Cost effectiveness

[colnick]

I always aim to find a balance between the cost and the value of the fishing equipment I purchase.

I fish land-based from a pier and target a diverse range of species from snapper to the humble garfish and calamari. I love the idea of a universal rod that is a lightweight graphite that can effectively fish plastics one day and then run a paternoster the next. I never know what species are active until I reach the water and I decided on the Shimano Quickfire 2-4kg 6’6 graphite rod with the Sienna 2500 in a combo costing $79. This rod has worked incredibly well for me, it is light weight, the reel is smooth. This sold me on buying another Quickfire 2-4kg spin combo and the Quickfire 1-3kg 7’6 EGI combo both with the Sienna 2500 all at $79 each. I run one with a bottom rig paternoster, the second is exclusively for plastics, unweighted and garfish rigs and the EGI rod is perfect. Six months use of all rods and they have been flawless. I feel that for me this has been the perfect balance, with over 85+ squid caught on the EGI rod in 4 months and plenty of pinkies, flathead and whiting on the others they’re a pretty great inexpensive combo.

Squid jigs I have preference for either Yamashita SUTTE-R 3.0 or Rui’s 3.0 jigs as they’re great quality and inexpensive at around ~11. I love my squid fishing and I knowingly accept that eventually I’ll lose the jig either from a weed snag or a cuttlefish wrapping my line around weed. A jig normally lasts me 4-6 months and by that time it’s stained black and torn apart with every successful catch. I normally wait till the Yamashita 3.0’s are on-sale online for $8 each, or 3 for $30 before purchasing a couple. When BCF emails out their $10 off minimum spend of $10 email voucher I normally pick up one for $3. Without buying anything else the often send another few vouchers which turn into more cheap jigs.

A man after my own heart.
Cheers, Col

[4liters]

Penn reels for mine. I'm not fussed about ultimate smoothness or whatever because I don't fish for bream, and these have been consistently tough reels with a good quality drag system. I've only had one actually break, all the others have been lost over the side of the yak one way or another.

[colnick]

I'm trying to put together a list of reels i've killed over the past 6 years. Understanding that my background as a kid was in trout fishing in streams like the acheron and the rubicon, my first spinning outfit was a mitchel spiderglass 6'6 and a little silver reel that is still operational but I don't use it in salt water. I took 15 years off fishing and took it back up when i was 30 thinking that a back surgery had ended my martial arts career. During rehab I ended up spending a fair bit of time in geelong where I taught myself some soft plastic work in the Barwon, then moving back to Melbourne's South East, CarlG convinced me to buy a Catana and try for some salmon. My first Salmon session I hooked 11 and landed 2, and was instantly addicted. Over the next year or so I figured out that a couple of guys i knew through Jiu Jitsu had this youtube channel called Morningtide, and after watching their trailer and buying their first DVD, CarlG and I set out on a mission to catch the biggest fish we could from the rocks in Victoria.

Keep in mind I was unemployed and had almost no budget starting. The gear destroyed not counting car doors

Rods

2X Shimano Eclipse rods, Both broken exceeding their casting weights before i knew any better. one 702 and one 902

1x Shimano Catana eyelets fell out of the guides. Probably landed 1000 salmon.

Unbranded w** pole. Broke on what i think was a cuttle fish at mornington.

Shimano Impact nano XT 3-6 lifting a squid.

Majorcraft solparra (gift from CarlG) broke first cast lifting a cuttle fish.

Random Iso rod I found on the back cliffs at sorrento. One of the sections disconnected while casting and the line broke. Just pulled clean out of the socket.

Jarvis Walker 6-10kg fibreglass somethign 10 footer. Snapped at the reel seat on what I assume was a big black ray.

Daiwa Saltist Hyper 962. Broke clean in half site casting a squid at a kingfish. Probably my fault.

Other than that. The car and transport victims are the Nitro, the impact XT, and one of my 11 foot assasins which is not a 10 foot assassin.

The rods i've had no trouble with are my Shimano Tcurve coastal 902. Berkely Egimaster 3-4.5. All 3 assassins. Penn alliegence II 1002. and my AFAW 6 + bait.

Reels

Oh dear here we go.

Daiwa Procaster GTR. Gears went. This was my first salmon reel that was

Shimano solstice4000. Drag went.

Shimano sienna 1000. Everything rattles, still useable.

Shimano Sienna 2500. See above.

Penn Sentinel 950. Drag went.

Shimano Stradic Ci4 4000. gears.

Penn Spinfisher 7500 SSV. Anti reverse went.

Pflueger Supreme XT. Gears melted mid salmon bust up.

Spinfisher 6000 baitrunner whatever. Screws fell out.

Fin Nor lethal 100. Handle broke

Fin Nor Lethal 100. Drag seized.

Shimano Sustain 5000. Rotor bent to the point where it wobbles and is barely useable. I have two of these, the other one is fine.

Shimano biomaster 5000. Line roller seized and needs replacing, shaft bent which i bent back with a pair of pliers (my fault) and the gears are extremely crunchy.

