bulldog1935

Jun at Japan Tackle recommends only hard braid for baitcasters, and Spiderwire braid is one he specifically recommends. Though I haven't found problems using coated braids like 832, YGK, and Duel hardcore. Just recently threw away the remnant spool of a 10-lb Spiderwire copolymer that only got fished one day. My daughter caught 3 massive sheepshead on the flats on Penn 4200SS + Falcon Open Hook Special. The line literally extruded to a tiny diameter and dug inside the spool, ending the day. It's ok, we were done fishing and brought home a great meal of schoolie specs, but stripped the reel, replaced the line with Abrazx, and only kept the remnant spool for leader.

@Ski just gotta reach in and get it not this river largemouth, but my best hen endemic Guadalupe bass, pushing 5 lbs, lived at a bat cave vent, and got her size eating the baby bats that fell in.

and the spool is on the reaction side of the force balance. If you have a big fish on your line, a larger spool means you have to overcome more opposing torque to be able to turn the crank, the smaller spool is easier to take up (less) line.

@Mjmj actually, I have a new Steez and it's beyond silky.

The erroneous handle statement gets repeated over and over on this forum. A reel is a gearbox. You put torque into it, reduced torque comes out of it, some of that work turned into speed. The more speed, the less torque. Open the hood on your car. Your transmission doesn't do anything without the engine. If you put more torque into the reel through a longer handle, you get more torque out of it. The length of the handle affects how fast you turn the reel - it's simple ergonomics. With a shorter handle you can spin faster because you use more wrist and less arm. If you match it with lower gears, it's still easy to turn. A longer handle is easier to turn because of the leverage, but you don't naturally turn it as fast. If you work the circumference of each handle rotation, it exactly plugs into the effective final gear ratio. Power equals force-times-distance. Torque equals force-times-radius; in this case, radius = handle pitch.

I think it's a fair guess he's not in the $300 market for a starter casting reel. 1/4 oz is a pretty good norm for lower limit on starter baitcaster. 1/4 to 1/2 oz is also a really good range to learn the reel. Agree with @brophog and @Kdizzle, 3/16 oz and down belong to spinning tackle. You can throw down to 1/16 oz with special "BFS" baitcaster combo, but I would keep this option in a back pocket for later - first target where baitcaster shines, and learn to use it.

Haven't found a low profile baitcaster yet that I wanted to buy two of, have each dialed-in to their best niches, and have only fished one I didn't want at all (Lew's Custom Inshore). The oldest (in service) is Lew's Super Duty G, 20-lb 832 braid plus mono backing, a stout and reliable distance reel, wind reel, on my MM rod (inshore kayak, would be the equivalent of most MHF). Miles of big fish on this reel, and I could be tempted by a new G3 to get the P2 pinion. Lew's Team Pro SP is in ML niche, has only fished hard one day so far (retired the Custom Inshore) and is a joy with light X-braid (PE#1, 22 lb test). My back-up reel stored in a small Pelican is Lew's Tournament Pro, also a joy, and fished one hard day (including a 24" flounder) when a rod-wrap backlash put away my Super Duty. Loaded with 20-lb 832 plus mono backing to move between both niches above. Just set up a Steez 1016 for BFS, (Roro X spool, fixed brake rotor, PE#0.8 X-braid, 16-lb test). Holy cow does this cast nothing. Sorely tempts me for another, did buy a third (BFS) spool with SV complication for casting more weight, planning to load PE#1.2, 27-lb test, to walk it through all 3 niches. If I can get away, looking at a good tide week after next for its baptism. Spinning - go-to for the dark and first-light topwater. Inshore MM is Stradic FL4000 with PE1520 spool and 15-lb, 0.14 mm braid (Florida Fishing Products). A workhorse. Have Stradic FL5000 in offshore topwater niche for 300 yds 36-lb X-braid (other offshore reels are Tica Caiman 150 for jigging, and Seigler SGN for trolling). Had a Tica Libra SX3000 in the inshore MM niche before Stradic tempted me, fishes great, built to last, and has landed many big fish - it's a frequent loaner when friends want to paddle the salt. The kayak finesse niche that the Steez is going into is currently filled by a Stradic C2000SHG. We rig a lot of finesse rods for change up nite-lite dock fishing, standing winter trips to Arroyo Colorado. Three other reels I have in this niche are Vanquish C2000S, Stradic C1000S and Tica Libra SX1500. These are fishing 6-lb 832 to 12- and 14-lb X-braid. Also have 3 surf reels, one spinning and two conventional... My occasional reservoir bass fishing gets a random grab, what I feel like fishing that day. Paddling the perimeter of this 400-acre hill country no-motors reservoir is as much a priority as the fishing.

