Most interesting CM_Stewart. I already asked Craigthor what spoons he recommends. Mind if I ask what you recommend - for trout? (I think smaller would work better than larger in our area.) I mostly use Daiwa spoons, the Vega, Lupin and Crusader, but also Shimano Roll Swimmer and Slim Swimmer, and S...

Ultralight, try some JDM spoons. When I got back into spin fishing for trout after being strictly a fly fisherman for a long, long time I started with mini jigs. I got a few spoons mostly out of curiosity, but I found they worked much better than the mini jigs. I would catch fish on a jig, but I nev...

While there are some 1 piece JDM UL rods the majority of those are short rods. If a 1 piece is more sensitive why would the Japanese not make more of them for UL angling. That’s a question only they can answer. Have you seen how small their cars are? Any sensitivity advantage in a one piece rod wou...

If a 10g max lure weight sounds like too much rod, consider a Shimano Soare BB S700SULS. (Super Ultra Light Solid tip). It is a 7 foot mebaru rod with a max lure weight of 4 grams and a max line weight of 3 lb. It's not too whippy but a modest bluegill will put a bend in it. I have not fished the hi...

In many cases, exactly the same jigs and small plastics are used for both. I have jig heads and soft plastics that have pictures of both aji and of mebaru on the package. The rods are different because the fish are different and the way they attack their prey are different. Mebaru are a bit like sma...

The Ice Cube is a mebaru rod rather than a stream rod. Mebaru are saltwater fish in the genus sebastes, generally called rock fish (but not the rock fish of the Chesapeake Bay, which is the local name for striped bass).

Allsorts and Alphahawk have seen a lot more high end JDM rods than I have, but I have seen the single post guides only on ajing and mebaru rods (and not on all of those). I have not seen any Stream or Area trout rods that have them.

I fished that way when my dad thought I was too little to handle a fly rod. Caught lots of fish. Never, ever used a 7' foot leader below the bubble. I don't remember exactly how long it was but best guess is about 4 feet. Perhaps 7 feet is better, but I am sure mine was shorter.

Don't add much to the hook. Maybe some fluorescent thread on the shank, but that's about it. I once tied a sparse hackle on one to mimic the squirrel tail on a Mepps spinner, and it killed the spoon's action completely! It was a small spoon (.8g), but still.

If you retrieve a spoon very slowly, the convex side of the spoon stays down, so in the factory configuration the hook point is up. If you flip the hook, the point will be down when retrieving very slowly, which will likely result in more snags.

If your gear can cast smaller spoons, like the 1.8g Daiwa Lupin or even the .8g Daiwa Vega, I believe you will get a better hookup ratio. I don't think the problem is the hook gape. I think fish that hit the spoons from the side, hit them near the front of the spoon and miss the hook entirely. With ...

OOOh, new spoons!

Hadn't seen those.

Just let me know - how many in what colors. You have my email address.

Japanese size .4 is .104mm (.004"). Equivalent to 7X tippet.

Life is short. Take the red pill and hang on tight. It's a hell of a ride!

Stream rods are consistently faster than Area rods. Ajing rods are consistently faster than Stream Rods. Hard to compare Mebaru rods with Stream rods because Stream rods that are the same length as Mebaru rods are designed for substantially larger fish (in current), so they have heavier actions. Aji...