Fishing Equipment Reviews

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Shimano Twinpower 1000FD and 5000FD

Well it's been a few years since I bought these spinning reels.  Like I mentioned a little bit about the 5000 size for catfishing and it has been great.  The winching power on this reel is very robust for it's size.  I think I may have to dig up the old Stradic 6000 reel that is a class up and bigger and heavier to make a winching power comparison.  No hurry in that.  That Stradic 6000 is very heavy and is designated on my surf rod.  I may need to get a weight check on that.

Anyways I need to talk about the 1000FD size spinning reel.  Really I don't really have a need or want for a spinning reel and this was just at a moment rash purchase.  After using it for a while, it's been very good if not phenomenal.  For an ultralight/light spinning reel, it's performs like a tank of a reel.  The smoothness and precision, the winching power on command actually made me more worried about my fishing rod breaking rather than having any thoughts that the reel is struggling.  Big carp do present it's own challenge or fish fighting methods.  But for white bass, I'm telling the fish, that they are coming in and the reel is telling them that they are coming in.  They have no choice but to listen.  In a sense it seems to have the winching power in similarity to that of bait casting reels.

For the purpose of ice fishing...it's defeats ice fishing purpose.  Way overpowered for panfishing.  I always thought my Stradics did very well, but this Twin Power does an even better job.  I think that single piece handle has a lot to do with it too.  Sure I miss the handle breakdown, but when the fish bites and it's a bigger than expected fish, it really shows the purpose of reeling in a fish.  With this reel I think I forgotten my fishing style of lifting the fish with the rod and reeling up the give.  I just turn the handle slowly with the proper load on the rod and whenever the drag isn't clicking.

The new 2024 Twin Power reels that replaces this one is supposed to be even better...It's gonna be a long time before I have a need to retire these ones.  Maybe another 20 yrs if I am still kicking a fish bucket for fun.

[VillainousHero]

Major Craft Jigpara Blade bait

comes in 4 weights
length     weight
1-3/4”   3/16oz
1-3/4"   1/4oz
2-1/5"   1/2oz
3"          5/8oz

Seems like I just bought it and it's put on clearance.  I thought this was a very good lure and the action initial start up was very responsive.  I mostly used it for ice fishing so far and the two lighter weights.  They are the same body length at 1 3/4" long.  The 1/4 oz. weight was way more pronounce for straight vertical ice fishing jigging.  I caught fish the very first time I used these lures for ice fishing.  Both crappies and walleyes bite was strong.  I also didn't get any line tangles while dropping the lure and while jigging.  That's probably the bigging factor for using blade baits for straight vertical jigging.

It is also rare to find lighter weight blade baits as most are in the 1/2 oz. or heavier weights.  So these were a blessing.  Years ago I did try some small Cicada blade baits but I didn't have any luck with catching fish on them.  These Major Craft Jigpara blade baits was totally different outcome.  It could've just been coincidental but the results are what they are.  They also proven to still catch fish afterwards on subsequent uses.  These lures have definitely moved up to my A list and will always be a priority for first lure use, just behind a simple jig and plastic like a Mimic Minnow Jig.  If anything these lures somehow have the "it" or "wow" factor in a lure.  Just something that makes fish bite it over other lures.

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St. Croix Premier 7" Heavy Fast Spinning rod

The basic staple of St. Croix rods is the Premier line up.  They do everything basic and a very good job of it.  With many things about the rod components to the assembly and even the placement of those things.   This rod is rated for 1/2 oz to 1 1/2 oz. lure weight.  If anything St. Croix usually does a very good job of line guide spacing and choosing just the right size.  There are 7 line guides plus the tip.  The line guides are double feet line guides, expect for heavy duty.  The physical weight of the rod alone is 5.82 oz.  So it stands as somewhat a heavy rod.  For what my intended use is bait fishing for catfish.  My typical sinker weights are usually 3/4 oz. or 1 oz. sinkers.

As for actual field use, yes it does it's job very well.  I have the Stradic 5000FL reel paired with it and 50# Berkley X9 line.  I have a top shot leader of 30# Excalibur Silverthread mono about like 15 feet length.  The reel has a very good winching power and precision being all new compared to the retired Stradic 4000FG.  Since I did do most of my fishing at night, well not much to see because it's dark.

