BobP

I consider them OK. Not as good as some Japanese brands like Gamakatsu, which have harder tempering and keep sharper longer. But the highest quality VMC's are worth their moderate price. The older VMC short shank trebles were very soft tempered, didn't stay sharp without touch-ups, and bent out easily. Later VMC treble styles are better.

To answer the question directly, Fireline 20 lb would have the diameter of 12 lb mono. Original Fireline is a FUSED superline in which the fibers are heat fused into a single strand, not woven into a braided superline. I think Fireline also sells a true braided product. Personally, I've always liked the original Fireline. It's tough, handles and casts very well, keeps its color better than braids, and can often be found for a better price. Would I use it for jig fishing? Not without a fluorocarbon leader. The original Fireline is a medium gray color and has always worked fine for me. The Crystal Fireline I tried delaminated into its many strands, which made it useless so I never tried more than one early spool. Are there better superlines out there these days? Many braids have higher test ratings for the same diameter. And most guys prefer a green to a gray line. But that doesn't make Original Fireline a bad line. I have 20 lb Fireline on my C-rig reel and it is still trucking along after 4 yrs of hard use. It seems to hold its body better than braids, which typically get floppy pretty quick. That a big plus in handling.

Copolymers are are nylon monofilaments. They use a mix of different nylon polymer formulations to get different performance qualities. I don't think that includes fluorocarbon because any line maker who includes fluorocarbon in their monofilament would certainly trumpet the fact in their advertising.

Yeah, you can use brake cleaner. I use starting fluid because it's the most volatile fluid and so penetrates and dissolves old lubricant faster. Whatever you like, as long as its will not damage stainless steel. If your bearings contain any other material, you'll have to adjust accordingly. For example, some Quantum hybrid bearings contain plastic that could be damaged by harsh solvent.

When you set a snelled hook, it will cam upward and that helps to hook the fish. That's IF you tied it properly and inserted the line through the front of the hook (the side with the point) when you began the knot.

As you can see from the responses, it's mainly a confidence thing. Mine are green pumpkin, watermelon, junebug, and smoke, all with black flake. More than anything, I wanted to settle on just a few colors to keep from going crazy and broke buying plastics. I use green pumpkin most of the time, in most water clarity. Watermelon in super clear water. Junebug in dirty or deep water, and smoke works well for me in clear cold water for some reason. I'm not saying that there isn't a perfect shade of plastic with the perfect flake color for each lake, at specific times, under specific conditions. Maybe there is, maybe not. But if you choose something generic green, something translucent, and something dark that you have confidence in, you will have the basics covered and will catch fish 95% of the time.

S-Glass can be much faster action than E-Glass. I have an S-Glass and an E-Glass version of a Seeker blank and the S-Glass is faster action and much lighter weight than the E-Glass version. The action classification of rods is somewhat dependent on the other rods within a manufacturer's lineup, so everything is relative, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to call some S-Glass rods "fast action".

The baits I heard about boiling are Rattle Traps, to get them to run a bit shallower but mostly to get a different sound from them. I think a lipped crankbait would also become a little more buoyant and its rattles would sound different. But unless you changed the angle of the lip, it should run at about the same depth as an original - that is, if the lip didn't end up askew and ruin the bait. If it's a bait you don't like to fish, no harm, no foul. But I wouldn't experiment on anything I liked.

Heats up the air inside, expanding it, while softening the plastic shell. Results = expanded crankbait. Exactly how and where it expands depends on the thickness of the plastic walls on the crankbait. If they are of unequal thickness, you will get some weird effects and probably not the ones you want - possibly including holes in the crankbait.

According to controlled and verified underwater tests, a Mann's Plus 30 runs 21.5 ft deep on a 100 ft cast with 10 lb mono line. A Norman DD-22 Suspending will run 17.5 ft deep with the same setup. A luhr-Jensen Hot Lips Express 3/4 oz will run 22 ft deep, same setup (the deepest commercially available crankbait as of 2000). The 10XD or a custom Brian Bee B24 may in fact run near 25 ft deep (I reserve judgement until someone besides the company or their prostaffers proves it to me) but they are both huge baits and approach 2 oz in weight. There ain't no free lunch.

Thatxguy - the fish in the top pic is a rock bass. Pretty common in northern waters but they are never very large.

I watched a KVD video about pitching jigs and he says he uses a high speed reel because it gets the bait back faster for the next pitch - and in a day's fishing, that can mean a few extra fish in the boat. Most of us aren't that hard core and I think the video came out before 7 ratio reels were available. I have 6.2's and 7's and pitch with a 6.2 because it's just a bit better caster and smoother retriever. Just a little more comfortable. I'm not saying the 7's would have a hard time pulling a hawg out of a laydown since most of the latest reels have much larger gear sets anyway, but a slightly lower ratio reel will make it a bit easier and to me, a 6.2 Shimano is more of a 'do anything' tool.

Measuring spool bearings is easy. Using a millimeter ruler, measure the hole size, the whole bearing diameter, and the bearing thickness. You get something like 3x10x4 which is how bearings are sized. There may be a few bearings whose measurements are not whole millimeter numbers, but that's pretty rare. I never change anything but spool bearings to upgrade reels, unless a bearing has actually failed and will not turn. Cleaning and relubing a bearing often does wonders for performance.

I also use Superlube grease and see no reason to change. I think most marine greases are especially thick and viscous and using it in anything but a big offshore reel is overkill.

I use TJ's Yellow Rocket Fuel for oil, Superlube grease containing PTFE, and Shimano Drag Grease. There are plenty of good alternatives including the Ardent kit mentioned by LMGambler. Just remember not to over-lube anything and research what kind of lube should go where.

