bulldog1935

All Lepomis sp. sunfish hybridize readily - here, long-ear with green.

I've caught more than a few jacks on fly rod. When you're on a channel slope, they're freight trains to get back to the Gulf. When you're beyond the breakers, they sound, and you have to put your feet on the gunwhales and pump to lift them.

@Jonas Staggs No question my shore light game rods are the wrong choice for bass fishing, while the kokanee rods are made for trolling, they might work for shore light game. A good BFS bass rod is still progressive taper to cast those light-end lures, it's shorter and much faster taper - hard to recognize the fly rod derivation - the exact opposite taper from traditional American UL. @redmeansdistortion is leading you in the exact right direction with the Major Craft Benkei 67L. You don't want to spring for my Valleyhill, but this one rod covers enough bass fishing range to be a single bass rod for me on kayak paraphrased, to you, BFS equates to the one niche rod you want for it When you're buying the parts from Japan Tackle to turn an all-purpose Daiwa, Shimano or Abu into a BFS reel, Jun repeats as he rates each spool. You can cast over 2 g You can cast over 3 g You can cast over 4 g You can cast over 5 g You don't lose anything by having the ability to cast lighter lures. What you gain is distance and cast reliability with whatever you want to cast. I don't have to fish my BFS-mod Zillion for 1/8 oz in salt ML, but It's A Hoot. All these reels have the original deep spools I can swap in for mono. The first thing I did was build a surf BFS reel. It casts all the lures I'd ever want to fish in the surf, and absolutely spoils you for casting fun.

I really haven't, because I am so fly rod rich, and soaked up venerable glass from the early ebay days. I paid $15 for a Heddon Pal Pro Weight 8381, which I sold to Cameron Mortensen (Fiberglass Manifesto) for his first glass rod. Could sell that rod for $250 in today's market. I was a Fisher afficionado even before I returned to glass, Phillipson, Harnell, Lami (hen's tooth 605). Vince Cummings Water Witch. So I just haven't ordered new glass, with the exception of a couple of Japanese noir classics - Quiet Loop and Izch (phonetic Issac). I did sell the Quiet Loop VF805, but the Izch PBEX8667 S-glass is my go-to inshore fly rod.

I know Shane, bro - FFR is pretty much his home base. Some UL Glass Bait casters | Rod Photos | Fiberglass Flyrodders

@Jonas Staggs BFS = bait finesse system - it's a reel, it's a baitcast reel made to fish light lines and cast light weights. Since the Japanese coined the term, it's only fair for them to define it. What makes it a system is the shallow lightweight spool, low-inertia bearings, and brake system tuned to cast light lures, and even better, an extreme lure weight range. The rods cover a dozen niches, from stream to offshore XUL jigging - bass are in there, also, and so is shore light game. The trout rods are going to come closest to traditional American UL - short rods with narrow lure weight range and para taper. If I take it to the copystand, I can give you great example Harnell UL rods from my 1960 catalog. I fish bass and shore light game (inshore), and having rods designated to cast 2 to 20 g and protect light lines, it's nice to have a BFS reel that can match those ranges. Every shore has its threadlining tradition, XUL, finesse, progressive taper rods based on fly rod tapers. The rods are capable of an extreme lure weight range, light tip, fast mid and stout butt for turning big fish - the reels to match them should be capable of the same extreme lure weight range. The tradition is certainly spinning reels (Atlantic salmon in Scotland), but now we have baitcasters capable of the same and even better - BFS - bait (baitcast reel) finesse system. That said, I have a prewar baitcaster designed and capable of fishing 1/8 oz. You can call this threadlining, XUL, finesse spinning, shore light game, but you can't call it BFS, because it uses a spinning reel and not a BFS reel.

5 lbs drag is sheetloads. 7 lbs is enough for offshore. Until you measure it, you really won't know. Talk's cheap.

I don't know anything about magnetic coating, just know that a magnet close to any moving conductive metal has a brake effect - even a beer can.

Except to prevent shock and impact breaks, your drag should be set to 1/4 of your weakest link - line, leader, or rod max line rating. Shock loading is considered 4x to 10x the static load - you can break something before your drag has time to pay. If you need more for hookset, thumb on spool. Inshore, we fish a neutral density dog-walking plastic on swimbait hook called TSL grasswalker - takes honking sets to make this hook penetrate. We get it with braid and spool-thumbing. measuring drag - I use my Salter spring balance at the first guide.

All conductive metals produce Lenz effect when moving close to magnets - if you google Lenz Effect, you'll see some good examples.

Once again, here's the primer I wrote on the 3 types of backlash and 4 types of brakes Linear mag does its best work on mid-cast wind backlash. Start-up and finish-cast are both different. Jun Sonada has a very good description of brakes that includes brake load curves v. spool speed. I had the Lew's dual-brake on my Custom Inshore. I gave that reel to a friend - it's a good learning tool with big weights. But where I wanted it in inshore ML, the mass and inertia of the brake system wasn't the best for casting 1/8 oz.

