Choosing a rod to match up to a reel and a target?

[Wolfram M]

Looking to thrift store or mudhole a rod or rod blank to do a job for me.

I have these two nice Penn Long Beach 60's and I hear that they were once the mainstay of the head boats. The intention is a stainless gear sleeve, 5 stack drag, and since I only have handles for one, and several reels with no handles, I decided to make a batch of stainless handles and drag stars.

I've read the stainless 60 gear sleeve and 60 gears are going to be OK with 10-15lbs of drag as long as the handle-to-sleeve interface is in good shape, vs 8lbs of drag with a brass gear sleeve.

The reel seems to be rated for 30lb line, I'll have 80lb braid with a 30-50lb mono leader on one reel and just straight 30 or 50lb mono on the other reel-the braid is just for line capacity.

I plan to use these as boat rods, for bottom fishing with cut or live bait.

To me, this seems to mean I want a 30-50lb rated rod, between 6 and 7ft long, with a moderate action and a medium-heavy to heavy power.

Am I on the right track here? When I go out on a head boat, I've always used the boat's rods. They've almost always been 113H red reels with 100lb mono bolted onto a pool cue wrapped in string. I have only one time ever caught a fish heavier than 10lbs, a 36lb amberjack that was still 2" too short. I have pulled up 3 8-9lb beeliners on the same drop though!

When I go head boat fishing, I'm fishing for groceries. Snapper, Grouper, Almaco, TRIGGERFISH (my favorite!)

Will a 60 and a medium-heavy 20-40 lb rod be OK, or should I look for a heavy 30-50lb rod?

[Bill B]

there are a couple variables in this equation.  How much lead is needed to get to the bottom.  If  10oz or more then the heavier rated rod would be nice.  Also I like to fish for what will be expected, not what might happen.  And yes I've had butt handed to me with larger fish than expected.  as you are freezer fishing I would err on the heavy side, finesse in not really needed.  Bill

[Keta]

I fish for pacific halibut (30-200 pounds plus) with 40-50 pound line but like Bill mentioned the amount of weight needed drives the rod choice.  We use 24-64 ounce sinkers to get to the bottom 400-800  down.  I like a sensitive tiped fast action rod with a lot of backbone.

[Wolfram M]

In general, when I've been on the boat the heaviest lead I've sent down has been 16oz. Usually the leads are between 10 and 16oz, in 100-400ft of water. This is bottom fishing on a double-drop rig with cut bait or small live baits.

Dropping live baits more than 6-8oz, normally an egg sinker of 8-10oz and a 8-12ft leader of 100lb mono.

[jurelometer]

When I was a kid, these were the most common reels on rental rods for west coast salmon trolling with 3 lb iron weights, and serving double duty as rockfish/lingcod bait/shrimp fly drop gear with 8 to 16 oz of lead with those solid glass pool cue True Temper rods.

This reel was sized to hold just short of 300 lbs of 30 yard mono.  and probably somewhere around 6-8 lbs of drag, maybe 10 for not too long runs if you are careful about not winding under full load.  The stainless sleeves will prevent handles from rounding off but won't prevent gear shredding.  IMHO, you are in for heartache at 15 lbs of drag with any kind of run. These reels are just too tall and wide for that load with the stock frame design. 

The stainless stars are popular (I used to make them because folk here wanted them) but realistically, they are not necessary for the clamping load required and do not conduct heat away from the drag stack as well as the stock brass stars.

The low gear ratio compared to a 113h means that you have better/easier  cranking capability against load, and that you are putting less stress on the parts that tend to fail in these reels.  But it can take a bit more winding to reel up from deep drops, and working lures is pretty tough.

Putting 30 (or even 65)lb  braid on these reels takes too much line. You have to figure out what size line that you would want to use, and how much of it, and then fill the rest with some sort of backing.  That is another downside of fishing some of the larger old reels with modern braid. Thinner braid gives you better drops.

Agree with the others that sinker size is going to be the driving factor on the rod.  You can pull on triggerfish and small to medium snappers with just about any rod, but a rod that gets overly bendy when retrieving an empty load (just sinker) is no fun.  Plus a Penn 60 filled with line ain't so small or light, so you probably want something substantial in the rod to match the reel.

You could take a look at the rental rods that they are using with the 113H reels, and that would probably be about right.  If I had to guess, something rated about 20-30 lb line, medium fast action, between 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 feet. You don't need the length for fishing, but the extra reach can come in handy when things get a bit cramped at the rail. Fiberglass is more durable, and sometimes more fun for this type of fishing IMHO.  You don't need anything light and snappy in this situation, so carbon fiber is not as necessary.  But as Bill noted, a pool cue type rod will work just about as well.

-J

[Keta]

Putting 30 (or even 65)lb  braid on these reels takes too much line. You have to figure out what size line that you would want to use, and how much of it, and then fill the rest with some sort of backing.

