bulldog1935

I prefer unshielded spool bearings, either undersized Air bearings for distance with light weights, or hybrid ceramic for HD. I'm running these on all my baitcasters. On my surf CT reels, I've tried the whole gambit of bearings (starting with ABEC 7 orange seal), and ended up with unshielded hybrid ceramic and full ceramic for the longest possible casts with wide range from 1/4 oz lures to big spider weights and meat. Have to oil them more often, but I get to pick the oil and they out-cast all shielded bearings. Also prefer this since I'm most often in the salt, where "seals" don't really help as much as people think. There's not much to changing out spool bearings, but you do need the right pin tool for your spool to replace the main spool bearing. The pin tool can range from $10 to $40. Note for your drive bearings and especially for spinning reel bearings, you don't gain anything with hybrid ceramic - factory lubed shielded bearings are best there. There are many good bearings out there that aren't junk, especially if you shop Japan. There are also very good bearing suppliers on ebay - I can reccommend HPRbearings. The big names that gets touted are often simply over-priced. What you may gain with shielded Boca bearings is better quality lube. I have run both Boca and "knock-off" SiN bearing balls in Campy bicycle hubs with no difference in performance or life of the ceramic balls and matched steel races - I'm a pretty big boy at 6'3" and 210 lbs. The big difference was life of the bearing grease chosen - how long until it waxes and quits wetting the bearing balls.

My first guess is you have a backlash loop down in your spool that's covered by over-wraps when you reel in fully. Mid cast, it pops out of the spool like a flag and tangles the spool. If you have a good way to wind your loose line, you can pay the spool way down to check for this. Easy for me, I have line winders here and move lines all the time.

It doesn't take much math from the economics of pro bass fishing to get to pro bass fishers aren't working in tackle stores. The best 30-something fisherman I know comments that all his fishing friends are 60-somethings. Reading tides, wind and water isn't something you can do on Lowrance.

Exactly Right - it's all fishing, and we should enjoy it the way we did as kids. The very best fishers I've ever known and fished with, Frank Smethurst, Kevin Townsend, Dave Whitlock, Gary Borger, Billy Trimble - what makes them infectious, you stick a rod in their hands, and they turn into kids. What makes them wizards is not their ability to complicate fishing, but their ability to simplify it.

The only thing you really need to know to fish braid is to use your bail manually. Braid wind knots are impossible, and manual bail technique will keep you from cutting out expensive pieces of braid. Keep your spare hand close to the reel during your cast, feather the line with your fingertips at the end of your cast, close the bail with that spare hand instead of using the crank-auto-bail close. Turn with the rod to take up slack before you begin retrieve. Never a wind knot. It also helps to buy a reel with a shallow spool - they lay thin braid much nicer. Also, if you tie your braid to the spool using arbor knot, put the thinnest tape you can find on the first wrap to keep the line from slipping on the spool.

If you went to Tackle Town in Rockport or Roys in Corpus, you would have left with a loaded reel, leader tied, useful terminal hardware, maybe lures, and ready to fish. They would have made you feel important, and probably taught you something without telling you they were teaching you. I did ok reading between the lines. As soon as you said 2500, I knew you were talking about spinning tackle. My leader knot is (improved) Allbright, but I've been tying them to shoot through fly rod snake guides for 40 years.

30-somethings in tackle stores are like 30-somethings in bicycle shops (kayak shops) - they're all boned up on big talk, all the important buzzword currency, and how to spend your money. He wouldn't have a clue how to catch a fish in Cape Coral or Upper Laguna Madre.

I remember the days of sharpening hooks - especially for salt and stainless. Tinkering in the garage last evening, used my old hook sharpener for for the right-size punch, and tapped the end with a jeweler's hammer. Hooks are so much better, harder and sharper than they used to be. They use much better alloys, better forming and heat treatment, and chemical sharpening on super-sharp tips. Owner and VMC both sell direct online, both have low cost mail options, better than many of the package stores. Even Eagle Claw is using Japanese hook technology, but if you shop in Japan, you can find more choices in specialized hooks that, for example, Owner (Cultiva) doesn't import to our market.

