First day with an Alvey outfit

Woke up at 5am today and headed to Dee Why to try out my new Alvey ROD650GTS / 630 A1 reel combo.

It's no more winter times and the light was on earlier than me! Hmmm

Anyway, my first impression is that I can definitely like/love Alvey gears. The combo is surely heavier than my Saratoga Mawler Spin / Shimano Aerlex 8000 XSA combo, but it is well balanced so that is compensated and being an Alvey reel and a 13.4 ft rod the cast distance is being increased while decreasing the effort. Although, currently, I can cast farther with my 11 ft spinning combo but I think with time I will be able to cast much further with the Alvey.

Thanks to my mate who lent me his outfit during our other session together, I didn't have difficulties with casting. Today I managed to "master" casting by holding the line with the thumb instead of the index (not sure if one is better than the other). After a few casts I got used to synchronizing the release of the line and positioning of the right hand high up the rod.

Laying the line on the reel with my left hand fingers was much less painful than I originally thought.

One thing I noticed is I usually have my reel handle on the left side with spinning reels, but it doesn't bother me too much on an Alvey. But I'll try to mod my reel to have it on the other side an see if my right hand fingers are OK with laying the line on the spool.

Near the end of my short session, I reeled back the line and noticed that I hooked a small whiting but didn't know it cuz the rod was not sensitive enough, it's not made for small fish anyway!

So far so good, just need to hook a fish!

One other good point is being telescopic, it fits well in the back of the car.

It's now time to go to work. It'll be a bit tough this afternoon as this is the first day I switched back to waking up early!