Shimano Biomaster 10000. The shaft from the bit that connects the rod is bent, having my reel face slightly away from the guides. Also the line roller is seized and something in the gears is clicking.


Plus i'm sure i've forgotten a few. The number of hours each reel has lasted has increased dramatically. The lethals, one of my sustains and both bios are still useable. The bio 10 and 5 are part of my normal arsenal whenever I plan a multi day trip somewhere.

The reels I've had no problems with are the Penn Spinfisher 10500 V. Although it literally weighs 1.35kg. The shimano Saragosa 20k, landed some big fish including a 60kgish hammerhead on this, and the Daiwa Saltiga expo 5500h. You could pop for Gt's with the Gosa, but really reels as heavy as the gosa and the 10500 are reserved for bait fishing. The balance between light weight power and durability in the expo seems pretty much perfect.

Christ Dougie, are you fishing with this stuff or fighting it?
Col.

[dezza68]

Being fairly tight when it comes to spending money I have a slightly different angle on this. I have some expensive gear, one of my surf combos is worth well over $1,000 but I don’t always use it, because whilst it’s fantastic to fish with, a lot of the places I go and how I fish I’m to scared I’ll break it. So I buy gear that is less likely to break but probably heavier. Admittedly I don’t lure fish for hours on end so weight is not that much of an issue, if it was I’d go on a diet. Dougies fishing is at the extreme end of things as you can tell by his list of fatalities.

[DougieK]

Christ Dougie, are you fishing with this stuff or fighting it?
Col.

I'm actually using it. My expo that I bought in september quite possibly has more metres of cast and retrive on it than a lot of peoples gear gets in 10 years. My bio 5000 probably has 5x that much use in the same amount of time because i use it for everything that's not a king/tuna/spanish.

The pflueger in there, for example, I had for about 18 months. In the 3 months before it melted it probably landed 300 salmon. On the day in question it had been going strong since just on first light at about 530, and i think it finally became unusable at about 230pm. We had a school of salmon busting up in front of us and swimming back and forth along the ledge we were fishing, timing the first cast to the front of the school at it swam past let us land one, then again with it in front of us, then again as they were leaving. This went on for hours.

[SteveoTheTiger]

As i said in the other thead, i tend to lean towards the cheaper end of the scale. Im not talking cheap and nasty crap, but i certainly wont spend $200 or $300 plus on an reel (ok i might.. but that would be a one off for a specific reason). Most of my combos are between $100 and $200, some are cheaper as they are the ones i lend to people when they dont have any gear.

I do tend to spend more on the rod than the reel, probably 70/30. Most of my reels are around the $50 mark i suppose. I have never used a high end reel so i guess i dont know what i am missing out on.

As far as breaking things.. in the last 10 years or so i have broke 2 rods, one snapped in the rod holder and one got stood in in the dark. And gone through a a number of reels, usually just corroded.

Another thing that should be considered is whether fishing is your main hobby. For me it is certainly the hobby that i am most passionate about, but due to real life getting in the way i tend to have other hobbies and interests which i spend more time actually doing and the dollars have to be spread around. Which means the capacity to actually buy those expensive reels is something i cant really afford anyway.

[dazz999]

My most expensive rod,s are the nitro messiah have never caught a fish on it i mainly lure fish but i love just going down to a pier and launching a 2oz or 3oz sinker into the horizon like a scud missile make,s me happy stress relief .Next is the daiwa emeraldas mx86ml such a fantastic rod to use for squid it does,nt matter if it,s a baby five inch squid or a fourty inch squid it,s just a pleasure to use.The last rod is a g loomis fly rod this was purchased in the mid 80,s when sage and loomis where fighting for top spot all three make me happy to use

[DougieK]

My most expensive rod,s are the nitro messiah have never caught a fish on it i mainly lure fish but i love just going down to a pier and launching a 2oz or 3oz sinker into the horizon like a scud missile make,s me happy stress relief.

If you have a 5000-10000 sized reel with braid on it, use it to spin salmon. That is one of my all time favorite rods.

[Bugatti]

Penn reels for mine. I'm not fussed about ultimate smoothness or whatever because I don't fish for bream, and these have been consistently tough reels with a good quality drag system.

Same here with Penn reels (Eggbeaters)

And for the Overhead Reels, I go with Abu


Cheers, Bugatti Garcia

[bowl]

Christ Dougie, are you fishing with this stuff or fighting it?
Col.

I'm actually using it. My expo that I bought in september quite possibly has more metres of cast and retrive on it than a lot of peoples gear gets in 10 years. My bio 5000 probably has 5x that much use in the same amount of time because i use it for everything that's not a king/tuna/spanish.

The pflueger in there, for example, I had for about 18 months. In the 3 months before it melted it probably landed 300 salmon. On the day in question it had been going strong since just on first light at about 530, and i think it finally became unusable at about 230pm. We had a school of salmon busting up in front of us and swimming back and forth along the ledge we were fishing, timing the first cast to the front of the school at it swam past let us land one, then again with it in front of us, then again as they were leaving. This went on for hours.

Hours ,didn't ya get bored of catching salmon.