bulldog1935

Different day, took Kevin Townsend filming an episode of KT Diaries to private water on Hondo Creek, uphill from the aquifer recharge. He got all the film he needed in 90 minutes, including a 5-lb bass picking up a bottom-bounced clauser. Constantly hooked up.

The Frio Sendero. Thee of us with fly rods caught 400 bass, and each broke off 2 or 3 lifetime fish - 10-12 lbs. West of San Antonio, somewhere north of US-90, all the rivers disappear into the Edwards Aquifer, and somewere south of US-90, they all re-emerge into the coastal plain. My buddy has a family ranch south of Sabinal on the Frio Sendero, and it's 20 mi on dirt roads to get there - I kid you not, this is the river from his bluff, but there's cold clear water flowing through the gravel, and each pool is stacked with bass. It was hike the gravel bed to the next pool, and each caught 7 or 8 bass from each pool. This was the biggest brought to hand here's the blue hole where the Sabinal re-emerges from the aquifer there are 7 bass sitting on the flagstone shelf

Until I caught the 28" river largemouth on the Sabinal, my PB was an 8-lb bass caught on a Jitterbug with my dad in a bowl-shaped cove at the top of Canyon Lake (TX). She took it on the stand. I was retrieving the lure for a few paddles and letting it sit. In my life I've caught five 4-y-o white bass, 19-20" and 5 lbs (four were on fly rod). One was trolling Canyon with a Pico Texas Trailer, sriped-bass-looking Bomber in front, and Shyster spinner in back. Tom asked me to post these photos of the Shannon lure for him

The GE, GF are Shakespeare-code model change years, 1945 and 1946. I'm not up to fine details on postwar baitcasters like guys with big collections on ORCA forum will be, but my thought is Shakespeare built better reels before the war, and Pflueger took over in quality after the war. Out of the two you mentioned, I would go for the Akron. I just happen to have a Skilkast and like the way it casts, in particular, it has a fine end-tension adjustment.

You might like this 1904 Hendryx catalog on googlebooks Hendryx got their start making bird cages. Winchester bought Hendryx in 1919, and that's where their tackle business began. Winchester rods were made by Edwards.

Japanese braid - X-braid Upgrade - charge for 2 surf reels, one UL salt and one ML baitcaster. While I've had good experience with Sufix 832, have found it's always thicker than published diameter. My first trial with X-braid, it was thinner than published, and the breaking strength is more than twice the Sufix in the same diameter. It's reported to have elasticity before it breaks, which Sufix definitely doesn't. It ties really great Allbright knots to Blue Label shock leader. 14-lb (0.005") to 15-lb

I'll add something else - acquiring quality cane and vintage click-pawl fly reels was easy to justify, because I preferred using them over the latest and greatest (hype) graphite rod and fly reel that looks like the wheels that keep spinning after the SUV stops. The thing is, you could buy 3 of the vintage for the cost of one new Snow Job rod. A year later, the new stuff that you bought is worth less than you paid, while the quality vintage tackle you acquired is worth more than you paid. I certainly understand the desire to fish modern conventional tackle, and that's what I fish in the coast flats. Spinning reel is the most complicated piece of tackle ever devised, and no one ever quite got spindle and gear loading right until just the last decade with CAD and CNC. Bait reels get better, tighter, lower-inertia. The history before computer design is inspiration, trial and error. If you look at fly fishing, unless you're going after tarpon, in many ways, the old tackle is better than the new. The short fly glass rods of the '70s are outstanding, and the work of great rod builders like Bill Phillipson got left behind when everything had to be graphite (and machined barstock) to sell. Marketing tackle is always aiming at N+1 - they're selling to fishermen - if they're going to sell you this year's rod, they first must convince you last year's is obsolete. I even have a place for my Toray graphite ML bait rod, though it's the only rod I've broken in my life (warranty replacement). But my go-to MH bait rod is Crowder IM6 graphite, and will never need a warranty replacement.

