The Rooster

One thing no one here can argue with, no matter what the series, B, D, or E, if it says Shimano then it's good. Out of curiosity, was there ever a C series??

I find that the bait will run straight as long as you bring the hook through the plastic on it's natural path. In other words, the point doesn't come out the center of the plastic. I could see that working on a bait such as a Zoom Super Fluke where you have a lot of plastic to hit (thanks for the idea, never would have thought of it on my own). What about a narrower bait such as a worm?? I think even if you did run it through on it's natural path the worm would still be in an S shape somewhat.......wouldn't it (I'll have to try it to see)?? If it was, this would twist line on the retrieve.

Some time back on BPS website I read a review on them where someone stated they were very weak and straightened out very easily, also actually broke a few. Never tried them personally, but also never have had any of those experiences using Gamakatsu hooks. I'll stick with those for what I need, they don't cost that much, though it is a good bit more than the XPS versions, but then again, the way I added it up the XPS is about 1/4 the price of the Gammy hooks. Based on others' reviews they might also be 1/4 the hook quality as well.

Most of the reason I'm confused is the ad in bass pro for the new Lazer Trokar hooks. Shows several hooks in it, two of which look just like the first two pictured above here in this thread, and then clearly states they are "non offset" even though they obviously have the Z bend in them. One of the two even claims to have the Z bend, but still states that it is non offset as well (reads as follows.......Extra-Wide Gap Worm, Z Bend, Non-Offset). So what are they talking about?? The hook point compared to the shank?? Then a couple pages over there is an ad for MiHatchii flip hooks that have what they call an "offset hook point". Shows it out of line with the main shank. So based on these two ads, I'd conclude that the word offset means the direction of the hookpoint in relation to the main shank. The rest of the ads for hooks such as Gamakatsu and BPS brand XPS hooks just state the word "offset" in the description and before I ran into those other two I was thinking it just meant the Z bend in the hook. No mention was made one way or another for it though. That's why I was asking here, seems the word offset is used to describe either the hook eye Z bend AND/OR the hook point direction, depending on how they wrote the description. Sort of makes it hard to tell what you are buying when just ordering a hook. Mostly I assume it means the Z bend, but obviously not in the Lazer Trokar ad.

A couple of weekends ago I had a fantastic time with the Zoom Super Fluke in green pumpkin color. I went through an entire bag in one afternoon and my brother in law went through 2 bags himself. First....the set up. I fished it on a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook, texas rigged, weightless. Line was 12# Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon, wound onto a Shimano Citica E baitcast reel, and on a 6'6" medium power, fast tip Shimano Compre rod. With this setup I was able to cast unbelievable distances for just a weightless plastic. Somewhere around 100 feet would be a good guess. Using the fluorocarbon line helped the bait to sink a little better too I think than regular mono would. Second....water conditions. Very stained, even murky, with maybe 1 or 1 1/2 feet of visibility. Not 2 feet by any means. It was a bright sunny day though with a little cloud cover, but this made not much difference at all since they hit it from about noon to after dark and only tapered off briefly for about 2 hours or so. Water was very brown in color, and even though we were using baits that were dark also, they apparently had no trouble seeing it. We were fishing from right on the bank in very shallow water to out to water 12 feet deep or more. The fluke never made it below 3 or 4 feet in depth and the fish were just coming to it when in deeper water. Some fish hit right on the bank though. As soon as it hit the water, if not engulfed, I would give it two sharp pops and then let it die. Wait about 2 - 3 seconds, then pop it again. Do this all the way back to the boat, or throughout the perceivable strike zone and then retrieve it quickly for another cast. I was sightfishing it mostly near the surface but when it was not visible I was just feeling it move, watching the line and leaving a little slack. If I saw it move and knew I didn't do it then I took in all slack and set the hook. Otherwise, sometimes I'd go to pop it once and there would just be a fish there. Mostly though I was able to see them hit it since they took it near the surface in the top 2 feet of water. There was one time I got one fish when I got a backlash and picked it out, reeled in the slack and a fish had taken it on the drop so I felt it and set the hook. It was the final fish of the day for me since it was too dark to see well anymore. Don't know how deep it had sank or how long the fish had it. I was in 3 feet of water with the bait at the time. The "pop it twice and kill it" method worked all day until about 5 PM when they where still hitting it, but fewer and farther between at that time, and then they didn't hit it well enough to allow for a good hookset. They were still taking it but just half heartedly. We both started losing fish so we opted to quit for a while and eat. After a couple hours it was on again and they were back to hitting it hard again. In all I landed 12 bass on it that day, lost 4 more, and my brother in law landed 30 and also lost a few himself. Yeah he outfished me good, but it's his home lake he fishes nearly every weekend while I've been there twice in 3 years. I'm just glad I got the 12 bass I did. We went through 3 bags of these baits between us, and total landed 42 bass on just the super fluke lure alone. Others were caught on shakeyhead setups (including more for me too), but just the fluke alone accounted for those 42 fish. This is my first experience using the super fluke other than just playing around for a few casts in the past and I had never caught any fish on them before this so this method of using them is all I have to offer now.

