Fishbone

I used to work at Deka. Their batteries are top notch high quality.

How are you fellows getting a water pressure reading?

I have 4 of them and my brother has one. We think they are outstanding. The best feature is the minimal internal drag or load which allows very light baits on the end of the rod to put line out. You can feel every little tick of the bait when cranking (not masked by reel resistance). Something is wrong with Rooster's experience that the company would probably correct.

Deep cycle batteries have a finite number of recharge cycles in them (depends on how well they have been cared for). If not discharging deeply, you are wasting life. If you were given a credit card good for 50 fill-ups for your car (not gallons, fill ups) you would be foolish to fill up at 3/4 or 1/2 a tank. The gassing on a battery being charged starts at 80% charged (no current flow) and continues till done. Equalizing has nothing to due will the amount of current flow. Equalizing is accomplished with time. All the cells reach full charge at different times. Longer charge time allows the more discharged cells to catch up to full; thus all cells now equal.

You have 6 two volt cells in each battery. A 12 volt charger will charge one of them. Connected in series you have 12 two volt cells that can be charged with a 24 volt charger. The catch is that both batteries need to be in the same state of discharge.

When a switch opens while a current load is being drawn, a spark will jump the small air gap. Better hardware (containing a capacitor...more cost) eliminates the spark jump, prolonging the life of the contacts. A capacitor can be added externally to accomplish this. A side note to this is where in home wall drafts draw dust into electrical outlets. Unplugging items while turned on (drawing power) causes a spark jump in the socket. This, in turn, can ignite the dust and the day goes down hill from there. This is especially dangerous in woodworking shops that have large amounts of dust and electric plug-in motors which are even bigger spark makers (back EMF). More than you were interested in, right?

PM sent.

Rolo, you are teaching me a lot. Why would you load only a portion of the DVD on the Garmin rather than everything. Would it be memory capacity?

I picked up an E5 2 weeks ago. Got out on the water once with less than perfect rod. Have since bought a better rod and it's sweet in the back yard. I have a burning need to get out on some water.

Well done Sportmn. Thanks

This probably doesn't count, but I caught a 28 pound, 44 inch Striped Bass in the Jersey surf on a large chunk of Bunker on a number 10/0 circle hook. It was like my first buck.

A friend has a lawn mower shop and told me not to run an engine dry for storage. Use fuel stabilizer and run it up into the carbs. He said varnish is more likely to form in a dry environment. I'm not sure why fogging oil would be run through a carb while running. I would think plug pulling and fog spraying the cyc would be enough.

I went out on the Susky in Pa with a guide who had me fishing YUM super fluke on a weighted hook. It produced over 60 sm's

My new boat has an entry level Garmin sonar which I want to move to the bow and buy a better color unit for the cockpit. The GPS is very tempting for many reasons, but I'm reading many disappointing reports. Lowrance has logged a lot of failures with poor customer support. Humming Bird has confusing add on extra cost software to be operational. Garmin doesn't seem to have much to offer. My bait monkey is concerned. Any suggestions?

Cabelas took the rod back. They are the best. I happened to be near a BPS and checked their rods. I had a reel with me and test cast in the pond outside the front door. I had 2 rods in hand, but liked the first one so much, I didn't try the second one. The rod was a BPS Crankin' Stick, 6', lure wt 1/16 - 1/2 oz, line 6 - 14 #, med lite fast action with pistol grip. With the Curado reel it is a sweet rig. Now, where the hell is summer???? LOL Oh yeah, Cabelas still did good....my wife bought a $200 coat while I returned the rod. The bait monkey moves in strange ways.

You must have it mounted on an 'ice breaker'. LOL

I almost (almost) wet my pants on that one. LMFAO. The bait monkey is well know around my house and, in fact, hit hard this week.

It's a Bantam Magnumlite 2000GT. It works fine and feels as good as the Curado. The Curado, of course, is more free, but really doesn't out perform it by that much. The Bantam was $80 back in the 1980's, and so may be in the same class. Anyway, a clean, and more importantly, a lube job would be good for it.

This reel is a bantam model and casts very well. I was out yesterday for the first time with my new Curado E5. The Curado will cast lighter lures but backlashes easier than the old one. Probably because it's not set up right yet and I need to get used to it. The old reel is like favorite slippers and can hold it's own with the new one, which is a big bonus. I now have 2 good reels. I may try Reel Mech for a clean and lube since he is a site sponsor. Thanks for your comments.

Took my new rig out today. The casting is sweet. The rod has about 10" of handle past the reel. My other rods have a pistol grip. The problem is after casting, and handing the rod off to the left hand, I have to reach out in front of me for that 10" of handle to clear my body. Then when cranking, the rod has to be either left or right of my body. Very awkward and uncomfortable. I may wind up cutting the handle down to a pistol grip length. How do you guys deal with that useless handle sticking out in the way?

I have a 20+ year old Shimano bait caster that hasn't been used much till this year. Even though it seems to function okay, I would like to have it cleaned and lubed over the winter. Should I use the factory service or a private reel service guy. Where are the private service individuals found?

Call Vito. 8-)

Today's bait casters are a dream (even cheap ones) compared to what I fished with as a kid. This was before spinning reels were invented, or in this country. Casting something as light a 1/2 oz took skill with the nasty non-bearing mechanism and cord like fishing line. Half the time when bait fishing it was easier to pile the line on the bank and hand throw it out into the water. Backlashes were monumental. ;D

Nice fish, dude. Looks like the shore near the skiing area Robby.

My boat has an over flow tube coming up out of the bottom. It unscrews for draining. To control the level, to tube is cut down. A one minute on, two minutes off timer controls the flow. Works very nice.