Since it pretty much just a sit around rod, I've switched the reel to my the Ultegra 4000 reel which used to be on the Ugly Stick Catfish rod.  On it is 50# Berkley Whiplash.  The Ultegra reel is not as robust as the Stradic, but it's just a sit around rod combo.

Shimano Teramar SE 7' Heavy moderate fast spinning rod.

Since I was fishing this sort of side by side with the 7' H St. Croix rod.  Originally I had the Stradic 5000FL on this rod.  Since I've acquired the Twin Power 5000FD reel, it's been paired with.  The Teramar has 8 line guides and double feet guides too.  The line guides on this rod is much larger about twice the size of the compared 7' H St. Croix rod.  It does make the rod appear to have very tight line guide spacing but it's not.  Rod is also rated for 1/2 oz to 2 oz. lure weights.  The physical weight of the rod comes in at a heavy 8.58 oz.  The reason why I got the St. Croix 7' H rod is that sometimes it was difficult to detect softer fish bites on the Teramar rod.  It is afterall one level stronger and heavier than the St. Croix rod.  That also translate to a little more power in the fish fight.  Also the round rubber butt seats in realy well in the hip pocket for leveraging against larger fish.  With the Twin Power 5000FD reel, winching fish in is even more robust and easier over that of the St. Croix Stradic 5000FL combo.  While the St. Croix 7' H will take on a standard spinning rod sock, the Termar SE 7'H needs a larger sized diameter rod sock.

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Don't know if it was ever discussed or talked about but our favorite inline spinners.

Worden's Rooster Tails

Cheap, effective, and catches our favorite white bass.  The lure is made of rather cheap components and the body is just a lead mold with paint.  The feather is what's made of rooster hackle or tail feathers hence it's name. It really is a great lure, but also one of the worst choices in terms of performance.  First you never know if you get a good working lure or not.  It seems that half the time, it's a wreck.  It don't spin.  The blades don't spin unless you rip the lure to get it starting.  That's if it works the on the first rip.  Sometimes you might have to do it two or three times.  That's assuming that the treble hook didn't get caught on your line during the cast.  Color selection for Rooster Tails are awesome.  So many to choose from and so many patterns too.

Mepps Aglia spinner

Cheap, effective, and catches all sorts of fishes.  One thing about Mepps Aglia spinners that excels over Rooster tails is that the blade spins very easily.  The blade is also much thinner and that's what makes it so effective.  The lure is assembled with brass components.  The lure comes typical in plain all metal or a dressed treble hook of buck tail.  Mepps are old school, typical silver, gold, or copper blades.  White, black, or natural brown dressed trebles with a little red accent attractor yarn.  The biggest shortcoming of Mepps Aglia is that they don't seem to cast as far.  That blade catching air and deflecting the lure, often tumbles in the air.  Which at times does make the treble catch onto the line.

Blue Fox Vibrax spinner

Cheap and different alternative.  It's also found at your favorite wally world.  The hollow bullet head immitates a minnow head by design.  The components are cheap, the blade is sort of thick and heavy.  The hooks rusts easy if you don't dry out the bucktail.  The body head is hollow and there's a brass die inside that supoose to creat noise as it hits against the hollow head body.

Panther Martin

Cheap and offset blade design.  If one thing about this inline spiinner is that the offset blade is a guarantee to spin everytime.  Body is a lead drop.  Cheap components overall.  One call slow roll this inline spinner and have it run much deeper.

There is also a lot of other choices of inline spinners.  Even Rooster Tails comes in variations like one made similar to a Panther Martin named Vibric.  One made similar to Mepps named Sonic.  Mepps inline spinners have many other variations like the Lightning version with a willow leaf blade.  The Comet with an Indiana style blade.  The Thunderbug with a spade like blade immitating insect wings pattern.  The Marabou inline spininers with a wide tear drop blade and of course marabou feathers.    Blue Fox also has a varition of inlines spinners called Flash spinners.  The other one a Minnow spinner is basically a Rapala Floating minnow body threaded onto the inline spinner. 

