BobP

Lou, a craw that's been in a bass's digestive tract for awhile won't be the color of a live uneaten crawfish.

Well, it has to be shipped surface because it contains solvents. I buy by the quart and the shipping is not so hurtful. IMO, you want a solvent based coating for this job to be durable, so anything you order online will have to be shipped surface via FEDEX or similar. If shipping is too much, I suggest a can of solvent based exterior urethane and simply dip the blades in it. Hang them up to dry and voila.

Whatever the materials, most custom builders use epoxy to glue in their lips. Any 30 minute epoxy will work. If the lip had to be cut out of a wood bait and there is extra space in the slot to fill, you can use an epoxy paste like Rod Bond paste epoxy, which will not flow out of the lip like liquid epoxies tend to do. In a pinch you can use Super Glue on a plastic bait with plastic lip. It forms a great bond but is somewhat prone to breaking the glue joint due to impacts. Fill the lip slot with epoxy with a piece of wire and then insert the dry lip into the slot. The excess will squeeze out the rear sides of the slot where you can wipe it away neatly.

I use Gen I Shimano Dropshot rods and have the Med and ML power. They have a very light fast tip mated to a substantial Med or ML butt section, what is termed a "hinged" action, and for my money this is the perfect action for a dropshot rod. A couple of the west coast dropshot gurus recommended the Med action rod 6-8 yrs ago and I've enjoyed using it ever since. It's rated for 1/8 oz baits up and will handle 5+ lb fish with ease when called upon. Don't know what Shimano's warranty is these days but my Med action rod came with an over the counter lifetime warranty. They come with Fuji Alconite guides, which I like.

You can probably find color patterns for crawfish in your area if you check online. Some universities maintain albums of color pics. While there are lots of species, the majority are either brown or dull green. They may have red, orange, or blue accents depending on the species and time of year. It never hurts to turn over a few rocks where you are fishing to see what the current color is.

Yeah, epoxy is pretty heavy on a blade and it tends to chip off the edges very quickly because it pulls away from a sharp edge as it cures. The absolute best topcoat I've used is a moisture cured urethane. Very thin, very tough, won't yellow, chip resistant. Downside is it is very hard to store between uses without hardening since any moisture introduced into the container causes it to begin to cure. There are many threads about using and storing MCU on tackleunderground.com, a site dedicated to bait making. You can also get a discount if you enter the Dick Nite website to order MCU using a portal listed on tackleunderground. Dick Nite is a company that makes spoons and sells paint and topcoats to hobbyists as a sideline. His S81 Fishermun's Lurecoat is a MCU and works great. Other than MCU, I'd suggest trying a solvent based exterior grade urethane. Not as durable, but available at home improvement stores.

Assuming you are using a reel with an effective brake system that is in working order - practice with heavier line, say 15 lb monofilament and a heavier lure, say a 1/2 or 3/4 oz jig. It also helps to use a rod that is not so stiff that it will not "load up" to help you cast the lure. The biggest mistake I see among my friends who are adding baitcasting to their fishing skills is that they try to whip baits around with abandon like they are still using a spinning rod. That's a recipe for backlash. A baitcaster works best with a smooth, consistent casting stroke. Develop that first, then gradually learn to control the spool with thumb pressure to make more forceful longer casts. Sidearm casts are the easiest to control and easiest to learn because you can see what's going on with the rod throughout the cast. But you can't cast sidearm in all situations. If you fish from the back of a boat, chances are the guy in front will approach cover to the left of the boat (so HE can cast sidearm), preventing you from doing the same if you're right handed. So overhead, backhand, and long underhand pitches become important. But it all starts with a smooth consistent casting stroke.

Man, this thread has really wandered into being irrelevant to the OP's question, which was about the relative sensitivity of 2 lines and had nothing to do with whether there are gurus among us who can use supernatural abilities to sense whether a bass might be thinking of mouthing their bait in 40 ft of water. Some can, some can't, some learn to develop a better bite sense, some never will.

