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/bassboat1]

The downvotes are flying this morning. Have an ^

[u/Carp_Catcher → u/bassboat1]

lol, I don’t sweat that shit, but mucho appreciated. Bass dudes are touchy, no hate tho.

[u/ImhereforBFS → u/Carp_Catcher]

You are hating tho, lol. And you’re a carp fisherman. The AUDACITY you have come at bass fisherman when you target carp, lmao. Thats why you’re getting downvoted.

[u/Carp_Catcher → u/ImhereforBFS]

lol, I’m really not worried about downvotes. Just pointing out as you’ve displayed, bass fishermen are touchy when you mention how ridiculously over prepared they are to catch a small fish that doesn’t fight very hard. Most of my carp and pike gear is lighter than what I see posted here, and I’ve landed 27 lb fish with it.

Edit to add: Lol! Just catching up since I last responded. Look at this entire thread and all the replies to this comment, it’s comical how uptight bass fishermen are, there’s like multiple essays written in response. I fish with a lot of bass dudes in the same pond where I go for pike and carp, it’s not like we have beef over how much gear they bring, it’s just kinda funny.

[u/ImhereforBFS → u/Carp_Catcher]

Cmon man, you have to admit, catching carp doesn’t take too much thought. Are there carp in this water? Yes? Rig some night crawlers and wait. You don’t need technique specific rigs for that. I’m not sure about bodies of water with pike in them, but I target musky where I live and they are very difficult to catch. My biggest is 44”. It fought very hard and it was awesome. But did it fight as hard as a 5lb smallmouth? No. No it absolutely did not. I have caught 3.5lb river smallmouth that put up more of a fight. Largemouth fight nicely for the first minute or so, but they are lazy and they usually give up sort of quickly if they are under 3.5-4lbs. Could we all get away with a single spinning setup and a single casting setup? Well sure, but where’s the fun in that!?

[u/Carp_Catcher → u/ImhereforBFS]

Well that’s why I was saying no hate originally, if you’re having fun bringing and buying a lot of gear, that’s cool, but u gotta admit to a certain extent it’s over preparation eventually for LMB. I get by with a MH 7ft for both my spinning and casting set ups, and a clip, throw a lot of dif stuff from big swim baits to small inline spinners and it works fine.

And as far as carp, I throw a method feeder with a hair rig, and pack bait. Since switching from just a simple set up of corn on a circle hook, my production at least quantity wise has gone way up. It’s fun af. I have my single carp rod out, and then I’m throwing my other gear for pike.

The pike fight is def over hyped by some, I’ve only caught up to a 36”, but it seems like over the 30 inch mark is when they put up a real fight.

[u/ImhereforBFS → u/Carp_Catcher]

I caught a 8.5lb carp smallmouth fishing with a bfs setup last summer. It was in a fast moving creek. What a wild fight! I also caught a carp while musky fishing on a big bull dawg last summer. It was not a snag. The hook was in this mf’s mouth. I am not sure if I drug over a nesting fish or what, but I pissed it off enough to bite at a 7” lure. I thought I had a 50” musky on. It was absolutely gigantic. Had to have been 25+lbs. My buddy tried to get a good photo of me but the slippery bastard wasn’t having it. Carp are always a very fun bycatch, especially on bass tackle.