Tim Kelly

I hate most St Croix handles, so I have stripped them off two Legends and replaced them with one I find more comfortable. Seems sacrilege on an expensive rod, but it's cheaper than buying a blank and the components to do it myself at mudhole retail prices.

That's just mad. I'd be astonished if they were noticeably different to Torzites, which are an expensive guide set to start off with. If Daiwa are asking $300 a guide set from them they should have said no!

I went out that way for my Honeymoon. So much premium trout fishing there! Stunning place. Take a decent camera and you can hardly take a bad photo. Go to Jenny Lake and hike round it, beautiful lake with the Tetons as a backdrop. Yellowstone is a mandatory trip, as is Cody. Man, I want to go back! The wildlife is epic.

If you've changed your leader material that can cause problems. Too light a leader on too thick a braid can slip, also some leader materials are very hard, which makes them more tricky. Try using a thicker leader or a different brand.

I think the base maps only have shading if they happen to have been surveyed. My basemap only shows the outline of the water like you describe as there is no other detail available for where I fish. I'd reset your unit to factory defaults, there's a button for that. Once that's done go into your mapping and you have to choose a source for your mapping. That's where you would nominate your card as the source. If it still doesn't work try the card in another unit, if a friend has one, to make sure it's not the card.

You're right. Your choice depends on how important all the fancy features are vs how important manual control is. The wireless motors will do the fancy stuff as well as the Ghost, Ultrex, Motorguide Tour etc, but for bass fishing where manual control is wanted, especially fishing shallow, it's horrible. When I go to Spain the boat I hire has a wireless motorguide and I am battling against it all week. My Maxxum on the other hand is a joy when I'm casting forward, but a pest when I want to hold in the current and cast downstream. I want an Ultrex, but they're twice the price you can buy them for the the US here in Europe. That ain't happening!

Never use WD40 on bearings. It leaves a varnish on them that leads to rumbles.

I used 2" 1/8th angle with 18mm ply seems solid.

Horizontal interference lines are usually cause by two units, maybe now and console unit interfering with each other in deeper water when the signals from the front and rear transducers overlap. No idea what's going on with you unit though. That looks completely different.

Just for giggles check the rotor and spool for stickers. I had a weird ticking noise on a fuego and was studying it and about to strip it down when I realised a sticker had become partially unstuck and was rubbing on the rotor. Removing the sticker solved the problem completely.

If it's an old reel and it has spooled line OK before, it's not the washer stack that needs adjusting. Might be you were holding the line too close to the reel and it didn't go over the roller freely, the roller might be seized and sticking, causing line lay issues, the bail could be bent, or a couple of other reasons. The most common one is inattention when spooling. I've done it a couple of times. You don't notice that the line isn't sitting right in the bail when you're spooling, often caused by trapping the line against the blank too close to the reel when you're adding tension to the line spooling up. I put a pencil through the spool, trap the spool between my knees with the pencil in the fold of the back of my knees, line through the butt guide and wind it on to the reel The line is coming off the top of the line spool. This seems to work well and you can increase or decrease the tension by squeezing your knees against the line spool lip. Take the line off and try spooling it again.

You could always put a few coats of varnish on the wraps, like we used to when I was a kid. It cracks and discolours eventually, but serves it's purpose, and varnishes are probably more stable now than the were 40 years ago.

I can drive to Holland in about 6 hours and use the channel tunnel to get across the sea, so it's not quite as exotic as it sounds. That's a long shot special for a big perch or zander. The last five or six years we've done it we've been foiled by the weather. Spring is potentially a windy time anyway, and Holland has no wind breaks so if it's above 10mph it's awkward, above 15 it's pretty much impossible. We always time it perfectly for the windiest times. Last year we spent 3 of 4 days sat in the cabin looking out of the window trying to convince ourselves the wind was dropping. Spain is a great trip. It's a lovely place up in the mountains and is a rare chance to fish for bass. It's like a Californian desert lake. The levels drop 40 ft or so during the summer with hydro electric generation, it's steep sided rock, no grass, and I find it difficult to work out what to do a lot of the time, but we usually get a few in the end. There are zander, pike and an unusual sort of barbel which is very predatory in the lake as well, so there is often an added bit of excitement. Good times with good friends. Canada is very special. My friend Tim lives in VA and has a cabin on the lake. He very generously invites me over when we can get our diaries to coincide. Love that place, Newboro Lake in Ontario. Last year we finished a fabulous week with a 20lb bag of smallmouth, which has been a long held ambition. Icing on a very very good cake!

Is it snowing again? ? I've just got the details of a March trip to Holland and a May trip to Spain sorted out, so life's definitely better with something in the diary. Possibility of an August Canada trip too, but time will tell. You're a long time dead.

Must be nice to have some"one" in the household who enjoys the endless winter. They probably think the same about you guys during the brief fleeting summer while they're uncomfortable.

I hear you. The sums of money involved in every bit of the technology are mind blowing. Trouble is, when you know it exists the monkey starts whispering in your ear. ?

Fantastic technology. Stick an Ultrex on it and you have my dream boat there.

Does it react quickly enough to deal with a sudden boat wake? Pretty impressive technology if it can cope with that sort of thing.

I've no experience of poles or talons, but have often wondered what happens if a big boat wake crashes into you when you're locked in place. Do you get a boat full of water or bumped off your spot?

My experience is pretty much limited to punching eel grass mats in Canada on my trips there, but for what it's worth I prefer the peg-it rubber pegs and keep the weight about 1/4" above the hook as it allows the plastic a bit more movement when hopping if off bottom or below the roof of the mat. The gap also stops the weight pushing the bait off the hook, so they last a bit longer. I don't believe in snelling the hook for better hook ups. a normal palomar is just fine for me and allows the hook to work as it was designed to work.

Ha ha. Love it.

I'm still amused that you think there is enough difference between the lowest and second lowest tier of rod guide liners. I understand that you think they should use the more expensive components on more expensive rods, but in practise I can't tell a difference between oxide or alconite steel framed guides. Not sure if I could tell SIC steel framed guides either. Now if you go to the insanely expensive titanium torzites then there is a profound difference, but we re not talking about anything like that between oxides and alconites.

Fluoro is tricky on spinning reels no matter what you do. Braid with a 30ft fluoro leader gives you almost all the properties of straight fluoro with far fewer handling issues. You just need to learn to tie an FG knot to make the best of it.

Fair enough. They sound like good value rods.

I expect they're Chinese blanks, where the St Croix are, or were, North American built, so there's going to be a difference in the price of the blank.