Kevin22

I'm curious to why the knobs are missing? I don't understand why someone would take the knobs off a good reel unless they bought the reel as a "parts reel" with the missing knobs and fixed it to resell.

If you want to target them with an actual lure, pick up a small WOODEN topwater prop bait. You know, the long and skinny type. Take off the hooks and use small eye screws with epoxy to put three hook hangers on the little bait. Put on #10 treble hooks and start throwing. 99% of your hookups will either be to the skin of the beak or under their beak. Their beaks are BONE so you will not penetrate it, don't even try. When you get one on, get him to the net as soon as possible, they love to thrash and pull the hooks.

What reel is it? I may have one in the parts bin.

I was fishing a topwater earlier this morning and I lost the first 3 fish. They would hit it, I'd stick them and then half way back they would dive down and I would lose them. Finally I loosened the drag and landed 3 fish in a row. I thumbed the spool on the hookset and then let the fish pull drag when they dove. It helped a ton. Even with a 7' M Mod rod and 17lb stretchy mono I was still pulling hooks with the drag tightened down.

Did real well for a week straight 3 years ago on #5 mepps aglias and black furys. Quite a few bass in the 3lb range and some big pike. We were fishing them over submerged weeds in a clear lake, there was anywhere from 6" to 3' of water above the weeds and the fish would just hammer the mepps. Ignored a spinnerbait and chatterbait but crushed the mepps.

Anyone have any experience with the powell diesel 7'2 MH XF casting rod? I have a chance to pick one up fairly cheap and would like some input. This would be a pitching rod. What is the weight and sensitivity like?

Call them. Tell them just what you told us, you bought the rod because you were on a budget and have had good luck with abu products. Tell them exactly what happened and ask if they can help you out. If you are super sincere they should help you out. Offer to send picture or whatever they need but tell them it would not be worth it to send a $50 rod in ($20 shipping + return postage) and they should tell you to just pay the $10 return postage and they will send you a new rod. They are really good about helping out their customers, especially if you mention you are a long term customer! Abu and daiwa are two companies that actually seem like they want to help. I broke a 1 year old diawa ike rod I got from TW for $70. I had no receipt or anything, I told them that and they said no problem.. just send us the rod and we will take care of you. About a week later I got a brand new team daiwa fuego spinning rod ($230 msrp) in the mail with a hand written letter explaining that they no longer had any ike rods and they hoped this would be okay for a replacement.

Its the newest ice reel. It will not cast. Should be killer for the walleye/pike guys.

They are not counterfeit because they are not real... That is a scam website. When you go to check out you will get an email telling you to do a wire transfer to a bank in a 3rd world country claiming that is where they will ship from. There are no reels... they just want your money.

Too short for what? If it is just you fishing alone it will probably be perfect for smaller waters. I wouldnt take a 16.5 bass boat on anything that can get more than a foot chop on it though.

They are very weedless. We slaughtered the bass on them last year fishing them in coontail and grass. Silver on sunny days and black on cloudy. i use a split tail spinnerbait trailer on them, cut in half and hooked once

I use ikas to skip under docks and fish them like a solid tube.

Ha! That is awesome!!!

Wouldnt catch me spending my money there....

First, welcome to bass resource! Second, congrats on what sounds like some awesome days of fishing! Third, for your problem, the only way I have found to keep fish from swallowing stick baits is to be quicker on them. I know its a generic "no duh" answer, but that is about the only way I have found. If you were wacky rigging I would suggest to try a circle hook, but it sounds like you are t-rigging them. Try to fish with a little bit tighter line and a little bit faster. As soon as you see the line twitch, cross his eyes!

Nice job! I wish Iowa was 9", ours is 10". I have had quite a few over 9" but the best has only been 9.5" this year. Whats with the name and face blotched out? You have a warrant out for your arrest? LOL!!!!

No, it means I am sure of it. I designed a pike jerkbait two years ago and researched how to patent it. I talked to several people about it, even A PATENT LAWYER. He got back to me and said it would be roughly $20,000 to write up the paperwork and file the patent once its all set and done. He even advised me that if I did not have at least 4 times that much already banked there is no way I could defend it if need be. Like I said, you need to have everything in order to go straight into production and big box retail to make your money back. For a small time guy it is not worth it, you are much better off going to a company with your design for sale and hope they don't say no and then knock it off.

4/0 EWG gama. Pretty thick body on them, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a worm hook. I used 3/0 EWG a few times but the 4/0 gave better hook-ups.

Seriously? "I'm sure" means I don't know? What backwards world do you live in?

I'm sure it would take a LOT of money to hire a patent lawyer to do the paperwork to patent it. Not even close to being worth it unless you have the mfg all lined up and several big distributors already on the hook. Then there is the part about defending it... a patent does not stop another company from making them, it just gives you legal grounds for a lawsuit. The money to hire a lawyer (a GOOD one) to take someone like koppers to court over it would bankrupt most people. I doubt 90% of the people on this board could afford to sue them. That is why you don't see these normal guys like you and I out designing and patenting lures, its just not financially possible.

Didnt say it wasnt legit. Its just not very ethical. The custom lure guy said it perfectly. He doesnt have the money to sue koppers and they were banking on that. It really is a straight up copy.

On most lures I have the drag almost as tight as it will go, this is so I can get a good hookset. If need be it only takes a fraction of a second to spin the star and get more drag. For anything with a treble hook I have it set so if I pull line from the reel it will pull drag but not easily. I can then, again, adjust on the fly if I need to. Usually I thumb the spool if I need to set the hook.

Sweet looking boat! I have ranger almost the exact same design with a 115 on it. I get 47mph with two people and a 1/2 tank (15 gal). You should get mid 50's easy if you don't weigh her down with tons of gear.

Not new at all and I will not be trying them. One of the big custom lure painters... cant think of his name right now... painted some exactly like that and showed them off last spring. Now koppers "designs" this revolutionary idea that is an absolute dead ringer to his. They of course gave no credit to the man they knocked off.

By a custom lure mfg.... lol Dozens of them out there that pour ikas, I used to. The hand poured version (dels mold) is deadly close to the fat ika and flat out catches fish. If I threw one to you in the boat I'd bet you couldnt tell it wasnt the real deal.