The Rooster

On the newest models of Pflueger President spinning reels (not having the wooden knobs), is there any way to access the bearings inside the handle knob for cleaning? Some of these reels don't even have bearings there, like the Trion for example. Do you know if they're made so they could be added? I know that last one is not an expensive reel but I sort of enjoy tinkering on things like this. Adding carbon drags and bearings to make upgraded versions of themselves. I don't really want to tear up a handle trying to find out though. Just wondered if any of you all had removed one before.

My brother and I both do this one. We will make the first cast of the day and then burn it back in as fast as possible hoping NOT to catch anything with it. Bad luck if you hook one one the first cast. Means the rest of the day will suck.

Absolutely 0119. I think anytime the people in charge don't want the common people to worry about something strange happening they will go public with all kinds of messages downplaying whatever it is that's happening. Clearly this is not normal, and also clearly it is a result of poor water and environmental conditions. That cannot be healthy for the fish but as long as it's still able to swim and eat it will still continue to act like a fish and we'll start to see numbers of these fish caught. As far as we know, that's a cancer on those fish. In time they will go belly up. Remember, the definition of cancer is abnormal cell growth. I believe I can say with confidence that those fish have cancer. It would make me question how much contact I even want to have with the water they're in.

Today I accidentally bought clear blue fluorescent line instead of my normal clear line. Years ago I used to use this line and loved how highly visible it was. Made my line very easy to see. Recently I had been remembering this and thought I might try it again. I had originally quit using it when I started getting so particular about fishing and thinking even the most minute detail would affect the bite, like if I could see the line with the sun shining on it then the fish could too. I thought the line would work like fiber optic cable and stand out underwater like it was glowing, so I stopped using it. But since I already accidentally bought it anyway, and when I realized my mistake I was already at home ready to spool up, I went ahead and wrapped my spool with it. Now I'm sitting here wondering if my first fear about fish seeing it is well founded or nothing to worry about. I caught fish before while using it, but a lot of times that was on live bait. Sometimes on lures. I fish lures exclusively now and have for years. Do you think the line is fine for that?

Just to stir the water some, I bought the Abu Garcia 502albi some time back, based on him having the same one, and mine grinded right out of the box. I promptly returned it while I could. Later when I cranked his, it grinded too, so it's not always about a lure being too heavy. Mine didn't even have line on it, all I had to do was crank the handle and it felt like it was making coffee. By the way, Crankbait, I was at Dick's earlier tonight and I looked at the Abu Orra S again and their display had a very slight geary feeling to it. Not a grind, but almost like it had some sand in the gears. I didn't even feel it with every crank, just every now and again. The blister packed reels hanging on the pegs for sale were packaged so the handle could be turned so I tried one of those. The one I tried was smooth. Seems a hit and miss. I'd crank it before you buy it, and save the receipt for a while too. Or..........get another Pflueger. And before anybody calls me on Abu and Pflueger being the same through Pure Fishing, I already know it. It was just an inside joke.

Never mind. I knew it was confusing, so I just went to their website and put a batch of them in the cart. It was $145 for 15 of them, so they're $9.67 per tube. That's too much. Wouldn't be that bad if I had 15 nice rods to sell but not for just a few. Yeah, PVC will work I believe. It's expensive to buy the pipe and caps to ship a single rod though. I was mostly wondering because I have a few rods I may like to sell but shipping would kill anything I'd make on them. They're not G Loomis rods, just cheapies. Looks like a yard sale is about my only option.

Yeah I wondered about that. Also wondered if mummifying it in tape would help. These seem super cheap. Someone could order the smallest quantity and have enough to sell every rod they'll ever own. There are other tubes also. I'll have to look and see if any are solid.

Saw these in a Uline catalog. Do these look like they'd be ok for a fishing rod to be shipped in?

Oh my goodness that's the grossest thing I've ever seen! Eeewww!