Looking at the bass pro catalog I am seeing that the word "offset" is a term that is used loosely. Several of them say they are offset or non-offset but look identical by the picture. From what I'm seeing I think that it could refer to several things. The hookeye being offset from the main shank (with a Z bend), or the hook point being out of line with the main shank (left or right), either one. Do I have the right idea or not??

Say what you will but there is a use for the Ugly Stik line of rods. Not finesse bass fishing by any means, but for catfishing, carp, panfish, and even some bass fishing (whitebass and stripers for me, or for a cheap crankbait rod), they are good, and do not feel at all like they would not last. I have an Ugly Stik Lite Pro that I have had for more than 10 years, used heavily, and it's still in good fishable condition. Guide wrappings are starting to show signs of needing new epoxy due to cracking the old stuff off slightly but otherwise it's in very good shape and none of the guides are actually loose. But if not for the Ugly Stik line of rods I would have no use at all for Shakespeare stuff.

I read that a spinning rod allows a bait to fall vertically where a casting rod will pendulum the bait as it falls. Its in how the line pays out as the bait falls. Having to turn a spool on a casting reel it would not be able to do this as well after it hits the water. You'd have to stay ahead of the bait's sinking rate to strip line from the reel as the bait sinks in order to maintain a vertical decent. With a spinning reel it's not an issue since no spool is turning as line pays out.

Decent reel, especially for free. I've got a few of them. The magnetic brakes need to be nearly maxed out to avoid backlashes (8 or 9) but once you find the magic spot you can nearly cast them without using your thumb at all.

I have a Citica now and am planning on getting a Curado next. But that's just me, I'm that way. The Citica has been a wonderful reel and even casts things that previously I was only able to throw with a spinning rod. Either one will be a fantastic reel to own.

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Last night I got the rod out and ran the line through the guides and took the line in my fingers above and below each guide and one at a time I swirled the line around on the inside of the guides, reel line guide too, and had no burrs at all. So then I took the rod out into the back yard again to cast it so I could find out for sure if the grass is doing this. I made quite a few casts only this time instead of reeling the line through the grass I held it up high so it did not touch the ground other than where the bait landed and I walked to it and reeled it in. After quite few casts there were no burrs at all on the line. So I'm satisfied it was the grass that did it the first time.

In my experience, anytime I water my lawn, day or night, I get hoards of worms on the surface. They're all nightcrawlers and occasionally a redworm will appear also. I don't use these for bait at all now but I used to and it was always a thing we did to get them. We'd water the lawn, usually it was fairly late (dark outside) so we could get worms for the next day's fishing trip. After about 15 or 20 minutes you'll see them start to lay out on top of the ground, sometimes completely ouf of their holes and fully exposed, but a lot of times they'll still have a section of their tail in the hole. You use a flashlight to find them but DON'T directly focus the light on the worms or they'll shoot back down in the holes again. They're amazingly fast doing this too. When we were looking for them it was common to find two of them stuck together in the act of mating. We'd holler "SEX!!" and then grab the pair of them at the same time. Sometimes we would only get one but most times we were good enough to get them both. 5 dozen FAT nightcrawlers in 30 minutes was no problem at all. If your yard doesn't have these growing in it already, it might be a good idea to buy them and start stocking your yard. I used to get a container of nightcrawlers from Walmart sometimes when we went fishing on the spur of the moment and had no time to raise them. Whatever was left from them I would just toss out into the yard. Several years of doing this and my backyard is now a haven for them. I can run my boatmotor with the lower unit muffs on it and let the water pour out of it and on the ground around it there will be several dozen nightcrawlers just floating in the runoff in just a few minutes. One other thing you need to know is once you have them you must keep them cool. Even cold, but not frozen. The cooler they are the more lively they will be and the longer they will last while fishing. Also, one dead one in the bunch will kill all the rest so watch for that. A rotting worm does that for some reason. And MAN, I have never smelled anything that smelled so bad as a rotting nightcrawler!!!

