My wife got me a very nice G-Loomis rod for Christmas, now I need to outfit it with a reel.

It is a 12-20# 1/4-1oz 7' rod.

I intend to use it for near shore fishing in San Diego (SD and Mission bay as well as occasional trips to the kelp for Calicos). Bay bass, spotties, corbina, halibut, cuda in the 2-10lb range would probably be the most common catches. Mostly plastics and spinners, but will fly-line the occasional live baits.

I will probably spool it with 14-20#.

All that said, I have a smaller righ with 10# test that throws 1/8-3/4, but it starts to feel a little over classed with 3/8oz plastics. So, I want a little larger rig.

If money were no option, then I would probably go Curado for sure. List on the Curado is ~250, the Calcutta is ~215 and the Cardiff is ~100. I like the form factor of the Curado.

The Cardiff is also small, but price and line capacity are nice features of it.

Any input from the community is appreciated. Any other suggestion would also be nice, but they might confuse me even more ;-).

One thought is to go with the Cardiff now, the Curado later and use the Cardiff for a "friend" rig when guests come along.


Thanks in advance,
Steve

All of the choices you listed are great. You need to figure out what gear ratio you will need more. The Curado and Calcutta have a ton of cranking power as well. Personally I love my Curado 300 and I use my Calcutta 200/250 a lot for Calcio fishing and the occasional yellowtail. Price and gear ratio are going to be the major decison makers for me.

I love the low profile design on the Curado 300. It performs like a CTE 300 round reel but with the comfort of the smaller low profile reels.

I have been struggling with the same exact question. I will be using it for the same reason you are in and outside of the bay. I have talked to a lot of people and read a lot of articles and have decided to go with the Shimano Citica over the Cardiff 300. This years Citica 200 is actual last years Curado. I just checked them out at Squidco this morninng and came away convinced. The man I spoke too had used them both and said the Citica was the way to go and he owns one himself. He told me that this years model is last years Curado. The price is only $99.00 which is a great deal. Good luck and let us know what you decide.

That is funny, I was looking at Squidco too. Their comments on the Cardiff made me more interested. They said it is basically the Calcutta guts with cheaper housing.

They were out of the right-handed Cardiffs, so I'm waiting until next week to go back. Maybe I'll look at the Citica more too. I'm thinking I want a little larger capacity options, but 14/120 isn't bad.

Good luck with your decision and happy fishing.