New High-drag Low-weight Rods and Reels

[auguste]

I was down at the boat earlier today doing a few odd jobs . . . too rough to fish today . . . decided to post about the new rods and reels setups we bought, and to explain the logic behind what we did

My first set-up are Bill Connelly ST-50-100 blanks with aluminum straight butts which we use in stand-up harnesses. The rods have all Stuart rollers the full length and they are great. The reels are Tiagra 50 LRS wide two speed reels.

What I wanted to do is get a much lighter weight option so that fighting the yellowfin tuna is more fun.

For the rods we needed a really strong rod because bigeye tuna are not uncommon. We went to Bill and he recommended that drop down only one size because the reels I was contemplating put out a lot of drag. However to reduce the weight we went to the much lighter in weight (but very strong) Stuart composite butts rather than the aluminum butts. I also went with full rollers.

In the above pic the Tiagra is the larger reel. The new reel is the Talica 16II (2 speed) from Shimano. The new reels put out about 80% of the drag Tiagra. With 60 pound JB Hollow core I have about 350 yds plus lots of room for a 100 lb windon.

From the following picture you can see that Bill has wrapped my new rods to match the old rods.

[auguste]

PS My most productuve Islander lure is in the pic . . . was great on the bluefin

[eliteftlaud]

Blue and White!!!

[Libra]

The only consistently good color other than blue and white is white and blue.

[pmagrady]

I like that little Talica. I have read good reviews from our California brothers.