Short trip

Managed to squeeze out an hour plus right before dusk for a short session.

Outfit Of The Day:

Bag: L.S.D One Shot Side Tuned 

Rod: Jackson Super Trickster STC-60L-AS

Reel: Daiwa SS Air

After the first half an hour or so, i noticed that the peacocks were not in the mood for hard bodied lures as there was little to no interest. The moment i swapped the lures out to soft plastics ,the bite rate increased noticeably. I spent the next hour switching between hard bodies and soft plastics just for experimental sake. 

This one was landed on a Garagecraft Mylar Minnow soft plastic, prior to that i dropped another peacock which was also on soft plastic as well right before landing! The hard bodies continued to score a big fat zero until the end of the day.

Baitfinesse trout 進撃の巨人

Some days while hunting for rabbits, you may just stumble upon the lion's den. That's how it felt today when a big fat Haruan decided to make my day. I had a few hours to spare before going to work in the evening so what better way to spend it than to go for a short fishing trip.

Just 2 days back, i had about 10mins on the water before a thunderstorm came in and had me scrambling back to the car. But lucky for me i somehow managed 1 fish before the rain fell.

Today started out slow, the sun was hiding behind the clouds but the hight humidity level left the air feeling stale and sticky. Off we went though, rigged up with a 2" Jackall Peke Peke mebaru rubber on a 1g Daiwa jighead. I bounced the jig on the bottom slowly and was soon rewarded with several nice cichilids.

After arriving at an area where peacocks were more prone to lurk i decided to go with a lure swap. I made several casts and on a particular retrieve i decided to slow the lure down about 4 feets away from me and made short hard jerks. As the lure came within no more than 50cm from my feet, a dark shadow appeared from nowhere, snatched the lure, and went on it's first run taking over 20m of line out of the spool. The fish wasn't shy to show itself and leaped into the air fully clearing it's entire body while giving me a good look at the behemoth. "Owh fuck here we go.." i muttered under my breath.

I had a tiny lure with tiny and thin stock hooks, 5lb fluoro line at 0.185mm thick (or thin) and a noodly soft rod. A recipe for disaster i guess. But 10mins or so later with  countless runs, many heart stopping moments and several close shaves, i somehow managed to land the bugger. And behold...

#tatfatbelly

The lure that did the trick

After a few mugshots, shakey hands and a sigh of relief, the beauty was slid gently back into the water and off it went. What a great day.

BFS troutin?

With the recent craze of trout fishing in Japanese rivers with BFS gears, a world of soft noodly rods have opened itself up to. While there isn't any trouts to be caught locally, there sure is a lot fun that can be had with these ultalight tackles.

Locally there are plenty of fishes that can be targeted with ultralight luring, some of these fishes could be too small to be caught on conventional setups and only few, such as, ultralight anglers and fly fishermen actually bothered to give it a go, while the other part of the angling community are more likely to see these fishes as baits.

Introducing...

Abu Garcia Diplomat Boron DBC-602ULS MGS

6 Foot

Line: 3-8lb 

Lure: 2-7g

The rod is way softer than the specs suggest. Behaves like a 3wt Fly rod

Ultra light, Pun intended.

 The chosen partner due to sheer weight, or rather the lack of it. My 138g Aldebaran BFS XG Tuned

The combination

And so, the main objective of coming up with this setup was ultimately to maximize the enjoyment that sometimes small fishes can actually give, but not on your usual tackles. And whilst there is no trouts here, there are plenty of small feisty fishes that could put a nice bend on this noodly rod.

Superb FC line of choice

Outfit for the day, sticking to the lightweight theme.

Off we went...

First fish of the day!

Than, a nice Haruan decided to show up and put up a spectacular fight with some aerial displays

A fish i've not seen in a long time, a Jaguar Cichilid. What a beauty.

I've dialed down the drag on my reel to nearly non-existent, with just enough to retrieve line and relied on using my thumb to feather the pressure when a fish was on. Boy was it fun! These little fishes were able to bend the blank into a beautiful and deep bow and coupled with the low drag they were more than able to make many surprisingly entertaining runs. 

By using ultralight setups, any fish hooked up feels like a good fish. You become less conscious about what hits the lure and lose the pressure of constantly needing a big fish to keep you entertained. The simple appeal of such is often lost in the modern angling world where everyone is striving to outdo one another with the biggest catch. 

For me this form of fishing is a great way to relax and take a slower pace in fishing. Appreciating the beauty of everything this wonderful sport has got to offer, the sights and sounds of nature, and of course, the sheer beauty of our favorite finned friends, even if it's the little ones. 

Daiwa SS Air × Jackson Super Trickster on the water

After some considerations, the SS air was loaded with a spool of 7lbs Daiwa Bass Finesse Fluorocarbon line.

