Tim Kelly

Over the years I've tried to get the spooling spinning reels thing right many times. Tried letting the line come off the side of the spool in both directions and it still ends up twisted. I find that putting a pencil through the center of the spool and loading it like you would a baitcaster is by far the best way. I think lines are spooled better now and are less springy generally, so that, combined with the twistbuster type line rollers makes spooling directly the best option. 14lb on a spinning reel is going to be a challenge in other ways though.

The FG knot or Sebile knot is undoubtedly the strongest thinnest knot for joining braid to fluoro or mono. It's a monkey to tie, but once you've tied it you won't get the fluoro breaking at the knot ever. Through microguides you can feel it, because there is some extra stiffness as it's a long knot, but it won't catch on anything. If you do a search I put a video up in another thread showing the easiest way to tie it. Once you've practiced a couple of times it becomes easier, but it's still a five minute knot.

A friend of mine is going to have a 17ft Triton bass boat with no motor coming up for sale soon. The hull has a few cracks in the seams, which would need repairing, but it might be a cost effective way of getting a great platform for a moderate amount of money, and if you're going to be putting a 9.9 on it then the whole deal wouldn't be nearly as much as you're thinking of spending. Would be very slow though compared to a 14ft mod v bare bones boat. Stability vs speed.

I'm a plumber here in England, probably not going to be quite the same type of systems, but it sounds like you are regulating the temperature manually by adjusting the hot and cold taps. If you can replace the shower with a thermostatic unit it will take care of the temp regulation for you. If you can get consistent volumes of hot and cold water out of the bath tap the flow is probably fine but anyone using other taps in the building will alter the amount of flow you are getting in the shower, which may be why you have to keep tweaking the taps. Fit a thermostatic shower. If you don't want to do it yourself, I'll pop over and do it for you. Only the price of an air ticket and a few days taking me fishing, probably cheaper than most plumbers!

Who's chucking 10XDs and what are you chucking them with? How have your results been?

Oh yeah! Best fishing dog I've ever seen. He loves it. Wagging furiously all day and watching the line back every cast. Very funny.

Musky anglers use 80 and 100lb braid for casting big lures. Two reasons, first, it's strong so can resist a backlash with a 3 or 4+ oz bait and secondly because , as the line is thick, it doesn't dig into the spool when under tension. Both of these things are crucial to a happy experience throwing big lures on braid. I don't know how heavy the baits you are throwing are, but if you want to throw on braid, for it's many advantages you need to go to a thicker line.

I don't know if this observation is going to help or just muddy the waters, but here goes. I have a St Croix Mojo 7'4" crankbait rod. It is glass and while the recovery time of the blank is slow, being glass, I would say that the rod has a fast taper in old school terms. I think this gives good backbone and solid hook setting and weed snapping. I have never used another crankbait rod, so don't know if that is standard spec, but I was pleasantly surprised at the way the rod works. If I were getting a rod specifically for squarebills I think I'd give the Mojo 6'10" a good squint first.

Length of drop from the rod tip, as has been said previously. If you lengthen the drop from the rod tip it will make you cast more smoothly and the bait fly better. Snappy roll casts are a problem with some less stable baits, so you have to adjust your casting technique to compensate for their instability.

Surprised there aren't more votes for P line.

The real advantage of micro guides is that they are light, so have less of a dampening effect on the blank. I think the idea that they give you distance or accuracy is a bit of bogus marketing hype. They definitely help sensitivity and rod balance though. It's more noticeable on spinning rods where the guides are traditionally bigger, so heavier, and the rods are generally lighter actioned, so the advantages really add up there.

Anything you can chuck and wind! If it's really windy you can't fish subtle baits and you don't want to be trying to retrieve baits from snags, so spinnerbaits are a pretty good option.

Yep, the brake blocks are missing! There should be little top hat shaped brakes on the metal pins. The red bits are just the clips that hold the brake blocks in the on or off position.

Take visibility out of your thinking and it becomes a lot easier to find the right applications for each type of line as they each fish very differently. If the water's really really clear and the fish highly pressured it will make more difference fishing a finer line than a less visible one in my experience.

I have the 7'4" and really like it. Fish 6XDs all day with it happily.

OK.not sure it's worth $500 to save you from walking 15ft to the back of the boat though!

I thought the mini power pole or talon thing had a pole you had to put through it just like the manual ones?

Just grind a slot roughly like the red lines.

You can get poles and mounts which they use on flats boats, just stick the spike through the mount and stab it into the bottom. I can't see what the motor adds to the deal?

I was going to post a picture of the mold from the TW site, but it doesn't seem to be allowed. You would just need to make the channel for the hook shank straight. It may end up running through the coil spring area of the next sized jig, so you couldn't pour two jigs next to each other each time, but it would be easy enough to adapt the mold for many different 30 degree hooks.

Bet it would after a couple of minutes with a dremmel....

This is without question the strongest smallest and best knot for making the connection, and this is the easiest way to tie it. It does take a bit of practise to tie, and takes a couple of minutes to tie, but the line will never break at the knot. If you make a leader up that's a couple of rod lengths long you can re-tie umpteen times and even have a few break offs but not need to tie a new leader on. Try it and I promise you will be convinced.

If you can only throw it 30ft there's something very wrong. Try undoing the mechanical cast control to the point that there is a tiny amount of side to side movement in the spool when the reel's disengaged. Even with all the other casting brakes on full you should be able to pitch at least twice that distance without any effort, overhead casts way way further. If that isn't the problem and you can't work out what it is, take it to a tackle shop or show it to a friend who has more experience. Try another reel on the rod and if the problem persists it must be your technique, but I doubt that's the case if you can throw other set ups a good distance.

Very slow retrieve on that reel.

If you're using 10lb braid you'll probably be alright with the 06 spool. If you use a bit of tape on the spool to stop the braid slipping, rather than a few yards of mono, then the knot won't be an issue. Just check that the amount of drag the 06 spooled reels can produce is enough for what you're going to do.