So, I've been freshwater fishing my whole life. Never done much saltwater fishing. I just spent a month in Padre, and took my Diawa Luna, Diawa T3, and a Shimano Stradic FJ. I was using some Dobyns, and a Diawa Steelhead rod. Pretty much took a few years off the life of this gear.

So, when I look at the gear, I feel a bit overwhelmed. I see spinning gear for huge fish. I see these little Avet reels, the Van Staal, the ZeeBass, the TLD's, the Internationals, the Senators, the Baitrunners, the Stella, the Saltiga, the low profile "inshore" models,and I don't know where to start. It seems like the lines blur. It seemed that tools used to be very species, and weight class specific, but now people are doing all kinds of stuff, with a Stella. I haven't even started looking at rods yet.

Are there classes of gear? Is there purpose specific gear? I know there are boat rigs, surf rigs, and smaller game rigs, but there's got to be more to it.

Of coure I'm asking this because the tackle monkey has found a way back into my life. I want to build some gear for next time I go. I want stuff for specs, all the way up to Jacks, or whatever larger stuff I can get into on the Jetty, shore, piers, etc. I like quality gear. I like tough gear. I don't mind spending money, if I know it was spent well, when I pick up my gear, and use it.

If this makes any sense, please tell me what you know.

Thanks

I use my tackle for freshwater and inshore fishing interchangeably. I keep a set of penn salt water reels for surf casting but also use them for trolling for stripers. Can't speak to offshore tackle.

Saltwater gear is Freshwater gear that is well taken care of

Saltwater gear has more parts that are rust resistance, but nothing is rust proof especially if you don't rinse your gear at home after soaking or splashing it with saltwater

Well, it's hard to classify some of these things very well. For example, I have an ambassadeur 7000 reel that serves me equally well for redfish on the Texas coast, offshore for blackfin tuna, and halibut in Alaska. Other fishermen might not consider that reel as "strong enough" for the same applications.

Now some things, like rig-fishing for amberjack, take BIG, stout reels like a Penn Senator 6/0 or a Shimano TLD30.

Really comes down to how you fish & what you fish for. I can tell you that my own gear HAS to be multi-purpose, cause I can't afford to buy separate rods/reels for each specific fishing scenario. The Penn Senator 6/0 I mentioned above might get used on my 8' shoreline shark rod one trip, then get slapped onto a 5.5" tuna stick for deep-dropping on another.

Thanks. I rinse my gear, after each trip. I guess I just need some stouter rods. I know most of my reels, and some rods are salt/fresh water capable, but I don't think a lot of it is tough enough for the beating they take on the jetties, and surf. I'll definitely be interchanging reels, and rods, when I have some gear accumulated.

I'm just a tackle addict, trying to justify spending more money.

Admitting it is the first step...well done. ;-)

Don't worry, great gear is part of the enjoyment of it.

What we're finding over all is that some brands are holding up better than others. Sometimes a simple rinse won't do the job either when its not a high quality precision built reel made to keep water out. The line will transmit a lot of water into the reel and if it's not designed to keep water out, then it will wick past the spool into the areas you dont want it. You're right about the jetties being harder on gear. barnacles, salt spray, maybe sand from the beach, just a bunch of gritty and corrosive type sources there. or if wading the beach and we dunk a reel that's got to get torn down same day pretty much to keep operating at a high level.

I love my Lews Reels. They have been upping their quality and creating more corrosion resistance in most of their reels above $100. Even made an inshore specific model ..it's a Tournament Pro spec'd reel they call the BB1 Inshore. great for reds, trout, flounder, and could handle jack under 25 pounds probably just fine.

as for rods
Trout - Med with a fast tip 6'6 - 7'
Reds - same for inshore with lures but also maybe a med heavy action for bulls

only reason to go bigger is maybe to make longer cast to reach further out into the surf from the beach. Otherwise you are just heaving more weight. If you are fishing the jetties then most of the time you don't need the longer/bigger riggs because you can just walk further out the jetty. If you want to catch bigger game like jacks, Big Bull reds, shark, tarpon then that's where you really need to go up in size.

hope that helps