redboat

I had problems with flouro until I switched to P-Line.

I measured my casts from my driveway to a neighbor's mailbox that I can hit about 1/2 the time; it's 35 yards away. I can almost reach it with my best spinning rig (US Reel 230, 10 lb flouro, 7' MH rod, 1/2 oz weight) and can cast a yard or two past with my best baitcaster (7' Med rod, 1/2 oz weight, 12 lb flouro). Braid would probably cast farther. For reference: I can consistently outcast most of the fishing partners I've gone with over the years with the spinning rig.

Thanks, I'll try that. So far line twist hasn't been a problem.

Ike has a good video on this site about his "panic box", a set of baits he uses when he's in danger of beign skunked. Good video, you might try some of Ike's techniques.

Lotta longnose gar doing this on Toledo Bend the last couple weeks. Gar spawning I think.

I’ve recently tried a new technique at Toledo Bend that is working well. I’ve found it not too difficult to catch a limit of 3 to 5 pound LMB rapidly using this technique. I’m no fan of braid – tried it, didn’t catch anything with it, plus it is very expensive. I recently saw some of the new fused braid at my local Bass Pro and decided to give it a try. I used 20 lb Spectra fused braid, white, with a four foot 10 lb PLine flouro leader with good results. The white line is very visible even under water so I decided to try green line to see if it would be less visible. Then last month I saw a spool of Berkley Nanofill green line at Bass Pro. The 12 lb test was so fine I could hardly see it from arms length! I bought a spool, 150 yards, for about twenty bucks. The instructions said to back it with mono. I had a spinning reel spooled with 50 yards of P-Line 10 lb flouro, so I tied the Nanofil onto it using a double Albright knot, 7 wraps each way. That exercise took almost 20 minutes; the extremely fine braid is very difficult to work with. I measured out 30 yards and wound that on. Since my intention was to use it for skipping I figured 30 would be plenty. I tied on four feet of 10 lb flouro as a leader. This time I used a little piece of Scotch tape to hold the flouro loop; that helped a lot – I was able to tie the double Albright in about five minutes. I added a drop of super glue to the finished knot. My spinning rig is a 6’6” Veritas MH with a US Reel 230. The wide spool on this rig casts really well and the MH rod has plenty of backbone. I used a 5-0 EWG Trokar hook and used a Swimming Super Fluke, watermelon color. I dipped the tail in yellow Spike-It. This rig is VERY easy to skip under docks. In fact, when I made a low cast it was more difficult NOT to get it to skip. I’m not really accurate with this yet; sometimes the Fluke skips ten feet, sometimes fifteen but it’s no problem to get under docks with this. I bagged several four and five pounders using this technique. Toledo Bend has a lot of small cypress trees that grow in a couple of feet of water. The limbs hang down and form a canopy which is difficult to pitch under and the root system will hang anything with weight on it, even 1/16 oz. I tried skipping under the tree overhangs and had no problem skipping directly to the tree trunk. Distance didn’t matter too much, the Fluke just hit the trunk and sank next to it. Sometimes I’d give it a small jerk to move it a foot or so away. We are in late-to-post spawn at TB. Water temp is 67 to 70. A lot of medium sized bass are set up in one to three feet of water close to a Cypress tree. They can’t seem to resist the Swimming Super Fluke when it drops down in front of them. It was no problem to bring in a 15 to 20 lb bag in two or three hours. My wife fishes a wacky weightless Senko most of the time. She fished with me the last several trips. She was unable to pitch the Senko to the tree trunks and while she caught some fish I was outfishing her about 3 to 1. Same with another relative we took on another trip. I also tried the skipping in grassy areas with no trees, where I’d normally pitch. It seemed to work better there also, possibly the gentle hissing noise of the Fluke across the surface is enough different than the soft ‘plunk’ of a pitched bait? I don’t know but the skipping technique worked well there and I was able to get in some practice and still catch fish. I had no problems with knot slippage or breakoffs as has been reported, although the double Albright is difficult for me to tie. Wear isn’t a problem with the PLine flouro. The only other problem I ran into was my lack of patience with the Fluke itself. I caught myself doing the jerk thing, jerk-jerk-jerk pause, jerk-jerk-jerk pause when it was more effective to just let the bait sink and not work the it at all. The bites were very subtle, almost like a jig bite, just a heaviness on the line. This is spinning reel line; the extremely thin line probably won’t work on a baitcaster. I had good results with my Supercaster with a flouro backing on the reel. I wouldn’t try to spool the thin braid directly on a reel. Anyway, I tried it, I like it! A great shallow water technique.