Regular Fireline is a fused dyneema line I have used for years. There have been several fused superlines, where the fibers are heat fused into a single filament instead of being woven into a braid. JMHO, Fireline in smaller diameters, like 14lb, works great on spinning reels and handles very well. I also use 20 lb Fireline as the mainline on my Carolina Rig reel. Why? It casts farther than any other superline I've tried, doesn't lose its body and get floppy like many braids, and is very strong. The Fireline on my C-rig reel is 4 yrs old and still going strong. I've tried other superlines, a few are as good Fireline but most become too soft to cast well after some use. Fireline also keeps its color a long time, which is a plus to me, and I can often find it at good prices. I tried the Fireline Crystal when it first came out and the fibers were prone to separate. Don't know if Berkley fixed this, but I never tried another spool. This never happens with the dark gray original Fireline. Personally, I always use Fireline with a fluorocarbon leader on any slow presentation. Got no complaints.

Details on crankbaits are hard because you need to get the same pattern on both sides of the bait. I gave up freehanding them a long time ago and switched to paint stencils. I make them from frisket material you can get at hobby shops or art companies. It's a plastic film with a peel-off backing. I don't peel off the backing; just draw the pattern I need on the paper and cut it out with an X-acto knife. Then shoot the pattern on one side, wipe the paint off the stencil, flip it over, and do the other side of the bait exactly the same. Added benefit: save the stencil and do lots of other baits with it. Build up a library of stencils. As a hobby builder, I build a variety of custom baits and need a variety of stencils for different size bodies, etc. If you have one bait that you paint over and over, you can make stencils that are vacuum-fitted to that shape and use it over and over. Check You Tube for that method.

I've used Badger, Paasche and Iwata. Of them, I prefer Iwata and my favorite is the Revolution B, which comes with a .3mm tip that is perfect for various crankbait painting chores. As a plus, it is among the cheapest Iwata models at less than $100 but it has full Iwata quality. Of course, that's not a "kit price". You also have to buy a hose, fittings, and an air source. IMO, you want an air source that will supply at least 40 psi continuous air. Tool compressors with a storage tank and a pressure regulator are popular among crankbait painters. All that said, you are talking about around $200 for a "kit" that will do everything you want in crankbait painting. I started out with a $25 Badger single action airbrush, cans of compressed air, and $2 hobby acrylic paints from a hobby shop. It got the job done with a lot of futzing with the airbrush and the paint and I soon started moving up the 'airbrush power curve' to better equipment. So you can pick where you want to start on the equipment if price is an issue. But using better equipment makes things much easier!

To me, CXX has lots of memory and I don't really like its 'greasy' surface, which doesn't cast as far for me. But it's very strong. I've used and like McCoy's Mean Green because it has very little memory and handles well - but it does have more stretch. I'd much rather use McCoy's in cold weather. I've never broken either line. That said, I like Izorline XXX and Premium better than either. I bought a spool of YZH recently and am trying it out. So far, I like it OK but it's too soon to comment.

I think Skeletor has it just right and gave dowen an extensive run-down with many options and good explanations of what to consider and why. If others choose to use a non-dropshot specific rod, that's fine but that wasn't the question asked. An XF tip on a dropshot rod indicates its response time, not its power. I use a Shimano Crucial 6'8" dropshot rod that is rated medium power - but it has an 18" tip section that is fast with light power. Some call this a "hinged" action. It throws 1/8 oz weights well, is sensitive to soft bites due to the soft tip, and the medium power down the blank can handle 5+ lb bass. A few of the western pro anglers who pioneered dropshotting in the U.S. recommended the Shimano dropshot rods a few years ago because of their "hinged" construction and I have never regretted paying $150 for a Crucial. Yes, I can and have, on occasion, thrown dropshots with a ML rod. But frankly they seem pretty crude after using a technique-specific rod. JMHO

Watermelon black flake in clear water, green pumpkin black flake everywhere else. That means green pumpkin more often than not. I've tried various flakes versus black and many different basic colors and saw no difference in catch rates. The only thing I got was more confused and much poorer. So I just try to KEEP IT SIMPLE. You can drive yourself crazy with 20 different colors for every plastic bait you might use.

The dyes are solvent based but it's designed for casual use by fishermen so I seriously doubt you have anything to worry about if you use the product as intended.

An all chartreuse spinnerbait is very popular for smallmouth fishing. My first choice in color is a shad color SB with white blades. It works great in the clear water largemouth lake I often fish. The accepted strategy is to use flashy metallic blades when the sun shines and painted blades on cloudy days, to improve the visibility of your SB.

If the handle is straight, yeah, you can slip the slip rings over the butt. Most guys tape down the slip rings after they put on a reel, so how they get on the handle is not very critical - but most of the handles I see have a butt that is larger than the slip rings, so the rings are put on before the butt section of the handle is glued up. That way, the rings won't mysteriously disappear by slipping off the rod handle.

Yeah, sewing machine oil will work. So will any machine oil. But I'd rather use an oil specifically designed for reel bearings. Abu Garcia reel oil will work but JMHO, it is way too heavy to work well in reel bearings. The Shimano oil has a very low viscosity. There are lots of bearing oils available nowadays. I use Yellow Rocket Fuel mostly but wouldn't hesitate to use Ardent Bearing Oil, Friction Zero, etc. The only one I don't like is the Quantum Hot Sauce. Not because of its lubrication qualities, which are excellent, but because I hate the red dye in it. The viscosity of the oil you pick to use in your reel bearings is a balancing act: performance versus how often you will need to re-lube your bearings. Very light oils perform best but need to be replenished more often.