bulldog1935

If you plan to fish braid, it's smarter to go for a smaller/shallower spool. 240 yds 8-lb is pretty big capacity. Big diameter spools are nice to mono/fluoro, but braid capacity can be so big you end up with poor line lay. Same spool will lay mono perfectly. You can always look later in Japan for a Daiwa shallow braid spool that fits the reel. Spare spools can be handy with spinning reels.

For $150, I would raise the ante by $30, go to Asian Portal or Digitaka and buy a Shimano Stradic 2000 or 2500 with free courier express shipping. Edit to add that Stradic is the lowest-price reel that copies Stella mechanism, gearing and A/R clutch, so that the parts interchange. Shimano Nasci wouldn't make my list (no main bearing or even bushing). I would take low end Daiwa over any low end Shimano, and I'll rate Tica Libra SX1500 as the best $100 reel you can buy.

throwing 1/8 oz tube jig.

Shimano Cardiff 300 and Ambassadeur 5600C4 both have the right line capacity. I would stick either on a Lamiglas X-11 LX 79 BC This MH combo would fit your price range, and fish both. Could probably even take it to the surf. @sculpinman I recommend 14-lb fluoro to cover both. Tough and forgiving with a learning curve. Set your drag to 4-1/2 to 5 lbs and land anything. Me, personally, I'd stick in a shallow spool and fish 27-35-lb X-braid, but that's me.

Sufix 832 is extremely well-behaved braid, on both baitcast and spinning tackle and never had it bleed color - it does fade.

I never buy "factory pre-set" Especially since I'm always moving spools, maybe even changing the zero adjuster knob. Like you, I always set to 1 mm side play. But if I'm working on any bait reel, first thing is relax that pre-set, and the last thing I do is re-set it. I'm responsible for my zero adjuster adjustment, and my latch mechanism, too.

This is really really simple and too often ignored. -- Whenever you want to open and close a side plate latch, back off the spool tension knob so it's not loading the spool against the latch you want to open or close -- You don't even need a youtube for this. Not doing this is the source of gripes on every side plate latch including Revo.

My go-to has been 12-lb mono/fluoro on baitcasters and 10-lb on spinning reels for as long as I can remember. It's your list of lures that would send me to the 10-lb. for this set-up - - pretty much the exact range I fish on my Valleyhill BFS all-range, with some lighter stuff thrown in.

I bought a Steez SV-TW, then bought a Zillion. I've had both on the water, and fished the Zillion hard a few weeks ago. I like the 1000-size reels because of the 34-mm dia spool. The 21 Zillion is essentially the '19 Steez with LW bushings instead of BB, aluminum frame instead of magnesium (more like a Steez A twin minus the BB). Spools swap between them. You can upgrade the worm shaft bushings to BB if you're motivated (not that it's necessary). The big difference with older Mag-Force Daiwas is the newer SV reels have stronger magnets, allowing them to have thinner, lighter-weight spool brake rotor. The whole spool mass thing becomes a positive-reinforcing circle - less mass, more effective brakes, less brakes needed, etc. - a lesson many on the forum won't acknowledge, but reel makers learned and keep moving forward. Each generation of moving-rotor SV spools is going to get a little better, as Daiwa tunes spool mass, rotor and SV spring rate.

take photos so you can refer to them later - bread crumbs to find your way home

@Big Hands thanks, I got the idea for a scooting crab watching crabs on the beach, running sideways and holding their big claw up to threaten you. It's loosely spun bucktail trimed, burned-ends mono eyes tied-in, first epoxy coat, final trim on the bucktail, and final epoxy coat. The only place you can really fish it is in the mud patch along the edge of the mangroves - all the way to the back of the lakes. Both that big drum, and another redfish on another day saw me - if you're stealthy, they don't know you from a heron in a funny hat. Each time, the fish was slowly gliding away from the fly - and me - stopped, shuddered, raced back and grabbed the fly. Of course while all this is going on you're not breathing, and your heart may skip a few beats, too.

