Tim Kelly

I would go for a 2508 spool personally. Shallow spools are great, but the 06 spools are pretty shallow and unless you are going to use 6lb or lighter you might soon find the knot where you tie the line to the spool showing through on a moderate cast. The drag ratings are generally much lower on the shallower spools too. The 08 spools are just a little deeper and allow you a little more leeway.

I use an 1/8 as standard, but generally in less than 8ft. Watching the line is important. Depends how you're fishing them and what you want to imitate. I'm generally imitating small fish and swimming it more than dragging it to imitate a crawfish.

My 580 used to do that sometimes. I think having the sensitivity too high means it reads the second or even third return sometimes, which causes the depth display to leap about.

I enjoyed it on the whole. Zona can't be like that without chemical enhancement surely? He's certainly entertaining. Woo! Be nice if they could provide live coverage of the fishing, but those guys in the war room do a great job of live scriptless broadcasting for three days. Loved Davy Hite on the pull out interviews, real shame the sound was so intermittent. The weigh ins are always tedious. Not the MC's fault, there's not much you can say 50 times!

Mark your line! You can measure it out fairly accurately as you know how long your rod is, so measure off against your rod and mark the line with a sharpie, or even put a bobber stop on the line if the sharpie doesn't work well (it does on braid but haven't tried it on mono or fluoro). Very good way of being super accurate with your vertical presentation.

I have a pair of Oakley and a pair of costa 580 and in all honesty can hardly tell the difference, they both do a good job.

Thanks for the info.

Do either of these style hooks work significantly better than normal wide gap hooks for tubes? They look like they'd make rigging more awkward, so are there hook-up benefits to using them? If so, what size would I want for a 3.5" zoom type tube?

Not sure about where or when the bleak spawn but doubt they're big egg eaters. They're more pelagic plankton eaters, though you can catch them on small bits or bread or maggots. I asked about crayfish and the answer was a foot shuffling "probably"! I did get a lot of fish in baby brush hawgs texas rigged, but whether they were taken as crayfish, or just something alive and edible looking I have no idea. You can possibly see from the photos below what the shoreline, and by extrapolation the bottom features are like. We were there in July previously.

Next chance to go would be May, so it would be early summer/late spring. I expect they would either be spawning or just finishing.

Interesting guys, thank you. The lake is actually in Spain and the shad are bleak, but they are effectively similar to shad. Last time I went there I caught well using drop shot, t-rig baby brush hawgs and senkos. I didn't feel like I was really getting into them reliably though as the number of bits of shoreline that regularly produced were relatively small. I got the feeling that a lot of fish were either off shore or doing something else. Maybe they were there and I wasn't getting them for another reason though as it sounds like my approach should have worked. Any other insight would be welcome.

Do you guys have any tips or experience fishing lakes with no weed and very steep rock sides? The place I'm going is a water supply reservoir in the mountains and because of the fluctuating water levels it rarely has any weed or grass of any sort. Big shad, population massive rock walls and car sized boulders. The shad get very pelagic in summer so I imagine the bass would follow them at least some of the time. Any clues how to approach this sort of water?

Had the same experience with a Soron. Every time I've bought a non Shimano or Daiwa reel I've been disappointed. Shame really, you would think the other manufacturers could hit the mark, but apparently not. The Soron, at it's price point was too heavy and it developed a bump in the retrieve.

SX2 or reg PP for frogging. They're both relatively coarse and I believe this helps them saw their way through the vegetation better. They are definitely tougher. Not as smooth through the guides as the 8 carrier braids, but more durable.

They spend so much time coming out with something new, so the customers can buy something new for each season. There's only so much shelf space, so they phase out the older or less big selling stuff. Berkley are particularly good/bad at this. Their havoc range is just another way of creating something new and expanding their power bait range. While they're getting the big promotion the shelf space they take up will mean some power bait lines being dropped.

About 3000 miles every couple of years! Sucks being the wrong side of the Atlantic any time of year!

Whiskey river baits came through, I have a nice sized stash of tubes on their way now. Thanks for the input guys.

I prefer the gamakatsu worm 39 hook. The owner mosquito hooks are a good second, but they have offset points (reversed?) which makes it more difficult to put the baits on straight.

5lb 4oz of fantastic smallie caught in about 40ft off a deep point on the Rideau chain. Fantastic day, fantastic 10 days actually. Was on my holidays last year, had a day out with JFrancho fishing a tournament on Cayuga, a day on Oneida with my buddies Jim snr and Jim jnr, then met up with Tim who took me to his cottage on the Rideau chain.We fished early mornings and evenings together and he worked during the day. I took his boat out and fished the days while he was working. We'd been out early and caught a smallie off this point and I fancied it would do a few more fish with a bit more attention. Went back and camped on it for a while and caught this tremendous fish on a drop shot along with a few lesser smallies and largemouth. Fantastic day. I was so hyped up by this fish that I had to give myself a talking to to get myself to calm down.

LOL. Consider me warned! I can get the spike it pens here, so I might try that first, as it's easier to get hold of them.

Those Mizmo ones look good. I've found an ebay supplier for them too, so have ordered a few packs - thanks. I hope they're not too bulky, as I was really after a slim 3.5" tube, but we'll have to see. Many thanks. The JJ's may be an option if I can find some, thanks for the idea.

Thanks Tom.

I don't know that particular brand, but I've had tremendous success with the 6" Lindy Tiger Tubes for pike. The 8" ones haven't been as successful for me. Thanks for the bearbaits link. They have some interesting stuff alright. Looking at the Canyon Plastics site again I notice that their two tone tubes are spray painted on top to give the darker layer. That might be an easier way to go if I can find a supplier of the right paint this side of the pond.

I might have a go at dipping a few here. I imagine that it might work if I dipped a base layer, then laid the tube in a second colour, then probably have to do a third dip in clear, but it's all getting a bit complicated. If I could find a source for Exude fat tubes in the two tone colours I'm nearly out of I'd be delighted, but they appear to have discontinued them.

Thank you for your offer, very kind of you. I tend to use the tubes as baitfish imitations mostly, rather than as crayfish imitations, so like the shaddy patterns and particularly the two tone ones. I don't imagine it's very possible to get the two colour effect with an injected bait, or is it?