As with the T3 air, the SS air spool being extremely thin, requires more care and attention during usage as compared to standard spools. Some of the guidelines by Daiwa regarding the usage of the spool includes:

- Nylon and Fluorocarbon lines only. No braided lines. - Line thickness, from 0.205mm (approx.6lb) to 0.330mm(approx.16lb) only - For lines with diameter lesser than 0.235mm(approx.8lb-test) lines, do not spool in more than 50m - Never spool lines with more than 500g (about 1lb force) of tension - Never lock the spool and pull when lure is snagged - Never cast lures over 15g As these are all precautionary measures from Daiwa to prevent any forms of mechanical failure, users should try to adhere to it.  Woke up nice and early today to catch the break of dawn for some field test on the new BFS setup.  The setup was rigged up and i tied on an O.S.P I-waver 74sss. Off to the water we went. I took a few test-casts and played around with the brake settings for a short while, with a stroke of luck a friendly peacock bass came knocking on the lure. The fight was short due to the short range where the fish took the lure thus even though i've had my first glimpse of the rod's performance, it was not fully tested to it's capabilities as yet.  Initial impression of the SS Air was that it casted really smoothly with little effort. And similarly to my Alphas on the MB Zonda finesse spool, the reel didn't liked hard punching casts. Smooth casting strokes with gentle thumb pressure gotten the best casting results. This seemed to apply from the 4.5g I-Waver down to the 1/32oz (0.8g) Yozuri Snap (Optimal result with lower poundage lines approx. 2-5lb). The reel handle 2-3g class lures such as weightless rubbers and small minnows with ease. However for the lower limits ( <2g), lighter line class would have brought out it's full potential.  A lure i like to use for BFS testing.

The peacock basses landed today were not huge by any measures, thus the drag was not tested to its higher capabilities, however the initial impression of the Daiwa Tournament Drag System was a feel of smoothness with no jerky burst encountered. Overall the SS Air is a high performance Bait Finesse reel right out of the box. It is light but solid, has a silky smooth drag as well as retrieval and overall operation, lastly and most importantly bangs out finesse lures like a champ. Technical features aside, based on casting distance and ease of casts, the SS air easily performs as well as or better than most of the Bait Finesse reels out of the box in the market right now. In terms of out of the box Bait Finesse casting performance, build, features and specs aside, i feel that the Abu Garcia Revo AE74 LTZ is one of the best casters and i'm glad to report that the SS Air definitely matches its casting prowess, however whether either reel outperforms the other would require a more detailed test. As with any performance reels, i personally believe in a bedding-in period, whereby items such as the drive gears, spool shafts and bearings etc will smoothen out after some usage, thus i foresee a little more potential performance increase for the reel for the coming months. Having said that, it is likely that a bearing swap and some cosmetic changes will be in the works for this unit. UPDATE: Hedgehog Studios Air Beaings added to sideplate: Freespool timing improved from 12sec > 37sec

Jackson Super Trickster STC-60L-AS arrived!

And it's here! My new all solid model new Jackson Trickster 2014 Rod! 

 6ft Solid Carbon

Lure Wt: Up to 3/8oz

Line Wt: Up to 10lb

Ultra Thin blank

Pimp Aesthetics 

All set for trial

Random peacocks

Haven't been doing much fishing over the past weeks, here are some mugshots.

Let's take a look: The Daiwa SS Air 8.1R

Last friday, i received a mail from Jun san from Japantackle that the pre-ordered Daiwa SS Air is ready to be shipped. I made payment immediately and was promptly informed in a few hours later that my reel will be shipped the same day; talk about efficiency!

Yesterday afternoon the EMS package landed at my place! 3 days for Japan to Singapore shipping!

Boy, did this made my day!

I waited for day light today to get some pictures of the unboxing process.

 The box was compact and hinted the reel weight upon being held

 The black beauty

 Top view

 Side profile

Handle side profile showing the Zaion Drag star

Immediately out of the box i could feel the lightness of the reel. And the smoothness on the gear mesh was absolute butter. It didn't take very long for me to ascertain my love for this new toy.

147grams

Based on the spec the reel weights 145g, my piece was about 2g heavier than listed. Fine by me. 

And out came the heart of this machine for scrutiny

True Art 

Wispy 9g

The paper specs of the spool was 6.9g, but factory specs are based on spool alone without bearing and hardware.

Here's a look at the spool's free-spin straight from factory, Brakes: 0, Cast control set to just taking up all the lateral slack. On average, the stock spool spins for about 9 seconds. However it is to note that free-spins of spool does not always equates to casting prowess and the above video serves merely the purpose of reference. 

As always, reels at Lure × Style does not stays stock for long! However the reel is really pretty in its stock form and not much work will be needed to pimp out the aesthetics. Some small cosmetic parts change is in the works, however a carbon handle swap may not be necessary this time, as the stock skeleton handle is plenty light and well swept.

A pair of ZPI aluminum Knobs were added. 

The knobs dropped the weight by 1 gram compared to the Zaion pieces

The reel's build felt great out of factory, thus a tear down and re-lube was not necessary at this point as oppose to some reels that came with sticky gear mesh from factory. However stock bearings are usually over oiled to aid longevity thus, out they came, for a flush and a single drop of Hedgehog Studios Ultra light Alchemy oil was added to each bearing. The bearings from factory were of micro specs with an aluminum adaptor piece similar to bearings in Daiwa Pressos and Pixies.

An improvement of 3 seconds free spin was obtained from the bearings flush

UPDATE: Hedgehog Studios Air Beaings added to sideplate:
Timing improved from 12sec > 37sec

Overall, from initial impressions, the Daiwa SS Air looks to deliver all the BFS goodness as promised. Report of performance on the water will come later once i get my hands on another new toy; a newly released rod to pair with this beauty which is en route to Singapore as we speak.