surfrat59

If ya need more distance from a swimmer just use a Rebel Windcheater...loaded Redfins don't work as well.

The Hurricane shines when the weather is nasty and fishy! I know it's alot of $$$ but ever since I decided my 706Z's wouldn't get replaced with six Van Staals I had a few free bucks to spend.

Same here guys, last year's was great and I'm sure this years will be too, but I've got this 10 point buck on my mind that I couldn't catch up with last weekend, gonna chase him the last four days of the season. Sorry I won't be there...Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday season to everybody! cheers, Bobby

We're all with ya Steve

Brian, for a top quality tactical folder with quality lock and clip at a fraction of the price look at Columbia River Knife and Tool...you won't be disappointed

10 and 11ft spinners are 26 and 27 inch, conventionals 29 and 30.

Water any higher than the tailpipe is a potential problem, but over the hood...only takes a small volume of water through the intake to hydraulically lock the engine and bend connecting rods, rendering the engine scrap and the rest of the vehicle the same shortly thereafter when the water seeps in and ruins wiring connections and electronic components! Driving through water below the tailpipe level is fine, drive slowly and ride the brake to keep water off the linings, any higher than that and you're chancing it!

My Loomis GL3, Sage RPLXI, and St Croix Legend Ultra all use single foot guides

6500 mag elite for plugging and 7000C3 w/levelwind removed for bait, smoothies and Abec's all around. Best reels for your dollar. The Calcutta is a beauty but doesn't like the sand at all, and at more than twice the price doesn't do anything an Abu can't do. Avet is not a true casting reel but looks like a nice 8nbait setup in the larger models...still too new to start raving about though, it has to pass the test of time in the sand and saltwater before it ranks with the Ambassadeur or the Calcutta as a surfcasters reel.

Sufix Tritanium Hi Vis green...

Not a braid setup, I use a 706Z with 17lb mono on that rod. There are 2 theories to line choke,3 actually if you consider Fuji's concept system, one is to choke gradually through all or most of the guides,aka the " cone of flight" theory, more recent and IMO more efficient is to choke at the stripper and let the line shoot through the rest with minimal friction,and this method is just as effective with mono and large diameter spools as it is with braid, the key is placement of the gathering guide in relation to spool diameter, and in the case of the choke all at once theory the guide will always be further from the spool than a traditional large diameter guide, how much further depends on the reel height, spool size, and yes sometimes line type.The 75mm gathering guide has long gone the way of the dinosaur and the 50mm is right behind it, although it's tough to sell the look of small guides on a surf rod to veteran casters, I'll admit it still looks out of place to me too. Every rod I've built, even two of the same blanks, because no two are really ever the same anyway, have dozens of test casts in them with at least two, sometimes four different guide configurations, before they get wrapped. Even gone so far as to employ a motor driven tripod mounted camera with high speed flash sync to capture the effects different setups have on line oscillation and choke effectiveness, sounds a little nutty but it works. The specs I gave ya are after rewrapping the same blank 3 times 3different ways and fished over the course of 3 seasons, my never ending pet project, and it works best as currently configured

St Croix 3SRS100M...the blank, not the factory wrapped rod

PM Big Dave before you buy a ZZiplex from anybody, the guy has probably more knowledge on these rods than anyone you will come across and is more than happy to spend his own free time helping you pick the right model for your needs...a class act he is

Furniture polish or ordinary wax is much better as a protective coating on rods than WD40. By its chemical nature it has great wicking capabilities and applied to rod wraps can wick down guide feet and seep under the wraps and fog or discolor them. Quality sport optics manufacturers all caution against the use of WD40 and similiar products for the same reason, when used on exterior surfaces of binoculars or rifle scopes it can wick along the ocular bell and seep behind the glass, rendering your expensive Leupold scope or Leica laser rangefinding binoculars useless!

Bill, as a 1 pc conventional XS101MHC, as a 2pc spinner XS10MHS.

Got a 1509 w/tournament butt from Big Dave back in the spring, too much rod for fishing, for me anyway. After cutting down the butt a few times and tweaking stripper guide position it settled in at just over 12ft, and now with a properly magged 7000 and 8oz sinker with chunk it comfortably outcasts and outfishes any Lami heaver I've ever used by a mile! Took some getting used to but the blank outclasses any of the more popular heavers on the market.

Contemplated parting with some of my mag elites, blue yonders, and old maroon 7000's awhile ago, glad I didn't make that mistake

Hey John, if ya runout of winter projects gimme a call and I'll drop off a couple of my sticks for a grip treatment, looks pretty slick

Built one at 11'9" starting with a 25 stripper placed 34" from reel seat center. Cast very well with no line slap when i mounted a Nautil w/50lb power pro on it...the idea seems to work well.

Best setup I've wrapped for a 1321M would be 40HH-30M-25-20-16 with a 16 or 20 tip, whichever you prefer. spacing from tip back goes: 8in-18in-30in-44in-64in. Reel is a 706Z taped on at 27in from stem to butt, puts spool face 39in from stripper, noticeably better caster with heavy plugs than a similiar one wrapped with a 50 stripper.

Factory version is now the Avid series, I think i saw it at J&h in Oakdale. I would avoid the factory version though, I've rewrapped 3 of em and each one had poorly prepped sharp guide feet that looked like they would wreck the blank after some serious use, probably the knock most guys have on em regarding mysterious breakage, every post I ever read on em breaking it was a factory rod, not a custom. Very versatile plugging stick, IMO falls between a 1201L and 1201M, efficiently casts 3/4 oz bucktails on up to 3 oz darters, with 2 oz the sweetspot. I have one wrapped spinner and one extended to 11 1/2ft wrapped conventional, and one more hanging in the garage in reserve...the spinner is my most used rod and has caught some nice fish over the years, I like this blank alot, hard to find local and at $144 plus shipping not cheap either unless you order a bunch of em to wrap for customers.

Ate Thanksgiving dinner around the camp fire with 7 good buddies at hunting camp...wife wasn't exactly thrilled but it's 400 miles one way so a midweek roundtrip was out of the question! Gotta do something nice for the wife this afternoon so i can get back to fishing tonight

Toughest for me is keeping the korkers on without an entire roll of duct tape Without a doubt reading an open beach is the toughest thing to do in surfcasting, especially since open beach structure is constantly changing. I don't believe that fish endlessly cruise miles of open beach looking for a meal but rather hold in certain spots at certain tide stages where conditions are favorable for prey to appear, thus my strategy follows the theory. After picking a beach considering time, tide, wind and moon phase i start at the top of the outgoing and work quickly down the beach, fan casting 5 or 6 times and moving 50yds and repeating. I believe an appropriate lure for the conditions presented and retrieved properly will draw fish quickly if they are holding in an area. After 5 or 6 casts I am confident there are no fish in front of me and move and repeat until finding fish. I travel as far as necessary through half the tide and then reverse direction and try the same areas for the drop as the change in water level may be what was necessary to turn the previous area productive. Until my beach reading skills improve, and they may never,I have my greatest sucess by covering alot of ground. Some guys have the knack, some of us work hard to find fish, we get better with each trip, and besides, compared to working, it's all good, big fish or not!

3SRS100M...one of my favorites

For desert deep fry frozen Oreo's dipped in pancake batter...the crowd will love ya!