I stalked a 4-lb spotted bass in a flagstone pool in the N. Fork of the San Gabriel River for weeks. When you'd see him rise to feed on the shelves, move to cast there, his next rise would be where you just left. Kept getting out earlier until I figured where he rose first in the morning. I was there in the dark, holding my cast and watching the morning. The bluegill began popping first. When I saw his wake where it should be, made one cast and caught him. Did the same to an 8-lb largemouth in an impoundment on Bull Creek. The spot is now Spicewood Park in Austin, but this was before - I met the landowner on her horse one day and had her permission to fish there. Had to duck walk the dam to keep my stealth so he couldn't see me. First rise, first cast, big fish to hand. I named this kicking crayfish Bull Creek Craw in his honor. this one's a little muffed, because it caught 30 creek fish the day before I stuck it in the vise for this photo ______________________________ In kayaks, we don't paddle until we can make out a navigation target, but we're out as quickly as possible to get to our structure goal for first light.

SDScustom on ebay has been slow shipping from Ukraine - the mail rate seems to be picking up lately, 2-3 weeks - and prices and quality are good. Here are their EVA knobs on my stock Lew's TP handle. I like these a lot better than Lew's paddles.

Shimano and Daiwa are in a constant war to come up with catchy little tradenames for common technology they can sticky on their reel model pages and boxes. More stickies = higher price.

Billings makes first-rate tools.

@fishwizzard There's even a hole in it so you can keep it on a tether, and while it's easy to lose, the rubber tip cover keeps it from getting tangled in other stuff. Mine is going to travel in my rigging tackle box.

it's an apples and apples comparison. At one time, Cabelas was the choice for fly fishing, and BPS for bass fishing. Way back, Cabelas with one store, and their mail-order catalog, sold only rod-building, lure-making supplies, and Quick spinning reels. Can think of a couple of outlet malls with one of each side-by-side built before the merger. Now both of them carry more outdoor lifestyle gear, women's clothing, home decor, and the same 20% fishing gear. Though the same formula has kept Orvis in business, along with any local fishing pro shop.

especially since this is a thread about $200 reels, which offer a good mix of most makers' best technology.

If you have a good clear bottom, no reason not to bottom-bounce a Ned rig at distance. Just the mudballs bottom bouncing creates can produce fish. I've seen 5-lb bass on clear flagstone slamming their head sideways into the mudballs trying to eat a bottom-bounced fly. When I filmed an episode of KT Diaries with Kevin Townsend (True Texas Bass), they got it on film. In Feb, we bottom-bounced 45 redfish in a tide pass. The only concern would be hanging up in lumber or rock shelves.

Adding some more tackle tinkering to this post - we've been rained-in for 2 solid weeks here. A few years ago, picked up some Flash-J plastic bodies from Japan closeout, and chased down a few more colors from a US vendor. These are pretty neat, that the metalized mylar film inside reflects colors - silver, gold, green, blue - and transmits pink light through the mylar film (back-lit by a bike light in a milk jug). In the salt, have fished these as a tandem with a Double Trap stinger hook on titanium wire added to the back lure, and caught doubles with seatrout, snook, redfish, and ladyfish. One of my recent close-out finds was a buzzbait safety pin made for these lures (or any jighead) - tossed in the cart for $3 Took one of the #0 split rings I removed from a lure eye, spread and twisted it over the safety-pin wire. Clinched a piece of leftover 20-lb braid, and snelled a double-trap stinger hook. (super glue on the braid wraps for final tightening) looks like a pretty good finesse buzzbait, especially for the deep clear no-motors reservoir we kayak locally.

@Tail Slap My best friend since 6th grade - we grew up bicycling and fishing - also celebrating our mutual birthday. Though we each moved around the state, occasionally lost touch, became involved in life, we ended up in ear shot of each other (even in P-Chem class together in college). Been through ex-wives together and all that. On Mother's Day, I mentioned a memorial celebration for his mom. The business of looking after his dad is why Stevo didn't make the OP trip - otherwise we would have been The Three Stooges on Estes. Our daughters have grown up together the same way. A camping trip to Chama, NM with overnight in Caprock Canyons, day trips to Santa Fe, Taos, the pueblo and gorge, Cumbres-Tolec rail, stop on the drive home in Carlsbad and overnight Roswell, Ft. Stockton (highlight of Ft. Stockton, there's a tree). kayaking the Guadalupe and especially Lighthouse Lakes (more of those Captain Benny's runs and fishing Fulton Beach Pier) bicycling country roads, greenways and downtown

