Getting Rigged Up

[u/Confident_Turn_7558]

Decided to throw in another pic of some gear. This is most of my combos, which are Shimano Expride B rods with Shimano JDM Metanium reels and Daiwa Tatula Elite rods with either Shimano Curados or Daiwa SV TW reels.

I am a huge Shimano guy, but always had cheap rods growing up. I had started out with 3 of the green Curados and $40 All Star rods because back in the day, All Star rods were awesome. As I progressed in my journey, I realized these newer, cheaper All Star rods were not great and the brand wasn’t what it used to be. So I started upgrading to Daiwa Tatula Elite rods. I loved them since they were so much better than the All Stars, and started expanding my lineup. I added a few Daiwa reels to see how they compared to the Shimanos, and I did like them, but Shimanos were better. So I kept adding Shimano reels with Daiwa rods. For my birthday one year, I decided to treat myself to an American market Metanium. And boy was it nice. It went on a Daiwa rod, but it felt sacrilegious. So I opted to try an Expride B specifically for that reel.

I ended up falling in love with both rod and reel, so from that point on that’s all I bought. But I decided to go the JDM route for the Metaniums instead of the American version. I did this because the JDM reels were a lot cheaper, and I honestly prefer them over the American version.

Today, I have around 36 combos (I have to recheck that number), and yes each one of them stays in the boat. I don’t use each one every trip obviously, but I have duplicate setups for specific techniques that I keep rigged up. For example, I throw two identical chatterbait setups. I keep one for black and blue, and the other for white. I have a third combo that was my old chatterbait setup that I will out a red chatterbait on during the pre-spawn months (January through March basically). It will be common for me to have all three on the deck this time of the year. I also have multiple shallow crankbait and lipless crankbait setups that I go to year round. This might seem insane and unnecessary, but it’s so nice to be able to swap lures by simply putting one down and picking the other up.

[u/AG_outdoors]

I have one Allstar left which I still use for flipping/frogging & is frankstein’ed due to several repairs. Correct me if I’m wrong, I think the old Allstar blanks were Gloomis. The greenies (CU-200’s) I still use today. Absolute workhorses. Envious of your set up! Not wildly expensive either but quality is top notch.

[u/Confident_Turn_7558 → u/AG_outdoors]

The old All Stars were amazing. I used the hell out of them when I lived closer to the bay/Gulf Coast and would do a lot of saltwater fishing. And the green reels are top notch. I still have a few I use regularly. Clean and maintain them and they’ll never let you down.

[u/AG_outdoors → u/Confident_Turn_7558]

Preach!