fishwizzard

Thanks, I had not come across that one before in my readings. I found them for sale on Plat.co.jp, waiting on a shipping quote. The other rod I am leaning towards is the Phenix 682L, as it is available with free shipping and it seems like it would be easy to sell if I go custom later. I was also looking at the 683ML as it would be a little more general use, but I kinda feel like if I am going to go BFS, I might as well go all the way. Speaking of that, is there a specific type/brand of bearings I should be looking at? I just picked the reel up and I am already crazy excited. It fits on an old Lew's pistol grip M rod I have, so for now it is going to live on it while I get used it both.

I was gearing up to post a thread like this, hopefully the OP will not mind if I edge in on his. I just bought a used Dawia PX68 off of ebay on a whim. It will arrive tomorrow and assuming it checks out, I would like to order a rod then. So far I have been looking at most of the brands mentioned in this thread, but I don't really feel confident in my knowledge yet to place an order. From my readings, it looks like a stock PX68 should cast down to 1/8oz. What I am likely to throw on it is mainly t-rigged 4" finesse worms with a 1/16th weight, small 1/8oz spinners and inlines (for perch and schooly stripers), 1/16oz finesse jigs w/ small trailers, Ned Rigs/MWF lures, and small crankbaits. I would rather lean towards a Fast action as I suspect I will fish the worms and jigs more often then the hard baits. I am mainly a spinning rig guy but love finesse techniques so I think having a BFS setup will get me to spend more time getting skilled with casting rigs in general. The only sticking point with most of the rods mentioned is length. I cannot transport a rod over 6'6" without the tip being in constant danger and I usually roll around with 2-3 rigs in my car at any given time. My current casting rods are both 6'9" and that extra three inches really does make a difference. My idea is a rod in the 6'-6'3" range. If there is really nothing suitable I can live with a longer rod, but would use it more often if it were shorter. My budget is around $175. I have a custom rod maker that I like but he usually takes a month or two to turn a rod around and I want to make the most of this fall. I am fine with buying a used rod and also fine with spending a bit more to get a nicer rod that I will have an easier time selling if I find that I really want a shorter custom rod made down the road.

I use a mix of the Z-man and Gopher Head when fishing with an exposed hook and with both of them I have found that I will rarely loose a fish if I give them a second hookset after then have made their first run. I found that on the initial hit, a reel down and lift seems to get them on far better then a hard set, but the fish will often come off on the jump if I don't add a second hard set once they clearly have a good bite on it. At this point I only really use the ned for river/stream smallies, so maybe with less energetic lake/pond fish it isnt needed.

I use 6lb braid on my UL perch/panfish rod. I usually tie on a 6-8lb YZH leader and have not had any issues with knot strength. The only issue I have with it is remembering to not under any circumstances grab the mainline when a fish is on. Even an 7-8" perch can cause the line to cut you.

I was also impressed with the Eco Pro version, though I only have limited time fishing them. But I had a day when I was out hiking and took along three FIs and a single EP plastic. Each FI got me 2-3 fish before becoming too damaged to use, but the EP lure must have caught me 5-6 fish and is still fish-able. I tend to throw them on the 1/0 Owner ultraheads and that jig is really tough on plastics.

You guys are honing in on my smallie spots I do my small river fishing with a ML rod spooled with 10lb braid with a 8lb YZH hybrid. I mainly fish ned rigs for them, but have been branching out into other finesse baits. So far I have had good luck with 3" senkos, the ~3" KT swimbaits rigged on small jigs, small, solid bodied tubes, and sometimes slider rigs. If anyone ever wants some company, I am always up for some smallie action if I am free.

I used a L StCroix Premier as my main rod for the first year or so of bass fishing. Now that I have a wider rod assortment I can see where I am missing hookups fishing say a weedless Ned on my L rod vs the ML rod I now use. But in general I did pretty decently with it and still use it for openhook baits when river and stream fishing.

Paypal is heavily heavily weighted to protect buyers, so much so that a lot of sellers will not use them anymore due to being scammed by fraudulent buyers. I just recently had an issue with some discount tackle storefront and PP resolved it in my favor in like two days after a week or two of trying to get a hold of the vendor.

I resisted buying a pile of the Havoc baits, going to have to unsub from this thread for a while so my regret doesn't becomes overwhelming.

Thanks for the info. I am going to pick up some chartreuse and pre-dip some plastics.

How long does it take JJ's to dry, and how long does the color last? I only bank or kayak fish and I have heard too many JJ's horror stories to want to lug a bottle around in those circumstances.

I have found the same thing to be true, except for the days they only bite a black/green pumpkin one. I tried splitshoting them a few times, but I was having an issue where panfish would attack the weight, messing up my perfectly executed casts. The odd thing was, if I fished the senko weightless, the panfish would hit it, but with the splitshot, they would ignore the worm and only hit the weight.

My GF also has had a series of older Subarus. Taken care of, 250k isn't uncommon and the various 90-00's ones she has had have been decently easy to work on.

On maybe my second trip out in my kayak I snagged a monster blue crab by the back of his shell. It took me a bit to get him off without getting pinched. Crabbing without a license in MD is taken very seriously and every moment he was in the boat I expected a warden to pop out of the weeds and ticket me.

What's the logic for using a casting reel for frogging then? I assume it is a winching power issue, as I suspect you would need a surf-sized spinning reel to really pull a large bass through heavy pads? I have a surf reel spooled with 65lb pp and a 4'9" M boat rod, I might give it a try sometime.

