Tatulatard

What's that giant lexa in the corner or is that the camera making it look massive?

Yep. The spool is also larger diameter too. It's a 34 mil vs the 32 of the tatula sv. Frame is the same dimensions though so its not like the tatula sv sits any lower. I would advise getting neither reel and getting the jdm zillion instead or the elite long cast for $170 from that chinease site. Us retailers are real proud of the tatulas and the price reflects that.

Is this your primary premise? To me these images are the same. Small fishing boat on a trailer. They occupy the same space and have the same towing requirements.

I would go 2 on and 2 off for the brakes. Middle of the dial on setting adjusting as needed and just a smidge more spool tension than what is needed to remove side to side play. More if using a clear slinky for line.

Kayaks fill the role of small fishing boat but so do small fishing boats like 10 foot johns or those plastic pond tubs. If your kayak is so heavy it can't be car topped and you have to trailer it to the shore or ramp to launch like a boat then you aren't any better off than using a pond prowler, 10 foot john or canoe. I'd argue you have the same thing but worse for more money. Kayaks have an advantage over other small fishing boats in that they can be human powered. They give up alot as fishing platforms (store, stability ect) to be able to slice through the water with minimal paddling effort but that's the trade off. You remove this human power from the equation and you lose its advantage but still keep the negatives associated with the design. A kayak decked out with a trolling motor and battery or even a small outboard is cool but you end up with something thats a worse battery powered small fishing boat. I've seen many people make this mistake. They get a kayak and more is better to they add a ton of stuff to it and end up having to transport it in a truck bed or trailer like a small fishing boat. This is something I studied in great detail before my 2nd kayak purchase. I really wanted to know what I wanted out of a small fishing boat. Turns out I needed two small fishing boats. A kayak that is light weight and super stable with a very high seating position and then an 8 foot pond prowler and trolling motor with depth finder. A kayak to car top and drive around with on the roof for weeks at a time fishing after work or just whenever. Just leave it up there and forget it. Drag it off and cart it down a trail or shove it down a rocky bank launching wherever whenever even if for a few hours. It and the pond prowler offer me a level of fishing freedom to go to places I can't with my bass boat and to do so on a whim vs having to get the bass boat ready which I want to do the day before and want a minimum of 4 hours on the water to justify dealing with getting ready and using it.

Both are a pleasure in their own. I prefer catching but somedays are more kayaking than catching fish.

I would use big game mono as a leader. Flouro knots get beat up and that braid is going to do a number to flouro. I would only use flouro as a mainline with frequent knot reties. I also fish very clear water with those same big baits. I run a few setups with some being straight flouro, straight mono and a braid to mono leader setup.

I have a tat that is doing the exact same thing. I need more oil so I can survive it. It is certainly a bearing because the reels gets some water on it and quiets down then gets all nasty scratchy once dry again.

Sounds like bearings. More likely the one that supports the handle shaft and sits in the side plate or even the ar bearing. Is it a scratchy sound when turning the handle?

Unpopular opinion: don't weigh down your kayak with motors. Don't trailer your kayak. Keep it light, car topable, man portable and powered. Save the electrics and trailering for a pond boat or bass boat.

Motors do weird things when they are merely tethered in place. They can dance all around. By the description of the events and not the picture I assume if the motor was broken free of the hull and danced around next to the boat wildly then jumped into the rear deck hence his account of water splashing him. The picture of the motor on the rear deck is likely from it being placed there to trailer the boat and not where it landed.

Too much money. If it's going to be a plastic barge then I'll stick to my $600 pond prowler. If I want a human powered pointy thing then I'll use my kayak.

What it's like to buy a fishing reel from tacklewarehouse.

If they are shallow sunning themselves I like a shallow flatside crank. OG tiny 04, frittsides, a small lipless crank that doesn't sink too fast and jerkbaits. I'll target shallow slow sloping banks from tiny state park ponds after ice out since they warm up 1st and rip rap banks on points to spawning bays on larger bodies of water with the cranks. I'll also throw a faster sinking glide bait on the bigger bodies of water that will actually be a slow sink in the dense water as well as deeper flatside cranks like the bomber deep flat a and frittside 7. You can also add weight to a glide that wants to float to get it to behave in the cold dense water.

More like a dicks. I haven't been in one in years and I was more interested in the paintball stuff at the time. I miss those days.

I'll throw that OG tiny 04 in 39° water. It and the 1/4 oz super spot are the 1st baits I throw in early season as state parks open up. That tight wiggle does the trick in shallow frigid water.

Dts are fish catchers with great action. If you grind the bottom you'll wear out that bill and it will fail either by breaking in half or coming out of the wood. If you're a bottom grinder then I can't recommend them. I like them near the bottom ocassionly making contact with irregularities.

Do you boat flip? The loomis has a replacement program which is nice if you occasionally destroy rods but it is baked into the price a bit and that's ok. You dont get all the pretty parts, attention to detail and beauty of a megabass rod but you do get that great replacement program as compensation. I'm not a rod killer so I would go megabass but thats me.

Thanks. I'll avoid those if I ever get another lews stick. I have the hank parker and feels better in hand from a weight and balance perspective with a 6.7 ounce reel on it that my tatula elite 73MH that also has a 6.7 ounce reel on it. The tatula is sensitive and has a great action but all that thick epoxy on the blank adds weight forward of the reel seat. The cheap walmart lews actually feels very good however it is a very stiff broomhandle of a medium heavy.

I wasn't aware of the smoothness issues with the SLX. I was watching a video of a guy fishing jerkbakts with an SLX DC and a gopo on this neck or something that put the reel near the microphone. Good lord that thing sounded awful when reeling. I had to stop watching. It exceeded my cringe tolerance.

That's normal for a ferrule joint connection. It will be very secure and will fish like a one piece rod once assembled but look like that with the gaps. All ferrule join connections I have seen are like that from any make.

Which ones did you get rid of?

This is normal. Don't touch the "spool tension" knob on these reels or when you are truly ready, ANY reel.

Don't know what the best big worm rod is for that price. I can advise against the tatula 73 mh because I have one. Its very tip heavy and on the softer side for a big worm rod. My lews walmart mh floats in my hand compared to the tatula mh so I would at least take a look at lews rods in that range.

Zoom was always the company that didn't throw out random designs (that's berkley) and if zoom had a bait it was a fish catcher. They didn't introduce many new baits over the years but when they did you could guarantee it was going to work or even start a while new category of baits. Fluke, hogs and the speed craw are ones I consider new bait categories zoom created that I witnessed. I remember when the brush hog came out and that thing was just insane looking. It wasn't a worm or a craw worm. What was a fish supposed to think? Now we throw all sorts of weird "creature" baits.