fishnkamp

Well I said I was lucky but not as lucky as you.for sure. I think Dobyns and Powell have forced all the other rod manufacturers to step up their game in the $100 to $200 range.Interesting that they have a friendship and a past business history.

I am really lucky I live in Baltimore Md. We have a Bass Pro 20 minutes away and a Cabelas 1 hour away. What makes me lucky is an independant tackle shop opened up 15 minutes away from me. In order to thrive in this area the two owners have used their tournament knowledge and carry Dobyns, Powell, Irod, Cashion, Duckett, *** and some I am forgetting.. One owner fishes electric only reservoir tournaments and the other fishes the tidal Bay tournaments. So they have stocked that shop to the gills with the tackle from companies that serious anglers want and can not get at the two big box stores. They had the Sierra in over a week ago. I had a few in my hand and I believe a Sierra 693 spinning rod is coming home with me soon. I guess I need another Symetre 3000. That darn bait monkey strikes again!

I would agree on the Dobyns in any series but the Savvy is being replaced by the Sierra and I have already seen them. I am in love with them. Definitely a 735C. Let your wallet decide the right series.. The Fury costs $110, the Sierra is $179, a Champion XP costs $260. If you pick the Sierra then that leaves you with $170 for a reel. Boy that $100 to $180 range includes a lot of good choices. For me I would shop online at Amazon. There are some real good deals on Diawa reels. I would be choosing between a Diawa Tatula CT Type R, Tatula CT, Tatula Type R and a Tatula. My favorite is the regular Tatula Type R in a 8 -1 ratio.. That is exactly what I have on my frogging rod but I bought that way before the CT's came out. Mine of course is a left hand version. That reel retails at most places for $200. On Amazon I can regularly get it for $130 from Sportsman Outfitters and so far I have had 3 good purchases from them. I am always careful who I buy from and if they have the same item at a good price for months and months then I feel like they are worth doing business with them. I will buy from them again so I can feel comfortable recommending them.

Let me be clear so we do not get confused. There are a couple of rods that can get confusing. Here is the rod I was suggesting. It is the Dobyns Champion DC684CB. That is a 6'8" medium heavy action baitcasting rod with a moderate taper. That is a slower rod designed to throw 1/4 to 3/4 lures with treble hooks. This slower action allows for a slower reaction to allow the fish to suck in the offering and protects you a little better so you do not pull the treble hooks out of the fishes mouth if it makes a hard run or sudden lunge at the boat. I would use it for throwing small to medium (0 to 15 foot divers) crankbaits, jerkbaits,wakebaits. rattle traps, and even top water baits like PopRs and small chug bug type poppers. I would also throw small spinnerbaits from 1/4 to 3/4 of an ounce, anything heavier or with real big blades might feel to heavy for that rod and your heavier rod might do that better. I love that rod and if I did not own a very similar rod from Irod it would be on my to get list. I would match it with a good Diawa Tatula or Tatula CT depending on which one feels better in your hand. I would use your crucial rod for more than just drop shotting. It is a very versatile rod. Look at the following baits to add to the arsenal to be used on that rod. First go to Bass Pro's website. I want you to look at Luck-E- Strikes' perfect finesse worm rigs and their perfect worm hooks. They are different colors, weights and hook sizes available. I believe we use some of the 1/0 fineness and some of the 2/0 or 3/0 ,1/8 , 3/16 and 1/4. What you need are some grubs like Zoom 5 inch Fat Albert grubs. Match the hook size so it fits well. My wife has used a few colors all around the country. Salt and pepper,, watermelon red flake, green pumpkin red flake and maybe cotton candy. The nice thing about the hook with the weight attached you can change to a worm real fast like a 4 inch Berkley Power Bait worm in blue flec or green pumpkin, in fact all of the colors in this worm work at some time. There are a ton of other good finesse type worms like zipper worms, culprit worms etc. The nice thing here is if you have a perfect worm rig on you can change style of baits without re-tying. The last two rigs I want you to get are must haves and your Crucial will work fine with. The first one to look at is a Gary Yamamoto's Senko. These are a very special type of finesse worm that would work terrific in the pond you spoke of. Gary's baits are really good but fragile, so a good option would be the Kanami 5 inch Flash. basically the same but cheaper. Cabelas has some house brands that are nice as well. These can be rigged wacky style meaning the hook is placed in the middle of the bait using an o ring or texas rigged but always a very small hook is used. The last rig I want to share is the Ned Rig. Go to Tackle Warehouse and look up ZMAN baits. It is called "ZMAN Finesse TRD(stands for THE REAL DEAL)" They are 2.75 inches long and made out of a very special plastic called Elaztec which is almost indestructible. I fished one bait and caught at least 20 big smallmouth bass on it before I replaced it. Along with the bait you will need some of the ZMan Shroomz jig heads. They now have 1/8 and larger ones but we fished all the way out to 20 foot deep with the original 1/10 heads. These look ridiculous but we caught smallies up to 6 pounds on them. All of these baits will work on your spinning rod,very well so add these tricks to your arsenal. Now I would use your 734 for everything I did not mention for these two rods. I would throw heavier spinnerbaits like 1/2 to 1 ounce if I was going to slow roll a spinnerbait down a point in say 1 to 20 feet. This is what I would use to fish a heavier jig say 1/4 to 3/4 football head, , pitching jig ( not possible in a Kayak) or swim jig along with a plastic trailer. This would be the rod I would throw either texas rigged worms from 7 inches up to 12 inches with worm weights again of 1/4 all the way to 1 ounce. It is also a great carolina rig rod. If you notice I said to use the 684 for small topwaters. This rod can handle big Zara Spooks, buzz baits, chatterbaits and even some frogs like the Stanley Ribbit. These three rods would make a very versatile arsenal. And you will have fun learning new techniques to use with the two rods you already own. That is always a plus!

