I am in the process of put my gear together for the season as I weed out some old junk and evaluate some new purchases. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do but I am curious what some of you might do with my current random pile of tackle. 
 

For rods I have:

Lews TP1 Black MH/F (Micro guides)

Lews Carbon Fire H/F

Daiwa Tatula MH/F (Micro guides)

Dobyns Fury MH/Mod Fast (Feels great for cranking)

Kistler Argon M/F

Shimano SLX MH/F

And I am likely adding a Shimano Expride soon. 

 

For reels I have:

Lews Custom XP 7.x:1

Daiwa Tatula 150 7.x:1 

Shimano SLX DC 7.x:1

Quantum Icon PT 7.x:1 (Borderline seized up after 1 season of use)

And I will be adding a Curado K Soon. 
 

I left out my spinning gear as it is a Lews Mach 2 combo and that won’t change for now. I am hoping to upgrade to a stradic ci4 next season. 
 

I am struggling a bit with which reels would work best with which rods (the Tatulas will likely stay togetherness possibly my jig rod) and also what would be some recommendations to use the Kistler medium for. I will be using mostly straight fluoro and a little braid. I hate tying leaders so I will likely avoid that. I’m interested in hearing any input you all may have. Thanks!

 

You're reels are so similar in speed, there's like 2" IPT difference between your fastest and slowest, so it just depends on how they balance and feel with each rod. 

 

The only two that I personally have experience with are the SLX rod and reel, and the rod is very light, but it doesn't really matter what reel you put on it, the balance will be off on it. 

 

I would take a elementary guess...

 

Tatula = Tatula 150 ( that's what you want)

Kistler = Quantum ( lightest rod with lightest reel )

Lew's = SLX DC ( heavy rod with heaviest reel left )

Fury = Lew's XP ( would balance good together )

 

They might not be your 4 best rods, but it gives you a Heavy, MH, M, and cranking rod. But, I would just put each of them on the rod and see how you like the feel or better yet sell one or two and replace with different gear ratios. A slower reel for the Fury and a faster one for the Heavy, and your decision would be a lot easier.

 

The Tatula 150 is a nice reel, but it may be a bit heavy at 8 oz for that rod, everything I have seen about the Tatula rods is that they are really light. The Tatula 100 might be a better fit, and you could probably easily sell the 150 for enough to get a new 100.

 

I assume that Kistler rod is a 6'10 Medium, which would be good for jerkbaits and topwaters and maybe Senkos.

 

 

 

Your reels are for all intended purposes the same speeds. Within a few IPT of each other. You need to put the reels on different rods to see how they feel. I had a curado k on a tatula 7'3 MHF and hated it . Put that reel on my ARK punching rod and and a Lew's speed spool on my daiwa rod and made a world of difference 

Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah I’m comfortable with a 7 speed reel for pretty much every application. I trust myself to adjust with what I’m doing. Just preference I guess. I was more thinking differences in weight, casting distance for different applications, line guides such as the t wing for the tatula etc. I was considering the curado I’m getting in 6x:1 to go with the dobyns for cranking mostly. I just know my SLX and Tatula casts farther and better than my lews reel and wonder if they would be best used with certain applications.