check out alantani's website on his tld 25 rebuild. once you do that you'll have all the drago you need and then using braid you have all the line cap you need. also to add to your tuna arsenal get a jigging rod with a fin nor 0fs85 and string her up with braid. and then you can cast poppers and jigs.

Ok, I feel good about the TLD 25, now about the rod. Graphite or fibreglass, and why?

Is one stronger then the other?

I cant afford the best of everything, but I do want the best of what I can afford.

:clap:

glass rods can handle force and pressure from weird points better than graphite. with graphite the rod is designed for the force to be spread all over the rod not just certain sections, so what happens is if you put the rod bending at a weird angle or pull up too high on the rod then snap she goes. where as with glass, they are heavier but are way more durable. get those tidewaters i mentioned and then after one season replace the roller tip ans stripper with aftco's if you want. what is going to work out for you well with those rods is that you are going to use tld's so that means that the frame will break before the reel clamp on the rod. and if you dont like the nylon gimbals then any rod maker can put you on some alumumnum ones for cheap.

I have used tidewaters in the GOM for years and i have caught small fish all the way to big ones and they have never let me down.

I'm partial to the 30-80# rod for a tld 25. Glass is fine. Matt can set you up with a nice rod for short money. With 30# gear you can get most any fish under 125 ish to the boat in under 40 minutes. Once those Bluefins start to get shoulders, you can be ion for a longer battle, but with a little finesse no more than an hour. This is light tackle fishing as far as tuna go. If you can't break his will in an hour, the odds are in the fishes favor. Fortuneatly you will be fishing in relatively shallow water, less than 200'.

Thanks for the info guys. If you can think of anything else please post it as I will be checking back here often for a while.

Air: I am planning on a trip to Matt's after I find out what it is that I want. I guess I could pick his brain also, he seems to know a lot and does not try to push one thing over the other, just an honest opinon.

A couple more question. Since I will be using Braid line should I use rollers or not. I have heard that the braid can get stuck between the roller and the frame, meaning an instant game over.

Then what about wind on leaders, are thay a good idea?
With rollers or not?

How do you attach the leaders, loop to loop, swivels, crimps????

Just say no....to rollers. Yes braid can and does get stuck between the roller and frame. Rollers are just another point of failure, and not needed for this type fishing. I haven't gotten into windons yet. For chuncking we use 5-8' of flouro for leader. For trolling we use 6-8' of mono, 120# for tuna. We use sampo snaps swivels trolling, and I prefer the small aussie ball bearing swivels on the chunk.

Battle for 1 hour? Are you kidding me? I'd have a stroke if it lasted over 20 minutes. :sun:

After 15 I'm looking around to see who I can hand the rod off to :beer:

As of now, I welcome the thought of a one hour battle. I may not think so then but for now, BRING IT ON!!!!

I was brand new to Tuna last year but I know were they hang out and I have buddys that have all the gear, I am going to put some time into it this fall and see what happens??
But the Sea Ox had its first Tuna pulled on board last fall!

http://wellcraftv20.com/community/sh...highlight=tuna