Best Pole for $20 and under

[roadwarrior]

this is the most work ive seeen in quite a while for a $20 rod...........

:)

Geez...A lot of guys spend more on a filler spool of line!

[The Rooster]

You can't beat free reel oil from someone who knows what's the best to use.  But just so you do know, Wal-Mart does have it (at least here they do).  It's packaged and hanging on peg hooks on their counters under the name of Zebco.  You can buy it separately (oil only) or as a kit (oil and grease both).  Oil by itself, I paid $2.00 for a pretty good sized amount of it.  Being that one drop is all you need at a time on a bearing, maybe 6 or 7 drops total to relube all the bearings in a reel, then it should last a long time.  After all my experiences lubing reels over the years, I'll never use anything but reel recommended lubricants ever again.  Don't use 3-in-1 oil, WD-40, or anything like that.  My brother in law says to use vaseline but I think he's nuts.  I'd never do that (again : ;D).  Yeah he talked me into it once and at the time it seemed like it might do the trick.  But now I know better, that stuff was a waste of time.  It just evaporated after a short time and it was like it had never been greased at all then.  Bad experiences have helped me learn otherwise now, and since then good experiences with actual reel oils and reel gear greases have changed my views.  You can save yourself the bad experiences by listening to people here who have done it before.  

[skunked_again]

chanrocks93,

Please NO WD-40....

If you send me your address in a PM, I will send you some of my reel oil no charge...

thats cool right there.

[thefishingone]

Thanks for your offer The Reel Mechanic but right before you posted I did what Roostertail said (before he posted his message but on my own) and bought reel oil. CAn you guys send me some tips on using my baitcaster. I just printed out The Reel Mechanics baitcast 101 and I think I'm gonna need a little more tips/advice because tomorow I'm going to practice at the lake but with a lure.

[The Rooster]

I guess it depends on how tempermental the reel is on how easy it is to cast. But I usually don't have mine so tight that the spool won't throw off some loops if I release it and let the lure hit the ground. It's a good bit looser than that, so loose it would bird nest pretty bad if you just let it go and hit the ground that way, I'd probably have to cut the line out of it with scissors.

I set the brake pretty high on it though, an 8 or 9 out of 10. It won't stop a bird nest at all, but it helps when I cast it. With it set that way I get a long cast, a good 50 to 60 feet with a 1/4 oz. crankbait (Bandit 100 series mostly). Sometimes longer.  With the wind at my back I can cast it 70 or more feet.  I don't have any trouble at all with the settings that way. Maybe once or twice per trip I might have an overrun, but never badly. This adjustment just seems to work.

The reel I'm using is a Bass Pro Shops Extreme with the 5 bearing system. I can cast this bait at least 50 feet and not even have to touch the spool with my thumb until just before the lure hits water (or trees depending on how good my aim was :). I'm talking cast after cast of not even thumbing the reel while the lure is sailing through the air. Even when it starts to slow down it doesn't backlash. Then I just ease my thumb into it to stop it so the lure can drop to the water, and that's it. Begin retrieve and hopefully catch a bass.

If I'm throwing a heavier bait, such as a spinnerbait 1/4 or 3/8 oz. size, I might get onto the spool faster with my thumb cause I think when I first cast it the heavier weight of the spinnerbait gets the spool really moving faster than with the lighter crankbait, but it slows down faster in the air cause of a bigger profile, however the spool is still spinning really fast so I need to start slowing it down sooner than I did with the 1/4 oz. crankbait. But with any and all casts I make, at the very beginning of the cast my thumb doesn't even touch the spool while it's spinning for at least a full second or 2 once I release it so the line can flow out. And with that 1/4 oz. crankbait, it doesn't touch at all until the very end of the cast just before the lure hits water.

I've found out that I can set up other reels like this, semi-loose tension knob with about 90% magnetic braking applied and then I can cast 1/4 oz. baits without thumbing the reel much at all, as long as I'm careful with the cast not to whip it excessively. I just gently cast it with NOT a lot of arm into it. Just seems to work for me. I use a 6' medium rod with a Bass Pro Shops Extreme reel to cast with, but I was doing this just the other day to teach my nephew how to use his casting reel and he has a 6'6" medium/heavy rod with a Bass Pro Shops Megacast reel on it. Two distinctly different reels and rods, even length is different. But it still worked the same. At least for me. He backlashed it a dozen times and we finally had to cut some of the line out of it on his last cast. He'll eventually learn and so will you, but it will take some experience and patience to get there, along with some practice and occasionally some new line to replace what you cut out. ;D