Back on topic, here's the rod I found to match my Penn 716. The old para glass rod is a Fispo finished and sold in Zurich, but there's no arguing the blank is a Harnell/Harrington. John Harrington's WWII tinkering with glass bass rods took up his weekends while he was working for Douglas Aircraft. His tinkering paralleled the more scientific effort of Doc Howald and Shakespeare WondeRod. There's a very good argument Harnell sold the first glass rod. John was a terrible businessman, his partner forced a break-up, sold the business and Harnell name to H-I/Gladding, John kept his mandrels, and continued selling rod blanks and finished rods from his California shop into the 1980s. His rods are desired everywhere - to fish - today.

jimmyjoe, the easiest way to tell a control freak is they offer unsolicited advice. There's nothing you can do or say to improve his personality, or help his psychology. Maybe it is time to show another fly rod. Here's my primary collecting bent, the rod is a 1918 FE Thomas Special. The reel, a pattern 15a from JW Young, which was also imported and sold as the Thomas Special reel. The rainbow is on my home tailwater. I reached my point of jaded 20 years ago - exactly the time I got into this and figured how to make it work for me. But I was catching fish after fish, insulated from the fish by disc drags and graphite fly rods, and wondering why I was harassing the fish. The first time I caught a 20" rainbow in fast current on vintage cane and click pawl, went oh crap, what am I going to do now - and remembered why we do this to begin with. There's a technical discussion about equivalent modulus in fly rod tapers, especially why cane rods are superior to graphite in lengths below 8', and why glass is superior to both in lengths below 7', but he wouldn't understand that, either.

It can vary - they're probably thicker, but 10- and 12-lb soft nylon braid is so thin, you usually need to back your full-arbor vintage reel with something heavier, then finish off with your working line. I was very happy once on ebay when I bought the Canadian Strikemaster above - he was selling connected spools of 10, 15, 25, and 30 as a package. So I backed with the heavier lines to fish the lighter ones.

One of my favorite postwar Marhoff-copy reels is the Pflueger Skilkast. Here it is on a Heddon Pal glass rod - Supreme, Skilkast, Shakespeare Marhoff would be my recommendation for the steel rod. Bill Sonnet on ORCA and sometimes on FFR fishes steel and Marhoff primarily and lauds both. The Skilkast has a Cub drag handle, and no photogenic because it's so reflective. Speaking of Shakespeare Marhoff, here's a dressy one on a Montague Flash cane rod. I forgot to add, in lieu of finding old silk or postwar nylon to take care of your bare rod guides You can use green-spot, ice-fishing nylon (nice because it's teflon-impregnated). Both Mason and Gudegrod made recent soft braids. I really like Gudebrod MeatMaster braid, but grab those close-outs quickly, because Gudebrod went out of business a few years ago (over losing their dental floss client).

forgot to add, the sunfish in the pool with my PB bass were really shy. But I did manage a nice native cichlid in the same pool. Also have a story about the big yellow belly hen I have to tell. I was sight-fishing a 5-lb bass on an oxbow on the Pedernales headwater. She was creeping around my cats whisker in a yawn. Just before she got there, the massive 14" redbreast sunfish shot out and grabbed the fly. The whole time I was fighting the yellow belly, so was the bass hen. She settled at my feet while I was handling the sunny to photograph and release it. I daubed the fly in front of my feet and the bass shot up and snagged it. There aren't too many times you get a 5-lb bass waiting in line to eat your fly.

yes, they weren't shy about Art Deco styling on the Langley Target.