I used to oil mine, but I noticed it caused inconsistencies. The drag would begin light then get heavier as the oil got slung out. I recently polished the drum using compound. I now .run it dry; it is consistent and has no buildup or scorching.

Didn't mean to give the impression that i was a beginner with baitcasters, or there was a problem with the reels to begin with. I upgraded the bearings out of curiosity; the jury's still out on that but so far they seem somewhat smoother than the stock ones which I suspect are abec 3's. 7's have tighter tolerances, may introduce less wobble at high speeds and so give a bit more distance. I am definitely getting more distance on casts but that may be due to using the 321 lube, polishing the brass brake track, or some of the other mods mentioned in the article, and without birdnests. As for weights: I agree, you - and I - can throw light weights using a baitcaster, but I can cast them more effectively using a spinning rig, especialy the US Reels. As you wrote, personal preference.

I have three of the Carbonlite reels and one older similar one with an aluminum case. They've worked well for me for the last couple of years. From time to time Bass pro puts them on sale for $70 or so - I got the last three on sale. There is an article here about supertuning baitcasters. I polished the brass ring that the centrifugal brakes run on as suggested. It didn't do anything for the rattling but made the brake adjustment more sensitive: Where I almost exclusively used two brakes I now use two, three, or four depending on lure weight and wind. I also upgraded the spool bearings to abec7's - $30 for two bearings - and lubed them with 321 as the article suggests. I also polished and lubed the drag washers. The result is four really sweet casting baitcasters. I use Abu Veritas rods, two 7' medium for crankbaits, one MH which works well with jigs and spinners and one heavy which I use for C rigs. IMO, with the polishing and bearing upgrade these reels work as well as much more expensive equipment. I would not disagree that Abu, Shimano, Daiwa, etc. make quality reels but for the price you won't find a better deal than the Carbonlite reels.

You are still overly arrogant, so no, I will not explain it to you. Next time I suggest you open with something like, "Why do you say that?" instead of personal insults. You never know, if you're polite and listen you may actually learn something.

Apparently not well enough to understand a written warranty.

The logical reason for doing this is the difference in static versus kinetic friction; in other words, it takes more to GET the drag slipping than it does to KEEP it slipping. There's a good article on this site (can't get to articles today for some reason???) called something like, "How to supertune your baitcaster". Lotta good advice, but the author goes into detail about polishing drag washers, replacing plastic alternates with Carbonlite, and greasing; the point being, if you do all this the static and kinetic friction are very close. So if you're using 15 lb test and set the drag at 10 lb (moving or kinetic which is the only way you can actually measure it) the static - or "git 'er goin'" drag won't be so much higher that the line will break when it first starts slipping. This works the same for spinning reels and baitcasters. Good article, I suggest reading at least the drag portion.

I have 8 veritas rods, 4 baitcasters, 4 spinners. I like 'em because they are lighter than most anything out there; but having said that: I've fished for over 50 years, and in all that time I've only broken three rods. The first was my fault, a new St Croix I left on the deck that caught on a tree limb. That was when I learned that St Croix rods have no warranty. Don't believe it? Go check out their web site, or read the attached "rod warranty". So, fast forward 8 years: The next two rods I broke were both veritas, one spinning, the other baitcaster - within 20 minutes of each other. Abu replaced both (I had to pay shipping), but you should beware: The lighter weight comes with a penalty, these rods are extremely fragile. The Abu web site is full of comments from guys who broke them. I am VERY careful with them now!

