ErieCan

This ^ Any of the Daiwa reels with the SV spools are very beginner friendly.

I have the Alphas SV TW 800HL. I tried casting weightless senkos with it and it didn't do as well as my Curado 70 MGL. I'll have to play with it more though. I'm testing it out on a crank rod with 3/8oz squarebills and it bombs them just fine.

Same place. I live on the shore of Lake Erie down the road from a large bay. There are good and (kind of) bad points about this. The Good - Access to a weedy bay full of LM bass, Pike, Perch, Crappie, walleye and SM bass (dependant on time of year). Musky have started to appear more and more as well. - lots of boat launches in the bay. - The inner portion of the bay is protected from most wind directions. - Much of the bay is a sanctuary and closed to all fishing from mid May until bass opener the 3rd Saturday of June. The (kind of) Bad - A lot of boat traffic. It's a hot spot for recreational boaters. - The outer Bay, which has some excellent SM Bass and Walleye fishing is a 10 mile run through open water (Lake Erie can get nasty!). A big boat is ideal, which sadly, I don't have. - There are not a lot of (decent) boat launches on the northern shore line. It can be hard to get to some of the rock structure where the SM bass go in mid summer. - Much of the bay is a sanctuary and closed to all fishing from mid May until bass opener the 3rd Saturday of June. (Notice this made both lists, lol!). There aren't a lot of other water bodies to fish bass around here. North, past Toronto, there is a smorgasbord of lakes and bays to fish. And the Niagara peninsula area has a bunch of fishing opportunities as well.

I've used a bunch of leader brands and the best are: - Sunline FC Leader (you get 50yds) - Seaguar STS Stealhead/Trout (up to 15lb test and you get 100yds) - Seaguar STS Salmon for 20lb+ test. (also 100yds) I've used the Seaguar STS for trolling Salmon on Lake Ontario. Holds up to the shock of a 30lb King ripping a bait off a dipsy rod with steel wire main line. Tough stuff. There are other great ones but most only give you 25yds. The quality to price factor for the ones I listed are excellent. Alberto knot is great and easy to tie. I use the Orvis knot to tie to the lure/hook.

The bait monkey is going to make me poor dude. I added/replaced 5 reel and 5 rods already this spring and now I'm looking at a JDM Daiwa Zillion. I have 9 baitcast set ups and 5 spinning set ups...... Not to mention my big water trolling rods/reels. What's wrong with me?! ?

Make that 5 rods. I have a new St. Croix Legend Tournament on the way.

Far too much to post. Lol. I got 5 new reels, 4 new rods, Huk, Daiwa, and Columbia fishing clothing, bibs and rain jacket, and a whole pile of baits and terminal tackle. Oh, and lithium batteries for my trolling motor. Lol

After some more research, I found some good info on the new version of the Legend Tournament Bass series rods. They have the Power Finesse in that series which are same specs as the full contact finesse Victory. Apparently, the reason for the weight rating is because the XF taper they have is pretty soft. But it does transition to a true heavy backbone. Anyways, a fella on YouTube uses that XF Victory for dragging/hopping/pitching to submerged grass and said it excels at that. I ended up ordering the new Legend Tournament version. I was surprised one of the shops up here in Canada had them in stock already.

Looking at these two versions. The weight ratings are odd. "The Marshall" is 7'3" MHF rated 5/16-1 oz. The "Full contact finesse" is rated 7'3" HXF but rated 3/8-7/8 oz.... I want to use the rod for light pitching and casting to submerged grass edges, sparse grass, boat house piles, etc. 3' to 12' depth. 3/8-3/4oz total weight (sinker+hook+bait). If anyone owns these rods, let me know your thoughts.

I'd use swim jigs more often but the pike here love them and bite them off. A chatterbait will survive most of the small pike here. The blade seems to help keep their teeth away from the line.

Used them as chatterbait trailers. Worked great but got torn up quick (especially when a pike hits). I started using Z-man razor shads. More durable and they catch just as many fish.

I got mine from Digitaka and just got to play with it a bit today. It does seem like it has too much greese in it. I removed the side plate and spool and there's greese on parts I've never seen greesed on a reel before. Also, does your drag back off loose enough. Mine all the way loose still seems pretty tight. Most other reels will loosen so much you can turn the handle and the spool won't spin.

Orvis knot for fluoro/mono. Double San Diego jam for braid. Split rings for cranks so I don't use a loop knot.

15lb yellow braid to a long 6-8lb fluorocarbon leader. I use the smallest hooks I can get away with and I don't use rings (might try shrink tube this season). A #1 or #2 Berkley fusion weedless wide gap hook.

I have two 7' ML rods. Both have different weight ratings. A Shimano Intenza that's 1/8-1/2oz and the other is a Daiwa Rebellion that is 1/16-3/8oz. The Shimano is closer to a medium in power. I use it for mojo rigs in submerged grass flats. I've also used it to throw weightless wacky rigs. The Daiwa I use for ned rigs, light bucktails, etc. Mostly for smallmouth bass. I think under docks you'd want a bit more power to pull the fish out. Depends on the size of fish in your parts I suppose.

Will the USDM knobs fit the JDM handle? I don't mind the 90mm handle but the knobs are a bit small.

Yes, just the Zillion. I was going to use it on a frog set up in heavy slop. Would rather have brass gears for that, so I got the Metanium.

The Japanese Yen is about as low to the US dollar as its been in years. That's the advantage right now.

They shipped FedEx, so yes, I'll pay roughly $50 bucks. So the reel would be $380 CAD all in. Still better than the $600 the stores are charging here. I tried to find a 2018 Bantam but every where was sold out of lefties. There's a 2022 model coming soon though. That's for US residents only. So I can't get that anyways.

My JDM Alphas SV TW has the smaller handle and I don't mind it at all.

Exactly! I trolled for great lakes trout and walleye before getting into bass fishing. And a "watermelon" trolling spoon looked like a watermellon... Green, pink, with black dots.

I was online reel shopping and was considering a JDM Daiwa Zillion SV TW. While researching it, I found a review on tackletour that stated the JDM version has alloy gears and the USDM version has brass. See quote at bottom. I had also considered a JDM Tatula 80 TW. But I was unable to find any info on the differences (if any) between the USDM version. I ended up ordering a Shimano 20 Metanium mgl. The JDM version has a shallower spool and smaller handle knobs apparently, but otherwise the guts are the same. The crazy thing is, that reel goes for around $600 CDN up here + our crazy high tax. I paid $335 CDN shipped from Japan. "It is also important to note that this Hyperdrive Digigear is a design that can be made in any material, and why the same execution is found on the brass gears in the US model, and aluminum alloy gears in the JDM version. The reason for the varying gear choices is the differences in applications. Daiwa believes that the stronger brass material is better suited for larger lures, heavier lines, and power fishing techniques that are popular in America. In addition the average fish that are caught with the reel are also larger so it made sense to equip the reel with more robust gearing." - source: tackletour.com

The amazon cheapies are mesh and your rod tips will poke through. I still use them but I wrapped some electrical tape around the top 3-4" to fix the problem.

I just ordered a Metanium from Digitaka last night. I made a member account on their page so I'm able to view the status of my order at any time.

Did you check your spam/junk mail folder? I've had order confirmations from retailers (even Cabelas) end up in my spam folder.