Slow getting to this page, been playing on the rods and reels page a few days with new and old tackle. Grew up bass fishing with my dad, but hill country limestone creeks and endemic bass on fly rod - Texas brook trout - took over my attention. My first love is coast kayak fishing. My best bass, sight-fished on fly rod on the Sabinal River was a shocking 28" and about 10 lbs. They don't get too fat eating nickel-sized crayfish. Not really showing off here, just trying to get my cats whisker. a pretty good yellow belly from the Pedernales headwaters - she's not alone here a red-ear hen with shoulders bottom-bounced on the Guadalupe with Teeny line and, of course, cats whisker Here's what we do at the coast, table-fare slot redfish and a pretty good sow trout I won't be contributing much to the bass fishing topics, other than our overlap of gear, but may get in an occasional hill country report, or better, coast flats report.

Hi friends, Been working on it for 20 years, and more has left it than you see here. That's the key, is buy well, sell well and be patient. Especially fly reels, I've had really nice ones I fished for 5 years or so, then sold them for up to twice what I paid. I can trace a new kayak purchase back to a $50 fly reel through several items bought, repaired, maybe fished, and sold. Of course you have to invest the time and make the contacts. Within organizations like NFLCC and ORCA, my collection is dinky - Ron Gast who I mentioned above, probably has the largest and certainly most valuable collection on the planet. I also mentioned Doc Henshall above - If you want to know about bass fishing after the Civil War, the fish, rods, reels, line, lures this is it - The Book of the Black Bass. BASS also reprinted this book, and easy to find on Abebooks for peanuts. On another forum, we had a discussion of "where dog walking" came from, and the term belongs to Paw Paw lure company, c. 1918. But even Doc Henshall references that dog-walking plugs, a technique he calls The Bob, originated in Florida 100 years before him - that puts it back in Revolution times.

Plat in Nagasaki is a great source for parts, great Japan braid, lures, rods, Yumeya and SLP upgrade parts. With the current postal crunch, since April they have only been shipping to US with DHL Express, which gets here in just a few days, so order enough stuff $20 shipping worthwhile.

Tom and I swapped a few pm's over his Langleys - these all-aluminum reels have a huge fan club. And not just to put on a shelf - many people want these reels to fish on vintage cane and glass rods. With lightweight spools, large arbors and very low inertia, they also fit right in with the modern trend to "bait finesse" and light lures on casting reels. I asked him to post these - he said the photos were beyond his computer prowess and e-mailed them to me. Tom, if you don't mind, I'm posting your photos of your Langley 340 Target freespool... The freespool works with a simple swage on the handle that grabs the main gear. You pull out on the handle to freespool, and push back in to engage the retrieve. Below is a diminutive prewar Shakespeare 1740 Tournament freespool that works exactly the same way. It has alloy spool with balsa arbor. I have it loaded with 4-lb silk, and it fishes 1/8 oz really well. If any of you can contribute to this thread with photos, would love to see them.

the cart and the horse are both semantics. What we're improving is the result. You have a result, and a target you'd rather have for that result. The trick is knowing what to change to get there.

thank you, friend. There's a local auction house, Vogt. Gene is a boon-doggler, and travels the world to buy out estates. All the antique dealers in the state make his Tuesday night auctions. You're bidding wholesale, because those dealers you're bidding against all have to make a profit when they resell.

ok, before Marhoff, I have Shakespeare B, s/n 127, made in 1909. There's a sliding pin in the LW rider. It rides one way on one worm gear and a ramp at the end pushes it into the opposite track. It rides the other worm gear back the other way. If you want to see a fortune of amazing reels, and antique tackle, lures look up Ron Gast's website, luresnreels *. Pay close attention to the 19th century Milam and (JF and BF) Meek reels (these are 5-digit value). There were no hardware store screws. Each individual screw was single-turned on a lathe, and the screws and their slot positions are numbered to match each. Every now and then somebody finds a pre-Civil-War Milam in an old barn. Even in horribly corroded shape, they're worth almost 5 digits. There was a box for a pre-Civil-War plug - no plug, just the box - that sold in auction for $12,000.

thanks friend. I'll show just this one because it has my Avatar on the reel. 1915 Leonard Fairy Catskill, 8' G-braid (modern 3-wt), and Pflueger Golden West with a Rio Chama brown. The reel came to me from Michael Sinclair, author of The Bamboo Rod Restoration Handbook, and the rod looked like toothpick stock in a leather box with other destroyed rods - Dennis Stone did a remarkable restoration job for me, and a chance to fish a legend. The problem collecting Winchester reels is the demand. I had a beauty with bone handle grasp, and it burned a hole in my pocket - yes, I sold it. I'll also avoid showing my '85 Low Wall .22 field artillery with Creedmore sights.

