BobP

The Baby D Bomb has been one of my best bass catching baits for the last 2 years.

I've found underfilling the spool by about 1/4" prevents line jumping off the spool best for me. Enough that I expect to use a spool of any brand 8 lb fluoro for a whole season.

Nice job but you also need to know what temperature of water you will fish them in. If you tested them in 50 degree water, they will sink in water that is much warmer. If you tested in 80 degree water, they will float in much cooler water.

I think the problem with the cheap airbrushes made in China is their inconsistency, both out of the box and later as you use the brush, clean it repeatedly, and need to order a replacement part. Some guys get ones that work just fine, some are not so lucky according to the reports I've read. Order a name brand brush and you know it will work right now and next year, and if you need it (and you probably will), you can get replacement parts for it from a variety of sources. You really do get what you pay for and the sweet spot for quality versus cost seems to be in the $75-125 range. More expensive brushes have smaller precision tips and various add-on features that are nice to have but not essential to good basic airbrushing results. Tip size is critical to various art types - cartooning, graphic art, etc, etc. There's nothing you can't do with a .3 or .35mm airbrush on a crankbait in my experience. Bigger is too big for some details and some shading tasks. Smaller is too small to shoot some of the flake and pearl paints that are popular on crankbaits.

Depth depends on line size, cast distance, and how high you hold the rod while retrieving. Companies used to overstate depths when there were fewer truly deep diving crankbaits available but thankfully that is not so prevalent anymore. Suspending versions usually dive one foot deeper than floaters and going down in line size from 14 to 12 will also get a bait down an extra foot.

The short answer is "yes" to both questions.

How well Airbrushes work depends on how well their tiny parts are machined and fitted. In the end, you get what you pay for and among all brands, Iwata is known for its high made-in-Japan quality. For me, a brush with a .3 to .35mm tip size is ideal for painting crankbaits. That tip size is small enough to permit good detailing but large enough to shoot heavier pearls and flake paints. In the Iwata line, the Revolution BR fits and is priced in the $85 range, among the least expensive Iwatas. After all of the pros and cons of specific brushes, the truth is that airbrushing is more about the artist than the airbrush. I've seen museum quality art done with cheap airbrushes and crap art painted with $300 brushes. A better airbrush just makes it easier, with fewer limitations and more durability. I've used Badger, Paashe, and Iwata brushes and they are all good workhorse brushes - but I prefer the Iwatas. Note: Paasche and Badger brushes often come with tip sets whose sizes are not specified beyone fine/medium/large.

I think it's just the nature of the retail beast. Higher end rods get a lot of abuse while on the rack in a large sporting goods store.

If we're talking about great reels, I personally think the Pro Max and Black Max reels qualify. I'm generally a Shimano low profile reel guy. But you can put blue or black brake blocks on a 1600 or 3600 Max reel, loosen the cast control knob until there's a slight bit of side play in the spool, and bomb long casts all day long with minimal thumbing and nary a backlash. Try that with a low profile Shimano! There's just something about the configuration of spool vs line guide vs frame vs centrifugal brakes on a Max reel that makes them real workhorses. And the construction quality on the Max is excellent.

I have a couple of the Crucial dropshot rods and they were worth every penny I spent on them - $150+ for the new 6'8" Med and $80 for the used 6'8" ML I got on Ebay. Nice sticks with a very good warranty.

The viscosity of reel oils changes according to temperature. On most oils, it changes a lot. Also, the thinner the oil, the faster it will be thrown out of a ball bearing and the more often the oil needs to be replenished. A few years ago, a materials scientist on a different bass fishing forum did lab tests on various oils that were in vogue at the time, and the differences in viscosity were interesting. From 78F to 38F, viscosity increases by a factor of four for most reel oils. So while there's a ton of opinion on "which is the best" oil, it really boils down to how you fish, how fast do you want the bearings, what temperature you fish in, and how often you are willing to re-lube your bearings. Player's choice. Many oils, formulated for reels or not, will get the job done. I doubt a color change will have much if any effect on the lubricity of an oil. Lube.............................Viscosity@78F (cP) Mobil-1 0W-30 (syn)..................400 (for comparison sake) Zebco Needle Oiler....................206 Quicksilver Storage Seal............203 Abu Silicoat Reel Oil...................176 Browning Midas Gun Oil (syn)...140 Quicksilver PS and Trim Oil........136 BSB Speed Bearing...................114 Red RF (hc).................................93 PMI Paintball Gun Lube...............90 Power Steering Fluid...................90 Diawa Std Needle Oiler...............84 Reel-X.........................................74 ATF Dextron III...........................62 Shimano Std. (hc).......................60 Yellow RF (hc).............................59 3-In-1 Oil....................................40 Reel Butter..................................28 Quantum Hot Sauce....................25 X+1R...........................................21 Diawa TDZ lube (syn)..................18 Diawa/Liberto Pixy Lube (syn).....18 Whale Spit (hc)............................14 Abu Black Max .............................14 WD 40..........................................6 Tournament RF (hc)......................4 Friction Zero Lub (hc/syn )............4 Rem Oil (hc)..................................3 Reference: DI water.....................1 ------------------------------------------- Lube....Viscosity (cP) @ 38F.........@78F........@ 98F (cP) Yellow RF ........................285..............59..............35 3-In-1 Oil.........................161....... ......40..............20 Quantum Hot Sauce........100..............25..............16

I bought ProMax 1600's and 3600's on Ebay for $50-80 3-5 years ago and a BM 3600 for $40. Prices do seem to have risen since then. Frankly, I can't tell much performance difference between the BM and the PM 3600. Both are tight, smooth, and strong. The BM looks a lot better than the scarred up PM's I find on Ebay - if that's an issue (not for me).

