fishfinder

which one is best for conger over mixed to rough ground?

has anybody tried the new Sonik beach rods? Are they any better than the original SK3 bass rods? I thought the originals were good anyway!

I'm having my usual blonde moment and can't decide between a Daiwa SLOSH 30 or an Okuma magnetix 30 (no level wind). I will use it mainly for fishing whole mackerel baits and squid from a harbour wall onto snaggy ground but want the option of using as an uptide reel and light boat reel. Can anyone convince me which one I should go for?

I need a marker and a spod rod but can't decide whether to buy a budget model or splash out a bit more. Can anyone convince me that I need to avoid a budget model? i was considering, for both rods, either a Fox Warrior S, Korum, Sonik SKS or Sonik Sk3 XTR. Any advice would be very welcome!

In the end I opted to fish at Eastney. Conditions were hard - very windy with tons of weed, but I managed to catch my first ever Smoothound. It was huge, I estimated 1.5lbs! No records broken, but I was chuffed to bits to add a new species to my list.

does anyone know if the smoothounds have arrived yet in the Pompey area? I'm going fishing tomorrow and still haven't decided wher to go or what to target.

I'm looking for a decent 15 - 16ft beach rod. All the ones I've tried so far have been really unweildly and heacy. I was looking at the Grauvel Titan X 450 the other day - it looks very light, but the only real snag I could see was the tiny tip ring. I'm worried that my leader knot would snap the tip as it passes through the tip ring. Has anyone used one? I know Sea Angler magazine says its a good rod, but I've never seen a bad review in the magazines so i don't trust them at all. Does anyone want to give me a brief review?

has anyone tried the new Penn Surfblaster 7000 reel? I'm looking for a good medium sized fixed spool reel to go with my Daiwa Supercast Bass rod. I was going to get a Shimano Beastmaster 6000 reel until I saw that the 7000 and 6000 are exactly the same size as each other apart from the spool on the 6000 is slightly shallower. Why do Shimano do this? I could buy the 7000 and use lots of backing to achieve the same result.

I've always thought that a lot of tackle is over priced and could not justfify spending more than £100 on a new rod as a more expensive one does not always guarantee more success than cheaper tackle. I thought anyone shelling out on a Century rod was wasting money unnecessarily...until I tried one myself! I recently had a try on my friends Tip Tornado Super Match - the new version with the Fuji-K guides. To say I was blown away would be a understatement. I've been fishing for 39 years and have tried countless beach rods but this rod is an a league of its own. After just three casts I estimate I'd added at least 20 yards to my cast. the rod sits really well in the tripod and registers bites very well, even with a strong wind in your face and a decent swell in front of you. I take back everything I said about expensive rods - at least in this case! Now I just need to win the lottery!

They came straight from the box delivered from penn that morning so nobody had the chance to open the rod bags. I was the first person to look at them.

I was looking at the new Penn rampage 15ft 9ins rod today. I tried to put the three sections together but the middle section would not slide into the butt section. The top section was fine though. i asked to see another one and this time the tip section wouldn't fit! I managed to get a useable rod together by mixing the sections from both rods! 2 out of 2 rods unuseable - 100% failure rate = very poor quality control. Not what I would expect from a rod costing £130!

An interesting artical. Although I entirely agree that the idea of tatooing fish is disgusting, I have to say that medling with fish genetics has gone on for centuries and we have been complicit. The natural colour of a goldfish is actually brown / bronze, as is the common carp. Selective breeding has created the koi and coloured goldfish that we see everywhere today. It is unlikely that brightly coloured fish would survive in the wild if they were spawned in the natural environment as they would face a much higher risk of predation. Yes, we do see koi in fisheries but they are introduced as adult fish. Will neon angelfish and convict cochlids become an accepted sight here in the UK? Probably!

I work in the naval base and often see huge bass swimming alongside the wall. By the time I get back with my gear they're always gone! Apparently it coughed up a 1.5lb pouting - next time I fish in the dockyard I'm going to use a 2lb whiting as livebait!

yet another "has anyone used.." question! I'm still udecided which bass rod to get abut have just seen the daiwa Supercast Bass rod. It looks really nice but can I justify spending around £200? I've always liked daiwa rods but is this as good as the price tag suggests?

does anyone on here have any experience with the MTI Bass rod? Any verdicts?