jade enamel on the convex, white enamel on the concave)- already had a Vanfook Twin Dancer double hook to replace the single.

BFS - bait finesse system - is the reel, combination of lightweight shallow spool, low intertia bearings and threadline. (BFS was coined in print in 2000 by Hiroyuki Motoyama, and has been in production since 1985, when Avail introduced parts to race Ambassadeur) Japan uses Baitfinesse (BF) to define the rod, usually those wide-range progressive rods aimed for bass and salt. Kurodai is black sea perch. It's a US thing to equate BFS to panfish and traditional USM UL spinning tackle, which are short para rods, and nothing could be more UnTrue. You can try to put BFS in your box, but it's not going to stay there. The history of threadline fishing is long progressive rods on big fish - salmon in Scotland, etc.

While Shimano (and Tica) use 7x4 mm main shaft, both Shimano and Daiwa knobs use 4-mm knob spindles and bearings - Shimano A, Daiwa S. Lew's handles (and a few others, ZPI) use 5-mm spindles and bearings. No idea what spindle diameter is on BPS handle, but @T-Billy is correct - buy the best 8x5-mm handle you can that is compatible with Shimano A and Daiwa S knobs. Avail makes a Really Nice lightweight handle with compatible titanium knob spindles. https://www.hedgehog-studio.co.jp/product/3791 Too nice for Daiwa knobs, IMO. Gomexus offers their compatible and cost-effective carbon handle without the knobs. https://gomexus.com/products/baitcasting-reel-handle-carbon-dc Both of these are offered in 105 mm center-center, which is long enough for any 8-geared reel.

not even - my lifetime 28" speckled trout - she was pure pandemonium Ray's Studio SV Honeycomb spool What you're limited to on the honeycomb spool is braid diameter about PE#1.2 (0.185 mm) - in X-braid, this is 27-lb. If you're using the 40- or 50-lb braid most people would for fishing weeds, you need the deeper (5 mm) solid-arbor spool just for working capacity.

here's a deeper spool for heavy braid https://www.ebay.com/itm/123563990369 and a shallower SV spool for lighter braid https://www.ebay.com/itm/123608908652 Here's all the Daiwa spools at JapanTackle https://japantackle.com/tuning-parts/spools-casting-reels/daiwa.html

I gave away an Okuma round reel and a Lew's Custom inshore dual brake. The Okuma cast mono well enough, but the brake changed between cold start and use-warm - then changed again -always kept you guessing. Along the way picked up a Tica Caiman and carried it as a back-up for inshore. The day I needed it, discovered it wouldn't cast 1/4 oz for boo. Found good use for it on inexpensive offshore slow jigging rod where it could cast 1 to 4 oz. Also had two Lew's centrifugal brake reels that I discovered inshore just doesn't have a niche for that brake - excellent condition, and easy to sell in the '20-'21 tackle crunch. edit - Lower posts on the thread reminded me of another reel I gave away back in the early 90s - the Lew's spinning reel was a plastic version of Zebco Cardinal, and absolutely flopped in the breeze.

Check stock and prices at Digitaka.com Asian Portal JapanTackle Japan Lure Shop JDM Tackle Heaven Then if you love it, pimp it out, and it's still cheaper than buying USM.