bulldog1935

I have a 10,000+mi bicycle with cork grips. That includes gripping with sweaty leather gloves. I used 7 coats of spar varnish, which is thin, permeates, breathes, and remains flexible. Make sure you don't use shellac, which will flake. I would definitely go the U-40 route over wax.

Kayak fishing in the salt, even for the surf, I use unsheilded spool bearings. They must be oiled again with hard use, but that also flushes them without a big bearing effort. You may be over-thinking the need for seals. Aside from that, Daiwa magseal bearings are quite good.

New phosphor-bronze spring for a 100-y-o Talbot before cutting to final length. Worth more than the effort.

In the case of the 1500C, it arrived from Don Iovino with new carbontex drag washers. I couldn't get the 1-1/2 lb drag I wanted for 6-lb leader. I was back inside to add BB-pinion alignment. The Haneda Craft washers seems to be a fiberglass composite, they're just slightly thicker than the carbon. Smoothness of felt, and increased drag to beyond 2-1/2 lbs - way more than I need in the little reel. Beyond smooth. Carbontex is not the last word in drag washers. I can get 5 lbs drag on carbontex, and that's more than you need in most applications. My CT reels easily dialed in to 7 lbs with the dry (required) Valleyhill washers. If you've ever been there, that's honking drag, but it's also smooth and repeatable. If you want a guess, the V-Trap washers are a blend of ceramic particles in resin matrix, and just right for this application. Haven't tried the YZ-Craft composition in Daiwa, but will. If you limit yourself to felt and carbontex, that makes up your complete experience base for the topic.

I'll add that if I'm going into a reel, I'll already have drag washers on hand, and maybe new compositions that I want to try, such as YZ-Craft, Valleyhill, Haneda Craft. e.g., in my 1500C, Haneda Craft fiber washers added 50% again to the drag capacity. Valleyhill no-lube V-Trap drag washers added significant drag to my CT surf reels.

First thing, you're leaving off handle length on the Gomexus. Don't get hung up on the looks above the function. (I know a guy who put a long Gomexus double handle on a low-geared spinning reel and couldn't keep up with charging trout and bass). You tune handle length to gear ratio - longer handles are better on XHG and SHG gears, low gears need short handles. Other than that, Gomexus makes a pretty solid part - good carbon handles, good knobs and bearings, etc. @Rodney Smith I would use a 105 mm handle with 8:1 gears or higher. This is 105 mm Avail handle on my 8.5-geared Zillion.

@Bass Rutten Yes, that's my big 5000 and a big 6" (near) offshore surface plug. Daiwa and Shimano is common thread, and the same Tsubaki fits all 3 frame sizes. Here's a little different Tsubaki Premium on my JDM Stradic C1000S - I liked the carbon sleeve to match the carbon double handle I used on the reel. To use them on the medium and large frames, they come with a large O-ring for the base attachment - you simply leave off that big O-ring to use them on the small frames. Here's the range at Hedgehog If they have stock, you'll find a better price at Asian Portal or FishingShop.kiwi. The nice thing about the other two shops, you can order lines and lures there, as well, which Hedgehog doesn't sell.

"Reel stand" aftermarket part - this is one of my favorites, President made by Tsubaki. The hook keeper loop on the end rotates freely. The stack of o-rings will grab your line and keep it. Also next to impossible to wrap your line on the rod.

I use arylic-glue/PE-film tape. Thin mylar. It's beyond thin, it's beyond tough, it sticks until you want to remove it. It does all this so well I use it for seizing cut ends and knots in kayak lines (high-strength sail line, even bungee) - in Gulf coast heat and humidity combined with salt spray. This is the first knot on a trolley line ring - there will another on the other side of the ring to complete the trolley loop, and I won't think about it again, no matter how many trips it makes down the hull. It's perfect for taping down a braid arbor knot on your spool. Grainger sells it on ebay.

@islandbass Beginning fly fishers are always so hung up on casting, they go casting and put fish down. Fly rod shines in moving water, and sight fishing with stealth presentation. Reading water and sparing casts are the most necessary fly rod skills. Sinking shooting heads are a special niche for blind-fishing a fly rod, and you should notice many PNW neighbors hauling up chum salmon on Teeny lines. In the smaller grain weights, sinking shooting heads are by far the most stealthy tool where you can use them delicately for sight fishing.