Yeah, I was scared. Standing in the dark and afraid to move. Also surrounded by other things in the basement at the time, I knew if I moved I would trip and fall and get hurt. I knew something electrical had just blown up in my face but still didn't know what had happened or the extent of the damage. I thought maybe I'd tripped the breaker for the basement. I had to patiently stand for about a minute for my eyes to adjust so I could see to leave and find a flashlight. When I came back I checked every breaker and found none tripped. It took me a minute to even think of looking at the main. Once I reset it I started looking at the box to figure out how it even happened. I found two contact points where the wire had touched the bus bars. Both only had slight chips blown off of them, amazingly. Of course the end of the wire was completely gone. During the explosion I also felt my face being peppered and burnt. I'm guessing the peppering I felt was the bits of copper blowing up and coming at me. I'm lucky I didn't lose an eye for real, let alone being killed. Electricity can do stuff people can't even comprehend. I'm not sure even the experts yet know all that it's capable of. My dad was an industrial electrician up until a year ago when he retired. He's very glad to be done with it. He told me once he and another guy were using a meter to read what should have only been 440 volts. Dad was using the leads to touch the circuit and the other guy was holding the meter. Dad said when he touched the leads to the circuit it literally felt like they swelled up between his fingers, like a water hose taking on pressure. The meter blew up in the other guy's hand. He later said that felt like he'd just caught a baseball bare handed, even though they were both wearing gloves. Afterwards they discovered that the main line voltage of 4160 was being fed into the circuit in error somehow (he knows how, they solved the problem, but I couldn't tell you how it happened). They got lucky! Things like this happened all the time for the entire 26 years he worked there. The insulation on the leads and their gloves wouldn't have even been a challenge for 4160 volts. I think their boots must have helped to keep them from being grounded. Dad always wore his safety equipment. He also is, as I am, very religious, so I'm sure God was with him during times like that.

Ok, one more. Last summer I went to light the gas grill but it was having trouble. So after a dozen pushes of the button I decided to let the gas run just a minute. I reasoned that the lid being down will help to contain it and light it easier. Just before depressing the button again I lifted the lid slightly so I could see the spark to make sure it was actually going to fire. Then I pressed the button. 2 months later my hair and eyebrows finally grew back. Only took about three weeks for my mustache and goatee to straighten up and lose the curl. It apparently made a noise loud enough the neighbors heard it because they hollered over to ask if I was ok. I just replied yeah as I headed into the house to "finish shaving". If I hadn't realized by then that I was not all that, I sure was reminded, yet again. I'm sure I'll forget again soon.

I can't recall the exact moment. It's been more of a series of reminders. Or maybe just one long, constant reminder. One that comes to mind is when I was about finished with electrical school and I was rewiring the 200 amp panel in our new house we'd just bought. I was happily folding, tucking, and connecting wires for one of the neatest panel wire jobs you've ever seen. It ended up that way too when I was finally finished, but at one point during the job I found myself temporarily blinded with a bright spot in my vision, temporarily deafened from the loud bang, face feeling slightly burned as if sunburnt, and standing in the dark in the basement afraid to move, not knowing what had just happened. I had accidentally dragged a bare 12 AWG ground wire across both exposed bus bars in the box and tripped the main 200 amp breaker. Wire instantly melted, flash burning my face, blinded me, made a thunderous bang, and all the lights were out. Aside from not being able to see, that was a real eye opener. For those that don't know, it takes way less than one amp to kill you. I tripped a 200 amp breaker with my bare hands in the box handling the wire that did it. That was scary.

I enjoyed the wing suit video. At least those guys have an escape. The suit lets them fly, sort of, and then the parachute is their way out. As long as they don't crash, all is fine. But the COMPLETE IDIOTS doing chin-ups on top of the towers in the sky are just pure morons. Hanging on the side of a building on concrete that can be crumbly and gritty where your hands can slip, doing chin-ups on metal bars where your hands can become sweaty and slip, is completely INSANE. I cringed watching it.......all three times.

Spiderwire Fusion. One of the first super lines I ever saw. It wasn't braid. Just a strong multi fibered line with a coating wrapped around it. I paid good money for the stuff and the coating on it flaked off and was rough as could be in short order. Not to mention it kinked up if you just looked at it wrong. Must have sucked something awful, you can't find it anywhere now. To me, any reel that has a gimmicky way to draw in just a few inches of line at a time is another one. The Pinnacle Slyder reel is one, and the Daiwa Viento that had the twitchin' bar is another one. The reel itself might be good, but I don't need a special button or lever to reel in 4 inches of line when I can just pop my rod a tiny bit to do the same thing. I couldn't hold a rod still enough for long enough to think that 4 inches of reel retrieve would make any difference. Don't forget helicopter lures. I never bought any but I hear tell there are fisherman out there who did that secretly would still like to hunt down Roland Martin and have an old fashioned lynching over those.

