FISHING GEARS

One thing about us anglers is that we can never enough of fishing gears. We all started it out with one or two sets of gears but over the years surely we end up with more than we need, it is an addiction! Sometimes we end up buying gears that we never planned to buy at the fishing store because they are new, beautiful, unique or at bargain prices, or just to add to our collection for personal satisfaction. You ask an angler whether they ever done this i am sure you get the same answer.

I am no different. The gears that i have are enough for two dozen anglers to go fishing on the same trip, go figure! I must have spent Rm15000 to Rm20000 over the years but hey who is counting? I worked hard to earn the money and spending on a hobby i am passionate about is nothing to be guilty about, especially i got fun,adventure and fresh fish on the table after every trip i will keep doing it while i am still fit.

In the early years i would spent on cheap rod and reels like Shakespeare combo and some cheap Chinese produced brands as i was on tight budget. Slowly i started to upgrade to better quality rods and reels like Shimano, Abu Garcia, Daiwa, Penn, Okuma, and Tica. The prices of these brands are higher but believe me you will be satisfied with the quality of the products that they produced. The cheaper ones i end up giving away to some of my fishing buddies.

I started out using the spinning set as it was what most people use and i never came across the baitcasting sets in my hometown tackle shops. Lately, i started buying a few sets of baitcasting low profile and round baitcasting reels. They are mainly from Shimano, Abu Garcia, Okuma and Banax. Now i have a Shimano Curado 200, Shimano Calcutta TE 101GT,Abu Garcia Pro Max, Revo Toro 60,Revo SX 3rd Gen, Banax 2000 and an Okuma round baitcasting (cant remember the model no.). I am thinking to buy another Abu Garcia Revo Inshore for casting micro jigs this weekend he he. I also have a few multipliers for bottom fishing and trolling produced by Tica, Okuma, Shimano and Daiwa.

One thing about baitcasting reels is that you need a lot of practice to cast and find the right balance when setting up the brakes with different weight of lures or jigs used to avoid the birds nest. Using the spinning reels is a lot easier but i like the compactness of the low profile reels, easier to palm and carry. They are small but are capable of having high drag capacity to take big fish. My latest Abu Garcia Revo SX 03 has drag capacity of 20pound! It is very light at 6.66oz but tough as a bull.

I also ventured into fly fishing just to give it a go. As a matter of fact i tried to tie my own fly when i was around 12 years old using feathers that i could find around the house and use normal cotton thread and UHU glue. However, i could not land any fish with it as i did not have a fly rod and not many fish in Malaysia take fly. I have practised casting fly and managed to cast quite a good distance.Nowadays i have three sets of fly rods of Sierra brand. I got a 7 feet #7 rod, one set of a 9 feet #9 rod and a 9 feet #10 saltwater fly rod. I use a tica reel with a floating line as a starter. I have a variety of fly which i bought from the tackle shops around Kuala Lumpur. After trying so many times to catch fish with them i sort of gave up due to the poor response of fish in this country to fly. My only catch with the fly rod was after i converted one of them to a spinning fly set which i managed to catch a Peacock Bass at a mining pond somewhere in Batu Gajah, Perak. I also used this spinning fly set to fish at sea for small specimens which was a lot of fun.

Here are some of the gears i have and will post mor photos in the future:

 

Happy fishing.