I'm no expert but own a round Black Max of 70-80's vintage. Mine is a 3600 model. These are real workhorses, they're tough, and shared most of their design with the high end ProMax 3600 reels of the same era, which had more internal ball bearings. The Black Max casts really well, has a smooth retrieve, instant anti-reverse, and is a great value in the used reel market, usually going for less than $50 in most Ebay auctions. The Black Max had a very durable finish while the ProMax had very chip-prone light gray paint. The standard ratio on both reels was 5.4:1. I never tried any of the low profile Max reels that followed the round Max models but they seem to have gone down in quality and durability when they switched designs.

I oil all bearings, the level wind worm gear, and the brake drum. Everything else that slides or rubs against something else is greased. You don't want grease on anything that touches or rubs against anything on the spool or its axle. If you use Superlube grease on your gears, they look dry after awhile due to the white color of the grease and the conservative amount of grease you should be using. Once you get a light application of grease down into the teeth of the main and pinion gear, that's enough. I use a small stiff brush to paint the grease into the teeth. A reel with grease piled up in various places inside the case is over-lubricated. That gunk is lubricating nothing.

For leaders less than 5' long, I doubt you'd be able to tell a difference in sensitivity versus fluoro. But would fluoro be more sensitive? yes.

Not sure if I would use the Eagle Claw rod for anything bass because it would just be too short for me but the Star would work throwing jigs and plastics in heavy cover/grass, though most guys would prefer a 7' or longer MH or H power bass rod for those situations. Neither rod is really designed for bass and the lure weight ranges tell me they are probably fairly heavy rods compared to most bass designs, which tend to be lighter and more sensitive. I wouldn't put out money for them as bass rods but might press the Star into service occasionally, depending on how often I bass fished.

You have to have enough discipline to put the rod down and get graphing experience. That's not easy when you just want to catch fish. As far as schooling fish, I regularly fish 55-60' deep in the late fall and winter for bass attacking shad schools near the bottom. If you can't recognize what a shad school looks like, and just as importantly recognize what bass attacking that shad school look like, you will not be successful spoon jigging. You need both the shad and active bass to succeed. When you see it once on the sonar and catch bass after bass, you will always remember that sonar scenario and will look to repeat it. It's a scenario where the sonar is critical - without it, you would never fish that spot that may be 20 ft in diameter in the middle of a large lake. The same thing applies to other deep water situations. Graph until you think you recognize a concentration of bass, then fish to confirm. Graph until you are familiar with the lake and its bottom features and can identify bass sitting on the bottom, which can be difficult. For shallower bass, I look for structure and cover features that SHOULD hold bass since I expect the boat and sonar to spook the fish away from the sonar. In reservoirs in summertime, one good strategy is to find the thermocline and then explore depths where the thermocline intersects the bottom. If I can find structure and cover at that depth, there's a good chance I'll find fish.

If you really get into stick baits, a big difference is whether it has been made with enough salt added to increase the weight of the bait. The original Senko is significantly heavier than most other stickbaits and that gives it a different sink rate and action that many consider superior to the various knockoffs. Some guys will argue that other brands work "just fine" or "just as well" as the Senko. Personally, I think most of the knockoffs work as well as other knockoffs but the Senko is a cut above. Unfortunately, that includes the price, too.

I just throw mine in the box with my other jigs and haven't had a problem with it. What will really mess them up is applying an oil based fish attractant to them while fishing - ruins them.

I have added butt weight to longer heavy action flipping rods and it made them a lot more enjoyable to fish. As to how much, that depends entirely on you, the specifics of the rod, and the reel you plan to use. You need to experiment to get where you want to be. JMHO, it can be a good thing on rods used for plastics, jigs, or other "still presentations". It's a total waste of time on rods used for moving presentations.

Building rods for myself and a few friends, I've gotten most of my blanks from Bingham Enterprises. It's a small operation in ?Kansas? and Karen gives great service to customers but shipping times are so-so because they often have blanks mailed to the buyer direct from the half a dozen rod blank makers they represent. I think an important question you have to ask yourself is what brands of blanks you want to employ in your business, as end users most often want a specific brand and model blank for their custom rod.

I've tried several different spiral wrap configurations. Each seems to work as well as any other so my last rods were done with the "simple" wrap where you have one guide at 0 degrees then the next at 180 degrees, with no transition guides. I like it just fine that way and although the line may occasionally touch side of the blank, it gives me the straightest line flow of any of the schemes and of course, it's the simplest scheme to wrap. My least favorite was the Revolver that had the first stripper guide offset a little to the left at ?320? degrees to counteract any line stacking, which I found to be a non-issue on any bass rod. I cannot detect any performance advantage to a spiral wrap except that it usually allows you to use one less guide near the end of the rod, which is a good thing for lightening up the tip weight. They also say it prevents torquing the rod tip over while fighting fish, which can happen on an "all guides up" rod under heavy strain. But we aren't fishing for black marlin and I don't see that as a big issue for a bass rod either.

I went fishing with a buddy who used an old Abu 507 spincast reel to cast to bedding smallmouths. I used a modern spinning reel. He fired 3 casts to my one throughout the day and waxed my butt. The old Abu worked just fine. What's not to like?

I use aerosol starting fluid - aka ether - to soak clean bearings. Very fast.

I use both styles but to me, round reels are still around because some of them proved to be as simple and as reliable as anvils, like some of the round Abus and Shimano Calcuttas. I don't buy the increased line capacity reasoning since there are low profile 300 size reels that also have that feature. Other than that, you run into guys who are nostalgic about old stuff or are too set in their ways to switch to a more modern design. JMHO