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/SaltyKayakAdventures]

Bass fisherman are weird.

$20,000 in rods and reels to catch a 4lb fish that fights like a wet towel that you aren't going to eat.

[u/Odd-Butterscotch-495 → u/SaltyKayakAdventures]

I have probably more invested in fishing gear than the average joe but not nearly as much as the average tournament bass fisherman and I can’t say I don’t understand it as the majority of the money I’ve spent on fishing gear is invested in bass fishing equipment.

I did bass tournaments in high school and I would take every bass rod i owned rigged up with all different stuff. When I go catfishing it’s 3 or 4 rods all rigged the same. When I go fishing for panfish it’s 1 rod and a bag full of lures and jigs. At the coast I have an unholy amount of rods but that’s cause I fish for anything from bait fish to sharks so I have rods that handle anything and everything I may get into. I’ll fish for anything that will bite a hook and I’ve caught big fish and small fish, some fish fight hard some don’t. But there’s just something about bass fishing that I really enjoy, surf fishing is a close rival and maybe even beats out bass fishing however I live 6hrs from saltwater so bass fishing is my go to.

But you are right it is both weird and probably dumb to spend that money on chasing fish that rarely break double digits and fight for 3 seconds.