Area trout vs Hybrid light game Rods

Now that I have my initial rod buying spree out of the way with the Lunakia 610, Finetail area stage 63 SUL, and the Aji-do 5’. I’m still do a lot of reading and looking for what maybe next. I’m very intrigued by the Abu Garcia Eradicator slow taper special probably the 6’9” XUL and the Diplomat Extreme 622ULS, but not opposed to looking at others I do want a sensitive rod though.

When targeting crappie and or blue gill casting soft plastics or hand tied jig heads what would be your preference for the most fun if the fish are smaller. Where I fish I just don’t get into big crappie or blue gill. In general, a 10 to 11 inch crappie or over 8 inch blue gill I consider a good fish. The main place I fish size limit for crappie and perch is 9” min and 7” for the bluegill/sunfish family. I very rarely end up catching a large mouth bass, maybe once a year.

The only bonus to almost everything being out of stock is I have time to look around and try to research the next rod.

For pure enjoyment of catching smaller fish, what type of rod would you chose?

I prefer a longer rod for casting, and I have the Abu Eradicator Realfinesse 6' 7" SUL slow taper special. It is my favorite rod for bluegill and shellcrackers. I would highly recommend it. Looks real nice with the matching AG MGX Theta 1000 reel.

The other rod I use a lot is a 6'10" Evergreen Salty Sensation SPRS-610UL-S Limber Tip SS, very expensive and impossible to find.

I have no experience with JDM stuff, but I’m watching the show. Happy Hunting.

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Originally Posted by zekepa

Now that I have my initial rod buying spree out of the way with the Lunakia 610, Finetail area stage 63 SUL, and the Aji-do 5’. I’m still do a lot of reading and looking for what maybe next. I’m very intrigued by the Abu Garcia Eradicator slow taper special probably the 6’9” XUL and the Diplomat Extreme 622ULS, but not opposed to looking at others I do want a sensitive rod though.

When targeting crappie and or blue gill casting soft plastics or hand tied jig heads what would be your preference for the most fun if the fish are smaller. Where I fish I just don’t get into big crappie or blue gill. In general, a 10 to 11 inch crappie or over 8 inch blue gill I consider a good fish. The main place I fish size limit for crappie and perch is 9” min and 7” for the bluegill/sunfish family. I very rarely end up catching a large mouth bass, maybe once a year.

The only bonus to almost everything being out of stock is I have time to look around and try to research the next rod.

For pure enjoyment of catching smaller fish, what type of rod would you chose?

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Those rods you mentioned are as different as night and day. Both are great. The Diplomat is very unique in the tip. The tip is so soft that the rod really does do "Automatic Hooking" as Abu Garcia says. Keep in mind while it fishes soft plastic just fine it was not designed to do that. The Eradicator 67 is my favorite rod...very crisp..steely..yet will give you a ton of fun. The 69 XUL....from talking with folks who own both the 69 and 67...is just as much fun. Both rods cast great. If I had to pick and could only have the one rod it would be the Eradicator.

Regards

I've pretty much narrowed this Japanese equipment down down to the Area rods for the fishing I do on Kentucky and Barkley. I primarily bottom fish with live bait under small balsa wood corks. I jig the bait constantly up and down off the bottom to entice a strike. These rods usually set the hook themselves when fishing this style. They give the ultimate experience when reeling in large redear...I'm VERY confident in that statement.

In March and early April I will use my Triplecross rod quite often. I can put a weighted float on and cast what seems like a football field! This is when the crappie are roaming and coming in and out of the shallows. It certainly doesn't give the best fight but its ability to get it out there trumps the fight factor.

The more you use the JDM equipment, the better you will understand each type of rod and when/where to use it. I have no reason to ever buy a stream rod and I've got one mebaru rod that I need to probably sell. The area rods are where it's at for what I'm doing.

I ordered the Eradicator 67SUL slow taper special this morning. JDM tackle heaven showed them as in stock last night and this morning. I sent a question asking if they had a status for the 69XUL being in stock, got a reply at about 1am that the 67 and 69 were both in stock. The 69XUL must not have lasted long as it was out of stock at 530am when I got up for work.

