onthefly

I use a sa intermediate sink tip main line is a yellow color and 15 ft tip is blue. I think the sink tip is important to get the fly down a little quicker than full floater yet the floating section helps lift it out of water to make a quick cast if your first is a little off

Trophy 2 is improved over trophy 1 new guides make it more braid friendly I love my 9ft 1 to 4 oz

I recommend a short push pull arm action keeping rod close to body check out any video of English carp fisherman that use high modulus rods to see what I mean the top hand doesn't move much more of a fulcrum and lower hand pulls the butt into the chest the arms start out extended above the head and the butt is brought into the chest tight and quick

A 6 inch glide will work all seasons I got bit twice last weekend cut my curly tail off and put some wholes in the back end right up to where the back hook is heres and example

You can always use a floater with some short 2 to 5 ft sections of lc13 looped on end turns it into sink tip intermediate or go the shooting head setup only have to deal with a 30 ft head easily stored in a wallet most versatile setup but some people just like full lines so extra spools are used good luck with your setups. I fish abels so spools very expensive and difficult to change in the field at night so I go with heads for stripers

My salt setups are 8 10 and 12 fished Maine to Florida caught schoolie bass to bones and tarpon those 3 rods you can do almost everything in saltwater unless you start talking tuna and marlin that's a whole different ballgame. I have and 11 cheaper rod with a cheaper piscfun fly reel for muskie that don't run all that much so big drag not important 3 spool with floater,slow sink and deep water line I think that reel was like 40 bucks and spools 20 machined aluminum reel just not a strong drag

Question is why do you have an 8 and 9 to me virtually same rod. I would sell the 9 and move up to a 10. That way you have 8 for albies, lmb and a 10 for bigger flies for striper and even salmon If you want to try that

I would go 10 or 11 for big flies 9 seems to be a tweener rod unless you only want 1 rod . I did this years ago and found it under powered

On those top pour 1 sided molds plaster works very well I save the more expensive sillicone for special or more detailed baits

You want the line to have sink compensation that is the tip is actually heavier than the belly. This does happen with sink tip lines. A full sink with sink compensation will have more grains of tungsten in the first few feet so fatter belly doesn't get dragged down first and leave your fly higher. This is really issue with trout the presentation looks unnatural

Consider it might be a change in action from mono to wire or your leader setup I would experiment between 80lb fluro and solid strand wire and see what action it gives you on muskies I have not had issues with at least 80lb fluro but with wire which is heavier fly tends to nose dive and not t bone as much generally they like to attack a side profile when you get the fly to t bone

I would look into a power drop shot rig or a Tokyo rig maybe half oz will allow you some distance and you can put any soft plastic you want on with a wide gap worm hook and make it weedless

Agree found those spots on my own 25 years ago with noones help people are lazy get a road map and have an adventure that's half the fun

I would recommended the reel do your homework and check out some reviews on web especially ut there is one guy that takes it apart and describes the features good luck

I support catch and release