BigBassGuy

Definetly run the line through a wet rag!! It removes the chalk and dirt that has accumulated on the line from manufacturing and storage. Some brands are worse than others. Stren and Berkley are terrible while Suffix and P-line are better but they still have chalk on them. All that dirt and grit can't be good for the life and strength of the line.

It all depends on the type of fishing I'm doing and how I hold the rod. If I'm doing alot of precision casting and skipping I will hold the rod with the reel between either my index and middle finger or my middle and ring finger. If I'm working a rock pile or something where precision casting isn't needed I have a couple rods I built that has only one 1/2" cork ring and is there just to taper the front of the reel seat to the blank and I will hold that so my pinky finger is about an inch from the reel and the majority of my hand is gripping the blank. I do this because it increases the sensitivity dramatically by holding more of the blank with my hand and it balances the rod without having to add any weight to the butt.

Awesome!! Congrats man!! The orange striping is SUH_WEEET! One thing, if it doesn't already come with it ask them to add a transom saver with the deal. I didn't see one in the last pic.

The reel seats are Batson, the guides look to be Batson or Fuji and I can almost guaranty the blank is probably Batson....definetly not rods worth $400. Don't get me wrong, he probably makes a decent product, but If I'm going to drop that kind of money on a custom rod I want it to, look like a $400 rod, be innovative, have high quality components, and not look like it was pulled off an assembly line. If you want to spend that kind of money on a rod check out the highend St. Croix's, Loomis, Setyr, Fenwick, etc....and atleast they have a lifetime warranty, not just 5 years.

I will admit, I don't use 1/4oz very often, but I have never noticed any problems with the space. Here is how I rig it, a 3 1/2" tube, 1/0 Mustad Ultra Bite hook, from left to right 1/8oz, 3/16oz, 1/4oz. Inside the rigged tube is a 1/4oz. One reason I really like rigging it this way is the weight is a little bit more centralized on the bait, allowing it to fall at a more natural position and spiral down. The Lindy sinkers move the weight forward making it nose heavy and it doesn't fall very naturally.

Bell sinkers, you are kidding? :-/ Nope!!! Watch the Classic Patterns: Tactics for Tough Conditions with Ike, its no joke.

That looks like a pretty small vehicle to be towing a boat that size. I'm guessing the brakes went out.

Can you pull a section of the floor up to see where the obstruction is?

Its a 3M adhesive. Anti-Bond 2015 made by JWB Environmental. Just be sure it won't harm the paint.

Mike Iaconelli got me started using bell sinkers. A heck of alot cheaper, and they come in a wider variety of sizes than the actual tube weights. Insert them and use the same way you would the Lindy weights.

Another reason those stores fail is the markdown from MSRP is so small that one could never justify buying used if brand new is only slightly higher and comes with a warranty. Most used fishing gear is like said given away, sold to friends, sold on forums like this one, or put on Ebay/craigslist. The internet works great for most people because the price is usually low enough to justify the risk of buying something used, possibly without warranty, since there is no store to recoup operations costs.

First make sure all the wires on the wiring harness are connected properly, the one for the safety switch may have jiggled lose or been cut somehow. Also make sure the battery is good and fully charged. I've see that exact motor in the past on a boat with a bad battery crank over just fine with no sign of low pawer, it just wouldn't start. Jumped it with the trolling motor battery and cranked over immedietly. Apparently the flywheel wasn't turning quite fast enough to generate sufficent spark.

I've got 2 Fenwick Techna AV 7'6" telescoping rods that I use about 75% of the time I'm out fishing. Bought them 4-5 years ago and I absolutly love 'em. Never had any problem with them wearing where the ferrull rubs the blank but I do like flechero's suggestion of making a wear pad and will do that next time I mix up some epoxy. Thanks for the idea!!

The best ones I have found are the H2O Overgrips made by Wilson. The have a suede feel to them and absorb the water from your hands making them feel warmer. Excellent on those cool mornings. I use them on about half my rods so far. They aren't plastic or hard feeling like alot of the other ones are.

I just have a cheap ~$100 cover and only use the seats, steering wheel and motor as supports, use bungee cords and make sure the cover is TIGHT. Never had any problems with rain. In the winter you will have to sweep the snow off, there's no way around it, it gets heavy.

Those buzzbaits have been around for a while and if I remember right, when they first came out they claimed it was supposed to mimmic a small fish chasing something on the surface. Never used one myself.

One of the reasons I buy Jackall and Lucky Strike is because they come with a premium hook that's sharp straight out of the box. I don't want to spend $15 on a lure and then turn around and add another $3 to it just to get sharp hooks on it. It all comes down to you get what you pay for and if a company can't even put a 'decent' hook on a $20 lure it shows that they don't care. I really wish lure companies would make it an option on whether or not to buy lures with hooks on them. Its kind of dissapointing to just throw a brand new hook away, even if it is garbage anyway.

So you don't throw anything lighter than 7/16 oz. (weight of 5" Senko and a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook) on casting tackle? I guess my idea of finesse is a little different that yours. I pitch 1/4oz jig-n-pigs A TON but I don't really consider that to be a finesse tactic. I don't believe weight of the lure has anything to do with if it is a finesse lure or not, its the speed at which you work it that considers it 'finesse'. Slow presentations don't work well for me when using a baitcaster.

X2 to Sunline Sniper!! Great stuff!

About as finesse as I go with a baitcaster is a weightless senko (texas and wacky) Anything lighter than that I don't feel like I have the accuracy and sense as I do with a spinning reel.

Ouch!!! Glad to hear your OK!!! Could have turned out alot worse! Water and molten metals don't mix very well, I worked at an aluminum die cast shop for a couple years and during our safety training they showed a video of what throwing a 1/8 full 20oz bottle of water into a melting pot can do. Water expands about 2000x when turning into steam and when it hits the molten metal it expands REAL fast, pretty much turning itself into a molten metal bomb that has the ability of leveling a building. A full face mask is a really good idea when working with molten lead.

I wouldn't try to remove it totally, just rotate it back to its correct position. You probably won't be able to remove it anyway since the blank is tapered unless you remove all of the guides. Be very careful with the heat gun, blanks don't really like heat and could melt or distort if you aren't careful.

If it's not Perry then who is it? Unless you know who it is how can you say who it isn't? Read this story and then tell me if you think its Perry or not. http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/news/story?page=b_fea_Perrys_bass_060706

That is Dan Akroyd AKA Fred Garvin Male Prostitute from SNL http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=23497314

Cool idea. Done!