Gear advice

[Hier Soir]

Originally Posted by LaAngler

i tell you what man if your looking to budget it's hard to beat the 50 dollar all star and castaway medium light academy specials. put a shimano citica on it and go to town.

i have a couple all star 6'-5" wader specials that are a light sensitive little stick for 49 bucks.

i use a medium action for throwing plugs. medium light can do jigs and plugs

Sums up the way I go also. Leave any heavy action stuff at home unless you like rippin' lips and loosing fish. Just make sure you take a good look at the eye placement of those "specials". They can look like the guy that put them on was smokin' some serious green leaf! I bought a 7' 6" Allstar and had to really search for one that had the eyes properly aligned. Looked at about 7 different rods before finding one with the eyes lined up. I prefer the Castaway 7' SLX 3 Series medium action matched with my Curado 201e7. This baby has survided some brutal fish and even been totally sumerged in Big Lake and has never given me an ounce of trouble. A durable combination with a great feel for those light bites you tend to get with larger trout or on those cold days when its like you're jig fishing for bass and the only indication of a fish on the end of your line is the movement going upstream. My rods all range in date from about 10 years old to 2 months old and my reels are all Shimano (mostly Curados) rangeing from about 15 years to 2 years old. You can get far better quality rods from a custom rod builder but will pay a good bit more also. I tend to budget more for my reels than I do the rods because if someone or something lands on one of my reels, I'm quite certain it will survive better than the rod. I'm sure they are really nice by all the testamonies on this site, but a little out of my reach for right now. If you can afford a custom rod, stick with someone like BillyStik. This guy has offered to go beyond what is needed to get your business. Obama's change and life's unexpected surprises keep me away from the customs so I make do with what I can afford.