When fishing in a crowded area, sometimes having the same lure works in your favor.  Sometimes having the different inline spinner works better.  Sometimes having the one that casts further is the ticket.  Sometimes the one that spins best, is the hot lure.

[VillainousHero]

Northland's Mimic Minnow

If there's a one lure jack of all trades to catch fish, this is probably one of the best.  In simplicity it's a jig head for weight and a soft plastic rubber body of a minnow imitiation. 

There are about three versions of how the lure is sold.  One is the paddle tail.  The second one is a curly tail.  The third is lesser know but with a flat fluke tail.  Well, finally the fourth version is the one with the beetle spin harness.

The paddle tail is the one that most widely used.  It is a simple cast it out and retrieve it back.  The paddle tail or sometimes referred to in the early days a boot leg tail.  The words bootleg just sounds criminal.  If apply to fishing, yeah it's criminal to mimic a minnow and catch fish.  The weird thing about the paddle tail version is that either the mimic minnow body is steady or it vibes on retrieve.  Although the intention is to have a steady body and just the tail kicking, often times the vibing minnow body works better to catch fish.

The curly tail one is also a simple cast and retrieve lure.  It's makes that typical curly tail wiggle trail effect.  As sometimes the fish prefers to bite this one over that of the paddle tail one.

The flat fluke tail one is typically found on the smallest of the lures.  It's often called the fry mimic minnow.  If just casting and retrieving it, the tail looks like it almost doesn't do anything.  However the intention of this lure is for one to impart action onto it.  Like jigging it for like no more than an inch.  In other words just twitching your rod tip.  It make the lure twitch it's tail.

It's not like one couldn't just twitch the rod tip with the other two versions, it just looks visually better with the flat fluke tail version. 

If there's one thing, the Mimic Minnow has gone through some minor subtle changes too.  The shape of the minnow head or the actual hook.  Either it's was intentional or maybe minor supply changes.  Even the soft plastics has sort of gone through minor changes.  It's either actual formulation changes or again minor supply changes in source material.  Maybe a mold plate change.

So for the soft body versions, there's the ones with the fins and the ones without the fins on them.  The one's with the fins do look better and has a more stablized body while on the retrieve.  The ones without the fins looks cheaper.  They do however tend to roll more while retrieving the lure.  Now this goes back to the rod tip twitching technique.  Which I just learned recently that it's called Strolling in the bass fishing world.  Anyways sometimes one wants to twitch the rod to make the lure twitch and roll as it's sinks.  It's works better on the paddle tail versioin.  In fact it works best on the paddle tail version after a fish bites off the paddle tail.  And the secret is out.  The one technique that really seperates experienced anglers from novices.

Thats the Mimic Minnow in a nutshell review.  That's also why one person seems to outcatch fish in the crowd of everyone fishing.  Oh and this lure works for ice fishing as well.

[VillainousHero]

YGK G-Soul Upgrade X-8
14# at .131 mm
16# at .153 mm
22# at .171 mm
25# at .185 mm

It's been years.  All I can say is wow this line is thin. It feels significantly much thinner than anything I've felt. Even more thin than the J-Braid x8 Grand. Will have to give it some line break test and some side to side comparison later. The clear package spool is a great visual product. One can really see how nice the line is and how little room it takes. The appearance is so uniform and even as a braid, it looks like a single monofilament.

Some preliminary line break test on the G-Soul Upgrade X-8 with all knot break failures.
14# listed with four trials: 6#15, 6#12, 7#0, 6#15
16# listed with four trials: 9#0, 9#15, 8#15, 8#15
22# listed with three trials: 13#10, 12#15, 12#10

It's been a while since I've tied and manipulated the knot on thin PE lines. I can't remember what I did to achieve a higher strength. However, I'm glad to see a rather consistent breakage. It means two contributing factor. First I may be tying a rather consistent knot with how I'm tying. Second, the line is consistent in uniformity strength with the extrusion process. As much as I expected that I was not going to get the manufacture listed line break strength, after all that's not what I'm after. I'm after my real world use of the line and how the knot will hold for me.  Compressing the line by pinching and pushing together did not yield any strand separations. The weave is just too uniform and well packed. I was only able to see a sign of thread separation after multiple line break of the same sample. Even then I was not able separate the thread weave.

