Tim Kelly

For me the handle is the least important part of any rod. I grip a spinning reel with two fingers either side of the reel stem and palm my baitcasters, so I only ever really touch the reel seat with my right hand. Left hand is for reel handles or occasionally the rod butt for two handed casts and it wouldn't matter much if there was no grip there as it's pretty much just a fulcrum. I tend to build my rods with American tackle Aero grips for spinning rods and standard fuji non-exposed trigger seats on casting rods. Both are comfortable and functional the way I hold the rods.

Why do you want a foregrip? Most people palm the reel or hold it further back, only muskie guys sometimes hold the grip in front of the seat.

The AR bearing is usually mounted in the side plate with a collar going through it that presses on the drag stack which in turn press onto the main gear cog. Hard to imaging how the AR bearing could be touching the gear. What reel is it?

Enjoy your new companion. If you're really lucky and the dog absolutely "gets it", you'll be going fishing even more frequently in the future, just to keep the dog happy. That's my excuse anyway.

Hooks tend to bend when something odd happens, like the fish being hooked across the face or under the chin. Any situation where there can be an increased torque load from an indirect angle. Will happen with all but the stoutest hooks sometimes, just something to keep an eye on. They also get bent when you unhook them if they're in a tough bit of flesh and you twist them out or the fish flips off the hook when you swing it in.

Okuma vs Daiwa? Pretty much guarantee you're going to be happier with a Daiwa 99% of the time.

Actually, I had a car that used to act similarly and it turned out to be the points closing up. Since the days of electronic ignition the points and condenser have been done away with, but if you have points in the distributor then check the gap and maybe replace them.

If it's a twin cylinder engine it sounds like one of the cylinders is only firing intermittently.

In PA I bet that happens a lot. The tin boat guys are killing the big smallies on the Susquehanna and the glass guys don't dare put their boats in the river so are stuck on some of the less than stellar ponds.

Really enjoyed the last two seasons. Like the first of the new season too. He seems like a really nice bloke. The next episodes can't come quickly enough!

Definitely a step down, but being unpainted they don't look like crap after all the paint falls off. Shame St Croix don't offer unpainted blanks as many people are put off their blanks by the colour and their built rods by the colours and the build.

Anyone got any reports on how the paint holds up on those blanks? I made a rod on a blue/green flip coloured St Croix SCV blank and the paint came off in lumps after a while of fishing. Spoke to them and they seemed unconcerned. Been buying MHX blanks since.

That's a great report. I've so rarely noticed colour making a difference that I rarely change colours these days. Maybe I should try swapping colour a bit more often if the action is a bit slow.

x2

While fluoro is a pain to use it definitely has advantages which are worth putting up with in my view for certain presentations. I like it for drop shot and any presentation where you are fishing semi slack. Without a doubt the density of the line makes it feel different in these situations. Mono works great in a lot of situations, though the stretchiness makes it less useful if you're fishing long casts as the hooksets are more difficult. Braid has advantages when fishing at range, in vegetation or with topwaters due to it's properties of floating, no stretch and the ability to cut through soft vegetation. It is hopeless in wood or around sharp rocks or mussels though as it has no resistance to the rocks or mussels and digs into wood. BTW, if you tie an FG knot to join the braid to the leader it is easily a 100% knot and the leader will break before the knot every time. There's no point being anti FC as it has it's place, just like the other line types do. Whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages to you personally is something you can only decide by trying all the line types out.

Has it got a HUK lable?

Exactly the same, but it's fiddly. I used to do it, but it was a perverse torture. Then I bought my first "modern" reel. LOL

Modern reels have so much improved gearing that you don't get the start up inertia when you turn the handle. Mitchells stiff drivetrain seems so backwards nowadays. I remember being very jealous of my cousin who had a Mitchell 810, which was the super high speed retrieve version until I had a go with it and the handle was a struggle to turn -even for a die hard 300 owner! Lol

I saw a pair of those in bass pro. While I'm sure they are excellent tools, I thought they were too big and way too expensive. I think they've missed the market by a wide margin with this product. $30 they'd probably be worth a go, but it's still a bit bulky really for a simple tool.

You either have to pull the little lever out to release the bail or turn the handle. No choice with a 300. To be honest you'd be better off keeping it as a momento of times past and buying even a cheap modern spinning reel. They are so much better today than the old 300 reels that I spent a long time saving up for in my youth!

Oh yes. He would sulk if I didn't take him and I'd miss his endless enthusiasm!

I tend to cut the stuff behind the head off with the shears, so it probably ends up weighing around a 1/16 anyway, but I still think the little football head has some slight advantages.

I've been using little 1/16oz football jigs which I think are marginally better than mushroom heads as they are slightly more stable and so slightly less prone to snagging. Also, because my football mold makes 1/16 but my mushroom mold only goes down to 3/32.

Don't think it would be a problem at all. A half zinker with a 1/16 head weighs at least 1/4oz I would estimate. The compact shape makes it cast and skip really easily too. Spinning would be easier, but if you're a rabid spinning tackle hater it would be easy to use casting gear if you understand lighter weight baitcasting.

Cut the ends of the prop off so that it doesn't produce as much thrust? Redneck solution, but it would probably work, and if it doesn't a new prop shouldn't be as expensive as a new board if you try messing with the electronics.