Tim Kelly

I believe the difference between the SV system and the Mag z system is mostly with the spool. The reel still uses magnetic force applied to the inductor, though the amount probably varies from reel to reel. The inductor on the SV spools rotates a bit as well as moving in and out, where I believe most Mag z spools only move in and out. I might not have that 100% right but it's the gist of it.

I have a normal Tatula CT with a rays diy shallow spool and it's amazingly easy with light baits, will absolutely launch a 1/8 head with a 3" spark shad, and lighter baits are trouble free too. Very impressed.

What a trip, in every sense.

That bombastic guy on the right has quite an irritating way of speaking! Not the worst idea ever, but how many times do you need to say the same thing?

Fantastic. Look forward to the films.

Look forward to your thoughts on the boat.

Hi Peter. ?

Look out for Chris and Cory Johnson on the St Lawrence next season!

Very nice, just be careful not to bend the bail wire.

Yeah, but I bet he got the spider, anything else is just collateral damage.

Gussy, the Canadian LOTW guy with the Lund said he was going to BASS on facebook.

As long as the plug is the same you should be OK. You might have to tell the unit which transducer you have, not sure.

Make absolutely sure the transducer is pushed home fully into the back of the unit, might just be a connection issue. If you know anyone else with a working unit try plugging your head into their transducer and power lead and see whether that improves it, could be the transducer being partially broken. If it doesn't work on someone else's set up, then it's likely the head unit. Try running it with your motor trimmed up a bit too, sometimes the lower unit gets in the way if the sonar beam, but as you don't seem to have a down image I doubt that's the issue.

I would (and did) get any of the Daiwa LT series, to suit your budget. I have dipped my toes in many manufacturer's reels over the years and there is considerably less chance for disappointment if you stick to Shimano and Daiwa. I'm not keen on Shimano spinning reels, so I pretty much have all Daiwas now and the LTs from Fuego to Ballistic are all very nice.

Sounds like you had a great summer. Hope winter passes quickly for you and you can break out the fishing shirt again soon.

The Zander have established themselves there in the last couple of years and are booming. Tremendous sport with them as well as the bass at the moment. Get there before the boom ends!

Hola Maherme! I was fishing Cijara a couple of weeks ago, fantastic lake. Living in the UK I always have to travel for bass fishing and I love the fishing at Cijara. Do you ever get over to Extremadura to fish?

I believe the spools are interchangeable with the tat CT series, so the bearing size will be the same.

You're right tiddler snatching is big in european match fishing. The reason is that they are fishing for multiple species and the aim is to get the biggest total weight, so often you can catch a bigger weight of tiddlers than you can of the less numerous larger species. Euro match fishing makes terrible television! The great key to the MLF style is that it creates tension between the competitors as they know what everyone has. I don't think it would matter whether they knew what the other angler's best five were, the tension would remain.

Maybe that's because it's televised? I expect that's what they're hoping the MLF tour is going to do for fishing? BTW. It's interesting that a lot of the matchplay and Ryder cup type events are much more exciting to watch on telly, but the traditional classics are still the mainstay of the interest. I do wonder whether bass anglers are going to tired of the tiddler snatching format and request a traditional big five style tournament. Don't see why it can't be done MLF style still with anglers knowing what the other guys best five weigh and how much they need to cull to beat them. I don't see how that would be any less exciting.

Sounds like all three are curable, so take heart from that. Good luck with the prostate, they have some very non invasive ways of dealing with that stuff these days, so hopefully you won't be too bothered by it.

Out on the water a couple of hours before dawn this morning. Didn't do me any good though. Very slow bite today, last Sunday it was a bite a chuck for a while, complete opposite this weekend. Tried one last spot with some history on my way back to the ramp and must have landed my dropshot on his head. Dreadful picture, but a great memory. 4-06, my biggest of the season so far and as far as I can remember my biggest for a couple of years. An ounce bigger than my biggest bass in Spain a couple of weeks ago!

Time to wave you burner round before you go near that valve. I'm a plumber here in the UK, people have often said that I should move to Australia as they're crying out for plumbers. That photo reminds me why. I expect the life expectancy of plumbers in Oz is about a fortnight. There are some pretty unpleasant creepy crawlies in the states, but in Oz everything wants to kill you, and most of them lurk in the dark crevices plumbers hands always spend most of their time!

The Minn Kota Ulterra would be your ideal solution, but probably cost more than the boat. It deploys and retracts itself and has a remote to steer it as well as deploy and retract it, but I think they're around $3k.

If the boat's going to have other people in it it might be awkward going to the front of the boat to deploy the bow mount every time in a relatively small boat. You could easily get a transom mounted trolling motor and turn the head on it round, then fish "backwards. It saves climbing over everyone to get the TM down and works reasonably well. I used the system on my previous boat. Much cheaper to buy a transom mount than a bow mount too.