fishnkamp

I forgot to mention reels. In my world no spinning reel is worth that much money! Period. There are some very nice spinning reels around the $100 price tag. I just set up my wife with an Irod Spinning rod and Shimano Symetre 3000 reel. Now that is a super nice lite weight reel that feels terrific in my hand. I almost went with the Saros but saved the $75 difference. There was no difference in how the reel felt so we saved the money. That money went towards a fantastic rod instead. As for reels. I have fished with Bass Pro Extremes, several Shimano Curado, a couple of Lews and Chronarchs and now I have settled on Diawas. Last spring I set up a combo for frogging and matched the rod with a Diawa Tatula Type R in 8-1 ratio, I fell in love with the Tatula and Tatula Type R's. This spring I have sold 6 reels and replaced them with Diawa Tatula and Tatula Type R's, as well as one Exceller (my budget ran out on the last one). I am extra pleased with all of them. I will be replacing a few more reels next spring so all 12 baitcasters will be Diawas. If you get one I know you will be happy with it.

Here are my thoughts. First your Shimano 7'2" will handle most finesse techniques like throwing weightless worms, drop shotting and light weight baits like tubes or grubs very well. Next your Dobyns is a fantastic rod. It will handle all sort of jigs,big worms, even a frog. I believe what you are missing are two rods. If you intend to fish crankbaits and rattle traps you may want a dedicated rod like a DC 684CB rod If you want to fish jerkbaits and topwaters more go look at the Abu Garcia Ike delay series IKECW64-5 rod. Now let me explain This rod is one of the Ike rods Mike iocconelly designed for Abu Garcia. I fish one and love it. Now think of this rod as being a 6"8 rod only with a bit of a shortened butt so you can work a jerkbait or topwater bait like Pop R's and Sammy's. The rod lets you run a good cadence without beating up you arm with the butt. It actually measures 6 ft 4 inches and is a workhorse of a rod. If either of those two techniques are not that important to your fishing then I would add a rod like the 703C in a Fury, Savy, or champion series. I would suggest looking at the Powell Max3D 723CEF and an Irod IRG703C. All of these are high quality rods in about the same action, tapers and money range. Check each one out and see what seems to fit within the extremes that you now have. I am lucky because I have an awesome independent tackle shop that carries all of these rods and more in stock. He is located just 20 minutes from my house here in Baltimore MD. It is really nice to want something and your dealer has it to put in your hand. This also makes it a bit dangerous to go there. LOL Good Luck I hope I at least i have you thinking

Well here is my take on what you are looking for. First the reel. I would like you to see if there is a shop near you to put some reels in your hand. Sometimes baitcasters that retail for less than $100 are not that easy to get good casting results. I would recommend going over to a Diawa reel or the Lews reels. I am most experienced with the quality and performance that Diawa offers. There is a reel called the Exceller which retails for $100 but often can be purchased from some online retailers for less. This reel along with a Diawa Aird would perform well for you. The Exceller is smooth, has a great drag and will hold up a long time. I am fishing one Exceller and 5 Tatula and Tatula type R reels. I have changed to these reels over the last 2 years. Here is a place you could go look at them https://www.amazon.com/Daiwa-EXE100HSA-Exceller-Bait-Cast/dp/B00DFSONUW This reel will only cost you about $30 more but is a much higher quality reel. remember it is a $99 reel normally. For line what I suggest to do is get some inexpensive mono like Bass Pro Excel or even Stren Clear Blue in like 14 to 17 pound test. Tie a good knot to the reel so it does not slip. Then spool 1/2 of the reel with it. Next get yourself 50 pound Power Pro (65 if you fish heavy lilypads or weeds) Spool the rest of the spool with the braid leaving an 1/8 of an inch of the spool exposed. Too much line causes problems too. For a rod there are not many 2 piece crankbait rods. The HMG may be available that way. I did not see a rod that would work that was two pieces on their website. I did a bunch of research online and did find one very good option. Gander Mountain has some "in store brands" and one I am quite sure resembles an HMG rod ( I believe that Fenwick may build it). I have had this rod in my hand and it is a really nice rod. Check this out and do not worry about it being on back order, see if there is one in a store near you. I know my store in York PA has them so you could always contact them if worse came to worse. Look here http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=Gander-Mountain-Tournament-Casting-Rod-70-Medium-Heavy&i=813710&r=view&from=grid By the way i fly fish also. In fact my wife and I spent two of our days during our honeymoon fishing the Bow River in Calgary. Man those 8 pound rainbows were amazing. I surprised her on our return by having a day scheduled with Bob Clouser fishing the Susquehanna river for smallies when we got home. My wife is addicted to smallies Thank God!!

