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Sounds like good conditions for a jerkbait to me, find a few wind blown points and give it a try.

I have seen it done with regular wood filler, let it dry, lightly sand it to remove excess and seal it. Looks good as new.

I'm not sure that is exactly correct, this is a statement from the review. "The drag is quite bumpy and jerky, even at the lowest settings. This reel is far from being ideal if you intend to target species that require a smooth drag system."

So as a suggestion, before you begin the review of your new reel, please tell us a little bit about you and your background in fishing, maybe a little about some of the other gear you have used.

I am goinig to agree with Bootytrain on this one, I have been a member of Tackle Tour for quite a while, long before their server crashed, and post counts started all over. I would say that my time at TT has always felt like a Daiwa dominated forum, much to the extent that Shimano is brand of choice here.

I will try another analogy and hope it is better. Think about a boxing match, where the champ is a popular guy and a well loved sports figure. The contender is known locally as a good hard working guy and is a solid boxer. As the fight progresses the Champion wins some rounds but most of the rounds are easily won by the contender. At the end of the fight, it goes to the cards, result, split decision win in favor of the Champion. The point is that it does not make any difference how the Judges scored the fight on paper, because all the true fans of boxing know who won the match.

Goose, read it tomorrow or a week from now and see if it makes any more sense, if not, just disregard the post. On second thought maybe it makes more sense if it is written like this, "You got it, but the phrase needs to also be looked at from the sense that, if bologna was the best meat a person had ever eaten, how could that person possible appreciate what someone was telling them about a fantastic T-bone steak......"

Thanks for your subjective review, and I mean that in a positive way.

You got it, but you have to also look at like this, if bologna was the best meat you had ever eaten, how could you possible appreciate what someone was telling you about a fantastic T-bone steak. Keep in mind they are not comparing the PQ to reels within its price range or even reels that are a 100 dollars more, the comparison is being made to every other fishing reel they have reviewed. If you think of it in those respects, it rated good, and in my mind that is an accurate and fair rating . Another thing I was pondering . regardless of the score, think about what this has done to promote the PQ, and all the talk it has spawned on message boards all over.

Every review ever done is subjective, the key is to pick the things from the review that are facts, like weight, bearing count and placement, handle length, things of this nature. The rest is the opinion of the reviewer and you have to take it for what it is worth. Someone told me once, if the only meat you had ever eaten was bologna, you would never miss a T-bone. Despite some of things already mentioned and a few not, I felt the review was fair.

I use braided line in two primary applications, frog fishing, and main line with a FC leader on spinning gear. I will also use it occasionally for dragging football jigs.

So do you think that a floating line like mono (Nylon) will cause a crankbait to run a little shallower?

Kevin, many places discount St.Croix rods, they just don't publicly advertise it, much the same with Shimano, Megabass, and G.Loomis. They usually word it something like "For deals too good to list give us a call" If you call, they will apply the same discount to these rods. In fact there is a site sponsor here that may or may not be able to get you a discount on a St. Croix rod, not sure if he carries that brand or not.

Gander Mountain is running some type of rebate on St.Croix rods based on the amount spent, I think it would be like 30 dollars on a Avid.

True, but here is a problem with your post, 0.11 diameter suffix mono is 8lb test line, .011 is 12lb test in Seaguar InviszX. So to compare apples to apples you would need to use lines rated at the same braking strength, so 12lb suffix is .014 in diameter and again 12lb InviszX is .011 FC line with its density and line diameter in the same braking strength will get you more than a few inches deeper. In fact, it will increase your depth by as much as 10% according to Dr. Steven Holt and Mark Romanack, Authors of the book Precision Cranking. "A given crankbait runs approximately 20 percent deeper with 8-pound-test monofilament than with 14-pound test. On 20-pound test, the crankbait runs 10 percent shallower than on 14-pound test."The line diameter and the distance of the cast are the two primary factors that influence a crankbait's diving depth," notes Romanack. "If you want a crankbait to get deeper, switch to lighter line. Thinner line casts farther, which also increases the depth."

