I’ve got the 18’ telescoping Taco poles and our relationship just isn’t working out and I am considering a nasty breakup. They are pretty flimsy. I’ve severely bent a pole and replaced with a new pair, then, I broke one in half. Also, I feel like they bounce around a lot and when there is drag on the long rigger bait, it puts enough bend in the pole to slacken the halyards pretty awful. I feel like I get a lot of clip pop outs just from waves, etc because of the bouncy nature of the poles.
Anyone experiencing the same thing?
Preliminary research on the internet seems to indicate that I should take them to a recycling bin and go with fixed 15’ Rupps outrigger poles. Does anyone have any experience with these? Will they even fit into my Taco Grand Slam bases?
No complaints (I probably don’t fish as often as you, though). No, I scratch that: I actually do have one complaint with the Tacos. The holders were a little odd in how they locked in when you set the elevation angle. The function of the handle was fine, but when you set the angle, the lock-in never really felt solid to me when I was tightening it in–like the pins jsut didn’t engage right or something–but they held up fine. for obvious reasons, I imagine 15’ poles are going to be a lot less flimsy than 18’s, but I never had a problem with the 18’ poles.