Funny story.. I was down in the dumps one day and my luck in fishing as well as life was not very good at all. I decided to head out of kelley fishing fleet on or around Sept 11, 2005. I really had not kept my tackle up to date but managed to scrounge up a 7 ft heavy action spinning rod I had bought from Target with some brand name I still do not know. (Def. not a major brand) But it is real sturdy and light and I felt it would do the trick. I then proceded to pull my dead grandfather's old penn delmar conventional reel (over 35 years old) out of the garage and dust it off and splash it with some wd40. Got to the halouver marina about 3-4 minutes before the boat was suppose to take off and asked the mate if they were leaving right away. He said, "No", they were waiting on another party. I went into the tackle shop and bought some el cheapo 25 pound test (Yes the stuff they rip off the tourist with) and when the boat took off..I loaded the old penn reel up.
I used the boat's traditional kingfish rig but did not use a heavy leader, just stuck with the 25 pound mono with a swival..hoping the kingfish or whatever would be blind to it. I caught a decent trigger , then thought the day would be dead. On the second spot the boat went to, we got into a school of big kings that were smoking all around the boat. I pulled in 3 kings I believe that day. One was the pool winner.
SO I would have to say, my el cheapo whatchamacallit rod and that 40 year old penn delmar is my favorite conventional set up.
