Tatulatard

The dangly bit is to be inserted into the hookpoint as a weed guard on a jig head. I don't remember the brand.

I threw this bait the other day for 30 min after work in clear water on a bright day from a small bank fishing location. I was playing around with some new to me baits knowing the fish were on beds and there wouldn't be much of a bite. I was wrong. Fish were smacking this thing trying to kill it and I even got a few big female followers I think would have committed in lower light conditions. Fun bait with a tight hard hitting swim on a straight retrieve. It is also pretty erratic and easy to make it twitch and dart. It glides pretty decently too for a smaller bait. They wouldn't even follow my shine glide or draw but they were all over this bait. Definitely a bait to throw during the bass and gill spawn.

Put a ton of 65 lbs braid on it and throw frogs, big frogs and some swimbaits on a H, H+ or XH rod. Drop down to the 150 MGL for M or MH all around use or a for pitching on a H. 70 MGL for a ML, M and jerkbaits or if the profile of the 70 is preferred over the 150 MGL.

That's normal for DC reels. Magnetic brake reels also behave similar. If you want a braking system that lets go and goes into free spool at the end of the cast then you want centrifugal.

Ah the bird flipping finger. I didn't think of that. That one trained to do one thing only but maybe it can learn so new tricks.

This is what I am training my hand to do but the muscle memory is in the thumbs from years of doing this so the finger slips or moves to many clicks and then the thumb and reel flip takes over. I won't be buying anymore of this platform until I know I can switch to this new dial position.

The steez has the mag dial in a better location for frequent changes between casts. You can just move your thumb while palming and make an adjustment for the next cast. With the zillion you have to flip the reel over and move your hand position. It also doesn't have as good as tactile feedback and is small with more of effort to turn. I skip docks and fire off longer casts to the edge of further away docks as the wind blows my kayak past. Various targets both close and far will present themselves and I am frequently scrolling that mag dial with my head on a swivel when working docks. I much prefer the old mag dial location like on the steez a and all older platforms.

I have. It's been on two of my budget combos this season. I don't care for it but it has its place. It is very elastic like big game mono which is what I don't like about it because I prefer big game for my cheap cranking and top water line. If you must use flouro to crank and want a cheaper alternative to invizx then this is a good option. For my cheap flouro I actually prefer vanish. I was fortunate to never experience the original bad line and what is on the shelf now has been good to me thus far for use in a pinch when sniper or advanced flouro in particular lbs test unavailable to me locally. Yeah, so for whatever reason I didn't want to use 8lbs big game I would use 12 lbs basix. Both are the same diameter and have roughly equal amounts of elasticity. I imagine real world break strength is similar if not slightly in favor of big game.

What what I have seen the lower test will stretch at lower pressures than higher test and that can give the sensation of more stretch when setting the hook. I feel more stretch with 8 lbs big game than 20 lbs when setting the hook but both have the same stretch. The 20 lbs just takes more force to get the stretch.

It back glides really far and gets back into docks where my other baits can't reach.

Set it for a smidge of side to side play. Also do this for all of your reels and now they are all zero adjust. "Zero adjuster" is just the hard to turn knob you adjust zero number of times. It's not a new innovation.

It's a little long and probably not built with the same taper as the Japanese bfs rods. Its a ml casting rod it should work fine but take that "1/16 oz" rating with a grain of salt.

I found a new bait I have to have now. I bought one pack when ordering dead fin darters from afp and gave it a go skipping docks on a finicky bite. The fish were way pushed up into the docks hiding under pontoon boats on lifts. There were few openings and a vertical drop of a senko wasn't cutting it. I ended up skipping this bait into openings and lifting the rod tip at the end of the skip to create slack line then lowering the rod tip to allow the bait to glide. All the bites came on a long glide way back under the docks. I was getting a much flatter and long glide than in the video by using a thinner wire owner 3/0 hook. That seemed to keep the mass of the rigged bait more centered for a long flat glide. The screw lock of the owner is terrible and tears up the bait. I'll be switching to a clip on twist lock that I can open up and allow the hook to unclip when hooking a fish instead of ripping out of the bait and taking a plastic core sample. If anyone knows of a good light wire hook with a clip on style twist lock let me know. I also use these on the gilly to get it to swim straight. A heavier wire hook will make then lean to one side.

Many are more durable but won't have the same wiggle on the fall in a Texas rig. For a wacky rig you can get the stiffer cheap baits to wiggle by picking up the fall rate with a weighted wacky hook. I use a cheap lucky strike 1/16 oz weedless wacky jigheads on bass pro stick o worms. The only bait I have found that had a very similar senko wiggle when fished weightless Texas rigged and was more durable was the old US made kalins wack o worms. The modern chinease made ones are too stiff. You can also expand your horizons to non stick worms. A kvd caffeine shad will stand up better to being skipped and worked over pads and has a nice glide and tail wiggle. I fish it like a senko rather than as a fluke despite it being a soft jerkbait.

That's the piscifun carbon xcs. It offers the light weight and super compact form factor of the high end tiny reels but in a cheap piscifun reel form. With a 10 gram spool and dual brakes it casts quite well too including finesse baits. It doesn't leave me for wanting throwing baits for distance but does lack the skipping ease of an SV reel. It will skip but poor form and bad skips are punished with overruns instead of outright ignored like the SV reels.

