Bigbox99

Turn your brakes on a loosen the spool tension.

A little less visible but mostly identical does not match up to the advertising claims of invisible. If its "nearly invisible to fish" or "the fish can't see it" then so is mono. The fluoro looks like the mono in all frames of that video except one weird angle where it is possible that the frame of the test rig was illuminating the line. This comes from someone who fishes fluoro almost exclusively. I'm shocked how they appear nearly identical. Maybe it's the youtube compression but I won't be overlooking mono in the future.

Interesting that his entire video shows that mono and fluorocarbon lines appear nearly visually identical yet he claims that the advertising that fluoro is less visible is true.

The Lews Hank Parker rods are good. Get the medium in spinning as a finesse rod and the MH as a jig, worm and frog rod.

It depends on what you want out of the vehicle. Trucks are great but it didn't fit my criteria for a dedicated kayak fishing vehicle. My criteria were: Must be able to car top. I didn't like driving around with a 11.5 kayak sticking out of the back of my full size truck with a red flag. Fine for short trips to the lake but for anything longer let alone taking it to work to fish after work made it a pain. It really limits your ability to park an already long vehicle. Must be able to store rods without interfering with vehicle occupancy. I want to put a bunch of rods in there and leave them for a bit if needed and still use the vehicle normally. Must be able to sleep in the vehicle with 6' or more of flat floor. I wanted the ability to travel hours to new fishing destinations and stealth sleep in the vehicle on the way there or at the campground by getting up from the driver's seat and go lay down in the back without exiting and re-entering the vehicle. Also a low floor and high ceiling would be nice to sit upright on a chair to put on pants ect. This left the van or minivan as the only option. Add in the ability to daily drive which means up to a foot of snow in my driveway or as drifts on the road in certain areas as well as slippery snow packed roads and rwd was off the table. This left only fwd minivans and all of those have garbage transmissions that rarely make it to 200k paired to a v6 actively working to destroy it. This left only the Honda Element since it is basically an enemic but ultra reliable k24 powered weird box shaped minivan that still met the criteria. The bonuses of the Element is that it comes in manual if you really want immorality and in slip and grip AWD. Although rare, you can even find the two together with a manual AWD transmission. Also you can still just shove a kayak into the back like a 6' pickup box.

Loosen your spool tension if it is set for anything more than to just eliminate side to side play.

I have never heard someone praise a scum frog before. Are you all using the new fangled ones or the classic? I used the old ones in the 90s and they were absolute junk. Sank like rocks and all casted off the tail weighs. The things looked bad too with a crude construction and flat skit at the back. I ended up switching to the Grass Popping Frogs because they couldn't sink and then later to modern hollow belly frogs once those come out. Are they modern products comparable or better than what's out there today?

They should if you start skipping baits. If you just sling baits out on open water the Zillion is good but nothing spectacular. It's well rounded casting nature and smoothness under cranking load are its best perks imo.

$120 for a Tatula CT is still insane. When they were new back in 2016 and they were $129 msrp and under $100 street price. The fact that they are STILL on the market after the 2018 100 and 2024 100 boggles the mind let alone that they are at a higher msrp than when they were new in 2016. I just don't get it. To add to my inability to comprehend this, the Tatula 80, which is an current gen Alphas with a long shaft Magforce Z spool, is $110. Even if you are a fan of the big 2016 Tatula CT shape the Fuego CT SV is under $100. WHY do people buy the Tatula CT? It's 2024.

No. You will pay sticker and be happy. (Or not)

You can buy the new Tatula for less. Why would I buy a 2016 Tatula CT relaunched with worse knobs for more money in 2020 in current year? Do people really still buy at full retail from TW?

I have two cottonwood trees on my property. One day the top 1/3 of one of the trees broke off in some wind. I went to drag it up to the house to cut up with the truck but it wouldn't start so I took the old subaru. Drug it up and cut it into logs and hauled it off to the burn pit. There was a bunch of these green balls that where on the tree that had come off and were rolling around in the back of the car on this mat that fits into the cargo area. These were the pods that burst open into cotton and disconnected from the tree they weren't going to get a signal to open so I was cool to leave them and vacuum them out later. One day, some time later, I was driving the car again and it had gotten warm enough to roll the windows down and get some fresh air. I glanced at the rear view mirror and saw a white swarm rise up from behind the back seat and for a moment I heard rise of the valkyries play in my head then all hell broke loose as the cotton wood swarm was drawn out the windows beating me in the face and getting under my sunglasses forcing me to rip them off. As quickly as it had begone it was over. True story. I hate cotton wood trees.

