bulldog1935

In large sizes, it's YGK Oddport - 0.33 mm dia (0.013 inch) is 70-lb. (since it came up, same diameter Power Pro is 40-lb) In threadline sizes, it's YGK Real Dtex - 0.10 mm (0.004 inch) is 14-lb. (Power Pro isn't made this small, and their finest, 0.005 inch, is 8-lb)

well, it took My younger daughter's fishing took, too. She kinda disappointed me, veering from applying to med schools. Instead, she's going to teach HS science in Ft. Worth and coach wrestling. She wants to take a kayak and fishing tackle, and I'm setting her up with whatever she wants, and plan to offer her the Kestrel (39-lb kevlar) to car-top.

starting at the top ps - my first spincast was Daiwa Minicast multipiece cased combo at 19-y-o. It caught my first major bass, 6-1/2 lbs. Started my daughters on Zebco UL-1 with Eagle Claw Featherlight glass rods.

file it under "what was I thinking" Thirty-somethings and even 60-somethings at tackle shops (bike shops, etc.) are negotiators, trying to sell you something from "I know something you don't know" - but the opposite is usually true - you know your gear and your needs better than they do.

@Tackleholic like this, but this is Pflueger Supreme and the braided nylon is Cortland Camo.

@jjwalker67 Absolutely, no dig with PE#0.8 on BFS-mod Steez and Silver Wolf. Spinning line dig is affected by the reel line management (and spool shimming), but I've never had a problem on Shimano worm-drive reels, Stradic, and Vanquish. Since I've already showed the others, here's Twin Power in wide-range MH with PE#1.2 (the Japanese call this a sea bass ML).

Heddon 215 spinning combo (Daisy Heddon green) with hammer bail-close. Got to pick my own tackle at Gibson's before our cross-country vacation to see friends and cousins. I caught a 3-1/2-lb smallmouth from the bank in Lake of the Ozarks, and trout on the Big Thompson River (reading water was innate for me). Dad recognized here was an interest we could share, and he put himself into fishing, buying a 14' semi-vee. Two years later, my next tackle pick was Mitchell 300 and Berkley Tri-Sport, fishing reservoirs, inshore sloughs, and jetties. We became adept at fishing first-light jumps on Lake LBJ, and always brought home white bass.

Japan X-braids are all made by Izanas - when introduced in 2018, they cost $1/yd - the price has come down to earth now. Here's the marketing blurb on YGK Oddport, which was the first. 80% of the line strength is in the high-strength center strand, which contains an oriented high-crystalline content. Here's the Izanas process. https://www.toyobo-global.com/products/hp_fiber/category/dn_izanas/index.html The photo on their applications page shows 4 different brands using the process, which has become the PE standard in Japan. The braid construction uses finer fibers, a tighter weave, and it's fused when a teflon-based FEP coating is applied. Varivas has a US website and Amazon store. Since X-braid is so thin, you may want to use your existing braid for backing, and top the spool with a working charge of PE#0.8. I was using 6-lb Sufix 832 for finesse fishing until I discovered Japan X-braid, which is 16-lb for the same diameter, harder, rounder. 832 is good line, and also FEP-coated. Varivas, YGK, Duel X-wire are just next-level.

@PhishLI My buddy Stevo bought two salt finesse spinning rods - NS Black Hole Dark Horse, 8' and 8'6" (I have the 8' also, which is where he tried the combos first). He didn't have reels yet last fall, and I brought along my finesse Stradics (C2000SHG and 1000S) to let him borrow for the Redfish Rodeo. One had YGK PE#0.8, the other Varivas PE#0.8. He was blown away with the light-lure distance, went home and ordered the same reels with Varivas threadline braid for them. I'll also admit to preferring the same lines on my BFS combos.

nobody else touches my reels.

I fish my leaders for as long as possible, tie perfection loops on the business end so I can loop on terminal tackle (e.g., paper clip) - leaders may get changed twice/year. (Because of line v. point contact, loop connection is stronger than any single-bend knot.) I could make this knot on the water, but it comes out this nice under my Ott lamp and magnifier at home. (yes, this knot is wetted with pink-label Zap CA+) If I need a leader in a pinch on the water, it's quicker to loop-to-loop, and fix the permanent leader connection later at home. I replaced all my leaders after February Arroyo trip. Good thing. In May, I caught my lifetime speckled trout, 28". It was pure pandemonium, and you wouldn't see this photo if I wasn't out with a new leader.

