bulldog1935

If you check Hedgehog OEM spools, you should be able to match your reel to whatever depth spool you want to fish. That's another thing nice about Shimano, they have a spool number system and chart that lets you move spools around easy.

Hi Gary, Tica began offshore reels in Taiwan in the late 60s. Daiwa's history is Olympic-Seiko, making reels even before the war, copying every reel made just about anywhere, and in the 60s before the Daiwa name, they were the Daisy in Daisy-Heddon. I still recommend the Tica Libra SX1500, the right spool depth for lighter lines and long spool stroke for long casts, with the line management to handle it. The weight in that size is not an issue, and compares with Stradic FL2500. The Tica Samira worm drive and fully sealed reels beef up quite a bit, but the simpler, lighter Libra is part of why I prefer it. Except for the extreme Shimano smoothness, the simple and strong Libra design performs very well - it's still Very smooth - you notice a little inertia when you engage the selective IAR. What got me started on Tica was 12 years ago, bought the diminutive Cetus SS500 to match my first Takamiya salt XUL rod, and it fished that long in the salt, with 22" and 23" specs under its belt, until I retired it just this year for a JDM Stradic C1000S on the rod. The Cetus was my first experience with modern computer-balanced spinning reels. Before that, it was Penn 4200SS. As I mentioned in my first post, loaned the second Takamiya 7'9" UL with the Libra SX1500 to my buddy last month and he had a blast with a spec bag limit.

The best forums through 2020 have been where moderators up front barred any covid threads and posts. Where they didn't, fishing went out the window, and local blame politics about who was preventing access (tourism) became the only content. What we all really wanted and often needed is a respite from current events. Hats off to BR admin and moderators for giving this place the attitude that forum members keep up.

If you guys really want to know how a $100 reel is made so you can evaluate for how you plan to use it, you should get inside them with someone who knows. .

I recommend Major Craft rockfish rods to anyone wanting to try salt UL. These aren't imported to US, and always a JDM buy. My buddy Lou has the 7'6" Crosstage Rockfish solid-tip XUL matched with Stradic FL1000, and can't put it down. They make a lot of rod at any price level, always nicely finished. Their offshore rods and lures are imported to US and sold by Tackle Direct and Tackle Warehouse, along with the Nanoace at Tackle Warehouse. Don't think you can go wrong with Major Craft at any price level, and will bow to @BaitFinesse on the specific rod he tried and doesn't recommend, and I haven't tried, either.

comprehension, maybe. I'd say most everyone who fishes braid finds it easier to cast and cast farther, fish with less effort. but anyone who backlashes braid finds it more difficult to deal with. When I loan a spinning reel, it's most always fluoro, and they most always get the fluoro under the spool - imagine with braid.

Phil, I simply shared with you a photo of Shakespeare's 1896 LW patent, a webpage of alternate freespool design, and up front stated there was no exception with what you posted. Unlike this twin-screw LW 1896 patent (here on c. 1909 Shakespeare Model B), Marhoff's 1908 LW patent, also owned exclusively by Shakespeare for the following 20 years, is the worm gear + pawl that we all recognize today. Pflueger and Shakespeare remained continuously in court over patent infringement claims from 1914 until Shakespeare bought Pflueger in 1962.

next time that happens, rotate the spool backwards (wind direction) with your thumb. You were just in a bad angle on the freespool ratchet mechanism. Abu's are terrible about this.

I didn't post this yesterday because I had already posted daily. Driving to my sister's house for Christmas dinner yesterday, the out of town route, came across a bald eagle eating his prey on the road shoulder - he didn't spook far away, still guarding his meal. Bald eagles winter here, especially along our creeks, sometimes see them when bicycling the greenways, and especially trout fish with them on our cold tailwater.

