bulldog1935

Lew's Super Duty G five years in the salt now - paid $130 new from an ebay discounter. I upgraded the spool and spindle bearings with 3 non-shielded HD bearings, so they get oiled after every extended trip. For 1/4 oz and up, it out-casts every other reel I fish around it. I literally can't remember a backlash except the day I had a one-turn wrap on the rod tip, and retired it for my spare reel. It came back fishing 20-lb Sufix 832 braid over Mason big mono backing, and I've enjoyed it even more. The design and parts manufacturing between mid-range and flagship reels are pretty much the same. What you pay for in the high dollar reels are expensive materials - magnesium and titanium - and greater manual attention in assembling the reels - parts pairing for extra smoothness.

Big time fan of weightless and USB-charge Nitecore NU-20. $30 Hands-free for rigging, and a wide range in brightness settings from just-rite-nite-lite to blind-your-neighbor-should-you-choose. Also a funny story - went looking for mine. Oh no, it was in a clothing article that went through the wash. Works perfectly...

Needed a few reel parts, and started a cart at Plat. Best place I know for schematics and parts, and JDM lists divided spool parts you can only see on US schematics and parts sources as a complete spool assy. I always look for good stuff, lures, especially finesse, and tools to round out my order and make my FedEx charge worthwhile. Includes some tiny salt-resistant split rings I need, and really trick Smith split-ring tweezers for the fine stuff. Also some tiny salt jigheads you can only find in Japan. In lures, I added Tackle House Rolling plugs and Moovy plastic bodies. Tackle House is top shelf (Megabass makes larger version rolling plugs), and I've also had good luck with TetraWorks lures. The Movvies have a notch that forms a swimming plug lip on your jighead. You can install them between fast (retrieve or current) and slow. Borrowed this Plat video for Movvy, and another for the amazing action of the Tackle House rolling plug (will probably swap those size 14 trebles for size 6 singles), and the 4.5-g lure (or should I say 70-gr) is a virtual bullet for BFS. have some Z-man Neds arriving today, and a salt shad body color I was down to my last. ok, here's the rest and this is too cool - I've never been able to work #1 and #0 split rings before. With the Smith split ring tweezers, they just glided.

Fine, but I have two Takamiya, 7'6" ST and 7'9" tubular tip, I've fished over a dozen years, including sight-fishing 22" and 23" seatrout in summer canals - these were modest-priced rods. They've landed doubles with snook and redfish on 2-g-jig tandem rigs. Standard fare for us imitating glass minnows in the Texas tropics during standing winter trips to Arroyo City. Newer, I have 8' NS Black Hole (modest priced), 8'3" Yamaga Blanks TZ Nano (flagship), and just added the Yamaga Blanks 8'2" Blue Current III baitcaster (mid-priced). I've seen Lou and his wife both crank in the Major Craft ST until the tiptop doubled over to the first guide, and they're still catching fish on the rod. Autter on ebay has three models of NS Black Hole Dark Horse Rockfish II (two UL, one ML) in stock currently, and I can recommend my 1st-gen rod as workhorse UL.

Here are 15 choices, fluorocarbon 1-lb test or less, and in stock (the search sneaked in a few over 1 lb) they also have good prices on tuning parts, handles, and braid.

Abu 5500C3CT hands down - the answer to the title of this thread. Tournament distance casters all use variations on this reel. I recently set up a Steez for 2g with Roro-X spool (lightest 6-g spool made), and fishing in the same spot that I was before using a Vanquish C2000S on an 8' UL small game (rockfish) rod, I was casting 3-g plugs on the baitcaster on 8'2" small game rod farther and more accurately than I could 5-g plugs on the small game spinner. That said, you're in the XUL universe casting less than 1 g, and even though some BFS spools claim they can do it, I'd be looking at long Japanese small game spinning rods with solid tip and 0.3-g low-end capability. Major Craft is a good place to begin. My buddy has one rated that low and it fishes the light stuff very well. They're designed for casting from shore to fish sign. The nicest thing about the Japanese rockfish rods, they have a wide lure range and can still fish 1/4- to 3/8-oz at the high end (the longer the rod, the higher the high-lure-weight end). Major Craft, NS Black Hole - makers with US importers - don't import these rods here - you have to find them in Japan or Korea.

I'm going to add the first vote for Seaguar fluorcarbon in 12-lb. Not the spendy Tatsu, but Red label. If you choose the equally cost-effective Yo-Zuri copolymer, I'd recommend 10-lb.