Excellent both fight real hard and I know the walleye taste great. I have never eaten pike. I wonder what they taste like? Well when you do get your boat we have been getting both channels and big blue cats and in fall there are lots of good stripers around in the creeks.

The Tracker floor plan looks better than Lowe's or Crestliner's (sister boat companies) You were asking if that boat would fit your needs in order to fish around here as well as in lakes like the Adirondacks. Any boat that would work good there would also work fine on places like Dale Hollow which is about 60 miles long and fed by 3 or 4 rivers. They chose the Crestliners because they are real big out there, but they are the same style boat as the boat you are considering. That Tracker will be a nice multi species boat and the rod lockers are long enough to store 8 foot rods. Have you ever caught any big catfish? How about stripers?

It takes a quality matched rod and reel along with practice practice and more practice to gain accuracy and distance with a baitcasting setup. Fortunately the practice is allowed to be done on the water with fish interrupting the practice occasionally! Buying a cheap combo and using it only a little, then getting frustrated is not the way to build confidence and accuracy. I have fished with a few guys who would flat make your jaw drop! I hired an FLW angler named Craig Powers to guide my wife and I for two whole days on Center Hill Lake in Tennessee. He made his Million dollars worth of winnings casting home made PopR type baits so far up under docks you almost could not see them. Out there they have lots of boat houses, kinda like a dock with a garage over it. I had no problem believing he made his winnings when I saw how far he could skip a bait with his custom made short pistol gripped rod. i watched as he showed me what to do. He pulled several monsters out that way. He said he had spend hundreds of hours in front of boathouses like it, just casting to them without actually trying to catch a fish, just practicing the cast.

I wish i was recovered and back to work so I can get you out in these waters you and I are surrounded by. My wife and I have had 11 boats in almost 40 years together. During the last 16 years we have fished Maryland and Pennsylvania waters. That boat would not have had much trouble in most of the places we went nearby except for the reservoirs, as you know. Our two biggest boats were an 18 and a 20 foot fiberglass bass boat. With those boats I had more freedom to roam around farther and not worry as much with weather and tides but the boat I have fished out of for the last 5 years is a Lowe 17 1/2 foot aluminum bass boat. It has been all over 5 or 6 states to fish in fact I just told my wife I need to replace the tires for once we have worn them out from travelling, not dry rotted from sitting. WOW! If you would like to stop by i can show you the rig, it may help you to see what you would want in your next boat. here is a pic of our boat sitting on a Dock in Kentucky (Dale Hollow Lake) Notice what the rental boats next to me look like.