Wading limestone headwater creeks, I fish down to 1.6-g microplugs, and most often fishing 3 - 4 g (1/8 oz). The 5'5" stream trout rod is rated 1 to 7 g. Our endemic spotted bass occupy the same fast water in warm that trout do in cold. From a kayak in wider, deeper spots on our limestone rivers, I'm fishing stouter rods that will keep decent size largemouth from going under the boat. While these 3 reels are built as BFS for threadline braid, they cover different wide ranges, 6' MH graphite (frogger), and glass 5' MM and 5-1/2' ML. The ML rod is rated down to 5 g, but it fishes 4 g with aplomb. From the other thread, I'll add these combos all skip-cast with aplomb, to get under cypress overhang. There's one no-motors 400-acre, clear, deep, hill country reservoir where I'll take a kayak after the spooky endemic and largemouth bass that live there. The perimeter is a 5-mi paddle, and I never take more than 1 rod and 2 lure boxes. I'll fish plugs and cranks up to the rated 5/8 oz, finesse spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and 1/15-oz neds. Saltwater, I'm shore fishing and kayak fishing. Shore fishing takes longer rods, 8'2" microplug and 8'9" microjig (think surf) - both are wide-range rods, 2 to 20 g, and 3 to 30 g. I normally fish the light end of my rods. I also have a BFS CT surf reel that goes with the microjig rod, and reaches out 30% farther with higher line speed. The microplugs are 2.5 to 3.5 g, have tiny trout trebles swapped for larger plug singles - these hooks foul 4/5 casts on spinning line, but never foul on BFS because of tight-line casts. The metal microjigs are typically 3 to 7 g. Kayak rods are shorter, 7'1" ML and 7'3" black sea perch baitfinesse, with more backbone to keep a redfish from going under the boat (think 2-3-mi drifts over 2' grass). I'm fishing 1/8-oz jigheads and 1/8-oz plugs, 1/8-oz "bunny" lures for sight fishing, and the baitfinesse rod, rated 1.5 to 20g, will double up on the lighter microplugs wading a tide pass (small bait balls up in tide passes from current and wind effects). "true BFS" remains misunderstood on BR forum. BFS is the reel, the combination of a shallow lightweight spool, low-inertia microbearings and threadline. A good progressive-taper rod that matches your lure target fits the bill. ps - if this big girl is around, she may snag and reject your bait before you can close the bail on your spinning reel. pss - people continue trying to put BFS into a box (UL spinning) - it's not going to stay there, and you see BFS concepts being applied to most every new bait reel introduced this decade (e.g., Daiwa uses their shielded spool microbearings across the board in their high-end Boost reels). Any time you want to fish braid, it's an advantage for cast distance (read effort) and reliability. I built this surf-lure reel to cast 1/4 to 1 oz on 8' 2-hand rod, and even with synchro LW drive, it casts that weight range toe-to-toe with the same size NLW CT reel.

search AMO Store Ali Express to find Revo aftermarket BFS spools. Make sure you look at the specs and drawings to match spool diameter and spindle length.

@FishTank I'll take that credit Of course I'm mostly fishing the salt, but I've found the baddest-boy replacement trebles - BKK Fangs - only problem, the only vendor I can find is from ebay on Cypress, post is cheap, but slow-boat. Note Fangs are oversized by a full hook size - their #12 is a #10

I've mentioned before about spinning reel being the most complicated piece of fishing tackle ever devised, with the internal stresses and strength of materials limits never understood until just the past decade of CAD analysis. Spinning reels fish-through. They begin smooth and accurate and lose both over time. What you (should) pay for is keeping that on-spec function working longer, and a decade from now may recognize why your Stradic was an exceptional value. Even green Penns fished-through.