I fished with a buddy who likes to use an old Abu 507 Gold Max, one of the old Abu spincast reels where you tap a ring on the front of the reel and it releases line to your finger tip, ready to cast. Pretty neat system and I've always wondered why other spincast reels never picked up on that design. We went into a cove infested with bedding male bass and he proceeded to make 3 casts to every 1 I could with a standard spinning reel, catching bass one after another. There's something to be said for the speed with which you can make multiple casts with a spincast reel. I've since bought a couple of old Abu spincasters of the same basic design and use them for dropshotting and skipping docks. I can use any reel I like. These are just fun, fast, and they work well.

If you do lots of trailering, especially for distances, I'd pull the bearings every year, clean, and check them. If you see any little thing on them - replace them both. I also keep a box in the truck with a set of new seals and bearings, pre-lubed, with the tools necessary to change them if I break down on the road. It's cheap insurance to avoid a really bad day. I agree with Way2slow about adding grease to your hubs. It's not hard to pump it in too fast and blow the seal out the back of the hub. I don't warm mine up first, but I pump it in SLOWLY.

Fluorocarbon leader material is quite different from regular fluoro line in my experience. It's harder and stiffer, probably not what you'd want for a long leader that reached up to your reel. But it is a lot more durable. It seems to be more expensive also. I use it for saltwater fishing but go with regular fluoro line for freshwater leaders.

On Carolina rigs, I use a 3/4 oz weight 95% of the time. You want something you can throw a long way, gets to the bottom quickly, and stays there. I'm fishing water 10 -25 ft deep most of the time. For shallower water, you might drop down to 1/2 oz or 3/8 oz. You can even fish a finesse C-rig (Petey rig) over shallow submergent grass with 1/8 to 1/4 oz In all applications, you want a weight that gets the particular job done in the water and wind conditions you have to fish. You have to be able to cast it, it has to sink to the depth you want to fish, and it needs just enough weight so you can feel what is happening to the bait after you get it down there. In the end, you will have a wide variety of weights in your tackle box so you can tailor your presentation as needed.

I got a Carbonlite ML spinning rod when they were new. I guess they are now called the Carbonlite CL series selling for around $100. Compared to a Shimano Crucial dropshot rod of the same power, I prefer the action and sensitivity of the Shimano (which admittedly costs 50% more). One thing that chapped me about the Carbonlite - the hook keeper was not stainless steel and rusted off in about a year. I cut it off and wrapped on another keeper but guess that's one of the little bugs you can get with a rod built under contract in China. My bottom line - OK rod, probably worth the price but I wouldn't call it "special". I use it as a loaner to guests in my boat.

I have saltwater rods and reels but 95% of the time, I end up using bass gear at the coast. A 7" MH spinning rod, a 2500 size reel with 20 lb braid and some 20 lb leader material is my preferred setup for surf fishing. It handles fish up to 15-20 lb just fine. Further inshore, a lighter power spinning setup with 8-10 lb line will do just fine. It's a good idea to rinse down your rod and reel every day with fresh water after using them in salt water. Same for any lures you use. I use baitcasters 90% of the time at home but it's often windy at the NC coast, so spinning gear is a big plus there.

Catt, you're obviously a fan of copolymer or mono line and that's fine for any fishing presentation as long as it works for you. This thread is splitting scientific hairs. Considering all of the factors that determine overall bite sensitivity - the rod, the reel, the line, the bait, how you hold your rod and at what angle, how much touch sensitivity you have in your hand at the moment a fish bites, even your mental focus - well, differences in line composition are minor enough not to get excited one way or the other. But the logic is this: If you accept that more dense fluoro line has less stretch than nylon monofilament line and that it is also more able to transmit vibration (a measure of sensitivity), you can reason that line which has less stretch is probably also more sensitive. A = B = C, so therefore A = C. This might be a false equivalence, but probably not. It really does not apply to situations where a fish picks up your bait and starts to swim away with it, or pull on your line. I applies to situations where a fish picks up your bait and sits there, mouthing it to determine whether it's food or not. To me, that's where a very sensitive line can help me know to set the hook.

