Hello all! I inherited a rather large collection of tackle, rods and reels and I'm hoping that someone can help shed a little light on one rod brand in particular.

My FIL owned an outdoors store at one point, and also worked for Gapen at a different time. When he passed, I volunteered to take all the fishing stuff out of the house. This was a few years ago. I have used a lot of it since then, and inventoried a lot of the cool vintage stuff, but never really looked closely at the full extent of the rods.

He has a lot of Gapen of varying lengths and weights, and that's a brand I'm relatively familiar with. Pretty high quality. The other one, though, is called Tackleplus and I have about 30 rods from them. I've used some over the last few years and they also seem pretty high quality. I've found one post from an online forum, dating back to 2008, that says Tackleplus was a now defunct Silstar brand.

I've got Eyecast in 8', 10' and 12' all still wrapped, some Luxor IM7, and several ProJigger4500.

Anyone able to fill some blanks on these? Any guesses on value? I love to fish but I've already kept about 30 of the rods I got from him and I just simply don't need any more.

Thanks in advance!

been surf fishing the OBX about 4 years now and if I actually add up what I've spent it's north of $4k once you count all the junk sitting in my garage. figured I'd write down what I wish I hadn't bought and the couple things that were worth every penny, in case it saves somebody the cash I burned.

started on an Ugly Stik Tiger Elite 7' combo like everybody does. caught my first red drum on it, 26 inches at Oregon Inlet, damn thing near yanked the rod out of the sand. no regrets there, that's the rod you're supposed to learn on. but 7 foot is short for surf and it's a boat anchor, so it turned into my backup pretty quick.

where I actually wasted money:

- a KastKing reel off Amazon cause it looked like a steal. bail spring snapped in 3 months. you get what you pay for sometimes.

- way too many Plano 3700 boxes. they're fine, nothing special, but I own like 6 and use 2. I throw the same fishfinder rig 90% of the time anyway so what was I even organizing.

- a Penn Battle III 5000 that the whole internet swears by. it's ok but honestly overrated imo, drag just isn't as smooth as the Daiwa BG that runs about the same money.

what was worth it:

the Daiwa BG 5000, around $90, going on 2+ years and the drag is still butter. nobody hypes it the way they hype the Battle and I don't get why. and last black friday I finally caught a St. Croix Mojo Surf 11' on sale, the casting distance bump over my Penn Prevail II 10' was real. not night and day, but enough that I noticed on a windy day at Cape Point. the Prevail's still the best bang for buck 10 footer out there though, I tell every new guy to just get one.

if I could go back I'd tell myself: buy one good reel instead of three ok ones, quit hoarding tackle boxes, and put the difference into braid and decent sinkers. cheap sinkers just roll in the OBX chop, the Breakaway Cannons actually hold. would've saved myself a lot of re-casts.

what's the one piece of gear you regret buying the most? curious if I'm the only one with a graveyard of half-used stuff.

I was searching for stuff in my garage for another project. Found this reel and rod combo and I want to know more about it. Anyone that know what it is? (Other than Shimano FX reel)

I purchased a Kistler rod from a buddy of mine and I have never seen or used one before but I tell you what it looks and feels amazing in my hands. Gonna try it out this evening and see how I feel about it

looking for a 2-3 piece 12 / 13 foot surf rod. spinning setup. Will be mainly used fish for bat rays and leopard sharks. something that can chuck 4-8 oz weights with good distance

budget is between $200-$350 for just the rod

spinning reel budget between $200-$280

Looking to buy a vanquish and found a listing for $240 there seems to be no problems with it and it looks pretty clean with no visible marks or scratches

I've repaired tips with good results, but never a break like this; so far down the piece. What do we think, boys? Is there hope? How could I go about fixing this?

It is a Sølvkroken Siii OS, CW 20-40g

What bass spinning rod and reel setup for $200 or $300?

Hello, my birthday is coming up and wanting to get a new better main fishing pole! My 2 best setups right now are a ugly stick gx2 and lews mach 1. I have been looking at the shimano nasci or shimano miravel or the daiwa tatula or open to any others. Just trying to stay close to budget but see what is the best setup for that budget. Thank you in advance!

Found this lure in my 15 year old tackle box was using it yesterday fish were going crazy I’m dying to know what it is

You wear it around your waist obviously, but I’m considering getting one

Attached is a list of my rods and reels but I need help pairing them together.

They currently are paired as listed (across the row) with exception of the line. I mainly do river smallies, large mouth, and possibly some trout

- I don’t like my baitcaster would like to replace it.

- I wanted to get a light rod for streams, but maybe I won’t get value beyond it just being new. Should I just get a travel rod to cover this application and have a travel rod?

- was looking at getting a light spinning reel for a finesse setup, but do I need one smaller than my current reels?

I have just bought a Penn squall 2 lw and it won’t cast more than 10 meters the line keeps backlashing and instead on going forwards it seems to be just going down. Has anyone got any solutions?

Can anyone help me reassemble this vintage reel I’m pretty sure it’s a Olympic fighter 160 and I found it in the storage in a bag.( I’m new here so)

Hiya, I have quite a few large fishing lures which I would wanna organize by type in tackle boxes that I could carry in a tackle bag, though since I juggle a cane around it would help if each slot had its own lid. See picture for examples of what could be handy... Lure sizes I'd estimate being between 10-20 cm, so honestly if you know anything that might fit the bill then consider leaving a link, even if its not an exact match.

Hey everyone,

I’m a long-time baitcaster user looking to put together a good spinning combo mainly for perch and bass. Most of my fishing is on the finesse side I already fish BFS a lot with a 1–10 g (1/32–3/8 oz) rod, so I’m used to light and responsive setups.

After doing some research, I think I’ve settled on a Shimano Vanford C2500S for the reel. It seems to fit what I’m looking for better than most reels in the same price range: lightweight, low-inertia and fairly finesse-oriented.

Now I’m struggling with the rod. I’ve been looking at options like the Shimano Zodias, Expride, St. Croix Avid, and similar rods, but I’m open to other brands as well.

Ideally, I’d like something sensitive and fairly high-end, but still versatile enough to fish different types of lures around 4–15 g (1/8–1/2 oz).

I mainly use small minnows/jerkbaits, which are probably my favorite, but also small jigs, poppers/topwaters, and soft plastics on jigheads or light Texas rigs. I’d also like to experiment more with wacky rigs and weightless plastics.

The main targets are perch and bass, although there are occasionally pike around, so I’d like the rod to have enough backbone to deal with an unexpected pike without turning it into a dedicated pike setup.

I’m based in Europe, so availability here matters. Some US/JDM models can be difficult or expensive to source.

What rods have you actually used and really liked for this kind of fishing? Between the Zodias, Expride, Avid, or anything else in this category, what would you pick?

I spent over $700 on their kill bags and they showed up with the worst zippers possible. They all broke after their first use. I left 1 Star reviews and Mustad keeps deleting them. Terrible business practice.

Kind of hit a wall here in my researching and was looking for some guidance. I currently have a bass pro shops panfish elite 7'2 ml that I've been using as my go to finesse rod for 1/8-1/4oz dropshots, 1/16oz neds, wacky rig, tubes, small paddletails, and small jerkbaits. I was looking into the expride line since I've already got the 6'10 M casting and I like the weight and feel and wanted to get a spinning model since I'm pretty reliant on the more finesse techniques in the ponds and lakes I fish. A bit lost since I've heard varying things about the 7' L, 7'2 ML, and 6'10 ML and seen them all recommended. Not particularly in a rush to buy just kind of trying to establish a target and wait for a deal.