I'm looking for a nice largemouth setup for shore fishing and narrowed it down to a pflueger president in the 35 series reel with 6ft6 cabelas tourney trail im8 rod.  I was recommended the 35 because i also want to walleye fish off the pier and steelhead fish in the rivers and the recommendation was buy the 35 series reel and swap it from rod to rod for the different seasons.

 

would 35 size be a pain (too much) for bass and that rod? ill be fishing texas rigs, crankbaits, etc.

 

would 35 size be okay for steelhead-8-9ft rod, walleye off the pier and channel cats?

 

Or go with say a pflueger summit on sale in the 40 series to swap with the other species rods?

 

Ill probably be using braid line too.

 

 

Personally, I would get the 35, use it for a while for everything, and then get the Summit 40 later on for Cats/Walleye/Steelhead. (while keeping the 35 for bass)

 

35 will be fine for everything. But you dont see a size 35 for walleye too often (usually 30). However it will work just fine.

45 minutes ago, Loomis13 said:

35 will be fine for everything. But you dont see a size 35 for walleye too often (usually 30). However it will work just fine.

do you think 35 is too large for bass also? I have no clue what I'm doing. thanks.

I mean 30 is going to be better for walleye and bass, but will not be as good for the cats and steelhead. All this is IMO of course.

If the 35 by Pflueger is sized like Shimano it's fine for everything, IMHO.  I use a Stradic 4000 all the time for bass and walleye.      You will probably want to change line for some applications, like steelhead in rivers.

The reel is fine. I would go 7 ft for the rod though. I have a lot of 6' 6" rods and chose the size specifically because they fit in my hallway rod rack.  They worked great for me for many years. But once I move into a place where I could use a ceiling rack where length wasn't an issue, I started buying 7 and 7'2" rods.  That extra 6 inches or so makes a world of difference.

If you're using braid, I'd go with the 30. It will hold plenty of line and will be a little lighter and easier to fish with all day. 

Stradic FJ 2500 and a President 30 for size comparison 

The Pflueger 35 size will be fine.  Pflueger reel sizing tends to run smaller than most other reel manufacturers, if you're reading the model numbers.  I found that this is about how it works:

 

The XX25 is slightly bigger than 1000
The  XX30 is slightly bigger than a 2000
The XX35 is slightly bigger than a 2500
The XX40 is similar to a 3000-3500

 

 

Like all the posters above, thatis fine.  I'd at least spool 20lb braid, 30 is ideal.

I agree that the President 35 will be just fine. I would get an extra spool to make swapping lines much easier and you're good to go.

 

Tom

My wife and I own 7 Pfluegers and they are great reels. We both fish two 6 foot G Loomis rods spinning rods. Two are light action rods for baits weighing 1/16 to 5/16. The other two are mediums made to handle 1/8 to 3/8 oz. baits. All four of those rods have 30 series Presidents on them. She only fishes spinning gear. So she has a 6'6"medium moderate action Berkely Lightning Shock rod, which she uses for treble hook baits, and an Irod Genesis II 7 foot medium heavy spinning rod for jigs, texas rigs, and any other bottom contact baits. She also fishes a Dobyns 7 foot heavy fast actin rod for Alabama rigs, frogs and carolina rigs.  All of these rods, except one, have a President 35 on them. I really like the 35s for the extra line they hold.  The other reel she fishes is a Shimano Symetre. I went with it for the frog rod because of the gear ratio.  The President reels are tough. We spent 10 days on Dale Hollow last April chasing bass.  Unfortunately we arrived just as the big females came off the spawning beds. They would not eat any of the normal baits so we spent the first 6 days throwing 1/16 ounce Ned Rigs and catching 3 to 7 pound female smallies and largies. On the last day my wife hooked and landed a 7+ pound catfish on her 6 foot light action G Loomis rod. That 30 series reel held up beautifully. Our reels get workouts like that often. We chase bass and stripers on the tidal rivers feeding the Chesapeake Bay. That means fish like big Blue Catfish, large pickeral and 30+ inch stripers are going to hit your bait. So far my largest blu cat was 18 pounds.

 

My recommendation is to get the 35 size President, it will cost $60 at Dicks and elsewhere.  I usually spool it half way with good quality mono like Stren Clear Blue in say 14 pound test. Use a uni to uni knot to attach the braid you want to fish with. Here I would go with either 14 pound Berkely FireLine or you could choose between Suffix 832 and Power Pro Spectra braid. In these lines I would choose between 20  pound test.  I use all three of these lines for different purposes, but I use the FireLine on all of my spinning reels.  I also tie on a 4 foot section of mono or copolymer line to fish in clear water. I like P Line CXX in 8 to 10 pound test for this purpose. A setup like this will work well for most of the fishing you want to do.

I would prefer a 40 series on that big steelhead rod.

 

If you get serious with the cats I would consider a dedicated cat rod. Something like the Ugly stick catfish rods. I would use a 40 series for that. Cats can be amazing. My wife holds the record for a cat in the family. Her's was a 34 1/2 pound river flathead.  That was caught on one of those rods but with an Abu 5000C Ambassaduer.