I struggled with the jointed Rapalas for weeks before I tied them on with a loop knot. It was amazing the difference it made in the action. Question, would attaching a split ring to the lure allow me to tie a standard knot and still retain the action?

No, I either kayak or fish form the bank, but due to the aforementioned smallie obsession I have been wading more then anything this year. Lot of the local kayak guys use FW bass tackle to fish for stripers/blues and they seem to be satisfied with how they hold up, my inexperience with saltwater and metals had me wondering if there was a hidden "gotcha". I had though of using WD40 to drive the water out, but didn't know if it would damage my line if it came into contact with it.

I live south of Annapolis. I do most of my LMB fishing in southern MD or the MoCo/HoCo resevours. Lately I have been on a smallie kick and fish the Patapsco a lot. This season is my first "seriously" fishing for bass and I plan to expand my area over the winter and next season. I posted this thread with like 4-5 tabs open to auctions around that price. I am thinking getting a used one is my best bet for now. I can see if I like the idea enough to drop serious money on a fancier setup.

Thanks for all the input guys, sorry it took me so long to respond. I am working like a mad fool, which is what will enable this whim. The little I have read about this reel seems pretty mixed, especial in regards to lure rating. I would like to be able to get down to around 1/16-1/8 lures, but the 1/8 of things is more realistic. Is this true even of magnesium reels? I admit I know very little about them in specific and magnesium in general. I would love that, I don't know much about the northern spots. My GF has been bugging me to take her to the drive-in up there. I was looking at the Aldebaran but that is approaching "too expensive to take in my kayak" levels. I think I am leaning towards stalking ebay for either a used alphas sv and fishing it as is, or looking for a used Pixy and slowly upgrading it as I find time and money. I am also feeling better about using a FW reel and just being diligent about cleaning it. I am general pretty awful about stuff like that but should make myself be better and having a fancy toy might help. I guess I also should buy a cheap little scale and actually weigh some of my finesse lures. Other then weightless 3" senkos and tiny inline spinners, I am not sure if I really throw anything less then 1/8oz. You guys have given me a lot to think about.

I am going down the dark road of finesse casting and am looking for some advice on reels. I live by the Chesapeake bay and as such do a lot of fishing in salt/brackish water. It seems like a lot of the more common finesse casting reels have magnesium frames, which I understand to be unable to be safely used in even brackish water. First, is this true? Even with diligent rinsing with a water bottle asap when I land and then again with a hose when I get home, is a magnesium frame going to be damaged with short exposure? My second question is, if a magnesium framed reel is a non-starter for brackish, then is there a good finesse option that will work for me? Thanks!

I started using the 1/0 Rebarb's a few months ago and am a big believer. My hit and hookup rate rocketed up compared to the small EWG hooks I had been using. For thinner/softer plastics, the ReBars are great, for thicker/harder ones, the 1/0 Troker finesse hook works better. They both also seem to allow an unweighted/light weighted plastic to have such better action then a EWG which imho makes small plastics roll and not slowly flicker and twitch. The only downsides to straight shanks I have seen are an increase in snags and shorter plastic life. The first is due to the hook having a much easier time punching out, so while you get better hookups on fish, you also get better hookups on sticks. Lure life is the same thing, the hook point tears a much larger hole on a hit or catch and often the plastic runs up the line and is hard to re-set without damage. Both are totally worth it to me, the increased catch rate has been astounding. Also, try the 1/0 Roboworm hook is amazing on a weightless 3" senko. It seems to catch anything, but you will burn through worms in a hurry.

I struggled with a baitcaster for a long time before it clicked. It was a combo of two things. First, someone here suggested spooling up with 8lb Hybrid and using KVD Line and Lure. It was like night and day compared to the 30lb braid I was using before. It was so much easier to get the brakes dialed in and casting seemed to take much less force. The second thing was watching pro-fishing/tournament videos. Most instructional videos are filmed with a really tight shot, usually only upper body. Pro-shot videos, with much larger budgets and multiple cameras, will give you full body shots, which was huge in showing me how to make different kinds of casts.

Dibs! I have gotten hooked on 1/16" worm weights for my finesse plastics fishing. They still let the plastics have so much free action and pop through cover very well. I have a few bags of hula grubs, 4-5", that I want to start throwing, looking for lighter ones, around 1/4oz. Can anyone recommend one of the Seibert's heads?

I am saddened to hear the level is still so low, it is one of my favorite fisheries.

I like short rods for both bank and yak. I prefer the 6'-6'6" range, but I do have two casting rods that are 6'9", but I got a great deal on them. I find that in my yak I often fish close to cover and we have a lot of overhanging trees. I also prefer to present soft plastics (which is like 70-80% of what I fish) by side arm casting them low to the water, or skipping them if I can. I find my 6" rod is much easier to do this with then my 6'3" rod. My main kayak is also only 10' long, so I can get a fish over the bow with even my little 5'6" perch rod. For bank fishing, I am often fighting undergrowth and tend to bushwhack a lot to find good spots. I also agree with Darren about short butts. My two main spinning rods are customs from SmallieStix out of PA. The owner's specialty is rods for smallmouth fishing out of kaykas. I have two from him, a 6' ML and a 6'3"M, both with microwave guides (to add back some casting distance) and short butts. I also have a 7'ML St Croix and it now seems so cumbersome when I switch back to it. I recognize that longer rods are far better for a lot of techniques and presentations, but so far I have found the positives of a short rod for bank and yak are still greater than the downsides.