PhishLI

It depends on how much material would be left after boring and if all other clearances, thumbar, etc, allowed for a larger spool. If they do then it's totally doable. No need for a CNC here. Single point boring of the casting would be the easy part on a standard milling machine. Determining where the casting's square and it's relationship to the spool shaft's alignment through to the sideplate would have to be doped out. Making a fixture in order to firmly secure the frame in order to bore it could be the most time consuming part. Light skeletal castings tend to ring like a bell when cut. The fixture might be be easy, or it could be tricky. There 's no way to know without inspecting the entire show. Ultimately, unless you have an uncle in the business, I doubt the juice would be worth the squeeze. It wouldn't be inexpensive.

You can use a Tat SV for just about anything you like. It's excellent with light lures, and very good in windy conditions with light lures and light line. I only use mine in both extremes though. Right now it's spooled with 8lb Sufix Advance on a 7'1" MF. I'm throwing light plastics like worms and flukes, and small cranks like a Mann's 1-Minus or light jerkbaits like a Duel 90F at 6 grams. It's really great with baits in that range. After the spawn it'll go on a heavy rod with 50lb braid for pitching, skipping, and punching. Basically shorter range work. I prefer other reels for chuck 'n wind baits at 3/8oz+ and up. The DC or any upper end Shimano will be just fine here.

Nice chunk! Tell your friends it's a 9 pounder?

I have a Chronarch E7. Rock solid user friendly reel. My K is a 6 speed, so I probably won't see much in the way of gear issues. However, mine was a lemon. Major clutch issues. When I called to explain what was happening they rattled off a list of which components needed to be changed like they were well aware of the issue, so off it went. Early adopter blues? Who knows? I wouldn't let the local seller service it while still under warranty because I've watched their reel tech in action. Oy. The thumb bar pad also popped off and flew into the lake. Yet none of that stopped me from buying more Shimanos, mostly Tranx models. That said I find it interesting how people reflexively defend, or recommend, any model of Shimano automatically with the long list of issues they've had since the E series. AND IT IS LONG, but they'll happily/reflexively bash other brands. Some of that bashing has mertit I'm sure. I'd bet much of it is 2nd hand smoke and herd think.

It's an inshore reel built for fighting fish much stronger than LM bass. I wasn't struck by the knobs one way or the other when I used my friend's. I'm not a giant like you, but I don't have small hands. Get the reel and try it before giving yourself a case over the knobs. The Tackle Trap has all sorts of factory Daiwa handles for sale. There was a Zillion 100mm handle for 24$ listed a while back. Check it out.

Fluoro is less well behaved in cold weather, especially on your first few casts. Here it may slightly fluff as soon as you release your thumb after the lure has landed. If you wind in over that it'll feel lumpy. If you try to pull out the fluff even bigger coils will jump off the arbor unless you back down the drag and use it to maintain tension. The coils are much tighter and more more springy the closer they are to the spool's arbor. In order to slightly combat this I use braid as a backing and fill the spool a heavy 1/3rd of the way in order to create a larger arbor. This lessens the problem on 12-15 line. A little bit more spool tension than usual in the beginning of a session until the line settles will also help, but not so much with slack line techniques. It wouldn't hurt to throw a chuck 'n wind bait with some resistance first to calm down the line.

Just start off with all four brake blocks engaged and the external dial in the middle of it's adjustment. Minimize side to side play of the spool with the tension knob, then add a tad. Get comfortable then start backing off settings. The reel will cast fine with four blocks engaged, but you'll end up with just 2 on eventually.

26 MPH NW winds and a real feel temp of 29 degrees right now. Nuts!

By the time the bass are done with their spawn the bluegill will be up shallow on their beds. Put just about anything in between them and the bass and you'll catch 'em up. Paddletail swimmers as diminutive as a Megabass Hazedong Shad or bulky like a Beast Coast Miyagi are what I throw to target them in low light. Killer. Slinking a 10" Berkley power worm or Ol' Monster in the same zone can also work great if that's what they want that day.

Lew's Carbon Fire 7'3" HF. It's light and it's power and action is great for throwing frogs and converting bites into hooksets. It's a hidden gem at it's msrp of $79 and a steal on sale at $49. https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/lews-carbon-fire-speed-stick-casting-rod-19lewu7crbnfrspdsrod/19lewu7crbnfrspdsrod

Here's my take on the subject: If you are very proficient/comfortable with a baitcaster, including skipping and throwing very light weight lures, it's likey that you'll use spinning gear far less. That's not a hard fast rule, it's just my observation. Catching fish has little to do with the gear you use and everything to do with finding fish and throwing the right presentation for that moment. Use whichever type of gear you're comfortable with and enjoy using the most.

Yeah, that vid is huksterism! You can even see that the lure didn't land that far away at all. But that reel can launch. Try setting tension to just barely loose, brakes on 5, 7'3" stick, WP 75. Lay into the cast and watch that bait just go and go.

My brother was describing this last night. His SLX is a year old. The 3rd greasing with ACE did nothing to change it.

All of my local spots are small ranging from 6-30 acres, and the populations are generally low. I avoid fishing the spawn, even though I'm a fully blown addict, because it's just shooting myself in the foot. Some bedding fish inevitably fall prey to various birds, turtles, and poachers. I prefer to not add to causing lost generations of fish that I might otherwise catch in the future. Also, I don't get a buzz pulling a bass off a bed. Quite the opposite. Some do. Land of the free.

