Blazing Blazon

From the continuation of my previous post i shall now reveal the latest toy i have acquired from Fishing Buddy. As the title already gave it away, it indeed is the new Daiwa Blazon bait finesse model; the 662LB.

The Blazon's action is not stated on the daiwa website but through my usage i feel that it is more of a regular taper. The rod's build quality is pretty well as expected from a mid range daiwa rod. The reel seat is a comfortable item from daiwa and features stainless steel SIC guides. The winding check has a nice touch of carbon fibre bits.

I only had about 3 sessions using this rod in total but i manage to some decent bend down to the butt from a hard pulling peacock as well as a pretty fat red devil cichlid.

The rod is definitely more than capable of hauling bigger sized fishes whilst providing a really direct feel of the fight with its deep bend into the blank, which was the kind of rod action i was looking for. 

When it came to casting the Blazon performed as it was specced handling down to 1/16oz jigheads with mebaru rubber rigs however outright casting distance would be rated pretty average by me. 

While the Daiwa Blazon offered a really nice taper with a fish hooked on, which was what i was looking for, it seemed to lack something, a certain X factor which i've grown accustomed to from my past experience with JDM sticks. I believe this certain feeling is what the japanese anglers described as a rods' "sharpness" a certain crisp sensitivity of a rod built. This rod does exactly what it is designed for however it came without any extraordinary character. I had eventually let it off to a good buddy of mine at a discount and the search continues.

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!

Hey Sunshine!

It was one of those lazy days where i struggled hard to lug my arse out of the house to get some fishing done. However it has been almost a month since i put anything up for you readers out there thus off i went, all packed for a short hour's trip before dusk. As hard as i tried the peacocks were just not biting nor even showing up on the surface, thus all i have to show is a nice vividly colored orange cichilid. I had 3 taken that evening. Not a great catch by any means, but the fun buzzing bites still wrapped up my day on a light hearted note. Till next time.

Rubbers saved the day!

I had a morning to spare, and so decided to sacrifice some much needed sleep in exchange for a chance to bend some rods. Woke up at 6.15am and headed out to meet a colleague of mine.
Arriving nice and early with the crisp morning air around us, cast after cast was fired out. The water level was extremely low and there was very little surface actions, even at daybreak. 2 hours into the morning, after countless lure changes and not a single take or even a chase. Both of us were pretty disappointed and eventually my friend had decided to pack up his tackle while i decided to rig up a mebaru rubber just to try and hookup something. After several cast i felt a tug and set the hook. Up came a fiesty little bugger.

After several more casts, my friend had to take his leave due to urgent matters and so i walked slowly back to my car. While walking along the canal leading back to my car, i slowly scanned the area for activities and did some sight casting. At the very last moment i spotted a pair of peacocks swimming by and made a quick cast in the direction and made several twitches. A familiar yellow flash swoop out of the weeds and had a go at my tiny mebaru rubber.

Nothing huge, but at least a sizable fish which managed to put up decent dashes to make the entire trip worthwhile. Alas, rubbers saved the day once again.

Fly!

Hi guys apologies that this place has been left hanging for awhile. Have been busy with quite a fair bit of stuffs. Of all the other things cluttering my life, one was my new 2wt fly setup.

As much as i'm a hardcore finesse luring freak, seems everything finesse attracts me when it comes down to fishing. Having been doing much of flyfishing in the past year after i discovered the joys of baitcasting finesse and so over the past month i have been doing alot of flyfishing with several buddies of mine and have landed quite a fair bit of fishes but i'll just upload some to tease.

 Double hookups

 Gurglers are great fun to use

 Native water tilapias, fiesty buggers but seldom taken on lure

 One of the many peacocks that fell prey to one of my most attractive patterns; The Flashbelly

Temensis taken on a orange Chenile Charlie

A Haruan also on the Flashbelly

New Aldebaran BFS XG!!

Hey lurers! Sorry there has been a bit of downtime on Lurerstyle as i was away on vacation in Phuket, Thailand. Unfortunately there was no fishing done on this trip, even though a mighty tranquil creek lies right in front of the resort i was staying at.

As Daiwa rolled out the T3 Air featuring collaboration efforts With K.T.F to cover the new niche trend of bait finesse fishing, Shimano Japan has decided to put up a new contender to the table; The 145g Aldebaran BFS XG!

The Aldebaran BFS XG with a new Sleek matte black finishing

One of the new feature of the Aldebaran BFS XG is a redesigned profile known as the Corefit Body which supposingly gives the reel a much better palming profile for bait finesse application.

The BFS XG comes with a blistering 8.0:1 Gear ratio

 The new drag star on the BFS XG

The BFS XG comes with factory Yumeya BFS spool and a new SVS unit with 8 brake blocks for further fine tuning of braking force for bait finesse application.

Does this reel not resemble my bfs core?! I'm certainly picking one of these up this year after the release to add on to my stable of BFS reels. I'm looking forward to the release of this reels' marketing video by Shimano Japan to check out the reel in action and to find out more information! Till then, keep drooling finesse fans!!