I assume you meant that the Abu is a baitcaster. If so, take your 7 foot Abu and put either 30 pound or 50 pound Power Pro braid on it. However I want you to tie the end of the mono to a fence, a car pumper anything that will let you feed out the line while walking backwards. Now when you get to the spool please check the arbor knot (the knot holding the line on). Make sure it is tight and does not slip on the spool. Now wind half a spool of line on the reel. Here is where you will attach the new braid onto the backing ( your 17 # mono) Then spool up the braid. Make sure to leave about 1/8 inch of the spool exposed. Now tie on a frog and go play. I would leave the 10 pound braid on the President combo. I would however add a 3 to 6 foot leader using something like P LIne CXX in moss green 10 pound test. That leader does several things for you. One it keeps you from wasting good braid every time you retie. Second if the fish are line shy they will not see the cxx. Also 10 pound cxx is not very large in diameter but breaks close to 20 pounds. Use this setup for spinnerbaits small cranks, worms, creature baits etc. Then the Fenwich/Shimano setup can be your finesse rig. I see you throw wacky rigs. Have you thrown the Ned Rig yet, if not go look into it. This spring this do nothing looking setup regularly caught 5 pound and bigger smallies from Dale Hollow for my wife and I during vacation.

Here you go http://www.mgs4u.com/shallow-water-boat-anchors.htm I had purchased a used DigIn anchor Pole used from a friend. Thursday I ordered the three pieces to modify mine. oday they arrived by USPS for just $6 shipping. The quality of the pieces is gorgeous, very nicely machined. I can not wait to finish this up so they will fit in my rod locker. I will cut the 12 foot long pole in half, install the two pieces to make them work like a pole cue and I will cut off the solid pointed tip so I can install their metal tip. I intend to modify the tip first just in case I run into trouble. I do not expect to thou.

Someone is going to love those grips. So far i had my custom builder tear off the full cork handles on two G Loomis IMX rods and replace the entire reel seat/ cork assembly with American Tackle's Comfort reel seats and a set of Winn Grips in the natural tone. Man they are light and the seat just melts into your hand and the balance is so much better than what G Loomis built on these 721 and 722 rods. However, I was nervous as well you can guess!! The thought of tearing both down and having an accident well I do not want to think of it. I am so glad I did it. now I just have to pick the right blank because I want Tom to build my next rod. BY the way Tom uses a lot of Winn Grips and he usually picks a second color to accent the rod so he never matches it or he two tones the wrapping. In that case exact matching is not needed

No I saw you mentioned the James so I was wondering if you fished the Chickahominy which is a smaller tributary of the James. It might be small enough to run your boat in safely and my fried Ed loved it for nice size bass,

