Tim Kelly

A line with the density of fluoro and the handling characteristics of braid would be very useful.

I think location, depth and speed are the big things you need to worry about with all fish. Location, is obviously where the fish are. Depth is the depth you fish the bait at which they want to hit it at and speed is the trigger that makes them hit. The lures themselves are pretty much tools that allow you to achieve the depth and speed that you need. Once the three variables are sorted then any particular lure or colour may or may not increase your catch rate, but they are secondary to making the lure attractive to the fish in the first place.

Do you think it's still safe to use? That's a lot of pitting right on the chamber. I know they're pretty thick metal there, but a slug barrel is going to have a lot of pressure there when fired.

ABU used to build a 7000 hsn (high speed narrow) which was similar. Great concept too for musky anglers. You had the strength of a 7000 with less bulk.

I like the mojo and avid x builds best out of all their ranges. The Avid blank is better than the mojo blank though, so a better rod if you can stretch to it.

OK, my misunderstanding. I thought he was banned from the Elites. Not such a terrible punishment then.

Well even if they've not made money directly from the event I expect their sponsors sponsor them because they are on the bass tour and not just fioshing local tournaments, so they're likely to suffer some losses as a result of that.

The blue and green is just a coating, the actual lenses are brown and grey. The green are brown and have a higher light transmission, so you can see into the water and into shadows better. The grey/blue are darker for more glare protection. Not good for shadow detail.

Depriving someone of a large part of their living for a year is a pretty big deal. A big cash fine and no bans would have been far more appropriate.

Diameter of the hole is the important bit!. Ideally you would have your blank and mock up where you want the handle and reel seat to be, then measure the blank at that point with a micrometer, then order the winding checks. A bit tedious, but the cheapest way. The other way is to see what size the butt is on the rod specs, then guess!. If you order from mudhole then you can call them, tell them where the grips are going and they'll measure up for you. The kevlar wrap on those rods is part of the blank. You could probably mock it if you could find a transfer with the pattern on it, or maybe get the rod dipped with one of those things they put camo on guns with before you start the build. If this is your first build though, I wouldn't spend too much time on the pretty stuff as you'll probably find the epoxying the most difficult part and you can easily spoil the effect of a fancy rod with bad epoxy. That's the most difficult part of the build for me.

From the pictures I'd have thought it was 4500 size too.

Seems a little harsh to me.

Either motor will work in either situation, but it's not necessarily the best tool for the job.

Cable steer units can be driven by touch, no need to look at the unit to see which way it's pointed, and the speed of steering make cable units ideal for shallow water. Easy to lift up to spin weeds off them too. Spot lock and autopilot are great tools when you're off shore and want to fish precisely. You're not likely to bump into anything and the interface with the fishfinder allows the motor to fish a contour or spot more easily than you could with a cable drive.

I have the Boca tool. It works, but it isn't a well engineered solution to removing the pins and it is difficult to be precise with it. Interested to hear what DVT uses.

The musky fishing I've done has been using 7-8ft rods with 100lb braid and ABU 7000 reels. If you're fishing full sized musky baits you really need full sized musky gear.

Nice!

Sign me up. I love tubes.

As far as helping the boater with the cleaning and preparing of the boat, I don't think a boater should assume that you should help automatically. Lots of people have their own routing when loading and unloading and you offering to help is all you should do. Often they will prefer to do it themselves as they know it's done right then. Some guys I fish with regularly still prefer to do it all themselves and I must say I prefer to do my own boat myself too. Everyone has their own quirks and unless you get instructed every inch of the way you're unlikely to do it the same way the boater would. If he's instructing you, he would almost always be happier doing it himself anyway!

Importers usually are the weakest link. Makes me furious how much of a premium we have to pay for electronics here in the UK. We can use the exact same units sold in the US as most people are happy with measurements in feet and use English, but we have to pay a ridiculously inflated price for the option of measurements in meters and the option of a load of European languages if we want any kind of customer support. I have always bought my electronics from the US and taken the chance on it going wrong, but it's too high a poker stake to buy a nice side imaging unit and risk it being a dud, so I'm still using a monochrome display Humminbird.

Tackle warehouse, bass pro, cabelas, most of the bigger US retailers will ship you stuff. The shipping costs are usually horrendous though and you get caught for taxes and other duties once it arrives in your country, but it can be done. You want to contact the Duckett importer in your country, not Duckett USA, and ask them to get whatever it is you want that they don't have to be included in their next shipment form the USA. That way it should be a little cheaper and you should be able to get whatever warantees they're offering as it was bought through them.

Special order through the agent or online order through anyone who sells what you want and ships internationally.

One of the advantages of spiral wrapping is that you need less guides on the tip end of the rod as the line isn't going to be rubbing against the blank under load. That allows you to have a less dampened (by the weight of the rod guides, whippings and epoxy) rod tip. I have only spiral wrapped my BFS rod, where I think it's an advantage. Heavier rods I build normally as the guides sticking out at all angles from the blank make them more vulnerable to damage when they're lying down in the boat.

Somehow the coverage of their shows isn't as engaging. I don't think you see enough of the pros actually fishing and they don't explain what they're doing, which is understandable I suppose, but it makes for a much more interesting show. The live score tracker is a great way of messing with their minds in the MLF though and would be hard to replicate in the other formats, though they do have a weight guesstimate going all the time on the BASS shows, though it's rarely accurate. If the pros were aware of the approximate placings as they were going along it would probably help get the excitement up.

Ish was getting impressive sized fish and definitely would have had had the best five, but if they were after the best five everyone else would have fished differently I expect. It's a great format and great coverage, but I tend to think that the FLW and Bassmasters coverage were better they could be as entertaining to watch.