Bigbox99

Yep, I ended up finding that. I'm glad I held onto it. You can also request them from the manufacturer if you lost yours I'm told.

4 laid out in front of me with the butts under the seat. I can't have any sticking up behind me since I do a lot of dock skipping and swing over the rear of the kayak on every cast often turning my torso to the right to skip to the right side of the kayak.

Weird take: but I really like the way a Shimano medium works jerkbaits and skips weightless plastics so my preference would be for something like a Zillion or an older Daiwa that let's me swap spools between a distance spool for jerkbaits and and SV for skipping. Something that let's me sling jerkbaits early season then skip docks once the jerkbait dies off then revert to soft jerkbaits then jerkbaits mixed with dock skipping plastics late fall when the weeds die off. All on 12# Sniper. That's what I would do if I had to do it all over again instead of having a weightless plastics skipping and casting rod as well as a jerkbait rod.

I have a pond prowler I can't register because the county clerk says I need a title and my little plastic boat didn't come with one. Did yours? How did you register your little plastic boat or electric kayak?

Interesting that the new 32 mm spool Tatula palms taller than the old 34 mm spool reel. I wonder if this is due to the plastic top cover over the frame like the Zillion has.

The graphite frame is a misnomer and it's actually plastic mixed with trace amounts of graphite. They (everyone) shorten graphite powder reinforced plastic down to "graphite" or further abuse such as "carbon fiber frame". Why we let then get away with this I don't know. It's a plastic reel and that's OK but aluminum is more rigid and will deliver more winding power under load.

You'll be fine. 1/16 to 3/8 oz is a nonsense rating and heavily skewed to the upper end so you will be fine. There isn't a "1/16 oz" bait that rod is actually able to cast.

How is it possible to enjoy the feeling of exposed reel seat threads? Was this tongue in cheek or do you actually like touching that?

I think the old Mojos looked like crap with the overly tapered cork split grips and exposed threads on the reel seat. I was hoping for a Victory and LTB like refresh but we got the space ship grips instead.

I think that is normal with that platform and why Daiwa is moving away from it and going with the Hyperdrive gears on new reels or sticking to the old gears in the Tatula CT/150/200. I'd get a new set of gears and then butter them up with grease. You can even slow down to a 7:1 if you believe the 8:1 is prone to rapid onset gearyness.

It's probably the best finesse spinning rod that's widely available and under $50. It's a shaky head, drop shot, weightless senko ect type of rod. I don't know how much it weighs but it feels incredible in hand in terms of tip floatiness or "balance" for the price. If you treat it like you should it won't break. If you hoist fish up onto the bank with the rod or bend the tip swinging fish to you then expect to break the tip off. That'll happen to a $500 handed that way so at $50 it's not as an expensive a lesson. If you want a brute of a rod for heavy cover fishing and boat flipping then the Hank Parker MH is the rod to get. It's not a MH at all and is built like a 7' H flipping stick. I own a number of these Walmart rods paired to Aliexpress reels as well as numerous high end rods paired to Daiwa reels. I can tell you what's worth buying there and what to pass on from Walmart. For a quick list: Recommend: Lews HP 6'10" M (spinning finesse) Lews HP 7' MH (6" senko, 3/8 to 1/2 oz jig and t-rigs and 1oz punching) Berkley LR 7' MH (single hook and treble hook moving baits from 1/2 oz to 1.25 oz) Abu Vengance 7'6" H (swing head jigs and 1oz+ super deep cranks)

If what you are looking for is an affordable (under $100) high capacity reel for large diameter plastic lines then you have options. My favorite ultra cheap reel in this class is the Johncoo Ares. It's a low profile reel but has an aluminum frame and dual aluminum side plates, a conical level wind to let line flow freely and a strong enough braking profile to handle glide baits. I've got 3 to 4 fishing seasons across two examples of this reel and like it so far. The ambassadeur is a rugged and simple design with easy access to parts so I would expect it to out live something like the Johncoo Ares if using both for years. The ambassadeur does have issues with high resistance baits due to the comically small main gear but if you're not working big wakes or super deep cranks you should be fine.

UL is UL but even then there is a huge difference. A traditional UL rod in spinning or stream casting will cast quite low while something like a Majorcraft BFS UL rod such as a Benkei UL is significantly more powerful and can collapse weed guards on 1/16 oz Bitst Bugs and weedless Zman Ned rig heads with ease because that's what it is designed to do as a bass rod. If you were to take it stream fishing using trout magnets you would be quite disappointed despite its UL rating.

You can get reels with an aluminum frame and clicking drag for less than the price of a Black Max at Walmart. I have two and have been shocked at how good they are for $40.

Big spool with big diameter more gooder for more distance. The larger perimeter of a full spool or larger spool = more dispensed line per spool rotation than an undefiled or smaller diameter spool.

Those and a few others using chinease OEMs are the exception.

I'm stealing this

The Alphas is tiny, the capacity is low and the SV brake ams amall diameter spool is not well suited to long distance casting of heavier compact baits. I use mine as a jig reel. The 1st gen Alphas with its myrad of spools and their braking profiles is more of an all arounder than the SV only Alphas TW IMO.

Both are made by Doyo. They are essentially rebrands of a Doyo product. This is actually the norm for most reels found on the market with Daiwa and Shimano being the exception.

A 3/8 oz chatterbait plus trailer is over a 1/2 oz. If you want a budget chatterbait rod then go to Walmart and get the 7' MH Lightning Rod. At 1/2 oz to 1 oz its slightly underrated and can throw up to 1.25 oz easily.

The JDM TD-X were precursors to the TD-Z or existed parallel to them as a budget offerings if I recall correctly. A JDM TD-X righty is basically a TD-Z and the lefty is an aluminum frame verison of the lefty flipping frame TD-Zs that were around before the mirror lefties came out. The JDM also got weird TD-S 105 reels too. In the US the TD-S of this era was a stripped down USDM TD-X but because the JDM didn't get those reels they used a heavily reworked Procaster to give it a JDM TD-X/TD-Z like appearance but huge because it's a Procaster. Even takes modern 34mm Daiwa spools too.

The 1st 6'8" L BFS Majorcraft that fits your budget.

If you are going to do the ol tip tug then stand with hands spread out and hold the rod in one and tug with the other with arms nearly fully extended from your sides or as close to fully extend as possible. The closer the hand holding the rod and one doing the tug get the more likely you are to bust off a tip. This should really only be used to get an idea how the rod loads if you are curious. To "make sure it's clear to tie on" you shouldn't have to do any of this and just use your eyeballs to inspect the guides or find out when the bait won't fall when the thumb bar is pressed assuming you don't run a ton of spool tension.

These are kinda strange but neat. They are a Doyo product like Lews ect and feature the high end Doyo construction of an aluminum frame and dual aluminum side plates with an electroplated finish but the internals of a work horse $100 to $150 reel instead of the dual pinion support and light weight spool normally found in Doyos using this finish. The best comparison would be if you gave Lews LFS a dual brake, dual aluminum side plates and twice the cost.

You should check out the JDM TD-X. As a 6.7 oz Magforce V reel it is still modern by today's standards. Back then the Japanese market got the good stuff. https://jdmfishing.com/vault/td-x/