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Clamdigger,
No problem. Good to see you want to get back into the game ;D
The current standard but somewhat custom Rhody gear would be a nine foot 1089 Sabre with a 6500 ABU reel (like the TSCT Trophy Striper $85-90) for conventional and a Penn Z or 6500SS series spinner (not sure which Z as I don't use them anymore). This is probably the best price/performance/reliability ratios that you would find. The rods run in the mid hundred range and the reels 65-95 smackers. If you can build your own rod, you can get it done for a hundred or so. This setup can easily handle most plugging duties and of course, the formidable eel :P . This is typical of what most surfcasters would use in all around play from rocks to the breachways to some of your beaches and it will run circles around any Walmart gear. This rod would be too wimpy for the canal where you don't have much room to keep a big fish out of the bottom in a big current and would be light but still serviceable at Charlestown Breachway on a good drop. Other options on the rod might be an AllStar or even a Batson which is new and although I personally haven't fished one, I did build a 1087 for a relative recently and I liked its feel in grins and giggles casting... From there, your wallet is the limit between Loomis and Lami and on and on... Same thing on the reels, the Calcutta 400 is a beaut as are some of the other Penn 965/75 and so on. Spinning, many pray at the altar of Van Staal but at $300 for a tiny reel and up - you thought the Surfcasters prices made you sick...you'd have major sticker shock on those...
And Mike will be at the Mass Bass show so you have double luck there... He can also point you in other correct directions... And I know Weekapaug is building rods too... The only other Rhody place I had gone too, Gils in Wakefield is apparently out of buisiness...
As far as the invite to the surf or the boat, I'm game. And as we figured out two weeks ago, you're only 5 minutes away...
I'll shoot you an e-mail...
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