Here is what i do on all of my baitcasters. I load 1/2 of the spool with backing made up of quality mono or copolymer line. make sure you get the arbor knot tight so it does not spin. Now I add either 14 to 17 pound FloroClear which is a copolymer line with a floro coating in 14 pound test. If I I am fishing really clear water I use that, otherwise I use Power Pro braid in something like 30 pound which is the diameter of 8 pound mono. Now for frogging I like 65 pound PP. On my spinning reels it is easy my wife and I fish 7 different combos and all but one have Berkley Fused Fireline (which is the same as FireLine Original). Again there is some mono behind it. Now I always throw a leader made up of P Line CXX moss green in 10 pound test. The only time I tie directly is if I am throwing frogs. I have one baitcaster with mono on it and it is my topwater rod. As for lures, I would throw texas rigged worms,tubes,and creature baits on either a sliding worm weight/hook or I would use Perfect worm hooks which have the weight attached. These are great with lots of plastics and my wife swears they are the best grub hook available. Also add some shakey head jigs to your arsenal. These are all baits for your spinning rod. No weight bigger than 3/8 ounce. One more bait to add is a thin wire hook and a floating worm or Senco. All of the rest of the baits you mentioned should be fine on your baitcaster. Learn the Uni to Uni knot to attach the backing to braid or braid to leader connection.

Do not KILL it FISH it !!!! Frog over it, fish weightless floating worms, punch it with big baits on the outer section. run texas rigged sencos and worms, topwaters and chatterbaits. Man that is big fish territory.

That is the greatest thing you can do for a kid. No kid hooked on fishing gets hooked on drugs! Think about it, if that kid is important enough for you to spend time with now, he will never have time for any drugs and in the future will find time to spend with you. That equation is priceless. The greatest thing I did with my high school girlfriend was to get her hooked on fishing. Now 30+ years later my wife insists we go to places like Dale Hollow and Guntersville and she insisted we buy our current boat. She has had input on all 11 boats we have owned. Honestly. if I offered to buy her a diamond or go get her another G Loomis rod. well I am off to the tackle shop!.LOL I love her.

Welcome to the site. What part of the country do you live in? I see you fish ponds, do you have any small to mid size rivers you can run your boat in nearby? If they are shallow enough you may want to wade them. Moving waters often offers bass that are more aggressive in the hotter weather.

Welcome to the site. Do you fish from shore, wade or have a boat? What is your favorite way to catch bass? I have a friend that loves the Chic, do you fish it as well?

Welcome to the site and check your e-mail.

Lets start with the line. Tie it off to fence or object and back off till you reach the spool. Cut the braid off. Now tie on some inexpensive but quality mono or copoly. I would use some 14 to 17 pound Suffix Seige, a spool of Bass Pro Excel mono or even Clear Blue Stren. Something that is good quality but cheap in price. Make sure your arbor knot is tight and does not slip. This is the reason for a lot of "reel" troubles. Now just fill the reel 1/2 way with the mono or copolymer line. Next tie the braid and mono together with a double uni (or uni to uni) knot. Once you learn this knot you will find it quick and easy to tie. Now wind up your braid until the reel is full but leave an 1/8 of an inch of spool exposed. Too much line causes other problems. The reason your reel works some of the time is because those time you have rewound the line in a little tighter. Chances are if you respool with backing you will have no more trouble. Also by doing it this way one expensive spool of braid or florocarbon will fill two reels or more making them cheaper to fill. If you ever have a total "blow up" you will only need to change part of a spool of line as well. I also like to tie on a leader with braid. For this I like P Line CXX in moss green 10 pound test. The only time I like to tie directly is frogging and this is just personal preference. Using the leader allows me to retie lures without constantly using up my braid. I fish 11 of my 12 baitcasters set up this way with either Power Pro braid or P Line FloroClear. My other reel has mono on it for topwater baits like Pop R's and walk the dog style baits.

What area do you live and are there any good independent tackle shops nearby. Those are the places you will find an array of rod manufacturers. Try and put some of the following rods in your hand. Try a Powell Max3d 723CEF or a Powell Inferno 703CEF. Look at a Dobyns Fury FR703C and lastly look at Genesis II from Irod. They have IRG693C Harold's Lone Star special and the IRG703C. All of these are real nice general purpose rods. All of them are built with high quality components and will fit your needs. All of them cost between $100 and $160. As for a reel look at a workhorse from Diawa called the Tatula in a 6.3-1. I use basically three different lines on my 12 casting rods. One has mono on it for topwater, everything else has either P Line FloroClear in 14 to 17 pound test or I have 20 to 30 pound Power Pro braid. I know you said you had a bad experience with braid. There are several thing I do to help myself with braid. First I always spool 1/2 of the reel with inexpensive but quality mono or copolymer line for backing. Next I attatch it to the braid or FloroClear using a double uni knot. Then I finish spooling the main line. Now I tie on a 3 to 6 foot piece of P Line CXX moss green 10 pound leader. That stuff is super tough and as I change lures I am cutting back leader not expensive braid. If you tried other braid I think the Power Pro will work for you.

