i've been putting together rods and reels for a kid's fishing program and finally got them all done. special thanks to patrick pickerall for donating a really nice shimano corvalus 400, to richard kent for spooling up all of the reels, and to everyone else for donating old reels to my kid's fishing program. last year i purchase a dozen omoto reels from alan chiu of prochallenger in florida. he basically gave me these reels at cost!!!! i also got a dozen bob franko rods at the fisherman's warehouse at a big discount as well. i went through all of the reels, added carbon fiber drag washers to six reels that needed them, bolted on a 1/0 prototype pete kolekar grip, and got them strung up with 25 yozuri hybrid donated by brian young. my total cost so far is about $125 per rig.
i just made a purchase of a dozen $40 shimano rods from fisherman's warehouse that are a little heavier. i'm going to rig them up with some jigmasters 500's and long beach 60's that i've collected. i'd like to find a way to bring the cost of a complete rig down to $50. the original goal was to give each kid their own rod and reel, but that may not happen. thanks again to everyone that has donated. it has been great working with all of you. alan
