Bigbox99

Go for it. It should do well with your bait range and the shallow spool has the plus of reducing small diameter braid dig in.

I don't even keep my fish. I throw them all back. Why would you care if someone catches more of a fish you are just going to throw back in the water. Never understood how this became something to brag about. Its not like you're selling them or eating them for sustenance. You are catching them and throwing them back because it's fun. That's why we do this. If there is anything to brag about its who had more fun doing it. If you like fishing rods and reels and enjoy catching and throwing back fish with nice ones you bought and personalized then you win. You had fun with just your fishing equipment before even getting on the water. You get to use it and catch fish too? Win win win.

It's pretty easy on the SV spools with their soft springs. A pair of tweezers is all you need.

Are the components like the cork in front of lock nut made in house or are those a lego part from the rod building industry?

How do you screw up the one or two only details on such a plain jane rod? This should be impossible for a $50 rod. Aren't they owned and run by Shimano? The company that can make space age rods like poison adrenas en masse. Are they just not involved at all with loomis at a low level?

That was the early 2nd gen Levantes. I do think the orochi xx and xxx are on the brittle side. I had an xxx BE2 that I snapped the tip off trying to untangle a group of rods. It was user error but I probably have user errored many rods in the past the same way and they didn't just give up and break off a tip like that. It turned me off on that gen of orochi xx and I am a big fan of the previous generation rods. Those 1st gen rods were tanks but heavy. I also like that the snake skin theme of the 1st gens came from the natural appearance of their carbon wrap instead of 2nd gens purely cosmetic skin. The brittle blanks, nub trigger and cheesy wrap on the blank turned me off to the 2nd gen rods so I never picked an xx or another xxx rod up.

Just make sure you track the bait with your eyes and stop the spool with your thumb when the bait hits the water. That's it. That's all the thumbing required. That's learning how to use a modern baitcast reel.

That or we get nothing and the 24 Steez is deemed to be sufficient to fill the role of the 19 Steez CT. It's a pretty small 32mm spool reel and the CT is a 30. What I would like to see happen is machined low profile the size of the Steez CT or smaller but using a standard 34mm spool. This would be impossible on a cast frame but when milled from bar stock it would be possible to carve out such a delicate frame shape but still retain strength. Loogzne reels already appear to do this. Side by side pics of the Bates Hundo next to an Alphas TW that it's spool is much wider with the reel still being more narrow indicating it has a spool close to the size of a 34mm Daiwa spool while still being a teeny tiny reel.

My money is on a 28mm deep SV Boost Steez CT without a spool tension knob like the 32mm 24 Steez. Guys with the Gelkabiijin and the Ray's 28mm deep SV long cast get to brag about being ahead of the curve.

These baits have diffrent attributes. It's not a case of which lipless is best as if they are the same type of bait. They are more like lipped cranks in that some are better for shallow water and others are better in deeper water/on the bottom. I favor the shallow running ones with a burn and pause retrieve over grass. For that I use the Super Spot because it naturally wants to rise and stay up in the water column. I hear the rattling Rapala is also good for this. There are also bottom bouncers that want to sink super fast and stay down more easily. This is something I will be getting into this later winter/early spring. I've used the Ripping Rap for this in the past but will be expanding to other baits. There is also the factor of how the bait falls. Some will glide, some will wiggle belly down and others will turn on their side and flutter. You really need a collection of the things and throw different baits to see what the fish want. If you are just starting out and fishing shallow I would recommend the Super Spot, Red Eye and Rattling Rapala.

Maybe I have owned too many $9 carbon handles but I now associate a quality forged alloy handle or machined handle with high end. Daiwa used to sell the RCS carbon handles for a pretty penny back when carbon handles were rare and exotic. Now that they are on every cheap aliexpress/amazon reel and having owned a few of them it seems like it takes more effort to make a great looking quality unpainted alloy handle than it does to make a carbon fiber handle. The difference in the appearance and quality between the alloy handles on high end reels and the alloy handles on $40 reels is more than the difference between the RCS carbon handle and the carbon handle on a $40 aliexpress reel I have found.

It also has a synchronized level wind. It's possible it has the two arm centrifugal brake like the Catalina BJ but there is no mention of it on their site. I suspect it's not made for casting and has no brakes.

Looks like a Ryoga without brakes meant for jigging.

2019 I think. So just before the current Zillion and Alphas. It even shares the same drag and compatible gear sets as those reels.

They do this when they are about to kill off a Steez. These new ones are kinda low effort IMO. When they 1st did this they gave the reel special frame porting, a reflective green paint finish and special dimpled SV spool that was super light weight. I'm thinking they are going to come out with a new CT with the hyper non adjustable knob from the 24 Steez. Hopefully with a new even more compact Steez CT frame too.

That's definitely true. I remember paying $100 in the early 2000s for "graphite" (plastic) frame reels and now we have great aluminum frame reels for that price. Inflation adjusted, that would put you into nearly $200 reel territory today.

It was probably doing it before but bringing it indoors into a quite environment for service has made the noise more noticeable.

Thats normal for that reel. The gears aren't the quietest and the plastic side plate let's noise transmit easily. You can try greasing the gears but that is only a temporary solution. The new Tatula HD 150 SV uses hyperdrive gears and is based on the same platform as the 17 Tatula SV so you could swap those in if you have the right Tatula SV. If it's the 2020 model your only option is to get new gears but the same thing will happen again and you'll just have to accept that it will never be a silent high end reel (it never was).

Trika is also introducing a reel that is remarkably similar to the Bates Hundo. I suspect it is also a Loognze. The advantage of these reels is that they machined from bar stock instead of cast and this construction allows for a reel to me minuscule yet strong. The aluminum is cast as an ingot and then rolled under pressure to press the alloy molecules together making a very dense and strong aluminum stock that can be machined into intricate shapes (such as tiny fishing reels) that would not be viable in a traditional casting molten aluminum alloy into a mold technique. https://www.tackletour.com/previewtrikat100reel.html

You might be able to cut out the middle man (Bates) and buy direct from the manufacture. They also offer a DC version of their low profile reel. https://www.loongzefishing.com/dbc-a100.html

We've already been at that point for some time. High end reels are primarily a luxury item today. That's sort of like complaining about the stock tires and wheels on a car. Yeah, it sucks that the USDM Daiwas have thiner knobs than most would like but for $11 or less you can put on a 95mm carbon fiber handle with Zillion HD like knobs on your reel. It's one screw and a 10mm nut. https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNGa1Qj

Day 71: the Conquests still do know I am a Millionare CT.

Sounds like an oldie but a goodie. It would be cool with a similar vintage Shimano reel. Something like a Curado B with more modern handle and knobs would be really cool.

Long casting, good with braided line (fast level wind preferred to prevent dig in), big power handle for winching in fish through the slop and a drag that can lock down.

Definitely let me know your finding here or on TT. I also have a Tatula Elite spool that needs a home.