Hey guys,

Need some blank and guide help. Looking for a heavy duty snook / grouper trolling and live bait rod. 65lb braid with a Shimano Talica 8. The blank needs to be light in weight with some good backbone. 7 foot long. $120 blank budget. Thinking about a Seeker Hercules GTS70M (anyone know the blank weight of this one?) or a st. croix SCII 2M69XHF or 2M70MHF...

NBRLVH or BHNLG guides spiral wraped.

Whatcha think?


THANKS
Garrett

Karen @ Bingham has a few Seeker JB 70, JB70L and BS706S blanks on clearance. I would start there, you could save a LOT of money.

Garret, I helped design, and I stock the Hercules series. The Inshore Heavy (aka GTS 70M) weighs 7oz, and is 7'2 in length. HEre's a link to my site: [northeastrodbuilders.com]. I also stock the Amtak guides you are looking for, along with Fuji seats and EVA or Hypalon grips, gimbals & butt caps..

I have to echo Billy on the blank. I just got through with 3 GTS70Ms and they are one heck of a blank.

I will throw out another option however in the MHX line. MU84H-MHX has a heck of a lot of power and a fairly light tip. Very similar to the GTS70M in power an tip, but vastly different in action. This one is quite a bit faster blank.

I have also built several of the 2M69XHFs in the past and its one excellent blank. However, I believe that the blank itself will be a bit too stiff for grouper trolling and it's not all that forgiving as its 100% graphite. I've personally broke on and had someone else break another. (Both angler fault)

My opinion is your best application here will be the Super Seeker GTS70M, with the MU84H-MHX a close second, and throw the 2M69XHF out the window.

Sean, thanks for hte real world experiance. I do not knwo what that fishing entails, so I did not chime in with anything other than I have them in stock, lol. I know wha thte rod is capable of, and the application that it was deisgned for (up here in the NOrth East), but not familiar with the type of fishing down there you guys do. Glad to know it works well!!

Thanks guys.
Billy. Basically we are trolling rapala cd mags and super shad raps real slow in 7-15 feet of water and drifting, or anchoring up and soaking big live baits with 1 to 3 oz of lead. Snook 5-25lbs and grouper up to the high teens.... and lots of bottom snags.

I never thought about the MXH musky blanks.


Thanks
Garrett

I've bottom fished several times down there, Tortugas and out of Tampa, the Inshore Heavy is ideal for that, unless you leave the rod in the holder and fight the fish out of the holder. I've sold a number of blanks and a few rods to people down there, mostly teh Heavy, and the GTS 60H & XH. What those who have bought the rods form me like is the mod-fast action and the cushion the S-glass in theHErcules blanks has without the rod having that soft floppy tip E-Glass composites have. They did not likethe graphite rods because thye felt they were too stiff using braid and having the fish pull as hard as they do they felt they were losing fish because the graphite rods were stiff.