China doesn't have a domestic market - they don't fish there, and they copy things to export (if they did have a domestic market, 1.45 billion people would absorb everything they produced). In all fairness,"if" should be when. That's a pretty combo, for function following form, and since I didn't post this on the last BFS thread, thinking it was self-explanatory, I'll post it here so others recognize there are other less expensive options. (I did share this offline with the OP of the "help me buy BFS" thread). Rather than buying a packaged BFS reel, the best way to set up for BFS is to swap spool and bearings in an existing reel - especially if you have a recent Daiwa SV. (Revo linear mag brake also makes a great BFS swap.) Compared to buying a packaged economy reel, you're starting with a higher quality reel with a great braking system. It's not like you're making a permanent change - you can always swap it back (though you may like it too much). The Ray's Studio SV spool on the left fishes an extreme wide lure range, and easy to set up backlash-proof with both the lightest and heaviest lures. (The reel on the left hasn't backlashed in 3 years in salt ML niche.) The spool is made in Thailand, and ebay vendor ships direct from there. $70 and every bit as good as the discontinued KTF spools scalpers are asking $300+ on ebay. The moving SV rotor is also forgiving if you tend to jerk your cast. The fixed-rotor Roro-X spool on the right is the lightest made, with titanium spindle, will cast the lightest lures to maximum distance. Rorolure is in Hong Kong and mails direct. The near-equivalent spools from AMO on Express website are right up there in performance, and at least one comes with both BFS air bearings - they also come with a nice spool can to store your loaded spare BFS Air bearings make an instant change to your reel. The goal here is to get rotating mass and inertia as small as possible - this is how you get maximum distance and need the smallest braking force to overcome mid-cast backlash on light lures. For max distance, Roro SiC BFS bearings win - they're rated to maximum 3/8 oz. The most versatile for wide weights are the newer double-row bearings, which will cast 1/16 oz to beyond an ounce.

@redmeansdistortion and I have both built reels from parts only, sourcing from a mix of Japan (Italy and UK) aftermarket upgrade parts, parts-bin spares, and stock new Abu parts from e-replacement parts. Kind of a coup, they maintain a small supply of 1500/2500 CIAR side plates, if you want to greatly improve the value and function of your jewel. If Abu has to fabricate you a new side plate, some things are worth waiting for. E-replacement parts customer service is tops.

My guilty pleasure is Tica. The Taiwan company began with salt reels in 1960, and they make Daiwa's low-end spinning reels. I bought my first diminutive Cetus more a dozen years ago, almost for grins, and it fished hard in salt finesse for 7 years before I retired it with Shimano worm-drive upgrade. Their IOS locomotive drive makes for exceptional long-spool line management. From the smallest to the largest, they're built like tanks, fish long and hard. I hate the handles that come on them - they never match them properly for gear ratio - and I use that as an excuse to pimp them out with SLP Works, et.al. If you fish inshore with me and didn't bring tackle, odds are I'll loan you a Libra SX. If there's a why to Piscifun, it's that people are more concerned with price and light weight than they are with long service life.

Seems like Shimano's variable FTB brake would shine in a trout stream niche, where casts need to be short, reliable and accurate. Distance that exceeds equivalent spinning tackle comes from linear mag brake, and the fastest BFS reels I know have larger spools, e.g., 34-mm Daiwa SV (w/ Roro-X aftermarket spool) and ZPI Alcance (Mg-frame Revo with Mg/Ti spool). Unlikely you'll ever find a packaged BFS reel that will toe-to-toe with these two. Alcance is so fast, casting it seems like your hair is on fire.

Can't get enough. https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/finesse-101.html

from ballistics, assuming you swing the longer rod at the same angular velocity, every 20% increase in rod length doubles cast distance. My Japanese salt finesse rods are designed for shore fishing light lures. Big fish sip tiny lures - they don't expend much energy chasing tiny bait, because they don't get a lot back. When the bait is winter glass minnows, you have to match the tackle.

Those model designations are strictly USM. They represent the same model change years as JDM, which are numbered by the year - makes a lot more sense. E.g. USM Stradic 1000 FLHG is JDM '19 Stradic C2000SHG.

Close enough to 1/8 oz Significant digits will baffle you every time. Everything to the right of 0.12 only matters in moon shot telemetry. 3.5 g is not 0.123459 oz - 3.500000 g is.

here's the best line capacity diameter converter on the net https://www.pattayafishing.net/fishing-reel-line-capacity-estimator/

You should Always fish spinning tackle with a swivel. The line will straighten out twist while you fish.