What the OP stated on the first page is that he's experiencing mid-cast wind backlash on long casts. He wouldn't know this if he wasn't feeling it with his thumb. The solution has also been given - add one click of mag brake. Any talk of technique, mechanics or start-up backlash is non-sequitur, or simply projecting.

and still, without P2 pinion, but 3 HD unshielded spool and spindle bearings swapped-in, my Super Duty G fishes on and on and out-casts every other reel I fish around it. I'm sure it's safe to say P2 pinion is an upgrade to drive-life durability in Lew's reels. While the performance and durability of my long-lived Super Duty G that doesn't have P2 pinion says something good about Lew's LFS reel frame quality.

I put my P2-pinion SP through some serious big fish work last week, and the reel fared well - still buttery smooth. took this photo before with the open spindle cap when I was working on spool bearings, to show the spindle gap. But would be hard-pressed to call the pinion and bushing any kind of gap. It won't work with a press-fit, since the pinion needs to slide horizontally. I didn't check, but I suspect the pinion gear is tapered.

the symptom is too much spool shim. Might get the same result operating with a too-low drag setting. If the line isn't sitting deep in the line roller, but on the edge of the bail might also get that result. Can you show a photo of the spool stop on the spindle with the spool removed?

That's the exact brake that was on the Custom Inshore I donated to my bro, Lou. And of course, the one I never photographed. Kinda funny, explaining that brake to him is the part I edited out of my first post on this thread. I had it in 1/8 oz niche, and set up an SP to do better in that spot. (searching Lew's spools is what brought me to this forum) It's a really good brake combination for big weights - the niche where I'd never replace my Super Duty (except maybe for a new G3, or maybe a Daiwa SV).

Lew's centrifugal brake

I always start high and dial down until I get the incipient wind backlash, then take that last notch back. My reel is in a 1/4- and 3/8-oz niche, and usually stays set about 50% On overhead casts, you might be surprised by how you can improve simply thinking aim up.

good linear mag brake is king for long casts and eliminating wind backlash. When you get that incipient mid-cast backlash, you solve it by adding one click of mag brake. This is my oldest ,longest-service, and longest-casting LP baitcaster, Super Duty G

it is definitely possible to cast too hard, and with too much jerk. I wrote this for a buddy last week, and edited here for context: A cast is a ballistic shot - the fastest thing that happens is the lure and spool at release of the lure, and everything slows from there. Backlash occurs when the spool doesn't slow with the bait and line. Every 20% increase in initial velocity doubles cast distance. When a baitcaster spool starts up, it is always jerked by the lure weight. Jerk is a physics/engineering measurement - the time-derivative of acceleration, 2nd time derivative of velocity. Inertia is a property of rotating mass - resistance to change. It always takes greater force to start a mass spinning than it does to keep it spinning. Once it's spinning, greater mass and inertia takes more brake force to slow down. The first backlash is Spool Overshoot, caused by the jerk of the bait and inertia of the spool and line mass. Heavier weights increase the start-up jerk. Lighter weights decrease the jerk, but spool mass and inertia limits how far you can cast light weights. When your cast is approaching its highest vertical point - the apogee - gravity is slowing it. Here, it's most susceptible to wind, and the second backlash is called Wind Backlash. Often, mid-cast on long casts, the spool will "get fuzzy" with incipient wind backlash, then as the bait crosses apogee and gravity accelerates it a bit, the pending backlash will self-correct. (One more notch of linear brake here will eliminate that wind backlash.) The 3rd backlash is really simple - when the lure hits, the spool needs to stop. _______________________ There are four types of baitcaster brakes. Real world casting is usually a nonlinear mix of 2 or more of these brakes. Your thumb on the spool is a nonlinear force that you modulate - the longest possible cast uses only thumb for brakes. Spool end tension is a constant force on the spool. You can overcome all 3 types of backlash with spool tension, and get the shortest possible cast result. In general, the less spool tension you use, the longer your cast. With good spool brakes and skills, you only adjust the spindle tension to dial-out side play in the spool. Mag brakes are linear - that is, the force they exert increases with spool speed in a straight line. The slope of the line is controlled by the distance from magnets to any conductive metal (Lenz effect), and brake dials on reel palm plate set this distance. Their best effect is against wind backlash, and can get the longest possible casts with the lightest lures. Centrifugal brakes are nonlinear. They exert a centrifugal force on the spool, respond to acceleration and jerk, and their best effect is limiting start-up overshoot. When you get into Daiwa SV, that's a non-linear mag brake. Acceleration and jerk causes the brake rotor to ride a ramp outward, and deeper into the magnet field. When forces equalize on the spool and brake rotor, a spring retracts the rotor, and the mag force reduces and returns to linear. From what I've heard, even DC brakes will backlash if you cast with too much jerk.

bro, the microcast spool capacity is right there at the end of the listing I copied above and first linked: 0.31 mm - 90 m (US 12-lb mono - 100 yds) In 50-lb Sufix 832 that's 75 meters = 83 yards.

that was already addressed above, but I'm not sure why you'd need a quarter-mile of 50-lb braid to bomb frogs. is 80 yds of 50-lb not enough? And again, if you switch to X-braid, the microcast spool capacity is 150 yds 50-lb.