I'm going to run out of reels on this thread, because every reel I own is my favorite where I use it. So far, braid-raced Zillion and Super Duty - the first for mindless reliable distance, the second for surprising reliable distance and truck-stopping durability. The Mg-spool ZPI Alcance is Revo on amphetamines - this is the reel that can cast too far - it fishes big weights best with a relaxed attitude. Most fun to fish are all my braid-raced Ambassadeurs, from NLW CT surf reel with nothing in between you and the other end - to my 1500C stream reel, and 4600C3 small water bass - just the sound of a raced-out LW during cast is fun. People have mentioned their favorite spinning reels on the thread, as well. Anyone who owns Stradic to Stella will be impressed with the combination of smooth and workhorse in one package. But one reel from the line stands out - Vanquish - you won't notice the drive low-inertia difference from the other Shimanos in the line until you have them side by side. But Vanquish drive starts with zero resistance, and stops without pushing your hand forward. When you put it next to your other Shimanos, they feel clunky in comparison. Any time feel through the handle matters in spinning, Vanquish can't be touched by any other reel on the market. The counter-balanced Livre handle further eliminates the tendency of spinning reels to keep turning under bail weight, and the MTCW TD drag knob increases the range of light drag adjustment, and gives you a panic-button on the front to add finger drag.

hip-wader deep

I'll always prefer this system. While they put Lb-Test down for US market expectations, Japanese actually report Max breaking strength, which is closer to IFGA Class than Test. Anyone who has thought it through should see the randomness in talking about Test, and should consider line diameter more important - like the entire rest of the world, who reports reel capacities in Line Diameter, which are Actual reel capacities. Of course, thinking is harder for some than others.

@T-Billy you're right, it has the mag brake and P2 pinion upgrade The GX3 is ACB.

@T-Billy - I'm honestly not surprised. Mag brake is all you need, especially with a good centrifugal cast. The ACB shines at starting big weights. I embarrassed myself setting up a Team Pro SP for salt ML (embarrassed myself twice that day, let an over-slot redfish get tangled in my drift sock and break off). When I put the 1/8-oz swim jig on my Super Duty MM, it seemed to cast farther. When I got home, I took on the task, reducing the ACB to start-up backlash, and it couldn't catch the Super Duty distance with the same light weight. I sold the Team Pro SP and a very nice Tournament Pro LFS I had fished once and kept in my kayak back-up box - bought another Super Duty and the Zillion to modify for my braid ML niche.

With Lew's BB-1, they went through A/R dogs before one-way roller bearings arrived in the BB-25. It was disconcerting when your A/R quit, and tough to land a fish with less than 3 hands. I'll agree the first thought of full-time A/R was that it would be inconvenient not to be able to turn it off and wind backwards, but it was never missed in practice - A/R roller bearings were next-level.

I have two Super Duty G, oldest is on 5th year in the salt. I did need to replace the brake magnets at the onset of salt corrosion. You can also see I love the reel enough to decorate it with upgrade parts. If shallow braid spools were available for it, I probably wouldn't own any other reel. They're truly a workhorse with surprising light lure capacity when the spool is loaded for it (big mono backing, thin working line). SD also Must be the best value in a reel. I paid $130 for my first from an ebay vendor, and $144 (shipped) for the second direct from Lew's, who keeps a closeout price going indefinitely (list price is $180). Note, however, they are discontinued (Lew's is putting all their eggs in the ACB basket). If you want one, now's the time. I have a couple of reels that will out-distance them - I mentioned my braid-modified Zillion at the light end on the 2nd post of this thread, and ZPI Alcance at the heavy end, but I could have bought 5 more SD for the cost of those 2. What gives both of those reels an edge is shallow, light spool. And what gives SD its edge over most others is its clean deep spool (no mass add-ons).

Since Shimano SLX is getting repeated, I'll put in a vote for Daiwa Fuego, and in general, MagForce brake for the widest lure weight range with the least futzing of adjustments.

Both Fed-Ex and DHL fly nonstop from Japan to their US Customs and distribution hubs. I was shocked by one 44-hr delivery. I bought one reel from Digitaka, because it was the only stock, and was happy with their service - their communication is better than AP, though AP may have better price. Again, the choice is usually a question of finding stock. If you find what you want, buy it while it's still there.