Actually that boat would do lots of good things for you. Although the boat is only 16 feet long there is no reason with the deeper that you could not fish in the Gunpowder River,or here by me around Middle River, Hart-Miller Island,Pleasure Island and Back River. In those areas you will have the opportunity to catch bass, stiper, perch and big catfish. This is my home stomping grounds so I am sure it will work. The boat size means you will not be able to go out and just run all over without being aware of weather and tides, but I promise you it will be a fun boat. I would upgrade the power on the trolling motor. The rail system that they run around the gunnel is nice to add drink holders, a tool holder, or rod holders if you decide to catfish and pike fish.

The main reason rod companies have gone away from full cork handles is that quality cork has gotten more expensive. The rod companies also keep inventing rod blanks that are more advanced in technology. These rod blanks are lighter and more sensitive and they match up really well with the lighter weight split cork and eva foam grips.. Now, the newest trick item comes from a company called Winn. Winn made its mark in golf club grips. Their material is super lightweight and has almost the same tacky feeling that their golf grips have. I had my friend Tom customize my 2 G Loomis spinning rods with a new style Aero comfort reel seat and these new grips. The weight of the rod decreased and the comfort fishing that rod is amazing. I chose the "natural" toned grips which are cork colored and have a fancy pattern in them. They also offer a bunch of colored grips (red, green, blue,orange etc.) which means you could match a rod blank color or pick say a black or graphite colored blank and then a red set of handles, red thread and red colored checks (the round rings used at the front or back on a split grip) The list of options to customize a rod with grows quickly. All of the rods in these pictures were built by my friend Tom. The rods in the second picture all belong to another friend of mine. He likes to get creative with his equipment. He had Tom build rods using some purple, some blue, some green and also some red colored blanks The third picture shows my finished spinning rod. I really love to fish with this rod now. We changed it because the reel seat was giving me some trouble and before it broke I thought it would be wise to just replace it. Man am I glad I did. That rod originally came with a full cork handle and a typical straight- all plastic reel seat. Now it weighs less and feels terrific in my hand.

It is funny one of my favorite rods is a Powell Max 683cef. This is an original not the Max 3D series. It is 6'8" long and is rated as a medium heavy casting rod with an extra fast tip. The lure rating is 1/4 tp 3/4.Tackle Tour did one of is reviews on this rod. They tested it on their machines and then with three different reel/line combination. They said it did not cast a lure less than 1/4 well which was no surprise because the company said it was a 1/4 to 3/4 rated rod. Now they started throwing every kind of bait above one quarter all the way up to an 8 inch swimbait which is clearly way out of its specs. They said it ate it up and performed flawlessly even with 2.5 ounces of swimbait tied on. Not very many rods would do that without breaking, but it does show you that most rods can go a bit above their rating safely.

The simple answer is no. Even if the gearing was available it would be better to get another reel. Unless this is a 400+ reel it is not worth it. There are lots of really good reels that are available for less than $150.00 You never said what rod and reel you were using now. More than likely if the rod is working well for other techniques it would not be ideal for flipping and pitching. What rod do you use now.

First the 115 is the max horsepower for this boat so no it is not underpowered. The center seat should flip up to expose a storage area underneath and there should be 4 large phillips head screws coming up from the bottom of the lid. Unscrew them and the seat should fall off from the lid. No different than my current aluminum boat.

If you do get it, I would consider removing the center seat if you never fish three people. I have done that on several boats and you will be amazed how it helps make the cockpit seem bigger. Also I do it in order to avoid walking on the seat getting up and down to and from the back deck. Most of the time the seat never get sat in but ends up getting ruined because of traffic. I just cover the seat with trash bags and save it in case I sell the boat.

The boat looks very clean and those engines seem pretty nice. I use the services of a guide on Dale Hollow. He is the hardest working guide I have ever met. He has run Stratos forever, His current boat has a 225 hp Etec (first generation) with a ton of hours on it, It is six years old and he loves it. The dealer he has been hooked up with for over 20 years now sells Phoenix, so his next boat will be a 920 with another Etec on it. That will be ordered sometime this fall. As for the VLO they have a nice hull and I have not heard anyone complain about them much. The 115 was max horsepower on that boat.. Here is what I would suggest. Ask to give it a test run. If the boat performs well and you like it go for it. I was looking for a used boat like that, and saw a lot of junk compared to that rig for his asking price. It is much easier to get a better deal on a used 20 footer than an 18 footer these days. If I drove it and liked it I would offer him $19,000 for it. Be prepared to go his full price though.

