Reel buying time!

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awesome guy
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Reel buying time!

Post by awesome guy »

I'm switching my inshore spinning rods out for inshore casting. Thinking the extra control will give me an edge when hitting grass beds and weed lines. Additionally, I built my spinning rods on cheap $10 and $20 blanks, which I broke a couple. I'm upgrading them to a much better and more resilient blank that'll have more power, yet is also tougher and more durable. Actually, I got a couple different ones. They're pretty much the same blank only I got a medium for swimbaits and a medium-heavy for plugging. I also got some sweet Winn grips for them. Winn makes tennis racket and golf club grips. They just got into the fishing grip business and they feel fantastic. Lots of cushion and very tacky, perfect for wet and sweaty hands on long days on the water. And for the times I want more sensitivity, I got reel sets with the blank exposed, so I can keep my finger on that to get the extra touch, though I rarely need it with the species I target because they hit like a freight train and there's no doubt when you have a bite.

All of this also means new casting reels and so $$$. I don't mind putting money into a reel, I have a couple that are $300 a piece on my striper and big drum rods. But these are reels for the kayak and so I'm not sure I want that kind of coin seconds from disaster. On my spinning rods, I have Shimano Stradic FIs and Penn Battle IIs. They're fantastic reels, but I did go cheap one year with Daiwa Lagunas and they were total crap. They lasted just one season and couldn't handle the reds. I was worried about losing them flipping the boat and so went cheap, but I since got more confident in the boat and upgraded to the Penn Battle II which was great, yet not crazy expensive either. It's actually an amazing real for $100, really underpriced for what you get. I already had the Stratics and they're simply awesome, smooth like and butter and I've fished it hard for 6-7 years. But at $175, it's not $75 better than the Penn Battle II. Absolutely better, but just a bit over the Battle. The Battles are plenty good for most people. Anyway, I'm hoping to get something like that in the casting reels, that's super tough and smooth, yet not going to make me upset if it gets tossed out of the kayak. I'm between the ABU Garcia Revo Inshore, ABU Garcia Orra2 inshore, and Shimano Curado. It's really about how much do I want to spend? Daiwa has too big of a guide on their level wind and that'll mess me up because I'm building these as acid rods (also called spiral wrap). I have the ABU Garcia Revo Toro on my striper rod and that thing is da bomb. Casts great, lots of drag, and very smooth. So I want to stick with the Revo line, only on the smaller reels as the Toro will hold like 600 yards of 10 pound braid and that's just ridiculous. So I want a small reel. But something is telling me the Shimano may be the ticket though as it's not that expensive and they make high precision stuff. Anyway, I'm rambling mostly to get my thoughts straight on what I want. I'm thinking the end result is really going to be me with 4 rods on the yak instead of 2 or 3. I'll still take and use my existing spinning rods when I'm trolling between spots and then will have these casting rods setup for drifting and casting. That way I don't have to switch out my lures and stuff between moves, like I do now. I'll troll a Who Dat Weedless spoon and something else, like a swimbait. Then switch the swimbait out for a topwater plug once at the area I want to drift. Now I'll just keep those rods as is and then have a plug and popping cork on the other rods.

I have another brilliant idea though that's going to make it easier to keep my rods in the kayak. I'm super paranoid about losing rods and so I keep them tethered to the kayak. All the ones not in my hand are tethered to something on the kayak, be it the rod holders or just clips for the seat. But on my current setup, I wrap the tether around the reel and then either untether the rod or be careful with it while casting. So my brilliant idea is I'm modifying my butt caps with a piece of aluminum or steel laid out the diameter of the rod. And then will drill a hole in the cap, run a piece of yarn through it with a loop tied off through the metal bar for support. And that will be the tether point, at the butt of the rod. I'll still untether the rod I'm actively fishing with, but it'll make life much easier for the case I need to reel one in super fast, like when I'm trolling with 2 rods out. Say I get a fish on the port side, the first thing I do is reel in the starboard rod so it doesn't get tangled as the kayak is spinning from the other fish. The tether can easily get caught up in the reel, especially the spinning reels. So if this works, all of my rods will have the tether point on the butt cap to keep it out of the way of moving parts. So I'll naturally put new butt caps on the spinning rods to give this feature as they'll need it the most.
Unvaccinated,. mask free, and still alive.
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awesome guy
Posts: 54187
Joined: Wed Aug 21, 2013 7:10 pm
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Re: Reel buying time!

Post by awesome guy »

so .....

I went with the ABU Garcia Orra2 inshore. Got 2 of them for both of my new rods. And they're the bomb. They're pretty close to the specs of the ABU Revo, but also $100 cheaper so I saved $200 using woman math :)

I went simpler with the tether and just cut off a piece of cord from a minnow trap, ran it through a hole, tied a big knot, and glued that in. Works great, I figured the eva foam was strong enough to not need a metal reinforcement.

Bigger picture, I'm loving these rods. They're bombing out lures in my test casts. I can get over 40 yards on each while sitting down, like in the kayak, and 50+ yards standing. Just incredible distance and incredibly accurate. I'll use them shortly with the shad run and then can't wait to see how they handle puppy drum. Next up on the plate is a new striper rod. I need something soon that can throw 2-3 ounces because I broke that rod last year. So hopefully I can get the parts in for that next week. That one will be an acid rod too, but it has a ABU Revo Toro waiting to pair with it.
Unvaccinated,. mask free, and still alive.
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