Vanquish is magnesium frame and spool with CI4+ rotor. It's also $150 more than Vanford at Asian Portal prices. Vanquish is the lowest-inertia reel ever made - no effort to start or stop. You can't tell the difference with Stradic, though, until you have them side by side - when you stop reeling with Vanquish, the drive through the handle doesn't try to keep moving your hand - it just stops. What you really gain with Vanquish is Japan bench parts-matching vs. Malaysia assembly line.

The only USM braid I'll mess with is Sufix 832 - 20-lb on baitcasters, and 15-lb and below on spinning tackle. This braid is very-well-behaved, coated, smooth and Round. For higher breaking strength, I go straight to Japan X-braids, Duel and YGK, and have a spool of Yamatoyo Resin Shell in transit (with a parts order) for a first try. The X-braids double the strength of 832 at the same diameter. On your Vanford, you can always back up on the spool, use the less-desirable braid for backing, and top with higher-quality working braid.

One day we hit an amazing blackwater day in the surf at Cedar Bayou, the remote barrier island pass where Jean Lafitte used to scrape off the Mexican Navy. Half-a-dozen long boat rides before, we had arrived to find the aftermath - a million pieces of mullet bobbing in the surf, and couldn't buy a strike. Our dues were all paid up this day, low tide, low wind, low surf - we had finger mullet hiding at our feet, rafts of big mullet being slashed at the gut, and every wave crest carried a daisy chain of surfing speckled trout. You didn't have to cast, could daub a mullet-looking fly and hook up. I hooked a 25-lb stingray on the fly rod, and fought it while each of my friends filled a limit stringer of specs. It's ok, after I got my fly back from the stingray - trick is to roll them over on their back and hold them down - - after recovering my fly, still got my spec limit, too. And to make this post on topic, a couple of fly rod epoxy spoons. Wading and sight-fishing Fence Lake, the mylar spoon took my PB redfish (32") and the crab took my PB black drum (25")

A magnesium reel frame is 40% lighter than aluminum. The strength and stiffness is designed-in. Both reels have centrifugal brake and alloy gears. From that list, I would leap on the $200 Hypermag, but there's really not much difference, and even the half-ounce weight difference isn't that much. But you probably won't find another $200 magnesium-frame reel out there (most are $400).

It's a question of how far down you have to reach - there are two basic spool designs - bearing inside the spool hollow, and bearing outside the spool flange - and two matching tool designs. I have the inexpensive Billings copy of the Hedgehog design, and found a discounted price on the SLP Works tool when I first needed it If I needed the Daiwa tool all over today, I would definitely buy the Roro copy. If you try this at home, note most spool pins are tapered - when you pull the pin out, you'll see 3 different diameters - the hole in the spool spindle may also have a skinny side and a wider side. The center diameter of the pin is a press-fit in the center diameter of the spindle hole, and the wide end of the pin is a bump-stop against an internal shoulder. -- Don't try pushing it through the wrong way, or you'll damage the spool spindle -- I do just about everything under an Ott magnifier + lamp. @Phil77 and no worries, broad generalizations, often incorrect and misinformed - certainly misapplied - are the rule rather than the exception on BR. I once tried a noisy ceramic bearing, reels are supposed to be slow, improved spool bearings are only for BFS, ABEC numbers are all that matters etc.

you have to be careful - that style pin tool will reach the pin on fully flanged deep spools. Even Hedgehog who invented that style tool states it won't work on spools from all reel models. It can't reach the pin on recessed hollow spools (center flange) - - here shows where it can't possibly reach the pin on Lew's SP spool - - for these deeper pins you need the Daiwa SLP Works style pin tool. Roro sells both. The pin-driver is on a deep anvil that reaches down into the hollow

Unshielded spool bearings improve casting by reducing inertia, even with 4-oz spider weight and that much meat in the surf. Every gram of brake force that you don't have to use increases cast efficiency. Less cast effort improves cast reliability. You just have to make the choice to give them the maintenance attention. I've noted the noise varies with reel model - service load and bearing rating may be a factor there: IXA micro bearings in my Daiwas and Alcance are ghostly quiet. Same bearings in Super Duty sound like a playing card in your bicycle spokes (intentional hyperbole) - loaded spool mass may be the difference. ZPI unshielded SiC returned the reel to ghostly quiet. All reel bearings are standard metric sizes - what you'll find are different ways of naming the bearing sizes. JapanTackle has a very good spool bearing size chart by reel make and model - I'd copy it, but it's too big to fit in a post.