Nah.

Here's what the OP wrote in his post "ETA: I throw a lot of TX rigs, Baby 1-, and smaller spinners lately." The Curado K200 isn't the best choice for those baits regardless of which rod it's on.

I've been checking this site for deals. Take a look. https://www.topfishingdeals.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=SBFishingTV-April2020

Except for throwing reasonably lights baits as well and as consistently as any Daiwa within it's orbit. There's a reason they made the Curado 70 with a lighter spool.

Subjective, yes, but because it's not an apples to apples comparison. Daiwa's Magforce Z brake tech is different and performs differently compared to ABU's/Doyo hybrid brake tech. You'd really need to experience both to form an opinion. Daiwas aren't touchy until you're skating near the redline with the brakes turned down very low. A few clicks up on the dial and they're virtually trouble free. I fish a bunch of different reels with different brake tech, and mostly at night which means I need to rely on sound and vibration way more than my vision when casting. I barely ever have issues at this point, but when I do it'll rarely be when I have a Daiwa in my hand. With Daiwas there're rarely issues with over runs or backlashes after the beginning of a cast, and those are unusual except for when running braid mainline. With braid, and an over zealous cast on low brake settings, a backlash can occur immediately, but is almost always easily sorted out because so little line has payed out from the spool and there are much lower rpms present at that moment. Centrifugal brakes, even with linear mag brake supplementals, will get you into trouble in the middle and end of a cast because of much higher spool rpms at the moment of an over run. The SX has a few technical features that the Fuego doesn't like ABU's version of a free floating spool. The ABU's pinion doesn't have dual bearing support and neither does the Fuego, but it does have a short axle spool tension shaft that supports the pinon and is independent of the spool's shaft. However, the ABU lacks a supplemental bearing on top of the anti reverse bearing for extra support of the driveshaft. The Fuego has that bearing, and that's a real plus. There're areas where bearings are less important. The driveshaft is not one of them. A few technical pluses and minuses aside, you'll probably be fine with choosing one or the other. If you bought and used both at the same time you'd likely end up preferring one over the other, especially if you're sensitive to what are in reality quite subtle nuances. However, those are mostly nullified by good casting mechanics and a trained thumb.

You can get a Fuego CT for $30+ less on many sites. ALF is a legit seller. https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-2017-Daiwa-Fuego-CT-6-3-1-Casting-Reel-FGCT100H/272610084088?epid=24034860489&hash=item3f78d3c4f8:g:KrUAAOSwrlddUkkp I've bought multiple reels from Alpha2omega. Great. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Daiwa-Fuego-CT-7-3-1-Right-Hand-Baitcast-Fishing-Reel-FGCT100HS/303295495808?epid=566108388&hash=item469dd1fe80:g:LtIAAOSwiBFdilN3

I have a stupid amount of plastic worms in a bunch of different colors. I've thrown them all to exhaustion. Watermelon Black Flake GY Senkos followed by a BPS Stick-O knock off in the same color followed by 10" Berkley Power worms in the same color out-catch any other color 100-1 here. That includes green pumpkin. Everybody throws green pumpkin. White: Nope. Morning Dawn: Zilch. Sungill: Nada. Junebug: Nein! etc, etc.

Set your drag. Take a sharpie and put a hash mark at the drag star/handle junction. Fish it. See if the mark moves. Alcohol will disappear the mark once the experiment is over.

Not at all. There's a local guy that fishes at a few of my spots, so we talk. When we do we'll eventually get around to our recent catches, show pics, a little intel, etc, so I know what he's gotten. A few months ago I was at a lake several miles away from our typical spots and bumped into another guy I've spoken to casually here and there. He knows where I fish because I've seen him there a few times, but I've always been vague regarding catches. So he mentions one of my spots and lets me know that some guy posted a few pics of 6ers on Fishbrain. I knew exactly who it was and I was right. I called him up immediately and expressed my concerns. He capitulated and doesn't include locations anymore. The big problem we have here, just being outside NYC, is the red army bucket brigades. They watch the socials and will come and ruthlessly strip a lake to sell catches to certain restaurants in the city. You can go into them and see tanks of bass, bluegill, pickerel, perch, etc. I fish late at night a lot. I'm constantly cutting live lines tied off to trees. They sneak in about 9:30 pm and come back before dawn to collect. Anything and everything gets taken. They'll boldly fill 5 gallon buckets with bluegill the size of a saltine cracker during daylight hours. My crew has the DEC officers phone # stored in our phones, but they never seem to make it there in time to nab them. While I'd prefer that standard anglers didn't flood my spots due to social media spot burning, the fact is these places are super tough daylight fisheries, so they quit fast. I rarely see out-of-towners last longer than a trip or two.

Try another one. My friend's is a tad smoother than mine, but not Zillion smooth. Another brand doesn't offer what the SV spool does well, IMO. It's more than just being able to cast into the wind.

Looks like we're back to cooler temps all of a sudden with max highs in the high 50s or just touching 60 and night time lows in the mid 40s or less. But it's the north winds and chop that help to suck the heat out of the spawning shallows and they're back too. It doesn't matter much as bass season here closes for the spawn May 1st through thru the 2nd week of June. The problem is googans pulling guarding males off beds when it opens again on schedule but the spawn is late.