Lou and I both worked so hard clearing off our desks to get out the door, the physical exertion was rest for our brains. Turned out to be a pretty good window, because the rain hasn't quit since, and the bays are getting worse with freshwater inflow. Just a few hours away, but always great to get there. After dinner, we walked Fulton Beach Pier, which is recently rebuilt and re-opened after Hurricane Harvey 4 years ago. @Tail Slap When my daughters were growing up, it was a ritual - dinner at Cap'n Benny's, fish Fulton Beach Pier for an hour, a cigar, catch 40 nursery trout, then ice cream. It's where I honed UL skills for nite-lite specs. Cap'n Benny's was run by the mayor of Fulton and her grandkids - they didn't reopen after Harvey.

...and I just checked Asian Portal - I got the last Valleyhill stock in that configuration - it was $100 less. It's very nicely spec'd and finished. https://valleyhill.taniyamashoji.co.jp/1549

I've been on month-to-month with AT&T for 10+ years and no contract, with new phones I bought 3rd party. With limits, I pay $50/mo and get an occasional use charge when I travel. $300/yr sounds like a very good deal.

No direct experience with the rod, but in that length, it's pretty easy to make a fast ML rod with a soft-enough tip to cover that lure weight range. At the cost-effective end, my 13 Fishing Omen Green spinner is definitely there, but the tip on that particular rod would be too soft for a baitcaster, while their bait version has a faster tip and starts at 1/8 oz. The Omen ML bait was my first Toray graphite rod - very light in hand, very fast, and my go-to ML At the spendy end, just bought a 6'7" Valleyhill with the same wide lure weight range for BFS bass fishing. A lot of credit to the reel, but first lawn cast test, it was casting 1/16 oz loaded jighead to 100', and 1/8 oz farther than I'd ever want to fish. Nothing noodle-y or goose-y about this rod - it feels fast even with 3/8 oz. So it can be done, if it's done right. In my case, 1/16 oz was the baseline for my rod choice, but the notably wider heavy end on the Valleyhill caused me to spend extra over the Major Craft and Jackall BFS choices, and very happy with this rod.

Gary Borger has the best talk on fish "smarts" - really, his talk is on stealth. He said the guys who can claim to be fish psychologists note the smartest fish, carp, has an IQ of 12. You're probably never out-smarted by a fish, and I wouldn't anthropormorphize spite or moods into their motivations. His point about natural selection, brave and inquisitive fish become fodder. Big fish aren't smart, big fish are cowards. But I do remember one shut out December day on our trout tailwater. Sitting on my tailgate, peeling my waders, there was a size 6 hex mayfly on my shirt. He was laughing at me.

Been shopping in Japan 20 years, since you had to use a broker for the language barrier and their banking laws. Easier to shop there now - best place for reel parts and of course JDM tackle. Compared to the broker days, English is better, payment is better. I always check closeouts, lures, and tools for an idea that may click. My last order included these Smith split ring tweezers - $6.73 SMITH SPLITRING PINCETTE PLIERS The Texas Tackle Factory pliers will let me work #4 and larger split rings. The jeweler's set in the middle added #3 and #2. The Smith tweezers for the first time let me work #1 and #0 split rings, but they work beautifully across the board for every size split ring, from tiny to offshore. Showing my favorite Megabass Dog-X, great size comparison, can't remember the color, but to me it's Major Mullet, and sporting swapped-in VMC salt trebles - the TTF pliers worked great for that, but so will the Smith. Except the size 8 trebles on the bottom 3/16-oz Pins minnow, all the finesse plugs had tiny trebles size 14 to size 18 - too small for my use - I swapped for (salt) plug singles, size 8 to size 4. Threw in the range of spoons because they're pretty. The 38-mm plugs have #0 split rings, and had pointless size 18 trebles. But if you're already shopping in Japan, will ever be removing or swapping split rings, I'd recommend checking tools for the Smith Splitring Pincette Pliers.

never mind, figured out we were talking about the same thing... gratuitous decoration since I'm here