**UPDATE** I looked at the rod and reel closely again, this time under a very bright light and using a jeweler's glass, one of those type that you look at a diamond through to check for flaws or inclusions in the stone. This glass made the levelwind guide in the reel appear as large as a dime and each guide on the rod looked about the size of a quarter........so you get some idea of the depth of magnification this thing has. I was able to see microscopic particles of dust on the line itself that were not visible to the naked eye at all. They looked like giant white bubbles on the line. Weird!! It also made looking at the reel's levelwind similar to looking down the barrel of a shotgun while cleaning one. It was very detailed. Anyway, theres is not one shread of a flaw in any of the guides on the rod or reel. No cracks, any rough surfaces or anything, just nothing but slick shiny surfaces. So until I see otherwise I'm going to think that the grass DID do this. I'll know for sure this coming week since my wife is going to be out of town for a week on a trip with her mother and I'm liable to fish every single night while she's gone. If I see anymore signs then I'll assume it's the rod or reel and go accordingly. They're both Shimano so the rod is covered by a lifetime warranty, and the reel is less than a month old so it's covered too. I'll let you know what happens......

I haven't casted it since the other day when I first noticed this. I cut off all the bad line and wanted to take it to the water for some open water casts to see if it still did this. With nothing to scrape it on if it comes back to the rod and still has abrasions on it then it must be the rod or reel. One other detail I did notice is that not only does the line have abrasions in it but some places it actually looked like it was cut into and a sliver of mono standing up from the side of the line. It was done as if it was cutting against the line while pulling on it, none of them were as if it was going away from the rod. So this would have to be done while reeling line in as opposed to the casting where the line is going out. Now this still doesn't rule out a guide or the reel, but if it is at all possible that the grass could have done this, these marks are consistent with reeling it in and a cutting of the line occurring as it passes a blade of grass. Also just to let you know, my grass is sort of rough. It's actually uncomfortable to walk through it barefooted and does scratch up around your ankles some. Never thought it would do that to line, but I could see that it might. I'm going to check the rod and reel one more time. What am I looking for by twisting the guide?? Am I trying to make the bad place in the guide insert stand up more by doing this?? Seems like that's what I'd be doing.

Definitely file a complaint through PayPal. And post the guy's name so WE ALL don't get burned by him. That's the best way to strike back. Spread it around what type of person he is and he won't be able to do stuff like this. And I don't believe for one second that he thinks he sent a "good" reel and you messed it up, but that seems to be the story he's pushing, so even on the very far out chance that he actually thinks he did right, show him that that sort of response to your email (accusing you of scamming, being and idiot, and all else he said).......show him that is the WRONG way to do business and THIS is what it costs when he does (by this I mean all the trouble you're about to cause him). That's what I'd do, I'd post his name to the whole world, and if you have the emails post them too. I think there is a proper place here in this forum to do this as well. I've seen posts like that in the past. Whatever you do, after an email like that DO NOT send him the reel back. If you do, you'll be out the money AND the reel. The last part he said about it "better be the same reel he sent you" is the same as saying when he gets it, "it won't be the same one he sent". Mark my words, that's what will be said. Lastly, I've had many good transactions through Ebay, and only two of them went through PayPal. Sadly it was one of those two PayPal experiences that I got burned on once. I was the seller and he was the buyer. I sent GOOD merchandise and he claimed it was damaged so he filed a claim and PayPal took the money he paid me and gave it back to him. For this, I will not use PayPal again. But based on my experience I'd say that you do have a chance to get your money back since you would be the person filing the claim. I haven't sworn off Ebay because of that, but I have slowed way down with anything I do on there since then.

If those are your only two choices then I'd get the one that will handle 1/4 to 5/8 lures. I'd prefer stiffer for T-rigs or spinnerbaits but the other one (to me) is completely out of the question for crankbaits so if you have to compromise then the lighter one is my pick.

I believe Ugly Stiks have aluminum oxide guides unless it's the Lite version.

Well, that's possible. But I went outside and pulled a blade of grass and brought it in and actually used it to saw on my line to see what it would do. Its rough edges were catching on the line but I could not make it duplicate the exact marks I was seeing. But then again, as I'm reeling through the grass it's actually hitting hundreds of blades as it passes by so I'm figuring it might do a bit more to it under those conditions. I'm not exactly sure. Mainly I wanted to make sure it was not the rod or the reel doing it. Visual examination of the guides shows no damage at all, and using the Q-tip on them I found none as well. And I do not plan to use this line on this reel for the most part. I only got it cause it was cheap and I needed some line to try out this new reel. Money was tight at the time so couldn't afford a nice spool of fluorocarbon AND the reel together.

