J Francho

I've bent them so many times I think they're junk. I even had one break off on a Pinnacle cranking stick. I really liked how that rod behaved, and I agree with many of the advantages cited above. Unfortunately, they're too fragile. It's not like I'm rough on gear either, they just don't work for me. The smaller guides on the Okuma TCS series are perfect. They just a little north of micro and are stronger and pass knots just fine.

One of the nastiest and aggressive things I saw was a rabid woodchuck. Man that thing was psycho.

That's a skill I'd love to have.

Looking good! My dad had a '71 Malibu. Fun car.

Pretty much the same here.

I don't think that's always true. I fish Lake Ontario frequently. My spots are mostly 10 minutes away from the launch in a power boat. Think about this too: my last boat burned over 30 gph at WOT. It had a 25 g tank. Do the math - I did not make long runs. I made fast runs

I'd rather feel the bite than the weeds, lol. The part that is often missed is fishing braid with light or unweighted baits. The NUMBER ONE piece of advice I hear given to anglers new to braid is to pack the line tight on the spool to prevent digging and wind knots. The same people recommend that they use braid for finesse. Seems a little weird.

I know plenty of guys that bought high end gizmos, but have no clue how to operate them. I loved taking their donations at club contests while relying on my monochrome 2D unit, lol.

There was silver (what I had), orange, blue, and red versions depending on where you bought them. Retail was around $120, but like you said they could be found heavily discounted. This was another era where the Japanese Yen was weak against the dollar and great reels were selling cheap.

Tell that to my wife, it's her grandmother's cast iron. Her rules.

Hours on a boat are measured in hours running the O/B. It's stored in the diagnostics and sometimes displayed in the instrumentation.

I mean I think I run the big motor maybe 20 minutes per outing.

Those stats have far more pleasure boaters' hours skewing the numbers. I'd say at my height of using my boats it was probably like 30 hours a year.

No flame here. Have someone cast braid and leader into a pool with just a drop shot sinker. Have them reel in the slack, but close their eyes. Someone in the pool grab that sinker and move it toward the person, creating slack. They wont feel a darn thing. Imagine grabbing that sinker on the fall. What about an unweighted senko? Now watch those Glen Lau videos and note how so many of those bass grab the bait. Braid and leader offers many advantages in some situations. Greater sensitivity is NOT one of them. Straight fluoro with a decent rod and you will feel the tick.

I had a few Daiwa Capricorn 100H reels that were amazing casters. They are a little heavy and large by today's standards, but in the day they were excellent value.

I'm a straight fluoro person. 6# Tasu or Invisx on a 2500 size reel works fine. The longest I went is four years and the line was fine, just getting low on the spool. Less expensive to spool up, and the extra capacity is totally unnecessary.

I'm mostly stainless, but we have an antique cast iron pan that only gets cleaned with pickling salt and boiling water.

Your braid is probably spinning on the spool and nothing is wrong with your drag. The solution is to use tape or some mono as a backer.

Nah, I'm better looking:

I just had a new liner installed for half that - $500 for the liner and $500 for the install. It's definitely an art to getting it perfect. The only "trick" I saw was using a shop vac to draw the liner into the walls. That and don't cut the skimmer and return holes until it at least half full.

I think the drums were more durable and less prone to warping like disks. My son's 2007 had disk too.

It's a 2010 Sierra 1500 Z71 6.2. Quickly disintegrating undo rust.

My GMC has drums in the rear. They come with towing package. I have the local shop do them. The OE brakes lasted for 11 years so I'm thinking the truck will be long gone before needing them again.

Oh, was swinging a sledge hammer at it. The propane torch just expedites the process a bit.