oops, wrong thread

It's a flagship reel for them, handmade in Japan, aluminum body, Zaion rotor, fully sealed body and bearings. If you want Daiwa, I'd guess it's their most durable spinning reel. The Daiwa I'd buy if I could justify it is the new JDM magnesium-bodied Luvias, with long-stoke braid-specific spools, but there's a waiting list in Japan, plus I don't need it That's also put some good discounts on last year's JDM Luvias with full Zaion body.

On Shimano spinning reels, spool shim washers compress in creep under constant drag load. When I re-line them, I re-shim them. Another reason I like Tica - their overqualified spool shim washers don't seem to be affected by long-term drag set. If you look at a baitcaster drag stack, there's nothing in there that's going to change shape over time.

if I picked an 8.1, I'd put a long handle on it, which lets me put more torque into the drive. 6.3, I'd fish it with a short handle, which lets me crank faster.

that's a 15% difference in lure speed, 15% difference in torque you're able to deliver through the gears - at what point do you notice it? It's enough difference that you should be able to identify which you prefer for a fishing niche. It's enough difference you might prefer a different handle pitch.

many of us here cut our teeth on Fenglas Lunkerstik, Lew's Speed Stik, Berkley Tri-Sport, and Garcia Conolon. The only new glass casting rod I've fished is a Lami Classic Glass steelhead rod for inshore drift fishing, but the best glass bass rod I've used is Falcon - these turn up on ebay occasionally. My offshore rods are e-glass. As far as handling big bass, glass rods are much tougher than graphite, and virtually indestructible. My St. Croix Legend (S-) Glass spinner is the most perfect MM kayak rod I own, and is lighter in hand than my Crowder IM6 MM bait rod.

@Mjmj While gearing has always been Shimano's best thing, I'll have to agree Daiwa is ahead on spool and spindle design, and non-linear casting brake that doesn't need a chip.

Asian Portal website can be tedious to plod through and find their inventory - look for the yellow tags, those are items in stock. Their search function is terrible, certainly because of language barrier. Find the reel style (baitcasting, spinning), find the manufacturer, and go through their listings by price-range looking for the yellow stock tags. Newer listings show up on the early pages, and they may have odd inventory on deeper pages. The prices listed on their website are in US dollars, but they bill JPY instead from their internal inventory price, so your paypal invoice may be different from their website-listed dollar amount - this is because the listed amount is always fixed on the JPY conversion the day they listed the item on their website. My first purchase was a Vanquish, and I ended up paying 10% less than the price they had listed, making it an extraordinary buy. I bought two Stradics from them for a relative song. Most recently, I bought a Steez, and my invoice came in 5% higher - still a great deal, and their gratis FedEx on $100 order is always a great deal. I assembled one small order with them that totaled $110 in their listed prices, but didn't clear the free shipping requirement in that day's actual exchange rate, until I found one more small item to add. Yes, I've bought 4 reels from them, and more than that in small parts and lines orders. Buying from Japan is most always a good deal when the dollar is more than 100 JPY, and Asian Portal discounts more than most vendors. I've been shopping in Japan for 20 years, since you had to use a broker to overcome language and their domestic banking laws. Asian Portal communication is not great, but they are totally reliable, and I get shipping notification from my FedEx log-in. FedEx is also the very best courier from Japan, flying non-stop from Sennan-Shi to Memphis. The current national holiday closes everything through May 5 - they'll be open next Thursday.

There's a difference between reels made on the Taiwan line and more expensive models bench-assembled in Japan. In Taiwan, they take parts out of the bin, assemble the reel and send the reel down the line. On the Japan benches, they parts-match to improve smoothness - sort and pair parts that work better together. Part of what you pay for in higher grades. Not questioning the lube, but there's a randomness in manufacturing that could affect what you're feeling. I always use the example of my Vanquish and Stradics. Without the Vanquish, would never notice the difference, but with both together, the extra smoothness of the Vanquish is striking.