I would say yes, I'm using the Abu 6500 version in the surf for bull reds, and casting 2-oz spider weights. The Avail spools won't be compromised like the much lighter Roro and Ray's Studio spools.

My buddy Steve retired one day on the flats with a new Revo side plate letting go mid-cast (and a spool shim issue on his IRT spinning reel). It became the deciding factor when I didn't buy a JDM Revo LX992Z Japan Finesse Special, and instead bought my first Daiwa in over 40 years

The purpose of the microcast spool is to limit capacity, mass, and inertia, and with it, backlash. The added bonus is improved cast distance and reliability, which is reduced cast effort, over a wider lure weight range. I hope this thing is on @jimmyjoe Our friend asked for a new reel that's better for braid and fits the comfort of his old reel. How about improving the old reel that's already comfortable Noisy 50-lb braid is not going to improve by switching to random 65-lb braid (that was certainly a vasoline number). If you're not after tuna, I don't get the choice to fish more than 20-lb 832 braid - unless you're simply trying to fill a big, deep spool. Better braids are more than twice the test of 832 for the same diameter - and 832 is good braid, with good manners. The 90 m 0.31-mm-diameter line capacity that the microcast spool is rated gives many better braid options than the deeper and greater capacity stock spool. One can compare those line diameters on this excellent line capacity calculator. And if you want to take the simple approach, fitting for the purpose of this reply @new2BC4bass the 100 yds 0.31 mm braid would be 40-lb test Sufix 832. The two together would improve our OP's splight - quieter braid and the ability to cast a wider lure range farther with less effort and less backlash.

@jimmyjoe upgrade your Curado spool with a 10-g Avail microcast spool Ultra light tuning spool for 2014 Scorpion 200, Curado 200i, 15Curado 200 JDM, Citica 200. With this spool you may cast from 5g 3/16oz without effort. Please use SVS Infiniti brake holder from original spool, and Avail SVS puller 4 white, listed at the end of spool section, is helpful to remove SVS. Spool weight 9.9g(Scorpion genuine 14.2g) 0.31mm(US12lb)-90m(100yds)

In every way the old Millionaire 6H is a clone of an Abu 6500. The fun part is the bull reds I caught in the surf with it. When they take your bait and you set the hook, their reaction sends a shock wave that goes all the way down and back up your spine. The ones I didn't catch either spooled me or straightened out 60-lb swivels with the clasp pinched with pliers. Surf fishing at night is manly sport. . You won't get the advantage of a large diameter spool until you cast one. They still make great parts for sexing out these old reels. This spool is 5 mm deep, the same weight as a Daiwa G1 spool, and holds 200 yds braid. I promise this reel will double the cast distance of any reel you own, especially with 1/4 oz. you would be amazed how far this Talbot from 1914 will cast. Even without free spool, it would out-cast everything until ball-bearing Abu CT (above) Meek No. 3 and Talbot are what every tournament distance caster used until the advent of Abu CT ball bearing spool - and some continued with the 60-y-o Meek and Talbot. If you really want to get good with your new baitcaster, learn to use one of these. this diminutive prewar Shakespeare freespool is the original BFS reel, and will fish 1/8 oz

Daiwa Millionaire 6H in 1978 It started on a 6' Fenglas Lunkerstik, and later swapped between a 7-1/2' Browning Hi-Power for inshore and surf (my first graphite rod). I was making spiral and pendulum casts with weightless rigs a few years later, But the surf killed the nickeled-brass worm gear, and Daiwa wouldn't support it with parts in 1984. I bought my first Lew's, BB-1NG, and didn't look back. I bought my next Daiwa just this year.

well, no, to the former, and yes, the SGN lever drag is great for jigging. As a teenager worm fishing, always preferred b/c, too - just feels more directly connected. Here's my main offshore jigging reel, also doubles up for a 2nd trolling rod (there's 300 yds braid under there, too). This rod is spiral-wrap Jigging World Nexus.