Cod Tackles

When I went to an allday cod trip for the first time, I wondered if I would use a rental rod or buy one. To have an idea, I went to Dick’s with coupons to see stocks. There were several choices of rods and I found some rods are not expensive at all. I picked up Ugly Stik Bigwater BWB 1140 6’6’’. It was relatively light weight and looked sturdy enough to use 16 oz sinker. It was also reasonably priced around $60. As for a reel, the only one I liked under $100 was Penn 555GS. I asked a clerk to show me the one in the showcase and I decided to buy it. He said it was the only stock so 25% off from the price on tag so I paid $75 for it. After a few months I found it was usually sold at $130 in other tackle shops or online! I spooled 300YD of 65 lb PowerPro with it. What I found soon after the first trip was it was too high speed and reeling load was too heavy. Although I think I didn’t understand how to reel comfortably at that time, I decided to buy a third party power handle at ReelPowerHandles through Amazon. After switching the handle, it became perfect.

I bought another set of tackles for the trip with my daughter but I modified a little after the first trip. It was difficult for her to fish over the rail because of her height. She placed a rod under the rail that made scratches on the clear coat of the rod. I thought it was better to use a solid glass one, which is less expensive and never break with its flexibility. I bought Shakespeare SturdyStik 6’6’’. It has a little less power for jigging but absolutely no problem for bait fishing. As for a reel, I got Okuma Classic CLX450L for her but I found level wind had a trouble. So I removed level wind from it. In addition, I removed backing mono to a few yards and spooled only 150 YD PowerPro. This arrangement minimizes the spool diameter and reduces the load of reeling dramatically at the cost of speed. At the all of the trips I went so far, we fished 300 feet depth at most so it should be fine. Actually, this tackles worked perfect at the fishing. She could reel in double keeper cod by herself without any help and complaint. At this trip, she reeled in 9 keepers in total! Maybe OK for a big pollock as well. The only thing I had to take care was that I had to help her reel after recovering my rig at the time of reset because it was too slow.

When I first used Okuma Classic, I liked level wind as well as light load. Disadvantages of level wind are; more line trouble, finger accident and compromised castability. However, I found that the trouble was very minor once I got used to use it. Actually, reeling was much more comfortable and casting was not so bad. I decided to remove level wind for my daughter and bought a little better model Classic Pro XP-452L for me. I bought the reel at Walmart online & store pick up at less than $50 in winter. Trouble was that I could not specify the model number. Pull down menu only shows line capacity. I compared the line cap and catalogue spec at Okuma web site side by side and thought 25 lb 430 YD was the one I wanted. I spooled 300 YD of 65 lb PowerPro with some mono backing to make it almost full spool. Now I use this reel as a primary for both jig and bait. I go fishing for cod at most several times a season so it is durable enough.

I usually tie 10 YD of 50 lb mono leader to the PowerPro main line. A few yards of mono is necessary to grab fish into the boat but not so long leader is necessary. The only reason to make it longer is that I don’t want to tie again in the case of line break from such as snag or blueshark. Leader is consumed faster than you expect so 1/4 lb spool such as Trilene Big Game or Ande works better than a specific leader material of 50 YD spool. I use a big spool of mono line for bait rigs as well. As for the connection of the PowerPro and mono leader, I use SF knot. I have never had a break at the point of SF knot. I think a dropper loop for a teaser is much weaker.