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Rod and reel selection help?


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Just picked up my first lake boat. It is equipped with two Canon electric down riggers. I have absolutely no rods or reels at the moment. Was hoping to get some advice on what to look for. Looking to run a few rods off the riggers and maybe a couple of dipsy rods as well. Length rods? Size reels? Any entry level rods or reels that I should consider? Any input would be appreciated..

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Buy the best you can afford. If you can afford a $200.00 reel, buy a Daiwa Saltist 30. If you can't, go with a Daiwa Sealine sg47lca or sg47lcx.

I wish I could afford $200 reels but I'm looking to completely outfit my boat and that would put me well over budget. maybe $100-$150 per a complete rod/reel.

Any Input on Diawa heartland trolling rods? Fishusa has a rod/reel combo for $139? http://www.fishusa.com/Daiwa-Heartland- ... eel_p.html

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Yeah Chromagnum, that would be me.
Buy the best you can afford. If you can afford a $200.00 reel, buy a Daiwa Saltist 30. If you can't, go with a Daiwa Sealine sg47lca or sg47lcx.

I wish I could afford $200 reels but I'm looking to completely outfit my boat and that would put me well over budget. maybe $100-$150 per a complete rod/reel.

Any Input on Diawa heartland trolling rods? Fishusa has a rod/reel combo for $139? http://www.fishusa.com/Daiwa-Heartland- ... eel_p.html

I would strongly recommend going for that combo. I have a pair of wire diver rods that are the 9.5' Daiwa Heartland Rods and Daiwa Sealine SG47LCA reels that are 12 or 13 years old, have landed countless big kings and are still as good as new. Super combos. All I did was replace the stock rod tips with twilli tips. Some guys will tell you you need to spend a boatload of money on roller rods for divers, don't believe it, not necessary at all.

The heartland series in general are IMO the best trolling rods on the market for the money. I have a wide variety of reels on the boat but the vast majority of the rods are Heartlands, with most of the others being other Daiwa models. I love my Daiwa Jupiter downrigger rods, unfortunately, they don't make them anymore.

For downrigger reels, I also don't think you can beat the Shimano Triton TR200G. They are basically the same reels as the Charter special only with a star drag instead of a lever drag, for half the price. For 69 bucks the drags on them are absolutely some of the nicest I've ever seen. I have 4 of them that have seen tons of use and the drags are just as sweet and smooth now as they were when brand new.

Tekota's and Saltist's are nice if you have a big budget, but certainly not necessary.

Tim

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In your stated price range, either the Diawa SG combos or the Okuma Convector combos will do you well. Many people like roller guides for wire but that can add quite a bit to the cost vs just adding a $8 twilly tip. You can search the threads - this topic is pretty common.

I went the Okuma (30D for wire dipsy) route. These are the best prices I know of (and I'm compulsive that way...):

reels here: http://www.northwoodsoutlet.com/oscomme ... 38_130_443

wire here (2012 wire prices jumped across the board): http://www.atommiktrollingflies.com/torpedo_wire.htm

poles here: http://www.fishusa.com/Okuma-Classic-Pr ... ods_p.html

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Best "intro" down rigger reel in my opinon is the Daiwa Accudepth Plus 47 size. There are about half the price as the Sealine and are bullet proof. Put Sealines on your dipsies and Accudepth Plus on your riggers. Buy linecounters for everything so you can run your rigger rods off boards when the time is right. Convector 30D hold a lot of wire. You will need some backing to fill it with a 1000 foot spool of wire. Sealines seem to have been made to fit 1000 feet of 30# wire. Linecounters are more accurate when the spool is full. Heartland are great rods for riggers and dipsies. Fishusa.com will combo about any mix of rod and reel you want. I have found Convector reels to be tricky for beginners on dipsies. The spools have a lot of space between the sides and the spools. This allows the wire to get under the spools requiring dissassembly to fix. After having several beginners do this, I switched back to Sealines for dipsies. Convector 30Ds make great rigger reels. You can get a lot more mono on them than with the Daiwa 47s. I installed Okuma handles on my Sealines this year. Makes about a perfect reel IMO. Daiwa drags are MUCH BETTER than Okuma. Better for dipsies when the drag is smooth.

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Spend the long dollar on the reel, the budget you have stated you can get a good reel and a $20 rod and bring alot of fish to the boat. You can always get the Fenwicks or St Croix next father's day.

The BEST diver reel on the lake is the Abu Garcia 7000i LC, they are a little less expensive than the shimanos and a little more than the diawa 47, I have been running them for 3 years (thats about 240 days on the water) and they are as good today as they were when I took them out of the box!! The drags do not advance or retard and lock solid in the holder so there is no creeping with a light drag. Super smooth!

An inexpensive rod is the Diawa Wilderness rod, I bought a half dozen of them last spring and use them on my copper, I think I paid about $14 each - new!

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