Actually, you can set the South Bend 1131A so absolutely no thumb is needed to brake or stop the reel once you release it to cast. The knob on the side adjusts the stand-off of a wool pad to the spool - when the bail drops, the pad is moved by spring tension into the spool. You also have the spindle tension adjustment - between the two, you can dial it perfectly. It doesn't cast a long way. Here's the SB reel matched with a SB Cross DoubleBilt cane bait rod. The reel is a model 12, the year it was introduced - 1912 -the rod is a bit younger, but not by much. The SB ABL patent continued, matched with Marhoff LW reels built by Shakespeare for SB well after the war. @Linewinder I never said the SB ABL was good, just said it worked, and it does, casting 3/8 oz and more. The diminutive Shakespeare 1740 Tournament, on the other hand, is very good, excellent with light weights - I have 4-lb silk line on it - and yes, requires proper thumb to make it work. What you can't see with it lined is it has an alloy spool - the only aluminum prewar bait spool - and a balsa arbor, making it very BFS-like. The first centrifugal brake patent, Redifor, 1915, also works too well and costs too much distance - Pretty reel, though. I talk about all these reels in more detail here You guys like the old stuff? - Fishing Rods, Reels, Line, and Knots - Bass Fishing Forums (bassresource.com) somewhere on the thread I come out and state you'l get a lot better with your modern reel if you learn how to cast a 100-y-o NLW.

won't pass up the obvious dumb question here - have you checked the spool drag setting? After that, next step is identifying the click pattern v. handle rotation - how many times - does it match 1x handle rotation or 1x rotor rotation. If it's the latter, could be anywhere from the pinion gear up through the rotor. A/R bearing would be a good suspect. If it's the former, might want to look at the main gear and main bearing.

There are simple hardness issues where metal contacts resin bosses. The hardest of resins, acetyl, is still softer than aluminum. The resin can change its shape under contact stress - what's called brinnelling when it happens to metal gear teeth - mashing. The TA vid I linked above is talking about sliding wear on the resin "bushing," and both mechanisms can be going on at at the same time, allowing the gear or metal bearing to walk around in the boss that's supposed to pin it. Flexure of the macro structure is an added concern.

An argument that's been going 109 years. The curious thing is why there's an argument. Bait finesse was also here before WWII - this diminutive freespool will fish less than 1/8 oz.

and I was making spiral and pendulum casts with weightless rig on 7' rod and Daiwa Millionaire 40 years ago. Used to PO guides - they'd tell me what was wrong with my cast, and I would double theirs. I always made them look good at the dock, though. Lew's was a big step up.

Night fishing. @Darth-Baiter Especially for fine braid, I would go with the 2000 size Vanford. The combo above with Vanquish C2000S had landed doubles, with redfish on one end.

Before Speed Spool, and the development of newer low profile baitcasters, the level wind moved during the cast, and its motion was taken directly off the spool through the idler gear. That's a braking effect. The reels also had centrifugal brakes - centrifugal brake was Abu's big patent Not to defame or down-rate the importance of thumb in casting, just clarifying facts. If you want to cast a really zippy Abu, try a non-level-wind CT. Tournament casters typically wear a piece of bicycle innertube as a "thumb glove" so they don't burn their thumb.

jerk is a physical measurement - it's the time derivative of acceleration. What causes start-up backlash is the jerk of initial spool movement. It takes more force to start the spool spinning than it does to keep it spinning, and that's what causes start-up overshoot. If you add jerk in your rod motion, you greatly increase the excess force reaction, and no casting brake can overcome it. Force is mass-times-acceleration. By adding jerk in your rod motion, you're essentially increasing the excess force by acceleration-squared.

@cal9323 absolutely - you can solve everything with spindle tension, but get the shortest possible cast. I used to fabricate bronze cap shims for my dad, because he wore through them. (I have strip phosphor bronze around for fabricating springs for antique reels) All the recommendations for smooth acceleration in your cast are spot-on. Any jerk put into a cast is only backlash. The starting point on spindle tension is to barely have over-run when you let your weight drop to the ground. You can set centrifugal brakes much higher than mag brakes without affecting cast distance.