I was in the back yard casting a practice plug with my new Citica and noticed that my line is frayed up in quite a few places. So I cut out a full cast length of line to get rid of this. I thought it was from where I went fishing last time cause I was around rocks quite a bit but apparently it was not. When I had all the bad line cut off I looked at the line underneath and it was clear of abrasions. I retied the plug and casted it about 10 or 15 more times and noticed afterwards that it was frayed up again just as bad as before. I know grass has sort of rough edges on the blades but I didn't think it would do that to line. I'm using Berkley Trilene XL in 12 pound test, just plain clear mono line only. I also did the Q-tip test on all my guides to see if one was rough, including the levelwind guide on the reel. As far as I can tell, all the guides are good and smooth, no roughness on any of them that I can see or feel either, no catching or pulling at all on the cotton fibers of the Q-tip. Some of them were dirty though but not enough to cause this (that I know of anyway). Any thoughts on this?? I'm thinking it's the rough edges of the grass that got it but I've never noticed this before on any other rod I've ever had and I've done quite a bit of back yard casting in the past. The line has a lot of places in it but they are not really rough or anything. It's like little slivers of material are frayed up and sticking off the sides of the line, not really deep into it, but enough that I'd worry about setting the hook very hard. The places are anywhere from a few feet apart to as little as a couple inches. Say in an 80 foot cast, I'll have 25 or 30 places of fray going on.

I have noticed on my Citica 200E that the crank paddles do move in and out a very slight amount as I crank it. It's less when I'm using a bait that has less resistance in the water, sometimes not at all then, but a deep diving crankbait can make it "pop" as it goes around depending on what angle I'm holding the reel at. Sometimes I try to move so it doesn't do this to prevent premature wear. This is only at the point where the paddles connect to the crank arm that I'm talking about, not the entire crank arm connection to the crank shaft. That part (where the cap nut connects it to the shaft) is solid as a rock. I'm figuring that the paddles moving like they do is only because they were just not manufactured to be extrememly tight. otherwise it might not turn freely enough being that it doesn't have bearings in the paddles like the Curado does. I also noticed this same thing in my BPS Extreme reels though, as well as some others that I've looked at in the past, and they do have bearings in the paddles. All the paddles move in and out on their shafts a very small amount, even in reels that have bearings in the paddles instead of only bushings. I actually combined some of the bearings recently in my Extremes to make 9 bearing models out of 2 of them, so that each paddle has 2 bearings each. Sure did make it a slick feeling reel, but the paddles still move in and out a small amount. No more and no less than my Citica without any bearings at all though. Altogether it's less than 1/16 inch of movement. If yours is more than that then there might be something wrong. Oh......and even though I just upgraded 2 of my Extremes to 9 bearing models to make them slicker feeling, I still like my new Citica with only 4 bearings a LOT better!!!

I'm in the exact same boat as you on the Clarus spinning rod since those two 6'6" rods are the ones I'm looking at. There is another one in between them as well, a 6'6" Medium power with Fast taper, but it's a 2 piece rod so I ruled it out. The Extra Fast taper is the one I'm leaning towards. I fish from a boat mostly, but occasionally from the bank too for not only largemouth bass but also whitebass and hybrids. They are in a local river here where there is plenty of current so I need a stout rod. I want a strong rod that is sensitive and stout at the same time. I probably won't throw cranks with it so I don't need it MF on the taper. I do fish some treble lures with it though such as jerkbaits and inline spinners but I like the EF taper just fine for this. I figure it helps me to work the lure. After the fish strikes it, then I'll figure out how to land it, but first I gotta get the strike and this helps me to do it I think. I'm still looking at them all though, and also considering the 7' length as well. I probably won't get mine as fast as you get yours (Curado E7 gotta come first) so I'd appreciate any input you can provide after you fish with whatever one you end up getting.

I'd say it might have something to do with copper tarnishing really bad and losing it's shine where polished brass doesn't do it as bad.

Who cares, I'm in before the lock. ;D Apparently that's a "thing" around here to lock down Senko threads. Actually I'm just getting started fishing them. I'm not much on fad lures and when this first came out and everyone was raging over them I just continued to use what always has worked for me. Only just now bought anything like it, and it's not a true Senko, it's the Strike King Shim-E-Stick. I rigged it up with a 5/0 EWG Gamakatsu hook and noticed that it sways from side to side on the drop. Sort of like a struggling baitfish sinking down. I think it will be good but I want to get it out and try it next to some stumps and other stuff to see what will happen. Seems like it ought to work great.

Well this might not mean much being that the bait is so small compared to the others mentioned here but I use the red/white combination on several different sizes of Roostertails, from 1/8 oz. up to 3/8 oz. and it's one of my favorite colors and catches many fish including bass. Also, Rapala's clown colored bait is similar. The X-raps have a red head with silver sides and chartreuse backs. The overall color looks red/chartreuse instead of red/white, but this is also one of my favorite colors to use.