bulldog1935

why I bought my first fly rod

they're also fun on a fly rod, especially on the end of a 6'6" Phillipson. Strange day fishing endemic bass - caught a June rainbow in the last place I'd expect to find one. In a headwaters fork, likely holdover from a private winter stocking.

Of course the Ambassadeur level winds take a lot more effort (and money) compared to slicking up a new low-profile baitcaster. @redmeansdistortion has done really well scoring great mini Ambassadeurs for relative peanuts to start great projects, then built at least one from just parts. The Ambassadeurs drive the LW from the spool during the cast, so the extra effort is removing mass and inertia from the LW mechanism. Low profile reels only need a good spool and spool bearing set. We have Lew's original BB-1 patent to thank for that.

Ocean City 350 actually was a refined eggbeater

as I said, everything else is a stop gap until Daiwa's MagForce patent expires, then everything else will disappear with a new name but still magforce taking their place. I hope this thing is on.

Daiwa's MagForce/SV is the Marhoff of casting brakes. 1918 Douglas LW patent, discontinued when Marhoff's LW patent expired. When Daiwa's patent expires, it will be the only casting brake made by anyone. Of course, it will have a new name.

@MickD, I hunt down that discontinued 6-pin brake part - Dad's Ole Tackle and ebay. You can run zero to 6 pins for finesse to 3+ oz baits. The 2-pin, 4-pin and 6-pin are interchangeable - the two former require a spring clip, and the latter snaps into any Ambassadeur spool. On the left, 6-pin on an Avail spool, stock spool with 4-pin on the right. Note, C3 and newer use Ultracast spool design, where the spindle is separate from the spool and the spindle does not need to rotate. In older -C models, the spool bearings are fixed in the brake plate and palm plate. In C3 and newer Ultracast design, the spool bearings are fixed in the spool.

There's a centrifugal brake on the drive side of the spool that helps with big weights. The race for the centrifugal brake shoes is on the inside of the brake plate, where the drive is attached to the other side. Other photo shows the other side of the reel, and the spur/idler gears that drive the LW from the spool.

@Eric 26 Lorelei craft brewery in Corpus - they're so stingy with Ephyra mango IPA, you have to hunt it down in Corpus. Tastes very close to Sculpin Aloha. Perfect liquid bread on the coast flats. Steve with cold pizza for lunch. Decades ago, a guide buddy taught me to eat Beach Cliff Fish Steaks (pickled herring) in Louisiana Hot Sauce on crackers. You drain the oil on the bay, throw out cut bait, and may get a redfish with lunch. never tried pouring Ephyra on the bay, but it's supposed to draw mermaids

it gets lighter

Once again, Josh's database answers the question. The OP thread title may only be correct for His kayak and a gang of brands. Some kayaks are rated for usable capacity, while others listed capacity includes the weight of the kayak itself. If you look at Neumie's spreadsheet, where it shows a difference between Usable capacity and Listed capacity, the kayak rated capacity includes the kayak weight - where there's not a difference, the rated capacity only includes you and gear - and essential supplies. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H3POyxp2QTpH8YNZQ3OQUMrt43Oaup9hLa4CF-UUQd8/edit#gid=0

@TnRiver46 oh, I don't know - Guadalupe tailwater rainbow We're in John Ross's America's 100 Best Trout Streams (I fished with John when he was here), and listed first in southern tailwaters in 50 Best Tailwaters to Fly Fish. Even @A-Jay's big rainbows are stockers - rainbows are native only to Pacific coast drainage. After two weeks in a TX tailwater, a MO hatchery rainbow is as wild and technical as any. It's the tailwater biomass that makes them difficult, technical (and large - they grown 1"/mo). Native Alaska rainbows are seriously dumb - kicking salmon carcases aside and the black slate bottom pink with salmon eggs, what could prompt them to take my plastic bead every 3rd cast. These fish grow slowly, and beef up on flesh and eggs by September.

