Christening New Rig

[Jim_Tait]

Took possession of a new spinning rig last Friday - 6kg class stick (majic wand actually) Studwick Soft bodz rod and SHimano Stradic spin reel - spooled with 7kg fire line. I've been having a new love affair with spin sticks (previously purely baitcaster man) since landbased fishing tight jungle creeks for bass - wanted a bigger class of stick for land based chasing of freshwater barra & jacks - the combo I got is soooo...on the money!!

Took it out Sunday morning and first fish it came across was a 61 cm eastern cod (photo below) - the heavier stick allowed me to get the cod in and released a lot quicked than my ol lighter stick I've been using in local creeks - still took the drag and had to stear it clear of a few logs and rock bombies - flew to NQ for work Sunday night and found myself on a floodplain creek Monday arvo after work and score a beautiful 86 cm barra - rod casted beautifuly while fishing scrubby tight creek bank and peformed majically on the barra - suffice to say I'm pretty chuffed with the new rig's christening!!!

[Jim_Tait]

Here's the new rig and 86 cm barra

[bdowdy]

nice cod and barra loved the bass photos also, if by any chance you need a fishing buddy one weekend ill be glad to help cheers bdowdy

[flickflack]

Nice pics mate , two beautiful specimens.

Rod

[Canoedle]

Drool, that cod is a jaw dropper, love those colours, nice stuff m8

[chanquetas]

Good cod there. And I see you use the correct left hand wind on the Stradic.
Cheers,
Jake

[rossco]

nice fish, good colours in the cod

[Jeremy87]

Nice fish. What size is the stradic?

[Jim_Tait]

G'day Jeremy,

the Stradic is a 2500 FH. It is almost a bit on the light side for the line class I'm fishing (7 kg fire line) but it balances on the rod perfectly. The tackle shop guy where I bought it was encouraging me to go to a larger reel as the rod has plenty of grunt and could handle chasing off shore pelagics or such, but I wanted to keep the majic wand feel of the rig so as not to feel I was lugging it around when doing long walks up and down creeks.

Regards - Jim

[Jim_Tait]

Couple more victims of the new rig - solid lagoon barra below

[Jim_Tait]

Couple more victims of the new rig - solid lagoon barra below

[Jim_Tait]

Nightime jungle perch on a surface lure intended for barra - fish came from a coastal lagoon and was a complete surprise as the species hadn't been recorded in the system for years. Caught another one the next night as well!

The sad ending to the story is that on the subsequent evening I caught a keeper barra - laid it next to the rod to take its picture - it gave a couple of kicks which I thought nothing of untill I went to pick up my rod and discovered the new (less than a month old) Strudwick was now a two piece!!

Going to check up on Strudwick's royalty replacement policy to see if I can handle the expense of getting another one as I sure loved the rod.

[Canoedle]

Wow,thats a nice JP m8, bet it pulled like a frieght train!
Shame about the rod, hope they replace it for ya.

[magicmarlin]

mate where abouts in oz (appriciate that u probly dont wana broad cast the exact location over the net) did u nail that cod?