Looking To Step Up To A Baitcaster, Advice?

[drew03cmc]

Tubby? Nah...pleasantly plump...

[slothman]

I a certainly no expert, but I got a Diawa Strikeforce Rod and a Diawa Exceler Reel and I have been pretty happy with the combo...and it didn't break the bank. I got them from Fin and Feather on Campbell in Springfield. I was a 100% spinning and fly rod guy until about 1 1/2 years ago when I bought a baitcaster combo from Bass Pro Shops. The Diawa rig I put together is a much better rig for about the same price as my BPS Combo. Like I said, I'm no expert and I don't have a lot of experience to talk about baitcasters, but I have been happy with this combo and I think you would be too.

[Al Agnew]

As most of you know by now, most of my warm weather river fishing is done with fast-moving hard baits. I've fished with guys who are very experienced spin fishermen, and none of them have ever come anywhere near the accuracy and control of such lures that I have with the baitcaster. Seems like the majority of river anglers use jigs and tubes and other soft plastics, and for those lures spinning is as good or better; in fact, I use spinning almost exclusively for such lures. But as for casting light lures, I don't ever use lures that are too light for the baitcasters I use, and with a good baitcaster with correct adjustment and fairly light line, I can go down to 1/8 ounce with no problems.

I CAN skip lures with the baitcaster, but spinning works better. The only lures I normally want to skip are soft unweighted plastics like Senkos and Superflukes. The trouble with the hard baits I use on the baitcaster is that they don't skip straight most of the time, so I'll try it once in a while with very mixed results.

Today I did one of my "cover lots of water and fish really fast" float trips. I fished Superflukes about 5% of the time on the only spinning rod I brought, and mainly fished spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and topwater lures the rest of the time on the three casting rods. Floated about 13 miles of Huzzah Creek. (Stopped several times to swim and cool off, otherwise just kept moving and hitting every good looking spot I came to.) Perhaps a lot of people wouldn't WANT to fish that way. But if you TRIED to fish that way with spinning tackle, you probably wouldn't have caught as many fish as I did today...well over 100 bass, mostly small ones but a couple dozen smallmouth from 14 to 18 inches and a bonus 19 inch largemouth. And I never had a backlash, and only twice had to make longer than normal casts to remove some loose line from the spool. Only problem with fishing that way is that now I need to oil and lube a couple of the baitcasters.