Lacustrine. What a passion!
December 9, 2025Combo Casting
Text and photographs by Marco Altamura
In life never say never! Not so long ago and right from the pages of one of my Monthly Reports, I asserted that I considered myself a "generalist pitcher" i.e., a spinner who uses equipment that is not specifically designed to bait a single type of predator, but rather an angler who did not preclude himself, always and in every situation, from catching a wide range of predatory fish.
Some time later, I am ready to backtrack at least in terms of the equipment to be used to bait the King of our inland waters, the pike.
This past fall, in fact, I had the opportunity to use a baitcasting combo capable of casting "full-bodied" artificials, and I was completely won over by it, so much so that I gave myself a gift for Christmas: casting rod capable of casting artificials up to 120 gr and a size 300 spinning reel.
Obviously, such a high-performance equipment needs very reliable components starting with the monofilament or braided line; I had no doubts and loaded the spool of my new reel with mt 150 of the excellent home-made braided line Asso, l'8XPE Perfect Storm 0.32 mm thick, which provides excellent abrasion resistance and tightness in casting even with artificials of a few ounces.
Unfortunately, when I went fishing with this combo, the pike season, at least from shore, was drawing to a close, but next spring, as soon as the ban on exocide fishing falls on "my" Lake Maggiore, I will come back with renewed enthusiasm in search of some nice, sharp-toothed predators.
In the meantime, I rearrange my gear and prepare to arm my rubber shad in order to cope with the killer instincts of our most iconic predator.