After watching the videos (Randy's and Victor's(ifish)) on the Eradicator seeing the bending curve and the description of feeling the thump when getting a bite I think that is more what I'm looking for than the "automatic hooking" of the Diplomat. In Randy's video of the Diplomat he mentions that with the diplomat the thump isn't felt very often.

Nice arsenal of jdm gear! Congrats on the new Eradicator.

I have 3 of rods you mentioned - the 610 Lunakia, the 67 Eradicator (x2), and the Finetail SUL. hope to try out the Finetail SUL soon.


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The wife and I are headed to a lake we have never been to tomorrow, hoping to get into some crappie or blue gill, but could end up with much larger fish, bass, striper, lake trout, carp ... Thinking I'll start with the 610 Lunakia, but taking all of the rods with me including the Finetail UL I got from you. A mess of crappie would be nice but as long as we are catching something it will be a good day.

New rod arrived today. Put the Theta reel on and walked over to the pond to try it out. Caught about a half dozen this size. Very nice setup looking forward to getting a good session on the lake with it.Attachment 428322

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Originally Posted by zekepa

New rod arrived today. Put the Theta reel on and walked over to the pond to try it out. Caught about a half dozen this size. Very nice setup looking forward to getting a good session on the lake with it.Attachment 428322

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Thoughts on the action of the rod, I have a couple of the Light Action ABU Eradicator rods and really like the blank and the bending curve. So soft but yet backbone enough to whoop up on the bullies.


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Got my 2nd STS today as well. I appreciate the heads up that they were in stock. I put a Daiwa Presso 1000s-p loaded with 3 lb. twitch master on it. Bad weather will prevent me fishing it until Friday, maybe.

Fished from. Noon to 7pm. Lots of action but mainly smaller crappie. Caught 58 crappie 46 short ones and 12 keepers also caught 9 bluegill biggest one was about 6 inches. Started with the Eradicator with the theta spooled with PE for about the first 20 till I got a big wind knot. Put it away and switched to the finetail SUL with 4lb twitch master. I started to catch a couple keepers so I switched back to the Eradicator with a Legalis 2000 spooled with 3lb super trout hi vis orange. It started to rain at 7 so I called it a day.Attachment 428490Attachment 428491

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It was raining this morning so to kill some time I set up a board like "I fish" has on his you tube channel. I stated out looking at the Lunakia and Eradicator SUL then added the Finetail SUL. I was surprised that the two SUL rods when loaded with 5 oz had such similar bending curves. Attachment 428494Attachment 428495

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I also looked at the Finetail UL and SUL. As expected they are pretty close to each other. Both rods loaded with 4 oz.
Attachment 428496

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Nice display. Thanks for the post.
Bob

I really like the bending curve demos, can gain information on rods I do not have and maybe thinking about buying.


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Great demo.

Regards


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Spent most of the day fishing yesterday, I actually made a morning and an evening trip. I'm lucky enough that my main fishing lake is only a couple miles away. The fish were stacked on some downed tree tops, caught 55 crappie and 1 bluegill in the morning, and 54 crappie and 5 blue gill in the evening. The past 2 days I've landed just over 180 crappie and blue gill, the fish were split pretty even between the 6'7" Eradicator Slow Taper Special and the Majorcraft 6'3" Finetail SUL. Mostly with 3 or 4 lb Varivas mono either Twitch master or Super trout hi vis. I had PE on the Eradictor on Friday till I got a wind knot, then switched to mono.

The one thing I've noticed between the two rods is I seem to miss more hook ups with the Finetail, the bite was pretty soft the past 2 days, I'd feel the bump but missed the hook up more with the Finetail when using a bigger soft body, the jig head was the same on both rods. I switched to using a trout magnet on the Finetail and that seemed to help with the hook ups some.

Awesome! Sounds like things are heating up for you. Congrats on your catches!