new old school Japan bass glass

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Ron Mc
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new old school Japan bass glass

Post by Ron Mc »

For a winter project, I built a braid-raced Ambassadeur 4600C3 from a near-mint '01 Royal Express II, using Japanese upgrade parts.
The essentially new, boxed reel was an $80 ebay buy from a level-headed estate hunter.
Chinese Momo microcast spool from AMO store on Ali; ball-bearing LW upgrades from Avail, Valleyhill and Kagawa. Mikes zirconia pawl and BB spur gear.
My raced spool bearings are MTCW.

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The reel with weightless spool, Avail internal mag brake, and low-inertia LW is essentially backlash-proof, casting 3 g to beyond my target of 1/2 oz (14 g)

All along, my goal was a light frogger from kaykak in small water like this - this was last summer with fly rods.

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First application I had on hand was the Falcon Glass rod - (FCG-6-158)- just under 6', though with long handle, the blade length is 4-3/4'. Unlike longer FCG models, this rod is well-balanced and light in hand.
Rated 1/4 to 1/2 oz, I would call the Falcon rod a fast para - it flexes in the mid rather than the fast tip. This rod has been at the top of my list for all-time best bass glass -
- it not only fishes that 1/4 oz and 3/8 oz very well, fishes crankbaits to buzzbaits well, but casts and fishes 1/8 oz equally well.
Casting the 1/2-oz is where the rod seems to cry uncle.
The straight grip works best with newer low profile reels.

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My new Smith Super Striker handle - best price on this by far is Amazon.jp - they remove the JDM tax, which happens to be slightly more than DHL Express shipping (only $5 more than standard JP EMS post).
Smith with their Super Striker made no bones about copying Champion handle that matched with Fenwick bass rod blades 50 years ago, and of course intended to match Ambassadeur.
Nice, though, Smith made it in magnesium.
You can clearly see it puts the large round-frame spool down to low-profile thumb level.

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Asian Portal has stock of 4 different Smith blades, 3 glass and one carbon, and prices less than half of the ebay hoarders.
I hemmed and hawed over the available blades, their rod load curves, my targets, and finally decided on the Top Water Light,
nice wide range 5 to 14 g (1/2 oz), and stated to be optimized for 12-14 g.
(hard to read, this was a tough photo to get).

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The blade length is 4-3/4' - exactly the same as the Falcon - but I found out they were very different rods.
Comparing rod curves on Smith website, https://www.smith.jp/superstrike/curve.html
my FO-56 is the exact mid and butt taper of their WS-51MM deep crankbait blade (rated 7 - 24 g), but with an added 5" of softer tip.
The lighter range and fast mid is what finally sold me on this blade over their recomended kayak blade, WS-55TM, which had a load curve that appeared to be closest to the Falcon Glass, though also rated to 5/8 oz.

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The Smith website implies the Innovation series of SS rod blades are S-glass/graphite blend, also titanium-frame SiC guides.
From the slim dimensions, light weight, and the cast results below, I'm inclined to admit that, also.

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Here are my back-acre casting notes, both across the 150' width, and placing casts into the bottom of persimmon bushes:

The Smith feels less tippy than the Falcon Glass with a half-ounce, it doesn't flex near as deep. Casting off the tip, it's a close-in scalpel with the half ounce, overall gives more distance than I could ever need, and skips the half-ounce like a champ (reverse spiral cast) - much easier than when I tried skipping a half-ounce on the Falcon Glass (para).
The fast mid of the Smith is also going to strike better than the Falcon - even with the soft tip of the Smith.

Again, my target for this rod was 1/2 oz, and quick striking. Haven't even tried it with light weights - the winter blow was on its way in.
The reel is more than capable, and I expect the rod to cast lighter than the 5-g rating, which overlaps the range into my L/C stream trout rod (max 7 g).

Smith sells the ferrules for this handle in half-mm increments, in case you want to build your own blade.
They also sell a swap-in Champion collet for the handle chuck, so you can use a vintage Fenwick blade.

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Josh wants to get me back here, at least in part to visit the newly opened Biergarten on our way out.
Right below Josh is the last blue hole where one tributary finally re-emerges from the aquifer to join another in the coastal plain.
Can't describe the number of big bass that jumped off the tops of watercress when I was paddling up here - next to impossible to present with a fly rod.
Just right for a frog - how about this crayfish pattern

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motoyak
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Re: new old school Japan bass glass

Post by motoyak »

Nice project! I too have upgraded a 4600 Abu reel with all the goodies. My takeaway was that even upgraded, pretty much any newer low profile reel outperforms it at an 1/8 of the cost. Mine collects dust now while I use my Lews to chunk plugs
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Ron Mc
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Re: new old school Japan bass glass

Post by Ron Mc »

Thanks for the reply.

Casting 3 g on baitcaster is beyond most people's imagination.
It's mostly about mass and inertia of the loaded spool (+ level wind in Ambassadeur).

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The thing is, what you gain in the reel to cast light weight improves performance over the entire weight range, simply because you use much less casting brake to get the result you need.
Low mass and inertia essentially eliminates start-up jerk and the need for a distance-robbing centrifugal brake.
Here's the primer I wrote on the 3 types of backlash and 4 types of brakes -

I've gone to shallow spools on braid applications where I can find the spool, including salt finesse, and ML to MH

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My salt finesse built on Daiwa will cast 3 g to 130'

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With Ambassadeur, you still pay for the spool-driven LW in cast distance.
You'll like this, my braid-raced 1500C, which was built from go for fishing light weights in hill country creeks.

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Both my braid-raced Ambassadeurs casting 3 g are limited to about 65' - more than enough to fish.

But my 4600C will cast the half ounce beyond 150' - there's no reason to fish that distance outside of the surf.
What I gain with it is backlash-proof at any weight and distance.
Set up once, forever.

This isn't about putting aside a low profile reel, it's not a purchase recommendation or an assault on frugality, but fun tackle to fish in the tight spaces I showed in my OP.
I've taken my 1914 Talbot and same-year Thomas Special Mahogany-grade cane to Canyon Lake, just for the buzz of catching an early morning bass with a buzz bait on it. It doesn't replace my other tackle.
Oh, and there's nothing low-inertia about this reel, but it's NLW, and casts a Long way.
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Speaking of NLW; surf, and fun, this one will cast 1/4 oz beyond 200'
This was my first project with Avail 5-mm shallow spool, low-inertia bearings, and 35-lb X-braid (holds 200 yds).
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I embarrassed myself by setting up a Lew's SP for my salt ML niche. Long story, I let an over-slot red tangle my drift sock and break off.
When I switched my 1/8 oz lure to Super Duty G on MM, discovered it would out-distance the SP set up for ML.
I sold both my centrifugal brake Lew's for what I paid for them - in last year's market.
They paid for my Daiwa Zillion - an ML champ with shallow braid spool.

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................................................................Super Duty G, four years in the salt now, you can't pry from my fingers, etc.
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