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Hmmm...How do you know you're missing bites? And even if you could count the bites that you never got, how can you know why they did not happen? Fishing isn't engineering but even so you can't count things that do not exist. If you can't count them then you cannot compare them. Nor can you say that one way of fishing results in more or in less things not happening than another way would have. All you can tell us really is what you believe and what seems to work best for you, because as far as you know on all of the days that you aren't fishing that spot the fish bite a bait dropping at an angle better. That said, you have an interesting theory.

Only if you spend your time sighting down your rods I'd think. I don't remember ever seeing a rod that was 100% straight to begin with and in my experience most rods have a slightly misaligned guide or two. There really is no foolproof way of aligning guides that I know of. I've tried using one of those laser alignment fixtures that mount in the reel seat to do it. But I've not seen a blank that was straight enough so that this worked better than doing it by eye.

If none of those is what you need, I just remembered that Daiwa made a "Presso" spool for the Pixy series that was supposed to be for stream fishing. It is a very light fixed inductor spool. If you are interested, Ichiban Tackle has one for sale right now. They are a good company and I've bought many reels, lures and spools from them. I've never used one, but it is the spool that Daiwa thought worked for trout baits. https://www.ichibantackle.com/products/2580-daiwa-silver-creek-presso-spool-used/

I love the ZPI ceramic bearings and have them on most all of my reels...except for the pixy's those get the lighter Hedgehog BFS ceramics. The ZPIs aren't quite as light when you need to start the spool with no weight on the line. That is exactly my experience as well.

It might be just my lack of "finesse" but I have found that the Ray's spool won't get you there if you are trying to throw much under 7 gm. They work great for 1/8 oz. stuff though. I have the PX- 68 reels so they should be similar enough. I had a Daiwas Finesse Special spool that did a little better, but it was sort of a sketchy deal in my hands, lots of almost over-runs. The Pixy reels are great reels and I love them, but I think that they are best with the stock spool using them 1/8-3/8 oz. stuff. An SS Air might be just the ticket or maybe one of the Aldebaran BFS reels?

Thanks, I had never heard that story. It now makes a little more sense to me.

Back in the day I didn't cover my $10-20 fiberglass or steel rods either but my bamboo rods always got a padded canvas case. The difference was that the old fiberglass and steel rods were tough as nails and you could beat the snot out them for decades and they'd keep going. The Bamboo rods not so much, they were delicate. Fast forward today, I wouldn't bother covering a $100 IM6 graphite rod, because they are pretty limber and tough, but you can bet that the rods I have that are built of IM8 and higher or Mitsubishi 1100 blanks are always protected. A single nick in the surface of those can result in the rod snapping in two. Now if those rods didn't cost $500 or so, I might not bother with those either. I can live with ruining an occasional $100 rod, but the loss of a $600 rod is felt deeply and in some cases where that blank is no longer available I might miss it forever. $5 for a rod sleeve seems like cheap insurance.

Yeah, I would like to know more about what happened to Lew's. The BB-1 was arguably the first modern casting reel. His innovations were the first game changing improvements to the casting reel since the 1920's and 30's when they introduced "gear multiplying reels" providing a 3:1 geared retrieval assist instead of simply winding the line on a spool. Having invented the entire concept of the "low profile" casting reel you'd think that he was poised to be the mover and shaker in the business. Somewhere along the line, they just became another company importing re-badged Korean reels. Kind of sad if you ask me.

My understanding is that Lew Childre (at the time employed at Bass Pro Shop) contracted Shimano to make his fist BB-1 reels. They have a talent for building very well machined and precise small devices from their experience building components sets and gears for bicycle racing where they are even more widely known that they are for fishing gear. They have been doing freewheel hubs since the 1920's and derailleurs and 3 speed hub shifters since the 50's. As I hear it Shimano decided to strike out on their own in the reel business a year or two later and put the original Bantam reels out which were pretty much a clone of the original Lew's BB-1. Daiwa on the other hand was founded by a fishing fanatic in Japan and started making spinning reels in 1955 or 1958 (depending on who is telling the tale). They brough a lot of improvements to the market where Mitchell from France had been the kingpin selling the Mitchell 300 bases on a design from the 1930's. The English claim that they invented the fishing reel in the 1650's, But Chinese literature refers to fishing reels as far back as the 5th and 6th century. The first known visual of a fishing reel is in a Chinese painting from the 1100's. Yeah, probably too much information...

I have both Shimano and Daiwa reels (and a few others besides). To me it depends on what I am doing. If it something where I want the longest casting ability I like Shimano as they just seem to me to reach out a little further. But when it comes to top water stuff, where they can be a bit tricky because of their less than aerodynamic shape, I'd go with a Daiwa reel with the SV braking system. Both companies make excellent reels but the braking systems are much different. Shimano's centrifugal system allows longer casts but the centrifugally controlled magnetic system that Daiwa uses seems to offer more control for the sketchier activities such as pitching, skipping, throwing crankbaits in wind, throwing light baits and of course throwing wind catchers like top water baits.