I back mine off after every trip. I don't know how soon I'll be going again so figure it's just good practice. Some of my reels date from the 1970's and yes, curved drag washers can lose their shape and compromise your drag tension if compressed long enough. It also makes me reset the drag before I start fishing every day, which exercises the drag and makes sure it won't stick . Of course, if you forget and don't reset your drag you'll be in for an unpleasant surprise the first time you try to set the hook. There's never a free lunch.

First, I'm not so sure there are any true "mono" lines that use only one nylon polymer any more, so for all I know Big Game is also a copolymer in the strict sense. Yozuri is a copoly that blends and extrudes nylon with fluorocarbon. As far as sensitivity goes, I think nylon or fluoro lines which are more dense at the molecular level tend to be more sensitive and transmit vibration better than less dense lines, all other things held equal. More dense lines also tend to have less stretch, hence my earlier comment that Catt jumped on. I would expect in comparing equal diameters of Big Game and YoZuri Hybrid that the Yozuri would be a bit more sensitive in transmitting vibration because the fluoro it contains is more dense than nylon polymer. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with feeling a bite when a fish picks up your bait and actively pulls on your line. We all know that sensing a bite is a lot more complicated than just using one line versus another. But in the end, I want to stack things in my favor whenever possible, even if they are very small things.

Just like you don't want to use fluoro on a topwater, I don't want to use a floating braid on a weightless plastic (e.g. Senko) that I'm deadsticking. The floating section of braid creates a bow in the line which kills any sensitivity you might otherwise have. There's also less sensitivity with braid versus fluoro or copoly if a fish picks up a bait and swims toward you. Braid may be OK with a Texas rig with a significant size bullet weight attached but for me, it can still be a negative if I'm using a weight less than 1/4 oz. So I prefer 100% fluoro for plastics whenever I can get away with it. My home lake is very clear so unweighted and very lightly weighted plastics, and long casts, get more bites. It's all a trade-off and you have to select the right line for the water clarity and cover situation. Fortunately, we have choices. ps - the "other sinking braid" is Spider Wire Fluoro Braid

Big Game is fairly stretchy, more than Yozuri Hybrid it seems to me. Less stretch = more sensitivity. I think Yozuri has a small edge in quality. If nothing else, it has better diameter consistency. But Big Game is a solid line that has been catching fish for many years. I use either/or without worrying about it much.

Suffix 832 has one strand of Goretex fiber in it. I use it in 10 lb size on a spinning reel and would say it's more or less neutrally buoyant. There is another brand of braid, I forget which, which as more Goretex in it and actually sinks, according to advertising. There's also Tuff LIne Hevicore braided line which has a center strand of PTFE and is 40% heavier than standard braided line.

I use exactly that setup when fishing saltwater, always with a 20 lb fluoro leader. The toothy critters will sometimes still get the better of you with fluoro, but not nearly as often as with straight braid. And if you are fishing for very line shy fish like Spanish Mackerel, it's a must-have.

I think you're right to be concerned about slack line sensitivity. Braid transmits zero if a fish picks up your bait and swims toward you. You'll feel something in that scenario when using fluoro or plain old copoly. If you are fishing a shoreline from a boat, bass will often pick up your bait and swim away from the bank to deeper water - and toward you. That's especially true of deadstick presentations like an unweighted Senko. Braid is great stuff. It handles well and lasts a long time. But I think guys who insist it's the "be all, end all" line for everything are missing fish and don't know it.

I've removed the finish on several rods when reconfiguring them and sometimes just removed the paint and clearcoat on an inexpensive rod to make it lighter and more responsive. I've never regretted doing it. The way 99% of rod blanks fail is through impact damage, which the finish does little to protect against, in my experience.

I use 6lb fluoro on the Shimano Biomaster reel I use for dropshotting and never have a problem with twist, loops, etc. Just don't see a need to switch to braid for that presentation and not having to tie and trust a leader knot is a small plus. If it ain't broke...

I'm still skeptical. A standard spinning guide set has the large first guides sitting off the blank a good distance (about 1 1/2") to do exactly the same thing. For me, it boils down to how much do the microwave guides weigh compared to various other guides? Not saying they don't work but If the "guide inside a guide" structure of the microwave ends up weighing more than a standard Alconite guide, for instance, I don't see any advantage.