MannassasBasser where are you located? I am thinking Northern Virginia. If so I have a custom builder for you to talk to.

In all honesty it looks like a nice reel seat. How does it feel in your hand?

It fights like a musky he has told me and is "beautiful" on the dinner plate. He has a friend that owns a Thai restaurant. He shares the fish with the chef and the chef prepares it along with some sauces for his dinner.

I agree the performance is not even measurably different. Internally I believe a couple of the bearings were upgraded to sealed ones which might be better in tidal water (lite salt water) but probably not much better in the real world. I went with two Type R's for the 8-1 gear ratio for things like frogging. Otherwise the standard Tatula is m choice. Some complain about the size and I find it funny because it is usually BP S Pro Qualifier owners and a Tatula is a bit smaller. It is a bit bigger than say some of the small body Lews. If that body seems a tiny bit big for your hand to feel happy than look at the new Tatula CT it is a smaller package by a fraction, but it may be better to palm. Personally I intend to change 6 more reels over to Tatulas within the next 6 months. Take a look at this picture. This is a Potomac River snakehead caught on a Diawa reel either Exceller, Tatula, or Lexa. I am not sure which without asking my friend Bryan, but I know it was on P LIne CXX 10 pound moss green line. That weighed over 13 pounds.

I would second the Dobyns Fury 705 for $110. I your wallet allows the Champion DC 705CB would fit your hand well for $230.

Take a good look at that rod, even the new onse are pretty big in diameter. Kinda like a Veritas from Abu Garcia. Take a look at a Powell Inferno. There is the Inferno 702, that rod is 7 ft and is a power 2 meaning Medium Lite Extra fast (1/8 to 3/8) and there is another rod an Inferno 6103. This rod is 6FT 10 inches and is a 3 power rod meaning it is rated as Medium, extra fast 1/8 to 1/2. I am not sure what rod would do well with the walleye slip bobber trolling. Since this rod is a bit heavier it may do all of it well. Any of these Inferno rods cost $100.

You are better off with a medium action moderately fast tip. They will help you too keep the trebles hooked in the fish.

Go to http://www.itainttv.com/ This is Wilson Frazier "The Professor" own website. Look down on the lower lefthand side and look at 4 of his products. First I use Rod Glow for cleaning, waxing and adding a bit of uv protection. Next I use Cork Magic for cleaning up the cork handle. I use Krystal Vision for my depthfinders and sunglasses and lastly Shazzam to clean up and wax my boat and engine. Watch his videos on each product. I have been told his braid aid is pretty good too but I have not tried it yet. I met Wilson at the Richmond Boat and Outdoor show many years ago. I also own his dvd collection on GPS& sonar. They are like going to school.

I will throw another reel in the mix. I have been changing my arsenal from a mix of BPS and Shimano Curados and Chronarch to all Diawa Tatula and Tatula Type R reels. I really like them. They are a bit larger than some other reels but they fit my hand fine and I trust them under any fishing situation. Here on the Chesapeake bay I can be bass fishing and get bit by up to 20 pound cats or big stripers up to 36 inches. My friend who turned me onto these reels fishes on the Potomac River and regularly pulls in those fish as well as big snakeheads. which can destroy other reels drag. The Tatula retails for $150 and can be purchased online for around $95, and the Tatula Type R retails for $199 can easily be purchased for around $140 online as well.

I tie the swivel to the main line then add about 14 to 18 inches of either mono or copolymer line to which I tie my hook. I rarely ever fish less than 1 and a half to 2 foot deep, even for bluegill. The split shot is about 6 inches above the hook. I find when i cast it helps the bait get tangled less and makes the bait drop straight down. I adjust my bobber on the main line in order to raise or lower my bait. I always use the small Aberdeen style hooks, Eagle Claw and some others sell them, It is a small straight shank gold colored lite wire hook. This rig works good on bluegill, crappie, rockbass, and perch. My favorite bobbers are the cheap red and white cheap plastic ones with the spring wound around one end and a notch. The braid to mono equation is not strength- it is diameter. So if a reel holds 150 yards of 8 pound mono then it would hold roughly 150 yards of 30 Pound Power Pro Braid as it is equal in diameter.