Little fishes

Decided to join my colleagues for a short session today right after night shift. Weather was good however the water condition was really poor due to discharges from the canal causing the water to turn milky brown. The bite rate was poor and amongst the 4 of us i was the only one landing fishes, albeit small ones. Fun day nonetheless.

Raid Japan

Another sick trailer

Shakedown.

My Baitfinesse Core is finally complete with the arrival of my Semperfi finesse platinum carbon handle. I'm overall really satisfied with the finalized product in terms of looks and feel however performance on the water would be the most important and final trial to determine success of the project. Thus it was time for a final shakedown and a test of it's ability.

Project BaitFinesseCore

Volkey VKC-652UL BFS 3-10lb

Sufix 832 6lbs mainline

Berkley Vanish 8lb shock leader

It took about 3 casts to finalized a balanced casting setting without really pushing it, resulting in a user friendly, moderate thumbing setting. I clipped on a Zipbaits Rigge 46S and the first twitch upon landing resulted in an instantaneous bite. Hook was set and the fish was on. What a great start for the day and the reel.

I tried casting a range of lures from 1/16oz jighead rigged mebaru rubber to several plugs ranging from 2.3g to 2.8g. Casting of the BFC was superb and i have to say i was pretty much blown away. It exceeds my px68 in every way (both reel spooled with same line, leader and paired to the same rod however the px68 finesse spool has not been tested yet). The overall distance was quite a bit further while maintaining controlled, smooth and effortless casting. 

The high retrieve ratio on the shimano HEG gearing made retrieval a breeze and provided lots of power. While Daiwa reels had a very direct mechanical feel whilst cranking, Shimano reels emphasized on buttery smoothness. Neither offered any form of edge over the other as it boils down to preference of feel. 

The bite was plentiful today however nothing of notable size was landed thus the drag capability have not been put to the test as yet. However i'm extremely pleased with the reel and can't seem to shake off thoughts of going fishing and using it again.

Some of my good buddies catches for the day.

Core 50mg7 Bait Finesse super tune

After much considerations, the finalized decision was made on the procurement of a Shimano Core 50MG7 for the 2nd bait finesse project. The core was selected over the Aldebaran due to the color, just like in japan, the Aldebaran is the domestic model thus USDM Cores were rare and unavailable in local tackle stores here. 

In its stock form the Core/Aldebaran was designed for finesse fishing, however in terms of true bait finesse casting with lures in the 2-5g range, the core leaves much to be desired unlike the Daiwa pixy variants which handled fine in stock form. Thus upgrades to the spool and spool bearings were necessary in order to enable it to reach target casting performance for ultralight lures which it was intended for.

 The subject of tuning シマノコア 50MG7

 Tune up parts: Avail Microcast spool, ZPI Finesse concept SIC BB and Alu knobs

 Tools of the trade

 Removal of the VBS brake drum

 VBS Brake drum installed on the Avail Microcast spool

 Removal of stock spool AR-Bs 

 The latest ZPI finesse concept SIC ball bearings

 Flushing of bearings

 Spin dry!

 One drop of ZPI Friction Zero SuperConque oil

 Installation of bearings

 ZPI machined aluminium knobs; superlight weight at 3.3g each

 Stock knobs taken apart

 Assembling the completed BFC Core 50MG7

 

You'd expect it to say "Mission accomplished" here, but we're not done yet!

A set of platinum carbon Semperfi Carbon handle is still on its way. So await the final product!

Sweet cinematography!

Paying Homage to my R

Today is the day my Daiwa Alphas R edition is going on sale, if the deal goes through it'll be on it's way tonight =( 

My R started life as my venture into the baitfinesse revolution. It has upgraded TG rocket bearings, carbontex drag and a set of Livre Titan knobs to finish it off. Back in those days there were no shallow lightweight spool option for the alphas platform thus it was eventually dethroned by my PX68R. The alphas R edition is the highest spec of daiwa factory tuned Alphas.

In it's stock form the reel comes with I'ze Factory carbon swept handle, Super duralumin R tuned spool and is based on the mini power house Alphas platform. This was to be my 2nd alphas after my previous limited edition Yuki ito tuned Alphas Ito. Today, the highest spec Alphas comes in the form of the limited edition Megabass Zonda 10/68 and freshly off release last month was the new megabass finesse spool for this platform. But as i did not wish to have to 2 similar reels i decided to let my alphas go.

Moving on, i've decided to pick up another finesse reel, this time probably a non daiwa one since my PX68R is already daiwa's flagship finesse model.

Some of my potential choices would be

Shimano Core/Aldebaran MG7

Avail Microcast spool

Carbontex drags

ZPI Finesse SIC ceramic bearings

Carbon handle

Zpi Aluminium knobs

Abu Garcia Revo Elite IB/Aurora

Zpi BFC Spool and bearing kit (costs a bomb)

Carbontex drags

Carbon Handle

Zpi Aluminium Knobs

In the midst of my research i've came across a really interesting baitfinesse project by a japanese tackleshop which was based upon a Shimano Chronarch 50E. The white and black with anodized color finishing got me hooked instantly.  Maybe i'll get a aldebaran and order a set of Chronarch shells, or i can get a Chronarch and upgrade the necessary Aldebaran innards. 

Full built can be seen at: http://waterlettu.exblog.jp/16118122/

The Chronarch is one step above the Curado (JDM Scorpion) platform and all of the curado 50e,chronarch 50e, scorpion 1000xt, core and aldebaran shares the exact same frame design. Through my researches it seems it will perform exactly the way a Core/Aldebaran does, less the Magnesium frame and a slower gear ratio therefore slower and heavier. However this led me to a intense interest in doing a full blown built on this affordable reel to turn it into a monster Chronarch. The prospects felt exactly like car tuning; turning a daily driven hot hatch into a monster track machine.

The projected monster Chronarch 50E built:

Avail Microcast spool

Aldebaran 7.0 gearset

Carbontex drag with lightweight washers

ZPI finesse SIC ceramic bearings

Carbon handle and anodized colored drag star

ZPI aluminium knobs

With such upgrades the chronarch 50e will basically become a fully lightened, high speed finesse reel that i'm looking for.

Decisions Decisions!