So, basically anyone's opinion that might differ with yours is worthless huffery and puffery that deserves to be ignored. How DO you suffer the existence of we mere mortals?

I've never needed to do it but you can add pigment to epoxy. Then there is the FlexCoat rod finish that St. Croix uses. We know that works as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking you for shopping at bass pro, I buy things there too from time to time. It's just that their prices are so high. I would say the same about Tackle Warehouse I guess.

You could/can get the Tat CT for $96.99 at Triace Tackle (e-bay store) for the last 5 or 6 months. Bass Pro prices are so high that the sale prices brings the stuff down to just about where you can get them most other places all of the time.

That is what I do too. I use the "Extra strong adhesive" 3/8" version of Brother labels which will never smear or curl off. I put Brand, type, test and date but coded as it were into 3 small font lines so a rod with 12lb Berkley 100% Flouro installed in Oct of 2020 would read: Bk100 12 FC 10_20 It's small enough so that it's readable without turning the rod over and on tape small enough not to be too ugly.

Why replace the Evoluzion rods? Those are some of my favorites. They still stand up well to the newer rods in my opinion. You are not going to be stepping up with a Dobyns, but for crankbaits I guess that the lack of sensitivity might not be an issue, and they are well built and balanced nicely. Maybe the top two tier of St Croix rods, but for sure not the Legend Tournament Bass and below. Or, might I suggest sticking with Megabass, maybe some of the Adrena rods, Maybe check out the Phenix K2 rods? Loomis is still Loomis... sort of (since he sold the company to Shimano), but if you want Loomis I would go with a custom build using of of Gary Loomis' new blanks at North Fork Composites. The X-Ray blanks are the bomb, in the same ball park as the NRX rods. Plus he is still making many of the old Classic blanks too, but with updated materials. Some of the old IM blanks made with IM6 graphite make great cranking and jig rods.

I feel the same about Lews AND Abu rods. I have at least 6 Abu Villains gathering dust right now as well as a few Veritas, a few Volatile, a Vigilante and a Vengeance, so you can't say I haven't tried with them. Only fished with one Lews but it had all the hallmarks of cheap rods common to the lower priced rods of all but a few makers (like Daiwa and Falcon.)

I used to do that too back when everyone was using oiled felt for drag because the felt would get permanently compressed. It's not an issue with the new carbon fiber drags.

I had a Daiwa that did that once (I think it was an OG Steez). With the clutch released it was great, but turning the handle got clicking sounds. It turned out that the slot on the bottom of the pinion gear had gotten dings in it after I accidentally hit the handle in the middle of a cast and the pinion gear jamming into the slot with the spool spinning at full speed nicked it up. New gear fixed it.

I have a couple of 8:1 reels and use them for things like throwing Shakey heads and texas rigs up to rocky ledges and slopes and any other situation where you might have to throw a line 30 or 40 yards when only the first 5 or 10 yards or so of retrieve matter. The higher retrieve makes it a small bit faster to get the lure back to the boat across the water between the boat and where the fish are. The truth is that it's probably more psychological than anything because it probably only saves a handle rotation or two. I use 6:1 mostly and can't honestly say that if feels a whole lot different, just a little.

Yeah, I don't do much business at WalMart either, maybe the odd last minute spool of line or a few on sale crankbaits here and there. I don't know how widespread it is, but I do know that some manufacturers will have special Walmart products. Marlin sells a rifle at Walmart that is just like it;s other model except the trigger mechanism isn't current, but it allows Wally to offer it at a significant discount. I know ABU has over the years had Walmart special models as well. The one that comes to mind is the Ambassadour 5500CL3, the Walmart version of the 5500C3.

Many inexpensive reels are offered in clam-shells to serve the needs of places like Wal-Mart, which offer reels for sale on pegboard displays. Most are also available in boxes as well. They aren't different quality, just different packaging to suit different retailing needs. Once reels get out of the big box price range, the clam shells are not offered usually.

I think maybe the reel is pretty important. The way I see it is that the anchor part of the line is the reel. The vibrations that you feel in the rod are parasites robbing vibration from the line as the line makes contact with the guides. The reel transmits what left to the rod through the foot. I think they both matter.

Yeah, the X-Rays are not the very lightest, but I think they are very sensitive. But they are not super heavy either. I've been looking at the Point Blanks for a while, but they just don't have that many options that I wanted, but I am eyeing the PB701LXF. But that is not a rod that I use a whole lot throughout the year so it is down the list a bit.

I don't really have an answer, but I do have a question. If you want a rod VERY similar to the Dobyns, why not just buy the Dobyns?