Review of tackle for bull redfish, bull drum, and big gafftops

[MathGeek]

We expect to focus on other research interests for the remainder of our LA trip, but since this group was so kind with equipment recommendations, I thought I should provide some feedback on how our equipment worked.

Our spinning combos are Shimano Symetre 3000 FS reels with 7' medium heavy Ugly Sticks. The reels are spooled with 30 lb power pro. This combination throws the 4-6 oz lead weights with crab or cut mullet with ease and also works very well when fighting bulls and big gafftops. In lower tides, it also throws a 1 oz weight pretty far as well. The reels added about 30% to the casting distance compared with the Shakespeare reels used previously. The drags on these reels are very good and smooth and easily adjusted while fighting a big fish.

Depending on the tides, a 4 or 6 oz pyramid weight will hold the bottom in Caminada pass even with a half of a big blue crab catching the current.

The Mustad 6/0 live bait hooks with short shanks and offset hook points were the best I've ever used in terms of maximizing the hook up rate and not shaking out during the fight. Every fish that got hooked stayed on, and we did not have a single instance of a strong run beginning without a hook up, but we did have some weaker runs without hook ups, we suspect catfish which could not get the whole crab completely into their mouth. This is now my go to hook for crab.

We lost a big fish to a Sampo snap swivel failure and will be moving to only a barrel swivel.

The power pro (30 lb) and Ande 60 lb fluorocarbon leader material performed flawlessly. I never fish more than two days without replacing the leader material because I've had some knot failures in past years fishing fluorocarbon leaders too many days in a row. Since I have to retie the knots at both ends anyway, I go ahead and replace the leader.

The Daiwa Sealine SGA27LC reels with 50 lbs of power pro performed flawlessly paired up with 6 ft heavy Ugly Sticks. You can really horse bulls away from structure with these rigs and bring them to the boat quickly if needed.