Further note is that this time I did a really crude line test method. I kept using the same line even after the first break. Typically I expect that the subsequent tests should have yield less results. After all there were obvious signs of line damage even after the first line break test. I could see that the thread fluffed up where the fibers broke in multiple spots throughout the sample test line. Another telltale sign was how the line had contracted into a somewhat bunched deformity of random compressed doodle. This means that the fibers were stretched and rebounded. However it's odd that later test of the same sample would yield a higher break strength. This could hint that the line is still very strong even after some light stressed breakage.  That is not usual results for normal braided fishing line.  Oh and current packaging had a name changed from G-Soul to Xbraid.

Field test on Sustain 1000FE and Curado BFS.  Overall good results.  Strangely the fresh smooth line has an almost monoline feel and I had to double check just to make sure it's a braid.  When hooked up with fish, it's definitely a braid behavior very quick load to full tension.

YGK G-Soul SS112 Sinking Braided Line

YGK G-Soul SS112 Sinking Braided Line delivers innovative, finesse-oriented performance that will take your light line tactics to new heights. Composed of eight total strands, the YGK G-Soul SS112 Sinking Braided Line consists of 4 PE braided fibers and 4 Super Ester monofilaments, which results in a faster rate-of-fall, less slack, and less wind knots in gusty conditions.

Coated with a layer of silicon, the YGK G-Soul SS112 Sinking Braided Line is super-smooth and flies through guides with minimal friction to produce extended casting distance. Incredibly manageable, the YGK G-Soul SS112 Sinking Braided Line features a highly visible yellow coloring that makes it easy to detect, even in stained waters. Suitable for freshwater and saltwater, the YGK G-Soul SS112 Sinking Braided Line provides a hybrid construction that excels with a wide-range of finesse applications.

It's about time I share my experiences with this line type.  It is not as smooth as described by their sales information and has a texture on the line surface even for an 8 strand line. However it does have a tight weave and I could not get the strands to separate, when I pinch compress a section of the line.

YGK G-Soul SS112 Sinking Braid
10# at .165 mm
14# at .185 mm

Here are the preliminary line break test results on the G-Soul SS 112 with all knot break failures.
10# listed with three trials: 9#10, 9#1, 9#8
14# listed with three trials: 10#10, 9#15, 10#8

The different texture due to the ester strands has a feel of confidence that I am not going to cut myself on the braid. That's just the feel, sort of like dacron feel. As to whether it will cut me, I am not going to test that.. I followed the same previous procedure for line testing method for the G-Soul. I also decided to use the same line sequentially to see how the remaining line will perform after breakage. It's one of the two knots that I tied will break at the swivel. Given that sometimes the same knot last through the whole test and it's not always about the last knot to fail. Further to note that on my 14# line I saw a line break number of 13# just before the line break, but that could've been a fluke since I did not see the fish scale climb to above 12# range. The line has somewhat more stiffness in comparison to G-Soul Upgrade X8. It also did not show as much shock recoil, but on one test run the 14# line itself somehow managed to create a figure 8 knot at the end. I was able to needle pick it out, but what are the possibility of a snapped line recoil to self knot. There were some fine thread fray at the knot break ends, however I could not determine any individual strands.

Field test on Twin Power 1000FD and Scorpion BFS.  Strangely on the spinning reel, the line is way too rough feel.  Feels like a lousy 4 strand braid.  Noisy on the cast and even retreive with just lure on.  The buzzing vibration feel was distracting enough that I got rid of it all too soon.  Even with just a little crappie on end, it was buzzing noisy.  On the Scorpion BFS, it's still noisy.  However, to my surprise the line management on the spool was better than any other braid lines I've ever experienced.  The casting experience, if you get over the line buzz, is simply just too well managed.  No line fluff on spool, no loose loop, just simple snugged line winding behavior.  Overall line doesn't cast as far compared to other braids, as expected from a line of heavier mass density.

Note: It's been four years since first usage, same line.  I barely fish also, so individual mileage will vary.