@PressuredFishing you might like the way the rod page is divided up in the Plat.jp online catalog https://www.plat.co.jp/shop/catalog/default/language/en/cPath/38/rod.html Bass fishing is one of 15 niche categories (and a few more categories thrown in for packaged combos, travel rods, rod building). Here's a crop from that page. (You also won't find all these rods in stock, but it's a good way to compare length, style, action, specs) Of course, they're an island nation, surrounded by the sea, and a thousand-year tradition of taking their food from the sea. The trick is look at their back yard, what they offer their market, then look at your back yard, whether any of it can help you. Plus, you'll never have a 20-something Expert at BPS telling you what you need. Alex trying my light game rod for threadline fishing - his Daiwa reel Back to that Plat catalog, the biggest advantage you'll likely find in JDM rods is bank fishing, where all their fishing traditions began. Also, their thousand years of shore fishing began with finesse fishing. USM is aimed at major US niches, and even the Japanese export to USM in those same niches - Bass, panfish, trout, salmon/steelhead, inshore, surf, offshore. While I grew up bass fishing reservoirs, inshore sloughs and jetties with my dad, my 50 years of fishing Texas hill country limestone creeks has mostly been with a fly rod (ok, rods), and river bass are only a slice. Pretty easy to argue fly fishing is our national finesse-fishing tradition. native cichlid above, native redhorse sucker below - we call these Guadalupe redfish There's one spot in particular on the "middle" Guadalupe where we sight-fish longnose gar - takes a sharp hook, and they make astounding aerials. Even if you don't hook one, their 10' surface lunge to attack your fly is a rush. I could go on and on - when we did the math on FFR forum a decade ago, I could list over 100 species caught on fly rod. Adding a ps - I have several friends on FFR finesse-fishing Sierra Nevada lakes using Japanese Light Game rods - they sourced them from US vendor Bait Finesse Empire, who stocks both USM and JDM tackle. https://baitfinesseempire.com/product-category/rods/

@AlabamaSpothunter Everyone has seen them. Zillion SV-TW with Ray's Studio SV spool, ZPI machined star drag, Momo zero adjust, and Avail STi2 handle. PE#1.2 braid in full-time ML Steez SV-TW, low-geared reel with 88-mm Studio Composite RC-SC+ handle and Roro-X spool, fishes salt finesse on Yamaga Blanks BCIII-82/B rod and PE#0.8 and bass finesse with Valleyhill rod, Ray's SV spool and PE#1.2 here's the ZPI carbon handle on the Silver Wolf, which is matched with AMO braid spool and PE#0.8 on the Abu shore jigging rod in the first post with the rat red.

Holy cow, FishingShop.kiwi tried to give this rod away. E-mail from Kirill this morning NO refund required. Received this order last week, delivered by DHL. The whole point of buying the 2nd rod was not to destroy the mojo the 1st rod brought home, paired with Nyu-kon and the Silver Wolf. Nyu-kon 入魂 is Japanese mojo, and literally means the item "doesn't know what it is" until it's properly broken in. Last thing I want to do is destroy this rod's mojo (self-awareness?) by literally stealing it. I'm targeting big snook on it this winter.

You don't want this. Casts 1/8 oz jighead across this tide pass horses big redfish casts finesse plugs with aplomb gets flounder to the fillet table This reel and its newer Silver Wolf brother has never backlashed on me. Not once.

As far as the responsibility goes, they still may give you a warranty replacement. When a redfish and I together broke an Omen Green on a reaction high-stick set - both of us over-reacting at the same close-quarters instant - I called 13Fishing about a discount replacement. I considered the break my fault, told them so, and knew I didn't want to be without the rod. They told me Fishing break is warranty and sent me a new rod. (finished a great trip on my 3-pc back-up rod)

At the current exchange rate, anyone in the $200 reel market who doesn't score a JDM Zillion is nuts.

Glenn makes this look too easy.

@A-Jay's recommendation is spot-on, and I use these also in #7 to #4. The best trebles I've ever swapped-in are BKK Fangs, 62UA and 63UA for XS wire - these are offered in finesse plug sizes. The trick here, the best vendor is the ebay guy on Cypress who mails slow-boat.

