Help With General Purpose Boat Combo (Inshore)

[Jase76]

Hi Fellow Raider,

I'm hoping for some help/recommendations for a fishing newbie for a general purpose boat combo for some inshore fishing (mainly pittwater). I've been mainly land based using a Daiwa Exceler 702MLFS rated to 12lb and Shakespeare Deceiver 1030 to 6lb. Would this combo be suitable or should I look at an upgrade of the reel to something around the 12lb size or should I be looking at upgrading both rod and reel?

I have about $150-$200 to play with if an upgrade is the way to go.

Thanks for the help!

Jase

[cameldownunder]

Always upgrade, when possible, when money is around, and when you have a good reason.

I would go for a Shakespeare Ugly Stick and a Shimano reel.

[jewgaffer]

....I would go for a Shakespeare Ugly Stick and a Shimano reel.

Hi Jase76 I agree with cameldownunder's choice of rods lock stock and barrel as the saying goes... you simply can't go wrong buying an ugly stik and the light weight models will do anything the other rods do and do it just as well including rods that have dedicated to fishing with soft plastics i.e. you will find a no frills model ugly stik ugly off the shelf that will fill the needs of whatever type of fishing you want to do...you can even find an ugly stik that suits a really light jig head ...Ugly stiks have a world wide reputation and the manufacturers back up their words by giving you a written 10 year guarantee against breakage under normal fishing circumstances... Too many people tend to by pass ugly stiks thinking they're old fashioned I guess, but if you want to buy an affordable rod that's almost unbreakable and has a wide range of models available where each rod is designed to serve a specific purpose which not many people go out of their way to look at amonge the big range of ugly stiks available... I dont think you'd need to look much further for design, strength, performance and value..take a look at the quality and the feel of their 7 foot PLT 4-6.5 kilo model as a really good general purpose rod to use whether you're boat based or landbased..

The PLT 4-6.5 kilo ugly stik would have to be the best 15lb rod that I've seen on the racks for years and only retails at approximately $120, even less depending on where you buy it and what reel you buy to go with it as a combo... a 15lb rod is always a good in between size to have and you can use this particular 15lb rod on a variety of fish and get plenty of sportiness and fish playing fun out of it too ..especially on fish that happen to be much larger than expected including sharks if you have an appropriate reel on it... yet you would still have enough sensitivity to cast a 1/4 - 1/2 once lure no problem at all...I've looked at this particular rod myself and would not hesitate to run 50lb braid on it matching it with say a Shimano 4500 or one of the new ABU reels that Slinky had a good look at recently and bought one accordingly... I wrote down the name of the ABU model somewhere as I need a good reel around that size myself and from what I gather the 3000 size ABU would fit the bill nicely ..I think the model is called a Soron but I'm not a hundred percent sure at the moment but Slinky checked out the quality the parts and was very impressed...so it seems that ABU is yet another example of the quite achievers that live up to their old reputation that too many people tend to overlook...

Cheers

jewgaffer

[Jase76]

Hi Jewgaffer & cameldownunder,

Thanks for the good advice and this will definately help me! I'll definately check out these ABU reels as I have heard others giving them a good rap too.

Cheers,

Jase