@desmobob I'm afraid they may be discontinued like most of my good boots, bro. I see them on ebay occasionally, and may not have been worn hard - mine are niche boots and many years left in them. When I buy online, tend to hunt the best-price closeout or overstock on odd colors. Another place to try for reasonable facsimiles is NRS. Before I found the Astrals, I bought a pair of 5Ten canyoneering boots - everything about them was wrong for me, and I sent them back - supposed to be kayak boots that don't fit in a kayak. No offense on zip-neoprene booties. In and out of the kayak, and the same with wade/hike, I can't stand shoes that don't drain through the soles. Spending the whole day with your feet submerged in water isn't good for your feet, either - though they do keep the sand and mud out. For busting, they're not built with arch support.

No question about the diameter effect, but there's also a composition effect. Low-memory lines are formulated stiff and springy. Tying surf leaders, discovered that even though it's smaller diameter, 40-lb Seaguar Gold is stiffer and harder to bend for Allbright knot than 40-lb Seaguar Blue, or same-diameter 30-lb Seaguar Blue.

I was with a buddy in the surf one day who was wearing tennis shoes, and he came out with the soles of his feet bleeding - the sand in the tennis shoes sanded the soles of his feet away. The serious wade fishing shoes, also great for hiking and kayak were the older Hood River boots, the Astrals for kayak and wade fishing (not hiking). Soft Science also gets nods from my friends. The Chaco Torrents are for clean water kayaking, where gravel is all you're trying to keep out. Unlike high-tops, if you sink into mud, you'll leave low-top shoes behind. Serious hike/wade boots are New Balance Abyss ATB - they claim they were made for Navy Seals, and unlike all the shoes above, the soles don't fit in a kayak footwell. But when your day includes miles of hike/wade, they're choice, and extremely lightweight. All of these shoes drain through the soles, and all except the Chacos and Hood River should be worn with lycra scuba socks - Cressi are the best for fit and comfort.

@HaydenS thanks, but no, the Vimeo link has expired. I do have a master dvd so I can watch it - ha. My buddy Jimbo came along those two days and shot a lot of stills.

I have four years in the salt on LFS Super Duty, sold two Lew's centrifugal brake reels, and bought another Super Duty at the current $143 price. I gave a dual-mag Lew's to a friend, at least partly because it's a good reel to learn on, but mag-brake Lew's are impossible to beat for long, easy and reliable casting.

looks like a wrasse, family Labridae, built to graze coral.

That was two days of filming KT Diaries on endemic Guadalupe bass. 15" is a lunker, which we caught the first day, and he needed big fish also, so second day was 5-lb largemouth in private water on Hondo Creek. He got everything he needed in 90 min, including a bottom-bounce take and released fish rocketing away with the camera dunked. Here was endemic bass fishing in middle Guadalupe, and that's me trolling current seams in a chute. fish live here

only showing this little bluegill because this nice bass followed it to my boat

holy cow guys, caca and open sores? How about a blue hole to the Edwards aquifer in the fingers of the Nueces. Seco Creek Hondo Creek Cibolo Creek

The best kayak/hike/wade water shoes ever were Keen Hood River boots, long discontinued. I bought 2 pairs on close-out, and finally fished through the last of them (including 2 re-soles) The best kayak shoes currently made are these Chaco Torrent - bought the color because of great on-line discount Stepping into quicksand, it's Astral Hiyak. My review on Moosejaw won me a $250 gift certificate, which I turned into a Thermarest Tent-cot. Stink? take the liners out, rinse them, and hang them to dry after use. If you knew what was in the mud you were stepping into, you'd do the same with your feet.

don't go putting light oil around your Shimano roller-bearing clutch. Since the dawn of time, roller-bearing clutches and light oil don't get along. Some friction is required to make a roller bearing one-way. Shimano's roller-bearing clutch on Vanford, Stradic, shared with Stella, kicks butt

Japan makes a whole range of small trout plugs, both sinking and floating. On these, I swapped the small trebles for salt singles to imitate glass minnows in winter tide passes (which is stream fishing in tide current). These also work for river bass.

I grew up with my dad targeting jumps on Lake LBJ structure. They were pretty regular every first light somewhere between the dam and the first cove - the structure was granite nobs. We'd get out in the dark, troll the same water, watch for jumps across the glassy lake. When we saw one, we'd aim the boat, kill the motor, and glide in casting. We had a few mornings with white bass limits that way. The lures we had at hand were Shyster spinners and Pico Perch. Funny, I've never caught a fish on beetle spin, but was fishing with a guy one day when he caught a striper in a cove jump on beetle spin. I used to catch them on fly rod from the time I was 16. In fact, fishing jumps was the reason I wanted my first fly rod. Grown with my wife, we used to picnic Sunday afternoons by the dam on Lake Travis. Hike the rocks to a grotto, picnic in the shade, and bob on air mattresses in the sun. I kept a rigged fly rod on the bank. There was a regular afternoon jump on that structure. Swim in, grab the fly rod, catch a striper, white, or schooling largemouth, maybe 2 - fresh fillets for the two of us.

The thing is, most of the BFS reels sold ready to go are also small diameter spools that go best with those trout rods. For my inshore small game - and double this reel on all-range BFS bass rod - 34-mm diameter aftermarket BFS spools on 1000 series reels cast and fish much better.