I use dacron backing.  Depending on the depth I plan on fishing and the reel up to 130# but usualy 50# for 30#-40#  braid. I rarely use braid lighter than 50# and use 80# dacron for backing. 
For what I use my 60s for I put 100-150 yards of 60# spectra on top of 80# dacron as I fish them under 200' and usualy less than 100'.

My 349s are filled 100% with 60# spectra due to the depths we fish for pacific halibut. 

[JasonGotaProblem]

I vote you get a penn mariner rod for $50 (i think it's 30-50# mono 50-80 braid is what they call it) to use for this trip. then in the nonspecific future strip the guides, the foregrip, and reel seat to replace with fuji components. The result will be a great rod for what you wanna do with it. Then you can decide if you want something more specialized.

If I had planned this better I would have offered to loan you one of mine, and if i head east this weekend (possible but not highly probable) i still can leave one at my parents for you to grab on your way. But I'm not sure that's an acceptable level of certainty to base your plans on.

[pointbob]

I fish for pacific halibut (30-200 pounds plus) with 40-50 pound line but like Bill mentioned the amount of weight needed drives the rod choice.  We use 24-64 ounce sinkers to get to the bottom 400-800  down.  I like a sensitive tiped fast action rod with a lot of backbone.

I'd love to see a video of that! wow.

[Wolfram M]

I vote you get a penn mariner rod for $50 (i think it's 30-50# mono 50-80 braid is what they call it) to use for this trip. then in the nonspecific future strip the guides, the foregrip, and reel seat to replace with fuji components. The result will be a great rod for what you wanna do with it. Then you can decide if you want something more specialized.

If I had planned this better I would have offered to loan you one of mine, and if i head east this weekend (possible but not highly probable) i still can leave one at my parents for you to grab on your way. But I'm not sure that's an acceptable level of certainty to base your plans on.

No worries! I don't even plan to bring the 60's with me this trip-I'm going to be using a boat rod this time.

According to my eyes on the beaches, the mullet run has started just north of where I will be staying. I will DEFINITELY be snagging mullet and trying for some snook or tarpon, assuming I make it to the beach before they're gone.

The stainless handles/drag stars are more for corrosion resistance, if I was trying to get heat out of the drag stack then the spacer sleeves, drag stars, and gear sleeve would be made out of Moldstar 90. I use it for valve seats in my titanium-valved cylinder heads due to it's heat transfer characteristics. It is eye-wateringly expensive if you're buying it new, though...

[jurelometer]

The stainless handles/drag stars are more for corrosion resistance, if I was trying to get heat out of the drag stack then the spacer sleeves, drag stars, and gear sleeve would be made out of Moldstar 90. I use it for valve seats in my titanium-valved cylinder heads due to it's heat transfer characteristics. It is eye-wateringly expensive if you're buying it new, though...

Intersting.  Had to look up Moldstar 90. About the same as aluminum in terms of simple thermal conductivity.  Harder though, which is useful for stuff like injection mold parts like ejection pins, which seems to be the original purpose.  About  50% better than most brasses, which is significantly, but not earth shattering.  Agree that it would be odd to have a spacer that was worth more than the reel

Regarding  corrosion, the rest of the reel will still be full of chrome plated brass. The star is the least likely stock part to corrode as it is not exposed to trapped salt water, and tends not to get scratched up too much.  So going to stainless on the star for  corrosion protection is sort of hard to justify.  I have seen completely corroded rental Penn 60s where the only salvageable part was the star.

But if you just want to make one, I am not the right person to discourage you. It is a quick fun project if you have access to a waterjet.  Lots of people here like the stainless stars simply because they are stainless.  I made dozens, and I think I only have one left.

The harder stainless does serve a functional purpose help on the handle arm by helping to prevent rounding off the gear sleeve hole, once you have a stainless gear sleeve.

-J

[Wolfram M]

The choice of stainless is mostly just corrosion resistance, and it's the same sheet of material to do bridge plates, handles and stars, then a thinner sheet to do jackplates and yokes. Significant savings to set up a 2ftx4ft sheet and run all I can out of that sheet, vs having to swap sheets all the time.

Once I have made all the internal parts from 316 stainless or 17-4PH (gear sleeve) I'll spend a lifetime wearing them out, going two weeks per year.

[Squidder Bidder]

If you're dropping for Grouper I think you're going to want something on the heavier side with more backbone so you can horse them up off the bottom with the drag locked down. And if you're fishing circle hooks, I don't think you're going to need much sensitivity in the tip.

One thing I would say about the hotrodded older reels like the Long Beach 60 (it's taller as stated above, and a lot heavier than a comparable modern reel) is that they just don't seem to feel right when they're matched to modern rods. They don't balance well and probably mitigate the benefits of some of the modern materials. So a used Mariner or similar that you can get for a song on fleabay or offerup probably works best with these reels.