Well lets see my wife and I fish a total of 11 spinning rods mostly G Loomis, 1 Irod,1 Berkley Lightning Shock, and a few Gander Mountain rods. All of them have Pflueger Presidents in all sizes. We did not start out that way but over time that has become our go to reel. We also have 1 brand new Shimano Symetre 3000 that has an incredible 35 inches of line recovery. That matches most baitcasters with an 8-1 ratio. For baitcasters I fish 1 Powel Max, 1 Irod, several Berkley Lightning shocks ( these are terrific for throwing rattle traps) several Veritas rods,an Abu Garcia Ike series jerkbait rod and several others. One of my oldest and favorites is an old ( from the late 80's) Cotton Cordell. I met the man personally and he hand signed a rod for spinnerbaits at the big fishing show in Harrisburg PA. He is still one of the most incredible people that I have ever met.

Myself it is all about how smooth it is when I have it mounted on a rod in my hand. Next it is how smooth the drag is. Next I consider what my purpose for it will be then see if the line capacity and if the retrieve ratio will retrieve the amount per revolution I am looking for. Recently I set my wife up with a new Irod spinning rod for throwing frogs. Normally one would do that with a baitcaster, but she did not want one. So I picked a Shimano Symetre 3000. It is both light and very smooth. The drag system is very smooth as well. Lastly it says it is a 6.2 to one ratio, but also lists line recovery per handle turn as 35 inches. If you compare that to a Diawa baitcaster it equals an 8-1 which is exactly what I throw for frogs. Number of bearings is nice to look at but not necessarily an real indicator of how smooth a real is, some reals with very high bearing numbers are not that smooth. It is more about where the bearings are and less about having tons of them. If you are looking for just an affordable workhorse of a rod go get a Pflueger President. All 6 of our other spinning reels are Presidents. We purchased this Shimano because of its gearing mostly.

Right now Cabelas has that rod listed as selling for $79 (not the crankbait series) for that I would order a Powell Diesel rod.

Last year I purchased my first Tatula type R in the 8-1 ratio. Then I purchased a regular Tatula. I fished both of them hard. I also have a Shimano Chronarch 200E7 which is supposed to be one of Shimano's best. This spring I sold a bunch of reels off and picked up more of the Tatulas and even an Exceller. I got to fish them hard on our vacation on Dale Hollow and back here at home on the bay. All I can say that for a reel that costs less then $150, that performs that well, Diawa has hit a home run. That Chronarch will get replaced along with several other reels next spring. As for the T Wing haters you have not fished a Diawa T wing reel!!! Also do not compare these sub $200 reels to a Shimano or Lews ... that retail for $400. Compare apples to apples. Diawa has hit its mark well. I expect their new Steeze reels will do the same.

Find a good prop shop near you and talk to them They will know if that prop can be changed over to the new style hub. Before I spent a dime changing anything on the prop I would install it and take it to the water and run it. Lets see how it works first. If the performance is good and you get all of your numbers than you can talk to the prop shop about the hub and any little changes you might want. I run an aluminum bass boat with a performance aluminum Hustler prop. I was prop testing and found they make a 17, 19 , and 21 inch pitch in the correct diameter. The 21 was too much and the 19 was not enough so I had my local prop shop add both an inch of pitch and some cup to the 19 pitch prop. Now I have a perfect match for my rig. By doing this the prop cost $100 the hub cost $50 and the rework cost $77. I choose to run an aluminum prop because I run a lot of shallow water with underwater junk like crab traps. old boats etc. and a tide that is constantly changing. A prop is cheaper than a lower unit. By knowing my boat/ engine performance numbers my prop shop knew just what to do. I improved my hole shot, improved time to plane and gained 4 mph on the top end.

