I’m a super amateur when it comes to fishing.
Having said that I’ve been fishing a few times over the years in Australia and overseas and caught some nice fish. But I don’t know anything at all when it comes to rigging up rods, what gear is what, what to buy as a beginner.

It’s always something I’ve either done with friends who have a bunch of gear and know what they’re doing and have all the gear setup, so I just cast and reel it in.

I’ve caught your regular bream, snapper, and a shovel nose shark here in Aus. Overseas was mainly cod, coal fish. Caught a halibut & wolfish too!

But these were on tours, and they had everything setup for me to just go & fish.

I’ve been wanting to go and land some exciting new catches again now that summer is coming up. But it’s hard to rely on friends all the time and I don’t wanna pay loads for a boat fishing tour.

So I’ve signed up to a land fishing introductory tour recently who will take me through everything and i can learn abit.

That’s a bit of context regarding my experience and current mindset. I wanted to know if it’s worth for someone like me to actually buy some beginner gear so i can go out on my own. I probably won’t catch anything that excites me. Or if I should just to doing a tour like twice a year in summer locally. So i can just enjoy catching some good fish alongside experts.

I don’t want to invest in all the gear and for me to go out, catch something I don’t care too much about. Get bored and it just be a waste of money.

Having said that, I was looking at Shimano rods and reels. What would you said is the absolute best durable and reliable long term rod & reel for someone at my level, that can handle most regular species of fish. I won’t be out on a boat to land anything big like a marlin or mahi mahi or whatever.

But maybe an occasional king fish off the harbour, who knows. I just want to research the right gear within that range and see if it’s worth me spending some coin on, should I choose to go ahead with it.