I believe you have the dual-brake SLP. It has a lot of fans and easy to set up for reliable casting, then dial in more mag brake for wind. That's a very good buy. The one Lew's brake I didn't take a photo, and I gave my Custom Inshore to my buddy Lou,

What might be worthwhile is checking Asian Portal price on Zillion. It's a step up in spool design. The main differences with Steez are frame MOC and absence of worm gear BB (which can be upgraded if you want to tackle it).

If you don't mind getting inside to oil your bearings every few months, the raciest and most cost-effective are Roro - I linked the Revo X Note they' have 10% coupon when you show up on their websitee, plus they have a discount price. The main thing is they have stock on SiC 3-20-g, which covers a wide lure range - very fast. You're not going to find better spool bearings at this price. Jun Sonada at JapanTackle stocks Roro bearings (in lieu of Hedgehog) Note the spool pin - you're going to need a tool to remove and replace it. Roro also has the best-price tool for doing this, v. the $45 Daiwa tool. ps - if you're thinking about swapping out drive bearings, that's where you want shielded bearings with slow lube - factory bearings would be my choice.

Best approach is to identify a phase in your click. Look at the reel and note when the click occurs - is it always in the same place in handle rotation? Is it always at the same end of the LW? etc. (Does it happen 6.3 times in a handle rotation?) From there, we can start narrowing it down.

Friction contributes to start-up inertia, because it's a force that has to be overcome to start the mass spinning. The less brake you have to use to limit start-up overshoot (the reaction to start-up jerk) the more of your cast energy goes into casting. The other lesson learned on my 1500C, the centrifugal brake became pointless once the inertia was significantly reduced. Fishing 3 g isn't always the goal, and neither is casting to 130'. These are measures of what you can gain. In practice, what you gain is fishing whatever weight range with less effort and greater reliability. Of course you don't have to buy parts to improve a reel performance. But the fact they're out there and add a measured improvement is worth communicating - it's also fun if you like the tinkering. I used to back up inshore with Tica Caiman until I had to try it fishing 3/8 oz one day (Lew's BB-25SW fell off the bad-match reel seat mid-cast). I found a great niche for the Caiman in offshore jigging, where it shines at casting 2 to 4 ounces (100 g). While I'd rather have a Conquest, and might have one if offshore jigging was my go-to fishing, the $140 workhorse Caiman fills this niche pretty perfectly.

I improved on Don Iovino's good elbow grease and choice lubes - and after he told me that I wouldn't be able to. These reels certainly aren't dogs, but there's a growing amount of hyperbole on this thread. Mass and inertia are real and if you reduce either/both, you improve the reel. They offer parts that will reduce the mass of the LW by 80% Imagine what you can do without a LW

@Phil77 and @redmeansdistortion A little bit of hyperbole there, but you can make them perform remarkably for slave-spool level-wind. Ambassadeur free-spool was a clean sheet of paper in 1950, and it took another 30 years for the next big design jump (separating the LW from the spool). When I received my 1500C from Don Iovino with polished idler gear and Avail LW parts, it would free-spin 2 trips across the LW - 1 full cycle. Switching to Roro spool bearings increased that to 1-1/2 free spin cycles (3 trips across the LW worm gear). Swapping in the BB skeleton idler gear increased to 2 complete LW cycles in free spin. The really big step was switching to Avail 1520 7-g spool, which doubled the cast distance with 3 g - 40 to 80'. If you take the same approach with spool bearings and shallow light spool in a Daiwa SV, it will send that 3 g past 130' My 4600 that I showed above is getting AMO microcast spool, Roro bearings, Avail magnet, and Valleyhill and Kagawa LW parts.