Well X-ship apparently isn't very expensive to do because even my cheap $40 Pflueger Trion spinning reel from years ago has a double bearing supported pinion gear inside. Hopefully Shimano isn't building this up and charging a bunch extra for it.

Not only that but we already see how reintroducing old reels as new again works for them. I think that's why they're changing it now, too many people cried foul. If they changed it back to the Curado again, some people would love it, but some of those same people, and also a whole lot of others would really be scratching their heads trying to figure out if they're getting what they want by buying it or just getting jerked around. What I'm trying to say is there would be too much questionable intent with it by then and would be a turn off to people. Doesn't matter how great a reel it is, there's a certain way you sell to the masses for profit and that's not it. Fishermen "in the know" would buy it and be glad to have it, but the average joe might not be impressed with a reel that once was, then was no more, then was again, when there's fresher technology available from other sources without all the questions. If they did nothing else but just change it back to being the old Curado E, I guarantee you there'd be rumors everywhere about how they cheapened it and the old ones are better. Especially after saying the economy was the reason to kill it, which was bull because we know the Chronarch E is that same reel now.

This post would be perfect if read in the voice of Adam Sandler's Billy Madison. LOL

I bought a Pflueger President in the box and another in a blister pack. It was the same reel both times. No difference.

Exactly how in depth did you clean it when it was apart? Did you notice any excessive wear on any internal parts while it was apart? Did you remove the thumb bar itself from the frame and clean and oil it? If there's no excessive wear to the parts them these kind of problems can usually be solved with a thorough cleaning and properly relubing the reel again. From your description above I'm not able to tell if it was properly done or even reassembled right. I have 4 of these same reels now but mine are right handed versions. I've broke mine down lots of times and cleaned and relubed them. Rarely have mine had this same symptom but when they did it was always due to dirt buildup and lack of lube.

Very nice job! Looks super sharp. Did you put bearings in the paddle grip knobs?

For me: Baitcast - cast right handed, switch hands and reel right handed. However, I pitch left handed using my right handed reels. Seems easier this way, the handle isn't in my way as much. Spinning - cast left handed, close bail and reel right handed. As I understand it, this is not the way most do it. Over the years I've learned to cast both rods with both hands. I listed the ways I'm most comfortable doing it. I'm not as good with left handed baitcasting as I'd like but I can do it. Spinning I can go either way but since the bail spins the direction it does it just seems more natural to hold and cast it in my left hand. Line comes around right into my open finger for readying a cast.

Any lure where you move it using the rod and want to take in line fast for the next move, or even the next cast. Any technique that has you feeling for a bite, like jigging, and you need to take in line fast for a quick hookset. Any presentation where you'll want to reel the bait fast, such as burning a trap over top of submerged grass. A few baits I can think of... Spinnerbaits Buzzbaits Jigs Texas rigs Carolina rigs Jerkbaits Topwaters Lipless crankbaits (traps) I'm sure there are more, but you get the idea. Plenty of uses for this reel. I'm using my 7.1:1 ratio for jigs, plastics, and spinnerbaits or buzzbaits. It's on a 6'6" MH/F rod.

It's still worth the $100 asking price. Every penny. For me, a $100 reel would be either the Pro Qualifer, the Abu Garcia Orra SX, or the Lew's Speed Spool. These all have aluminum frames. I would not consider a baitcast reel that did not have a metal frame. Graphite flexes too much and will cause problems. The Bionic Plus at Bass Pro also has an aluminum frame and goes for $80.

Ok, now THIS was the explanation of it that I needed to read to understand. Thank you. I concede that I was wrong, both, on why the ratchet anti-reverse can be better, and that they didn't offer a reel with instant anti-reverse.

If that works then this is either the best or only reel to use for all treble hook baits. Topwater, jerkbaits, crankbaits, small hard swim baits, and others. Other companies aren't currently making a cranking reel that has a ratchet anti-reverse. I'll concede that this may be Lew's idea for approaching that issue, same as a cranking rod is the answer as compared to standard graphite rods for other applications. I sort of doubt it though. The original BB-1 came out in a time when almost all casting reels had a ratchet multi stop anti-reverse and I think all they did was bring it back to ride the prior success of the much older model. It obviously did have a following or there would be no reason to think it would work again but I don't think that following was because of that ant-reverse.