I can speak for a rod I just improved with a reel - 13Fishing Omen ML. For my 1/8 oz niche, swapped my Custom Inshore with 12-lb fluoro for a Team Pro SP (shallow spool) with the thinnest-possible 20-lb braid (0.17 mm - PE 1). The low spool inertia makes both the thin braid and light lure possible, and it casts 1/8 oz much farther than I'll ever need to fish, no backlash worries, so I can concentrate on thumb for modulating distance and target. I further improved the spool with Air BFS bearings, and it's wearing my favorite Avail handle.

Yes, one thing I got into when I sold a valuable reel well was buying a custom knife, but I also have a small collection of finger-ring B&T beginning with Marble's. You are looking at a steel Stubcaster with a Pflueger-made 4Bros reel. The thing really works, especially with a slip bobber.

hi friend, no I have to try to focus a bit, because my real collection is between-the-wars fly reels and cane fly rods, and a couple back to 1915 (Leonard and Thomas). I'm a bit noted historian of the reels, speculating and repairing other people's has bought a lot of tackle for me (also firearms, kayaks, bicycle parts). Along the way you pick and choose what you really want to keep. I sold off a whole collection of half-bail spinning reels, and just kept a choice few. Except for the 4400SS and 4200SS I bought new, and fished through both of them, my Penns are green 716 and 712. Thanks for asking.

Might as well add a bit with spinning reels. The Brits of course call our baitcasters spinning reels, because the spool spins. What we call a spinning reel, they call a fixed-spool reel. Malloch's first patent for a fixed spool reel was from 1884, and by 1908, the Illingworth looked more like what we'd call a spinning reel, and left a lot to desire. Between the wars, spinning reels were largely clunky, the Helical which didn't interchange parts, and most prewar reels, are represented by Hardy's terrible bone thrown to the masses, the Hardex, 1937. The only cool thing about this reel is its embossed royal patent "by appointment to HRH the late King George V", since the year before Edward had abdicated and stuttering Berty took the throne - a political statement in a fishing reel. The Hardex introduction is all the more strange, since in 1932 Hardy's Altex patent gave us the space shuttle of fishing reels, still the smoothest reel I've ever fished up to the computer-balanced reels of the past decade. With wartime extension, their flip-bail patent lasted until 1954, though everyone including Mitchell and Shakespeare ignored the patent rights several years earlier. The strangest reel in this time period was the Allcocks Stanley, which spun the spool directly with eggbeater drive, and precessed the sheeps-crook line winder. This twisted the line, and sometime in a day of fishing, you'd have to let all the line out and flip the spool. Other than the incredible Altex, my choice for prewar smooth is the Luxor. My older daughter's go-to choice for creek fishing was this 1937 Luxor with 4' Airex solid glass rod. Luxor lasted into the 70s as the Crack, and many still like them for offshore. Mitchell came from the prewar Carpano & Pons (CAP), and this is the 4th model CAP, 1951, the half-bail that became the Mitchell 304. Since I'm here, the first skirted-spool spinning reel was the Spanish Sagarra, 1948, still made today and fished offshore in the Mediterranean. I'll add a note that in 1947, JW Young & Sons of Redditch produced the first worm-drive spinning reel, the Ambidex, also made until they closed shop in 2002. In the early 70s, high school, I fished through the gears in my Mitchell 300 over 4 years, catching fall Spanish macks from the jetties. Probably wouldn't have done that if I had instead chosen a new Penn Spinfisher.