Tim Kelly

Chilly here too.

Especially on Sundays.

Always good to skive off on a Friday. Not exactly fast and furious fishing, but I got a few and the dogs had a good outing.

That's very true. I used to buy St Croix blanks, but it worked out too expensive. The last two spinning rods of theirs I bought, both SCV, I bought as finished rods, stripped the horrible handles and rebuilt the handles. It was still much cheaper than buying a blank, the torzites and the handle and building it myself.

Well done! Satisfying when you work it out isn't it!

I would guess it's something to do with the anti reverse pawl, That must not be engaging properly when the reel's in free spool. You need to try to look and see if something is moving when the clutch is depressed that takes the AR mechanism out of line.

Fishing the partially frozen canal today. Lovely to see the sun, seems like it's been a long time!

Does it re-engage the gears and stop the spool or just spin through it's own momentum? If it spins mechanically then the gearbox can't be disengaging fully from the spool when the thumb bar is pressed, so look at the pinion gear, yoke and the pin in the spool to see if they separate properly. Then look at the release arm for wear. No idea on the specific reel, but the general principal of how the reels work is similar, so you've just got to work through it until you find the problem.

When you're between drives and someone pulls out a sandwich. Suddenly the pheasants aren't so interesting.

Looks like they are expecting you to work late, or early, or both.

That looks like the shallow version of the castaic trout. They came in 6, 8 and 10" the 8 being the most common. The internal frame is expanded foam instead of the usual lead casting. We used to use them a lot for pike. They got pulled apart eventually, but we're tremendous catchers.

That's the easy side, this is the more tricky side. Took me three assemblies to work out I had the yoke in back to front LOL.

Must be that time of year.

Well done. Did you film it for a you tube vid? Would have been popular.

Very pretty, but where do the rods go? A friend of mine occasionally tows his boat with his Mustang, quite the sight!

Hope 2019 goes from strength to strength for you.

Fun day poking around the farm for a pheasant or two with Bob and the dogs.

The very early ones didn't have a recirculating livewell.

Tough Christmas for you both. Thinking of you.

I've only tried 6lb advance and it was a nice line, for about 1 trip. It seems to get damaged very easily and becomes curly, like it's been pulled over a sharp object, with normal use. Switching back to Pline CXX demonstrated it wasn't anything to do with the rod or reel and it was just the line that was performing poorly. It's a shame as it seemed like nice line for the first couple of hours. I have no experience with the higher strains though, they may behave better?

Some days, you're on top of the world. Other days everything seems to get on top of you.....

A friend was very proudly showing me his new Steez a few years ago and offered me a cast with it. I lobbed a cast out and the reel made some ugly noises and the handle span backwards. Pretty embarrassing for me and distressing for him! I think I had not pressed the thumb bar far enough to fully disengage the spool. The reel seemed to survive it however.

Definitely looks like the AR bearing. Take the sideplate off and flush the AR bearing with a solvent, allow to dry and reassemble without lubrication.

My version of little and medium.

Very festive. ?