Just bought my first soft bait/light jig rod and reel combo, main use will be for casting scoots (bucktail jigs) that I make myself as well as using slow jigs, sliders and of course soft baits.

Always tie the braid to mono/fluro as Cliff mentions, my preferred knot is the FG knot but some work involved with that, but very strong, lots of other options also, just google.

gmacx wrote: Always tie the braid to mono/fluro as Cliff mentions, my preferred knot is the FG knot but some work involved with that, but very strong, lots of other options also, just google. No swivels, the weight albeit small will have an adverse effect on the action of your jig and make casting much harder. Not familiar with the rod, but generally for softbaiting you want a lighter rod, 4-6 or 6-8kg with a 2500 sized reel or similar in my opinion, although i am sure your one will work well too, can always be used as an extra strayline combo too. PS - good skills on the scoots - any photos? Need to teach myself how to tie these.

hunter708 wrote: fishwisperer wrote: Hi hunter   Your OA Penn rod is more like a strayline rod but it will do the job like anything else, when softbaiting / casting all day it can get a little tiring so a lighter rod would be the go - what you want is either the Abu Veritas 6'8 or 7'3 4-8kg these are the new 3.0 Veritas due out now but if money is hard look for a special on the old 2.0 7ft 4-8kg model...   If you want to keep it as a full Penn set the new Penn Ocean Insurgents are due out with a dedicated softbait rod in that range 7ft 4-7kg...   With the 4500SSV it is small enough to get away with and with any of those rods - they are bullet proof so you'll have no issues with it...   Just as I feared about the rod it was advertised as the following by the retailer on trade me "Ultra strong yet very light general spin or jig soft bait rod" I used the new afterpay service to get the rod and reel so already made my first payment on it and if that were the case I may as well have used the black tiger that I strayline with. Always drooled over the spinfisher V reels so it was on my bucket list to buy one anyway and the 4500 sort of fit the bill for me in drag rating and being able to stick it on my strayline rod and do straylining with it too So how do you work out the PE rating as it says it is rated at PE 1.5 - 3. I was looking at going down the veritas route seeing I have two of the veritas surfcasters but then decided it would be nice to have my penn reels on penn rods as I am trying to slowly phase out the jarvis walker pro series rods and the okuma sensor tip rod I stupidly bought due to being over excited about getting my first boat and busted my boiler to get out on it.

my combo arrived today the rod feels really nice and comfortable in the hand and still nice and light with the SSV 4500 on it.

I got to try out the ocean assassin/SSV4500 combo on the weekend tried casting one of my scoots on a 17.5 gram mustad darter jighead and by god that rod could cast that lure out a fair way with bugger all effort I was stoked with that but never got to hook a fish on it but it will happen

eynon wrote: sweet, nice jigs u got there. thinking to make some myself.

hunter708 wrote: What is everyone's opinion on black magic rainbow braid it seems to be the only braid I can find local to me that is in 300M spools as I want to spool up the reel over the weekend so it is ready to go for the next weekend that is not raining.

Stay away from the softer braids like suffix 832 etc for spin reels (prone to wind knots) and get a stiffer braid suited for casting. I've been using 5kg black magic fibre glide line on my softbait setup since stren microfuse isn't available anymore and it's nice, very strong and thin. Heard good things about tasline elite braid and I'll be trying some of that next. Don't go for 20lb braid that's way too heavy, it'll take you forever to get down and it'll affect the action of your softbaits. 10lb is plenty. Most braids over tests meaning 10lb braid doesn't break at 10lb of pressure but more like 30lb of pressue. I do know that fireline exceed is stated breaking strain so take note of that. Generally you only run about 2-3kg of drag on a softbait setup.