A visit to FishingBuddy

Today i'm on leave from work thus, after waking up and getting things done around the house i decided to go pick up some new toys. It has been years since i visited the local tackle shop FishingBuddy. I first stepped into this store about 9 years back when i was still a student in secondary school. Today the shop sits at a store front across where the older and smaller shop was, the staffs in the store has come and gone but amidst the new faces i spotted a familiar face.

After a brief chat with this old friend and enquiring about another; the boss, who is out on errand.  I spotted a few shiny Daiwa T3 Airs sitting on the shelf, i couldn't help but took the chance to caress this new holy grail of Bait finesse reels. The Zaion body with generous portings of the shell allowed a good decrease in weight of the reel. The T-wing levelwind, KTF spool, looks and works fantastic and overall built seems pretty sturdy. However i'm still not fully a fan of the Zaion material as it made the reel feel cheap in your hand due to the resin compound but ironically it costs nowhere near the word cheap. I wasn't fully bought in even though i'm such a huge fan of baitcasting finesse tackles. So i decided to keep the card sitting firmly in the wallet this time. I may revisit this reel if my PX68 eventually gets sold.

As i walked around the shop i spotted what i was here for, a new finesse rod. After looking at several higher end rods available at local tackle stores and still unable to find one with my preferred blank action i decided to try cashing in on a moderately priced piece, which from my research may just offer that bend to mid blank.

Monsoon is here.

It has been a hectic month throughout the entire November; amidst the mindless revisions for my college exams i was given the opportunity to change my personal car from a Suzuki Swift Sport to my childhood fave; the Toyota MR-S. Juggling studying, dekitting/selling of the parts from my Swift, to viewing and dealing of the MR-S, it was not hard to see why my tackles have been sitting in the dark. However now that the dusts have settled, it was time for some rod bending good times.

 December marks the beginning of the north eastern monsoon and downpours occur almost everyday. I decided to visit a heavily overfished location which is fairly unaffected by rain to help my cousin in landing some peacocks, hopefully.

We arrived later than we supposed to, which translates to a very short fishing window; about 45 minutes of fishing to be exact. I rigged up the tackles quickly and after a brief run through of simple ways to work a Keitech Swing impact, my cousin was all set to do some serious luring. My cousin has been fishing with me on and off for the past 10 years however he has never tried serious luring; he would at times chug a couple of plastics out there, but without much serious thoughts. I directed him to some possible fishy hideouts and after several casts a successful hookup was had!

 

Rod: Abu Garcia Rocksweeper 2-4lbs

Reel: Shimano Sephia BB 2000 

Line: Berkley Fireline 6lbs

Lure: Keitech Swing Impact 3.5"

I was very much hoping for slightly larger peacocks to give him a better run but in such pressured waters it will have to make do! On the brighter side, my cousin is using my ultra light spinning tackle and with very low drag settings, the humble sized peacock managed to make several spirited dashes and put a smile on my cousins face.

My cousin went on to landing another similar sized fish whilst i managed to match his two fishes with whatever remaining fishing time we had left. Hopefully i will be able to get more time on the water in the coming months and maybe you'll see more catches from my cousin. Here's the bigger one of the two from me.

 

On my usual setup and my new Jackall Boil Trigger 77 in Skeleton Lime colour

 Couple of days ago i tried and failed to pick up one of these bad boys as it was sold out.

 

priced pretty steeply at about 700usd!

 

If you are as much a finesse fan as i am, you will know that you can never have enough of finesse rods thus i will be to acquiring another mid range finesse rod to tryout really soon so stay tuned!