Eastslope wrote:
Ron, what are you fishing for with the second spool has 6-lb braid, Sufix 832 with 10-lb copolymer shock tippet?
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Ron, the use of this spool is seatrout, casting the light lures or virtually weightless bait rig on 7'6" XUL or 7'9" UL (I have two longer in 3" increments). Having 4 rods rigged with different baits at hand really simplifies the change-up that's important to turn the schoolie fish - they get really smart under the dock lights - if they're all not chasing it, you don't get a strike.
The lightest lures I'll cast will be about 1/16th oz, and the heaviest about 3/16th-oz.
I'll be shooting for better than 100' casts. Caught my dad here pointlessly fishing after dawn.
The cigar cork rig has a small keel weight, weightless 1-2" live shrimp on a 1/0 croaker hook at the end of a 4' leader, and the cigar cork has pretty good air drag.
I put a 1" surgeon's loop in the shock tippet, which lets me loop-on all the hardware I want to use here, either a 6" Mako titanium bite trace for lures, or the 3" clicking cigar cork.
I also use the lightest-touch of Zap-CA+pink on my splicing braid knots, chased with an accelerator (Mitre Apel spray is convenient).
The main reason for the shock tippet is big fish - shock tippet adds toughness and resilience - something needs to give over just the rigid braid. Schoolie male specs can be up to about 23" - last Nov on Arroyo docks, every calendar day 5-fish bag limit had at least one over 20".
A discussion on corpusfishing board got a documented 28" male seatrout report, which is likely more rare than a 36" female. The big females don't school, but spread out and stake breeding turf on the flats.
Note that both the shock tippet and titanium bite trace will stretch before they break. It's also my preferred way of dealing with terminal ends. This is all salt fishing for me, but some form of mono leader is a good idea for anybody fishing braid, to get that shock toughness.
Different reel and just slightly more 8' rod that I'll take on a kayak in the winter, same line, same leader, and this has the same terminal end, fishing a 3/16th-oz Pins minnow with the titanium bite trace, imitating winter glass minnows in a tide pass.
And making long casts with the 8' UL rod and light lure.
To match the cast distance (from this shoal to the cut bank) with twice the lure weight (3/8 oz) and my long-casting SX3000 with 12-lb fluoro takes my 9' ML rod.