First equipment setup....advise?

[_Mannix_]

Hello there again everyone!


Some of you may have already seen my introduction thread. If not it can be [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/forum/Freshwater_Fishing_Forum_C70/Freshwater_Fishing_General_F2/New_angler_aboard_P331844/"]located here[/url].




As it states im a new angler, or well ..soon to be angler. Right now i have no gear of my own, well unless you count a fishing liscense as gear haha, in wich case i do have one for the year.

Ive been looking all around the local stores online, and just about everywhere to get all the info i can and make an informed decision when it comes time to hand the cash over.

In the end i would like to have a few situation specific rods, you know, a light/ultra-light action bass rod, medium all around, bigger fish/aquaduct pole , etc .

But for right now im trying to find a nice quality rod/reel setup to get started with. As it will be my first pole i dont want the top notch 1000$ pole with all the fancy knobs and whatnot`s. But i do want something nice....i have no problem with paying for a quality rod thats going to last me awhile,i say this because funds are hard to come by and i have to make my purchases count! And for that reason i wouldent even consider the low-end ( use 4 or 5 times and replace with a better one) poles .....quality is everything.

As far as where/what i will be fishing, well it will be freshwater and as far as where ...... theres a few lakes with bass,trout,catfish , crappie etc a few local manmade ponds, some rivers and other misc spots. So a nice all around pole would be nice, probably medium -action? Then later on get a lighter bass pole and a heavier pole for whatever calls for it ? We have a few big-5`s sporting stores and wal-mart of course, i know wal-mart has a ton of shakespere ugly sticks, zebco`s , a few mitchells , and other poles, then a assortment of hooks,bait,lures, etc.

But thats about as far as it goes for me .... i dont know whats quality and whats not besides what ive heard, and we all know how word of mouth can sometimes be a not so .... reliable. So thats where you come into play, hopefully i can ultimatley take what ive learned and wind up with a rod im happy with and a fish to be proud of on the other end of the line.

And hopefully that time comes soon cause some friends are goin fishin this weekend!



Thanks again everyone!
Ryan
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[tubeN2]

I just answered some of this information in another thread. I hope you are able to get to your local store as soon as you are able.

There is inexpensive gear that is also good to start with and will last you for many years.

Take a look at some well known brands that have been around for quite awhile.

Okuma
Shimano
Berkley
Ugly Stick by (Shakesphere)
Abu Garcia
Mitchel

You can start off in those brands without breaking the bank and those pieces can be a part of your growing collection.[cool]
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[_Mannix_]

Well it looks like i was able to ickup a rod/reel setup alot sooner then i expected thanks to some old baseball cards.


After digging through wal-mart , sports authoirty and a few others stores i wound up at big 5, after handeling almost every pole in the store i found what i thought was a good deal on a decent pole.

I got a Daiwa D-shock 662mrs , medium action, 6`6 with a 6 ball bearing reel system, a 25005bi to be exact.

It will be for the days i cant and probably even the days i do get out to lake isabela, buena-vista or out in general. I will be doing alot of weekday fishing by myself, theres a small man-mad stocked lake by my house with fishing a plenty, a few trout, blue-gill and whatever else they throw in there.

Kinda just something to get me started and have some fun with .

I figure a picture speaks for itself so here goes.....











And last but not least the only other thing i could afford ( and one of the few lines they had).....




Im going fishing on saturday and still gotta find out what all i need. Any ideas or suggestions?

It will just be me and a friend at a small lake / pond ,just trying to get some stuff for this weekend .I figured id pick up some hooks, weights ,powerbait (orange/green rainbow glitter) , and a few things of night crawlers. Also gotta figure out how to rig this thing up, as far as where to place weights , bait. etc....should be fun .

Once again thanks for everything everyone.

All the best
Ryan
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[mattscru]

Not a bad choice in that little diawa set up. Thats a very versatile size that you can catch alot of differant species off of. I like the braided line opposed to mono, but thats an argument that could go on for days. Braided line dosent have the memory that mono does so it dosent tangle as much, but mono has alot of pluses too. Next time you post some pics you need to try and resize them. Theres actually a size limit on pics but Im sure tube or someone can fix them for you and tell you how to resize. I use HP photosmart and it actually has an option to resize to "web/blog" but that wont help you much if you dont have a HP computer. As for riggin powerbait and crawlers for trout Im assuming? I would use a small bait hook and splace 2 small split shots about 12-18 inches up the line from the hook and place the split shots about a quarter to half an inch apart. Around here we call that a farm pond rig []
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[_Mannix_]

Thanks much for all the advice!


Sorry about the big photos, hopefully someone can aid me in resizeing them. I use photobucket to host my pictures and they have a resizeing tool, well see if it works....

As for the rod .....i couldent wait, i just had to spool it up. One Arbor knot and a few turns later we have this......hopefully i did it right.....opinions/advise?





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[mattscru]

Looks good to me, right amount of line on the spool. When I used mono I'd get a buddy and strecth about 20 yards of line right after I spooled it to get some of the old memoery out of it. Just be patient if you get a few tangles with the new line the first few times you take it out. It happens to all of us you just have to give the line time to remember your spool and forget its packaging[]
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[tubeN2]

It is looking better Mannix. Now all we have to do is get the pics down to about 450pxls or less.

The equipment looks good for the Bass up there.

Good luck and keep us informed.[cool]
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