Megabass valkaryie.

Levante if just throwing glides.

So far the stand outs are the lews HP walmart rods and that johncoo ares reel. The M HP rod is a pretty good cheap jerkbait rod. No need to spend a ton when a $49 rod is light, balanced and has the right action. The MH is not an all arounder or even a real "MH" IMO. It fishes like a H mod fast and is more of a ultra cheap jig stick. I would prefer spending more for a bottom contact rod but of you want something cheap that you can destroy swinging in fish and is easy to find locally then it's the rod. The ares reel has got to be the best value out there for a heavy bait reel. I don't know about the longevity or serviceability of it yet but it is solid and well built.

The "long cast spool" is just a chinease sv spool. It actually skips pretty well.

I've got some time on the water with all 3 combos and have some initial thoughts. Lews HP M/carbon XCS combo: Nice budget jerkbait rig. The rod is dead on for what I want out of a jerkbait rod. It casts well and has the right tip for jerkbaits. I have also been using it as a weightless 5" senko rod and it does well but that lighter and faster tip had me missing my target skipping until I adjusted. I am more accustomed to a slower stiffer tip rods for skipping so this rod initially threw off my mechanics but I have since adjusted. The reel casts great and skipping good but not forgiving like an SV reel. If I make a bad skip i will have an over run to pick out but it is otherwise useable. I run the reel with 2 centrifugal brakes on and 2 off with the mag dial in the middle range to keep flouro fluff tamed when casting in open water then set the mag dial to max when skipping. Zero spool tension. The reel is plastic or "carbon fiber" reinforced polymer. It feels solid in hand but when winding in a fish there is a loss of power that is noticeable compared to an aluminum frame or full aluminum reel. I would not recommend the reel for winding applications. The small size makes it easy to palm and I will often reach my thumb across the reel and grab the handle side plate with my thumb to rotate my hand into a more over hand palming position like a spinning reel for hops and snaps of the bait. The heavily contoured handle side plate and small size makes this easy. 1st cheap reel I have seen offer this ergonomic. This combo is a good jerkbait, popper, finesse jig, light Texas rigs and weightless plastics setup. I missed a few fish with the streatchy basix line and soft tip. I think this would be better suited with a braid to leader application and will try that next. Lews HP MH/alloy M combo This one is fine but not to my tastes. The reel can't skip because the magnets are very weak. I have to crank down on the spool tension to get a slow drop and that chokes off skipping distance and makes the reel feel geary. Its not pleasant having that much spool tension. The reel does cast for distance well at higher magnetic settings. With 15 lbs basix I was getting a lot of fluff on the spool casting a 3/8 oz jig going below 7 on the dial with zero spool tension. Might be a decent reel if skipping and heavier flouro aren't priorities. Rod is a broom handle of a MH like the old varitas rods. It's very stiff and does well with 3/8 or and even 1/2 oz jigs. The 1/4 oz rating is bogus because it can't even cast a 5" senko on a side arm cast. The rod tip just won't load. Treat this one as a H. It's going to get 50 lbs braid and then shelved until frogging season. The reel was $66 and I don't recommend the reel at that price l let alone at the Amazon $89. Not a good buy at $70 let alone $90. Buy the Lews LFS or BPS Pro Q for the same money. Lews SG1/ares combo: This is a good budget "big bait" or heavier than normally heavy bait combo. The rod is a H+ with a normal bass rod in length. This makes the rod more normal in length opposed to dedicated "swimbait" 8 foot rods we normally see as budget rods. It is well suited in close quarters trebble hook bait mag heavy use such as ploppers in all sizes, mag drafts, shine glides, gantrels and mag deep cranks when casting from a small watercraft such as a kayak. It's not a higher end blank like the IM8 Walmart rods and more of a low modulus graphite blank but this taper is a standout of the lineup. It's a worse blank than the Walmart rods but that taper of the "H" SG1 rod is an excellent budget treble hook moving bait rod with a realistic upper limit of 3 oz. The reel is excellent. It's an aluminum frame, hande side plate AND non handle side plate with a double supported pinion. Absolute overkill. At maximum mag brake the reel is strong but not overbraked. I have nothing to say about the reel thus far other than it works as expected. It's not exciting but the more I have to say about a reel then that means that there is some issue that I have to address. This reel is excellent. It is vastly superior as a heavy bait reel than the Alloy M and Carbon XCS are "normal" reels. It reminds me of a Tatula 200. It is simple and strong with good breaking system with two spool options on purchase. For $66 I am impressed.

Yes. I switch out the bait to a competing product. In the case of the senko I would switch to a generic senko type bait. I have done this and no longer fish senkos wacky. I use other baits that are more durable yet still have an enticing wiggle. I save the senkos for weedless rigged no weight non skipping applications.

We don't make a perfect circle with our wrist rotation when turning the handle and apply power unevenly through the rotation. I wonder if certain pinion teeth wear to certain main gear teeth and once this is upset from a disassembly that it can produce a geary sensation. Definitely going to be marking me gears before removal from now on.

Yes and that's how all your reels should be set up. Spool tension knobs are training wheels.

Is the spool material any thinner in the 70 MGL or is the weight savings all from the porting?

Usdm zillion. I'm assuming these are still near $350 with daily inflation.