I use both, 10 lb PLine flouro on the spinners, 12 lb PLine flouro on the baitcasters except one which I spool with 20 lb mono. I use US Reel 240's and Abu Garcia rods for the spinners, and Bass pro dual drag baitcasters, also on Abu rods. Some observations: 1. I wouldn't consider throwing less than a 1/2 oz (overall weight) on a baitcaster. Can you say, birdnest? 2. Similarly, in wind I never use a baitcaster except casting with the wind. 3. I upgraded the reel bearings for my 4 baitcasters to ABEC 7's. 2 bearings per reel, $15 a pop, that's $120. 4. That bearing upgrade was not necessary for the spinning reels, as there is nothing turning that fast on a spinner. Its a lot of fun to fling heavy crankbaits 1/2 mile or so on a baitcaster but for finesse fishing, pitching, or skipping they are pretty much worthless. I also use a baitcaster for Carolina rigs and medium to heavy jigs. Overall probably 2/3 of my bass are caught on the spinners.

I had this problem using brand-X flouro (not gonna post the name but it's one of the better known brands). I switched to PLine flouro and have had no issues since.

I found Rage Tail craws work really well on jigs. I recently bought some Tightlines UV baits, planning on trying them.

Whatever you have him fish with, use an old reel with line you don't mind throwing out when he gets it all tangled, and add one of those rod floats for when he drops it in the lake.

I have read articles that claim that only materials which will dissolve in water waill have an effect on a bass's orafactory sense. For example, spray WD-40 on a spinner or buzzbait and it will have no effect; get a little Deet on it and you will never catch anything. I can personally confirm each of these. So, be careful with the bug spray but you probably don't need to worry about suntan lotion. I've used Spike-It in the past on plastics with good results. I also really like the coffee scent that was added to the Rage Tail baits. I have no idea if the fish like the coffee scent, but I sure do. Luckily I have not bitten one of these while it was rigged but I suspect its only a matter of time...

That would be just about EVERY day from July through October in North Central Texas. The fishing around here will improve to 'generally sucks' by Fall.

Easy: When you first hook it, if HE hits the lure its a male; if SHE hits it its a female.

BAM is far and away the best I've read. I subscribe to Bassmaster but only so I can be a BASS member; you hafta to fish a lot of tourneys. If one of 'em ever runs an article on how to find fish with a (so called) "fish finder" I'll change my mind...

Sounds like a bad GPS to me. I have an 898C-si with the same Y connector. Mine worked fine for the first two weeks then stopped. Humminbird sent me an exchange; that one has been working for a year with no problems. 'bird will send you an exchange, only charge you if you don't send the old one back to them. Saves time over sending the entire unit in like they want you to do. You aren't supposed to do anything with the pigtail lead on the "Y", by the way. I wouldn't even pull off the heat shrink to look at the wire colors like the instructions say to do.

I hope you're not waiting in your boat for it to stop. Bass may or may not bite when it rains but lightening definitely does!

Texoma was the first Texas lake to get zebra mussels. That was three years ago; they are solid up there now, have been for a year. Apparently they like the warmer water. The LMB population died off in Texoma a few years back, its mostly stripers now. Ray Roberts drains into Lewisville; what's in one is already in the other so I assume they are there also. Based on the number of ski boats on RR and Lweisville on any given weekend and the resistance the ski boat crowd has to washing their boats (lucky of they throw the beer cans out) I'd say the Roberts zebra mussels will probably probogate to the other area lakes in about ten to fifteen minutes. I fished RR Saturday. May be my imagination but the water seemed clearer than I remember it - I could see my TM prop turning, like there was nothing there. I didn;t catch anything but that isn't unusual for RR in the summer. It has very little grass, mostly rocks. Thanks for the info, guys. I always wear sandals and have been using flouro for a while now, so maybe the z-mussels won't affect me much.

Here's what TPW has been saying: http://texasinvasives.org/action/report_detail.php?alert_id=2 The slogan is, "Hello zebra mussels, goodbye Texas lakes"