A handle from an old Ambassadeur would fit the Tatula. You should find everything you need above to either swap handles or swap knobs.

Daiwa S and Shimano A are both 4-mm knob spindles, and knobs interchange with the correct bearing and shim stack. Knob bearings are 4x7x2.5 mm (740ZZ) - plastic bushings in the same size interchange with bearings. As covered on another recent thread, Shimano knob on Daiwa handle needs either a plastic bushing or an extra inboard 740ZZ ball bearing. Knobs come with shim washers and plastic bushings, but bearings are up to you. Shimano.......................................................................Daiwa These knobs are easy to find and exchange - most aftermarket knobs will be this size (and of course, complete handles come with the knob bearings). The really nice big knobs are lighter than the stock rubber knobs And yes, those freaking crazy-big Studio Composite and Avail knobs will fit on a Daiwa, Shimano, Avail, Gomexus, Livre handle, etc. Most everyone who makes aftermarket handles copies Daiwa and Shimano. The good handles are also lighter, using titanium knob spindles in place of stainless steel. Swapping handles is really easy. Daiwa uses 8x5 mm handle slot (rectangular shaft key); Shimano uses 4x7 mm handle slot. Complete aftermarket handles will be marked for either Shimano or Daiwa/Abu. The knob spindle diameter exceptions will be offshore handles, handles made for Ambassadeur, and the rare knobs made for Abu Revo (Lew's, etc.) Abu and Lew's, along with Shimano B and Daiwa L, are 5-mm knob spindle. This size knob is tougher to find.

Been slow about matching my custom 4500CT surf reel with a rod. I have these long feet on other barstock CT frames matched on two other reel seats, one with a split seat on a custom lure-ML surf rod, and saddle clamps on a long H bait surf rod. I bought an Abu finesse shore jigging rod, knew the seat probably wouldn't work on the long foot (70 mm)... Took the new rod to the coast for a week matched with my Zillion Silver Wolf, and it came home with mojo. Decided not to cut on the mojo rod and break up this combo, it was still the taper I wanted to cast with the finesse CT, and ordered a 2nd rod for $90 from Japan - I'll cut on this one - cheaper gamble than a custom rod. Here's the trouble, this extended trim-piece had to be cut out to give the reel seat enough L3 to accept the reel foot. It worked. A machinist buddy has promised me a split-knurl ring to add to the cut end on the front of the reel seat hood. editing with cast trials - I got out to cast the Abu/CT combo, first with 2 g jighead. I couldn't get a long-enough cast or control the windage - the ML surf rod (rated 7 g min) actually cast the 2 g better, because of a moderate mid taper. So I went digging for a 3-g jighead and found the ahh... spot. I'm going to do some more trials here to optimize the mag brake stand-off for 3 g as min. But I expect the real sweet spot on the combo to be 5 g, which was my target.

Back when we were kids, reels were supported by the maker for a couple of decades. That's changed to 5 years today, making most tackle disposable - though my first run-in with Daiwa was the lack-of-parts support on a new-in-1978 Millionaire - that happened in 1985, and switched me to Lew's for the next two decades. I was getting Lew's parts for older reels through c. 2000, and even when they discontinued support on older BB-1, Roy's in Corpus bought up the parts inventory. Curious how the click-pawl failure affects function on your reel.

Emergency order from Japan. A few months ago, picked up a closeout prop-tail shrimp plug in 2 colors to round out a line, leader and lure order from Plat.jp. In a recent week of coast kayak fishing, the Sunrise color was my best Sunrise topwater plug, taking both speckled trout and my 24" trip-fish redfish. But fumbling both trebles from the mouth of the next red, lost the lure from my snap into the bay. Every place I checked was OOS, but I went back to Plat and got the last 3 Sunrise on closeout, and added a black dark. Ahhh. Threw in the reel stand / hook keeper for my buddy who set us up in his travel trailer