Even the best Non-Freespool + non-level-wind (NLW) reels of 100 years ago will out-distance modern level winds. Modern level winds are getting closer, especially with braid, and they're obviously more convenient for bass fishing. The old stuff can be fun to fish, or just yard cast to work on your casting skills. Besides trolling reels, NLW reels have always included tournament distance casting reels, which are choice reels to take to the surf, especially if you enjoy casting these reels over heavy spinning tackle. The only time you may miss LW is slowly laying hand level wind when you first load the reel, though this expectant task can be satisfying, as well. Especially with braid, even retrieving a 100-yd cast with one one of these doesn't need a lot of attention, because line stacking isn't significant. The line tends to hunt the spool low spot and level wind itself. After the day is done, with either the antique or the new NLW, you can restore hand level wind in your working line using a line winder. Many people cast their Avet and Seigler lever drag reels all day, both inshore, and offshore jigging (the salt version of drop shot), even though the design is essentially a trolling reel. No LW, not even a mechanical freespool - you simply relax the main drag all the way to freespool. The aftermarket reel tuning guys make mag casting brakes you can retrofit even to these. 400 yds braid under that heavy fluoro working leader has made these big-drag reels very small.

Largemouth fit right in the stillwater ecosystems of reservoirs, and are native in a large area of the country. Native habitat for smallies is moving water, though they do very well in colder reservoirs. Smallmouth also readily interbreed with spotted bass, as the fish and game bureaucracies in states with endemic spotted bass species have learned the hard way.

It will form a nice spool arbor, though with plenty of air gap. Using a line capacity calculator, a Super Duty G spool holds 140 yd 12-lb mono, or 325 yd 20-lb braid. The mass of mono/fluoro backed spool is definitely lower, because there's more air in the backing space. the density of fluoro is a bit more than monofilament nylon, which is just barely over that of water - I'll be back when I have braid density - it's not something they want to publish... Regardless, the finer diameter braid packs more efficiently on the spool, so the mass/spool-depth of braid is greater. ... found it - braid density is 1.8 times water density, while mono density is 1.15 I'm finding a range on fluoro density, anywhere from 1.4 to 1.7, but I'll add I'm very happy with my spooling result, and especially with my deep-spool casting result. Here's the spool calculator for stacking different lines

Just this year after playing with my Abu CTs and braid (modified shallow spools just for braid), decided to switch all my baitcasters to braid. The only backlash in 3 years on my Super Duty was where the line wrapped the rod and I didn't know it. If you can't cast with that level of reliability, you don't want braid - yet. I've even had fluoro cut itself from old backlash, but braid certainly will. On the water, mono/fluoro backlash is much easier to recover. In making the swap on my deep spools, used 25-yd 25-lb Red fluoro tippet (0.47 mm) for backing, so that my working 20-lb braid (832, 0.23 mm) was under 200 yd. The idea is keeping the mass of the line down to keep the spool inertia down. Seaguar Red Label fluoro is also on sale everywhere - they sell 200-yd reel charge spools in 12-lb.

these are simply free-spinning bronze bushings for the spindle in the side plate, with a larger oil reservoir outside the plate - see the oil hole - and fixed agate bearings for the spindle ends. You might be able to make out the flattened agate on the end above. The highest grade Meeks used ruby and sapphire bearings instead of agate. The fixed jewels and oil reservoir are what makes this different from threaded caps containing a jewel (or glass) bearing that moves on the cap threads typical of all the other reels with adjusting spindle end tension. This is a blue glass bearing in the threaded end cap - tightening the cap loads the bearing on the spindle end. As the spindle turns faster under load, the oil can't completely film the spindle, and oil pressure acts as a braking force. Oil whirl instability is a bearing vibration mode, and you can hear it when you cast an oiled Meek, Talbot or Welch Heddon. If you read the mechanical analysis below, the "disturbing force" is the jerk of initially starting the spool in a cast - with oil whirl acting as a centrifugal brake. Note that a normal thin oil film won't produce this, but you need the supply of an oil reservoir. Normally, the shaft rides on the crest of an oil pressure gradient, rising slightly up the side of the bearing somewhat off vertical at a given, stable attitude angle and eccentricity. The amount of rise depends on the rotor speed, rotor weight and oil pressure. With the shaft operating eccentrically relative to the bearing center, it draws the oil into a wedge to produce this pressurized load-carrying film. Figure 1. Oil Film Within a Journal 1 If the shaft receives a disturbing force such as a sudden surge or external shock, it can momentarily increase the eccentricity from its equilibrium position. When this occurs, additional oil is immediately pumped into the space vacated by the shaft. This results in an increased pressure of the load-carrying film, creating additional force between the oil film and shaft. In this case, the oil film can actually drive the shaft ahead of it in a forward circular motion and into a whirling path around the bearing within the bearing clearance.