I would say you get a better vertical drop and no pendulum with BFS compared to a heavier deep-spool baitcaster with a mass of mono or fluoro. Even fishing light weights. If you're fishing X-braid, it's so fine there's no hydraulic drag, even though the fine braid doesn't naturally sink. The spool feeds just what you need on the drop without overrun. You use so much less brake with BFS because of the low mass and low inertia of the spool. It moves on a breath, it brakes on a breath. My bass BFS rod is fast and has a stout butt. The tip is so fast, you wouldn't guess it's capable of casting 1/16 oz. It's important not to high-stick it if you want to use the butt power on a fish. The action is medium, and Valleyhill calls it RF for regular fast. I fish up to the rated 5/8 oz sinking and diving plugs on this rod, in addition to finesse spinnerbaits and Neds. Unfortunately, it's OOS everywhere I looked, and there are a couple of ebay scalpers. Different (much longer) rod and even lighter spool, but with my salt BFS, I fish 2.8-g sinking plugs in the basement (nite-lite fishing on a navigation channel, imitating winter glass minnows). @Cgolf since it was brought up below, stream trout rods are another animal that uses the same reel. They're delightful in their place - in fact, the sinking plugs I'm using on salt BFS for winter glass minnows were intended for stream trout fishing. If you're patient on JDM hunt, you can find MM bass BFS rods with the wide lure range of my Valleyhill - I'd say they're worth the hunt for your bass niche. The way I first found my Valleyhill was going through the entire Asian Portal bass/casting rod inventory by maker - I had it narrowed down to 3 rods and chose the Valleyhill - no need to look back.

Of course the OP's questions were answered Last Year, and he hasn't been back on this thread since then. @Cgolf brought it back up to comment on my backlash and brake primer, and to bring up fly rod loading (jerk on a fly rod = tailing loop and a pile of line either in front, behind, or draped across you head). As far as using your thumb, you can't get better than tinkering with one of these from 100 years ago - especially the NLW from the ninteen-teens and 20s (Meek, Shakespeare, Talbot - these were the only reels tournament casters used until they began butchering ball-bearing Ambassadeurs in the late 60s) As far as rod loading goes, baitcaster and spinning couldn't be more different. I came from LH bait rod and fly rod, and RH spinning rod, which I think is a huge advantage to keep the casting techniques separate. You can load a spinning rod 100% with jerk and get a long cast. You can do the same thing with a baitcaster, and backlash any brake on the market. As far as brakes go, you can totally change the nature of even an Ambassadeur by working on getting spool and line mass and inertia down. Tuning the tools for the job at hand isn't a crutch.

@PhishLI again, this is a braid-specific spool (C2000S) for 100 m PE#0.8 or 150 m PE#0.6 - it's loaded with about 100 yds 6-lb Sufix 832 it's filled to where the line is flush with your fingernail coming out of the line-keeper groove. You can only get this with a braid spool. for catching these and never had a wind knot over about 200 of these I'd put fluoro on the stock spool. @07Rapala that's not over-filled - looks about right and surprisingly flat for the deep spool. (Shimano does this better than Daiwa, and Daiwa is no slouch).

The Japanese market is a big discount right now with JY130 to the $. I've been shopping Japan for 20 years, and any time it's over JY100 to the $ it's a good buy. Amazon should subtract Japan VAT first once you're logged in and have the reel in your cart, which will be about the same amount as the shipping cost. Amazon.JP uses their own Customs broker into US, which is faster through Customs than USPS ISC - especially Chicago (which is running about 2 weeks to clear Customs now). Upgrade to DHL 4-day express through Amazon is only $5 - DHL clears Customs in the air flying to Cincinnati.

I couldn't be more anti-cadence with a fly rod, and can shoot my RPLX7 with TS-250 to 140', which includes 30' of backing. (I love the sound of my Allbright knot clicking the guides) but this is one of the few times I use false cast for increased line speed - normal for me is roll-cast, back-cast (here's the line speed), shoot. I normally fish cane for trout, and short glass for limestone warmwater creeks. I have natural haul, and what most people don't get about fly rod, is your line hand should do more reading and loading than your rod hand - everything you do with your rod hand should be short and smooth. Probably a skill that comes natural to southpaws. I've been fishing fly rods in the dark most of my life, can make a vertical back-cast backed up to a cliff, change-direction mid-cast, always cast across my chest so there's no difference in forward cast or back-cast - I can present either way. With those short glass rods, I can make an underhand cast that's akin to skipping to get under cypress overhang - only photo I could come up with, but I've sight-fished bass where the cypress overhang was a foot-and -a-half over 70% of the river channel width. Here, I'm fishing with Kevin Townsend, filming an episode of KT Diaries. 3 days with Frank Smethurst, filming an episode of TU On the Rise

I can only think of one bent guide straightened out, and have never thought about it since. FWIW, the rod is 13 y-o, and still high on the salt finesse rotation. Gotta admit, though, this thread is too creepy to read.