J Francho

As I've gotten older, my arbor knots have actually gotten worse. To the point that just tie a Uni, and leave a short tag. Done.

Drag washers and spring washers are two different items. You could even install a spacer, and do without the cupped washers, and you would just have a little less adjustment range, but the drag would work. Honestly, I don't think it's much of a problem. They are very hard steel. I leave mine set year round. I only loosen when taking apart for cleaning. I test the drag before using a reel that has sat, and make the adjustment, or exercise it if I think it needs it. When I had a reel cleaning business, I think I only saw a spring washer fail once, and it was a cheap reel. The parts that most often failed were the drag slip washers. They are always replaced with Carbontex, when possible.

I generally fish in weeds or wood. Fouling and hang ups are rare, if you leave the hook free swinging.

There are a few guides up here that specialize in these fish. They are VERY hard to beat in open team tournaments when they double up in a boat. City Dump. Just north of the bridge on the east side. You know the spot. The weed line has not been as well defined as in past years, though. I still go back and try anyways. Yes, and I've never needed to fizz them, unless they were going into a livewell. It's not my favorite way to fish a tournament, but on places like Erie, it's necessary. They swim away fine when immediately released.

Hilarious!

Most spinning reels DO NOT have cupped spring washers. OP: Just curious, did you recently put line on this reel?

My PB NY largemouth came from a drop off from a weedline that ended at 15', dropping off to around 35'. For what ever reason, instead of reeling the 12" T-rig worm after getting out of the weedline, I let it tumble deeper. I'm not sure how deep, but more than 20' for sure. I felt something mushy, so I set the hook, and reeled in what felt like a waterlogged boot. Turned out to be a 7-2 LMB.

These fish were crashing the blades. If that is what is triggering the bite, then it's hit or miss without a trailer hook.

Food for thought....all on the trailer hook only. I did change colors that day, but the blue/white produced around 25 fish from shore. A very memorable pre-spawn day.

That is definitely a Pinnacle, and definitely not a Daiwa. Solid reel, though.

http://rollsbattery.com/ They make marine batteries.

In these two specific lakes, yes. The weeds extend up to 10-15' from the surface. In one of the lakes, it just keeps dropping to around 90'. If you can get a bait down there in the weeds around 15-20', you'll eventually get bit. It's a deep jungle down there. There's shallow fish, too. They are usually around wood.

The only trailer on my spinnerbaits is a trailer hook.

Deep fried taters mmmhmmm

As men, we all have select hearing, lol.

We have plenty of glacial lakes where you're 20' from shore, and you might be in 30' water. There's fallen timber, too. You'd probably like it, the water is crystal clear as well.

I leave them at 10, as a fail safe. If I need some distance, or it's calm, I'll back off the brakes. I'd rather not mess with spool tension whenever I change baits. I have a pretty well educated thumb, though. Been using baitcasters for 30+ years.

I typically run all my Daiwa reels with 10 on the brakes, and no spool tension. The only time I change that is when I'm skipping. Then it's 0 on the brakes, and plenty of spool tension. This has worked for any of their reels with Mag Force brakes.

I pre-rig a couple and put them in a standard Plano box, but the rest stay in the clam shells. Rigging tip for open hook durability:

Spring, St. Clair or Erie.

I'll take you up on that offer!

Down scan can see under downed trees.

I don't think you can make any generalizations without getting specific to either models, or braking systems. Some simply work better than others.

https://postimages.org/ Use the direct link.

Not always. You don't oil your trailer bearings