Yes I did, that was a great test when it was performed, I don't know if anyone else had done anything quite that in depth at the time. I did find an article from the manager of a tensile strength testing laboratory that claimed that the way the deformity (stretch) testing was performed does not reveal anything truly useful about the line. He suggests that the proper method is to perform tests to determine the actual breaking strength of the line. Once you have determined this, then perform your deformity test. His twist was rather than perform the test and measure deformity at breaking strength, that you should perform the deformity test at a percentage of braking strength, say like 25%, 50, 75, his point being that who cares how much a line stretches just before it breaks. He contended that it is much better information to know how much stretch there is in a real world working environment, and felt like most regular fishing applications do not put much more than somewhere between 25 - 50% of rated breaking strength strain on line. I have often thought about his article, and wonder how much difference it would make in the test results.

Wayne are the results your quoting from the FC line shoot out that TT done a few years ago?

One very exciting and successful cadence for any topwater bait can be to work the bait with a walking action, and then stop the bait and let it soak, maybe 30-45 seconds, get a drink of Gator Aid out of the cooler. Some times as soon as you make the first movement of the bait to restart its walking action you will get a violent explosion that will darn near scare you. Good times.......

Kind of like comparing a Chevette to a Corvette. Well almost......

Jig and Worm rods benefit greatly from a rods ability to transmit vibration (sensitivity), there are a lot of rods on the market and an almost equal if not greater combination of materials, resins and scrim used to produce these rods. My advice is find a rod that works for you in terms of comfort, balance, and sensitivity, no one is going to be able to tell you what is best for you, only what they prefer. Once you have determined your rod of choice, see what you have left in your budget for a reel. Reels in the 100-200 dollar price range are very competitive with one another, and almost all manufactures offer a quality product in this price range. Determine what type of braking system you would like and narrow your selection from there. Other things that may help you narrow your choice, are availability in both LH and RH models, Gear ratio (IPT), weight, and details such as clicking dragstar and spool tension knob. Remember, don't worry about what everyone else uses, find something that feels good to you and fits your particular needs. It will make you much happier in the end. Good luck.

So here is my take, and I will apologize in advance for the length of the post.. All material metal, plastic, wood, or whatever the case may be absorb a certain amount of light and reflect a certain amount of light. What we as humans see as color is the light that is not absorbed by the material and is reflected. Water acts as a filter to light as well as make it more difficult for the light to reach an object and reflect. Some colors are much better at this than others. Red is the very first color to lose it's ability to reflect light, this can can happen in relatively shallow clear water, and when you add in stained or muddy water, which further limit light penetration a red baits ability to reflect light is almost nothing. This does not mean the bait becomes invisible in the water, only that it no longer looks red, but becomes a shade of grey. IIRC, the colors that lose their ability to reflect light in terms of depth and water clarity go something like this, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Violet. When you think about it in these terms it is easy to understand why a color like firetiger may be more visible (in terms of color) than something red or orange and why black and blue may work so well as a color choice for many baits. No no knows with absolute certainty how fish see, the rods and cones in their eyes are very different than ours. It is reported that fish can see color and grayscale many time better than humans, and it is often thought that they may even be able to see into the ultraviolet spectrum. But this like many things in fishing can be debated. There are some great books out there on how fish see, and how to use color selection to your advantage.

I am going to go with the Blair Witch. Seriously guy, relax, for 2000 years no one has been able to document undisputable proof of big foot, so I would say the odds are on your side. Get yourself a couple of cheap game cameras and find out what is going on.

Chatterbaits over the top of the grass can be very good

I have a Type R and have done the upgrades you speak of, kind of just tops off what is already a great reel. Kind of like ice cream on your cake.

Looks like it could be a DD fish to me. But it is awful hard to tell from a picture.