I've worked a bit in Alaska, and they do all their sleeping in winter. In summer, it's nothing for a millwright to leave his desk at 3:30pm, drive (or fly) to fish Kenai all night, and be back at his desk at 7:30 am.

It's kinda like fishing. We should all be "morning" people here.

You may get more answers than you asked on this thread. Thumb is always the best brake, and has always been the most important part of baitcasting. Most antique baitcasters had spindle end tension, comparable to "cast control" on modern reels - tightening the end cap bearings against the spool spindle. The highest grade antique benchmade reels, Meek, Talbot, and Jack Welch Heddon, instead used oil whirl in the spindle bushings for backlash control, which behaves much like a centrifugal brake. A separate adjustable brake on antique reels was often a wool pad that you dialed into the spool flange. The first reactive brake was 1911, South Bend ABL, which used a bail over the line, allowing line tension to guide and modulate the wool pad. Though not a great distance caster, South Bend ABL could be adjusted to an absolute no-thumbs reel. The first centrifugal brake patent was 1915, Redifor, which consisted of two metal pawls on the spool flange that rubbed the frame - it worked too well at braking, and they're not very good casters. But if you check the thread I linked, they looked really good. The 1918 Douglas patent was far ahead of its time, offering freespool by disengaging the pinion gear from both the drive gear and the spool, anti-reverse in the same mechanism, and a functional level wind that was also separate from the spool. The subtle casting brake consisted of a cam-loaded fine-wire spring that acted on the spool drum. The first good freespool and the centrifugal brake that we all recognize was the Abu Ambassadeur, designed in the late '40s, and first produced in 1952. The mag brakes that you remember, appearing in the 1980s, didn't do a lot compared to modern versions. The antique Meek, Talbot, and Heddon reels that I first mentioned were modified and used almost exclusively for tournament distance casting right through the 1970s (and later), with (stripped down) Ambassadeurs gradually working their way into the competition. Abu's first purpose-built tournament casting reel (CT) had a short run in the 1970s, a second limited version in 1980. Later CT versions with ball bearings have continued production since 1991, and with good mag brakes beginning 1995.

He's a very nice guy in Ukraine, and I can vouch for the quality of both his bearings and reel tuning parts. This is my Tournament Pro with a pair of his EVA knobs swapped in place of the rubber paddles.

Santa flies nonstop from Shennan-Shi to Memphis, changes planes, then picks up a Fed-Ex truck at the airport. I think my Corkys lure could eat one of these...

It takes a real man to drive a pink Cadillac. But if you don't want to choose, you can pick one of the Japanese X-braids that changes color every 10 m

a New Year's Day on the Guadalupe tailwater He was sipping BWOs in tiny pocketwater that most people walk over to find deeper holes. I stopped him before he could get through the chute of a busted weir. (this is the pocket where I hooked him) The rod is a prewar Heddon Folsom, the reel a prewar Young pattern 16a. The same rainbow buck was photographed and posted by another FFR member three months later.

engineer is a life attitude - if you have it, you apply it to everything. If the information on backlash is useful to you, use it. You don't want to get me started on modulus and fly rod tapers.

I know this is an old thread, and not sure why it became a shimano discussion, but I do have a point to make about this reel and this Lew's casting brake. The KVD has the same casting brake that's on Custom Inshore, and is my least favorite of the four LFS and SLP Lew's that I fish. That brake has two metal plates on the spool, and is the heaviest spool (read highest inertia) of any Lew's makes. Over this, I'll take the mag brake on a Super Duty G (absolutely clean spool with no added hardware), or the lightweight centrifugal brake on Lew's Pro models (below) any day. (yes, I dusted this after I saw the macro) I'm an engineer, and have done the math. I also cast NLW Abu CT surf reels out to 100 yds, which have no end tension, separate centrifugal and mag brakes. Mag brakes are best for defending wind backlash and long casts. Centrifugal brakes are best for defending initial spool overshoot backlash. Low inertia spool defends all 3 types of backlash. (brake curves from Jun on Japan Tackle)