I have a set of them from Ray's Studio. The SDS stuff is just Ray's products marked up and sold on Ebay. I don't remember what I paid for mine but it was way cheaper than than what SDS wants. Weihai fishing tackle store wants $20 for a pair free shipping. I got my sky blue knobs and spool tension knob from there when I made a Deez ICVB spool Revo Elite. The easiest thing is to buy a handle with knobs already on them for Daiwa or Abu reels. That's basically the handle shaft size industry standard at this point. I like this $11 carbon fiber handle from Artsea on Aliexpress. It has long knobs like the Zillion HD or Tatula Flip and Pitch. Very comfortable when aggressively gripping and cranking on a reel. You might be able to find them on Ebay marked up.

It's a one peice rod. It's considered the standout of the Valkyrie line by many. They're glass and graphite composite material rods with some models being a blend or ranging from 100% graphite like the monster flipping stick to 71MH which I believe is all glass or at least mostly glass. I use 14# sniper no line conditioner as an everything moving bait rod. It so buttery smooth when fighting a fish and I have had so many fish landed that I know would have gotten off on another rod and the ability to throw seemingly anything make it hard to keep out of the kayak. The handle length is also adjustable. I keep it short most of the time but will extend it to fish DD22s or other deep cranks. https://www.tackletour.com/reviewmegabassvalkyriepg2.html

It's possible the screw is over tightened. They were held in place with lock tight originally which is why they felt tight. If you torque them down with equal force to what it took to break the lock tight free you may be over tightening the screws.

71MH Valkyrie. I can do all moving bait work from 1/3 oz Frittsides to 1/2 oz chatterbait plus 5 inch plastic.

Check to make sure you didn't transplant extra shims from the knob swap. They have a tendency to stick to the bottom of the knob and/or stick to the handle. Remove them all and then add then in as needed to eliminate slop.

Can these heavy or extra heavies really cast a 3/8 oz "weightless" soft plastic?

What is the ultimate junk fishing kayak rod? Something that can not just cast but skip a 5" senko and cast up to a 6" Magdraft. I am using a gen 1 Orochi EMTF which was the Braillist of that 1st gen line. At 7'5" F5 power rated for 3/8 to 1 ounce it struggles a little bit with a 6" Magdraft and a 5" senko will cast straight out or pitch just fine but won't load the road deeply enough for my liking to skip forcing me to adjust my timing. Also at 7'5" the rod is a little long for skipping docks.

Not really. I want to find fish, catch them and then switch to a new bait to gain confidence. I could spend all day fishing where the fish aren't or are and not willing to bite with a high confidence bait and pass it off as the fish being unwilling. If I do the same with a new bait I have zero confidence in then that experience is going to make me 2nd guess the bait.

I'll fish a high confidence bait until I feel I have caught enough fish to make the trip worth while and then I will switch to new baits to familiarize myself with them and gain confidence. Recently this was using a weightless plastic to get numbers of fish after failing to find a topwater bite and then after a bunch of fish on the plastic I started throwing a Cull Shad to get some confidence in these 6 inch Magdraft type baits and after a few hits and one fish I have gained some confidence goofy paddle tail things.

Walleye like them.

If you fish the plastic piscifun reels and are happy then I think you would like one from an OEM like Banax. I don't think you would have any issue with this St Croix Seven reel or whatever it's called.

It's just a spool tension knob like any other reel. All reels ship with no spool tension from the factory and the Daiwa reels are no different. There is no special Daiwa technology or Japanese master swordsman than sets the spool tension with some ancient voodoo magic. It's just a spool tension knob they made that is harder to turn to discourage you from turning it. All reels can be set up for "zero adjust" and left alone. All of mine across many brands are set up this way. The problem is people can leave that d**n knob alone and keep cranking it down because there is some fishing reel fudd lore that you have to do this still being perpetuated to this day.

Yes, welcome to ebay.