Just bought a Kayak, looking for a casting and spinning setup

[Mark]

As I stated earlier, I use mostly medium light weight rods for trolling and casting. My kayak fishing style does not require any medium heavy or heavy rods. Rods that big are not needed for the fish I commonly target and catch.

For perch, I use from ultra-light to medium light rods. Legal-sized stripers often swim with perch and hit the same small lures as perch. It's easier to get them in with medium light rods, but even an ultra-light will handle them with a little extra finesse.

I find the action of the rod rather than its weight is more important for topwater. I like a slow action rod for surface lures. Such rods delay my natural inclination to immediately react to a topwater hit. They keep the lure in the strike zone a split second longer which results in more frequent hookups in my opinion.

[rugbyfish]

BG refers to the Daiwa BG spinning reel:http://www.daiwa.com/us/contents/ree...ing/index.html

[NattyBoh74]

Thanks guys! I think I might get the Aird-X rods ( one spinning and one casting ). I'll then have a rod for Perch as well.

Any idea on reel size for perch? Maybe I should get something larger in case a rock hits it as well?

What about spinning reel size for topwater for rock? Maybe I can do other presentations as well for rock using the spinning reel? Rat-L-Traps?

[Mark]

I use 2500 size spinning reels for all applications, from 1/8 oz. lures for perch to 1/2 oz. Rat-L-Traps and topwater lures.

[NattyBoh74]

Thanks. What sized top water lures should I be using? Any suggestions/links? Different things I could troll , stuff for top water?

Lastly, what about size for a caster?

[Oldbayrunner]

Lure size and type depends on what your targeting, if its stripers something around the 5,6 or 7", top water I like using poppers and whopper ploppers.. A really good person to help you with that is Matt at https://jigthebay.com/ He carries a lot of local lure makers and plastics.


What kind of caster are you thinking Salt or freshwater? Salt I wouldn't use anything bigger than a 30, even that's big for bay use, for trolling deep I prefer line counters. For freshwater casters its not about size as most are low profile but gear ratio. Different retrieval ratios normally are used for different fishing techniques and lures, accompanied with different rod actions which can be dependent on what structure and fish one is targeting. That I wouldn't be concerned with right away so I suggest a good all around gear ratio to be is start with is a 6:3:1, if your thinking of a freshwater caster.

[belairfishing]

I recently purchased a Penn Fierce II 3000 series - I'll be using it tomorrow for the first time, so I'll let you know how it is!

And to Diawa reels, my brother and I both have Diawa reels we bought when we were in our teens - he is 53 and I am 51. They are ultra-light reels, but if that says anything about the quality of Diawa reels, I don't think you can go wrong.