Let me ask a few questions. What size reel and what do you want to use it for? What lures will you be throwing? Personally I use braid and a leader on all of the spinning reels that my wife and I fish. We have settled on two different lines. On rods that are 6 foot and 6 foot 6 inches ( these are medium lite and mediums) we spool up Berkley FireLine fused (it is the updated version of FireLine original in case you see some of that they are the same line). I use 14 pound test which is 6 pound equivalent in size. What I do is buy a big spool of decent but inexpensive mono or copolymer line and use it for backing. Sometimes I have a left over partial spool of copolymer from another spooling. An example would be like Bass Pro Excell fishing line. A 1200 yard spool of 12 or 14 pound test is $10.00 and if used for backing it will last for a hundred reels. Another good one is Suffix Elite. I will spool up half way with the backing then finish spooling the braid. If I buy the 125 yard spool of braid it will fill at least 2 reels. I then tie on a 10 pound leader usually it is P LIne CXX or P Line FloroClear. You could also use something like Abazx straight florocarbon. I always connect backing to braid or floro and braid or floro to leader using the double uni or uni to uni knot. There are other good knots but in over ten years I have never had a knot let go and I can tie it quickly. My second line choice is for the few heavier spinning rods. Power Pro 30 pound test is what i just spooled my wife's new frog rod with. We will need that size to cut through the lily pads when frog fishing. My wife can handle a flyrod with beauty and grace and is more than capable of using any spinning gear right up to surf gear, but will not touch a baitcaster so I set her up with a killer Irod and a Shimano Symetre 3000. This reel gives her the same line retrieve per handle crank as my Diawa Tatula Type R 8-1 ratio reel. It is a true weapon for a combo and will handle he intended duty fine. Sorry for rambling but the choice of what rod-reel-line and purpose is a little more complicated than a one word answer. Power Pro Spectra is a really nice line even in lower pound test, but I like the way Fireline handles so much in the 14 pound test and we have landed some huge bass, rock, and cats with it. Also my eyes are not that good so I like the flame green. In Power Pro I usually go with their moss green, but I use it for frogs and some moving baits on baitcasters so line watching does not come into play as much.

I looked on Zebco's website and several others. Your Rhino rod was an E glass rod that is still being sold. It retails for $29.00. Back in the day it was packaged with either a spin cast reel or they made a Rhino baitcasting reel for it. They were very low end rods. Basically the Berkley was also used in packages with both spincast and baitcasting. Adds for the rod in Europe say baitcasting for the rod only. Go get a good rod and forget them both. Your own experience tells you this.

My catfish guide uses a bunch of 5500c I think. Anyway they are very durable and powerhouses but unless I was chasing the big flathead catfish she catches or I was into musky they have no place in my arsenal. I guess they would be great for trolling big lakes for walleye too.

The older models had a press in hub. They have held up well. mercury changed it to the new style just so it can be changed easier. If you do have a problem any prop shop can replace it. Go run it. Watch what your hole shot, wide open throttle rpm , and top speed is. You may need to make some engine height adjustments. Also if your boat does not have a water pressure gauge add one and watch it.

My wife and I we have gotten rid of all of our other spinning reels and replaced them with 7 Pflueger Presidents . We fish hard for both bass and rockfish here on the bay. All of our spinning reels are Pflueger presidents in 3925-30-35 and 40 series. My oldest two are almost 10 years old, the rest are between 2 and 9 years old. They have all held up well. Her largest fish caught on them include two 6 pound smallies from Dale Hollow Lake, a bunch of rock between 14 and 28 inches, as well as a 6 1/2 pound catfish that hit a lure on her G Loomis GL2 721 ML 6 foot rod. That was super fun to watch her as she was run around the boat by that fish. She landed it but it took about 10 minutes.