BobP

Interesting stuff! It's hard to test crankbaits because it's impossible to get all the variables controlled so you can single out one factor and judge its effect in a scientifically valid way. I believe color and realism play a role but their importance depends on other factors like visibility, bass species, what the fish are eating, etc. The best we can do is listen to good crankbait fishermen and generalize a few ideas about what may work - but you need to take it with a grain of salt because they aren't scientists either and all too often, they are also in the business of selling baits. After long experience, you get to the point where you can feel the action of a crank as you fish it and have a pretty good idea whether or not it will catch fish, regardless of any other attribute - so I tend to agree with Marty about that. Building and test fishing lots of crankbaits helps develop that "feel". But all said and done, I want a crankbait that has ALL possible favorable attributes working for it on a particular body of water, under specific conditions. So I dude them up to a reasonable degree because I believe it can sometimes mean an extra fish in the boat. And we all want that extra fish when we can get it!

I agree the CXX is tough but think there are tough lines with a harder, slicker finish that cast better, like Izor Line Premium. All of these "tough" lines will develop more spool memory than average but are good for warm weather fishing. JMHO, if you want better sensitivity you need to look at fluorocarbon lines in the same diameter. The extra cost is reasonable and they last longer on the reel than any copolymer line. I like BassPro XPS fluoro but there are other choices.

Yep, let it go. Strip the guides, buy a new blank and handle parts, and roll another rod.

NAPA auto parts usually has Superlube grease in cans for less than $10, and a can will last forever. Superlube also comes in little squeeze tubes if you can't find the can size. Don't use regular grease on your drag system - run it dry if you have the slick PTFE drag disks (Abu reels use them) or use Shimano ACE2, Penn Muscle Grease, or Cal's drag grease if yours are fiber washers. They are thick, sticky greases designed for drag systems. Personally, I think the Abu Garcia reel oil is too thick for bearings and I prefer Yellow Rocket Fuel or Reel Butter bearing oil. If you don't mind the red dye getting all over everything (I do!), the Quantum Hot Sauce also has good bearing lube characteristics. You can usually find a decent oil at a Dick's Sporting Goods store or equivalent. I use aerosol starting fluid (ether) to clean bearings because it's the most volatile solvent and will do the job fastest. NAPA carries that too.

I just wrap the tag end around the line loop 4-5 times on a baitcast reel and cinch it down. If a fish gets me down to the last wrap of line, he deserves to win.

6" watermelon U tail worm - 10 lbs+ in a Florida golf course irrigation lake.

No doubt the bibs are somewhat better protection .... until you have to unfasten the suspenders and pull them down to answer the call of nature :-/

Marty, are we in a hurry? Yeah, I know .... baits to make, orders to fill. I do them like Whittler does. I make baits as a hobby and do different designs, so stocking up on a bunch of lips just doesn't make sense in that scenario. I just keep some sheets of Lexan and circuitboard on hand and roll my own. It takes me about 30 mins to whip up a batch of 5-6 lips. I also make my own screw eyes. Never run out of lips, never run out of the right screw eyes.

Even the factory red hooks color tends not to stick on very well, so I doubt you'll find anything that works worth a darn. You also don't want to put anything on them that will dull the points.

I use the jack from my Chevy truck. However, don't forget to check the wheel nuts on the trailer! I ran around for a year before I found out that my lug wrench didn't fit my trailer nuts. Duh!

I built most of my rods most of them are spiral wrapped. I've used several spiral schemes incl O'Quinn and Forhan but my favorite is using just one bumper guide to get the line from the #1 UP guide to the #3 DOWN guide. Casts just a well, simpler to lay out and wrap, less opportunity for guide damage.

If you are the kind of guy who keeps line on his reels for extended periods, I suggest spooling up with some fluorocarbon in 8 lb test. I like P-Line or BassPro XPS pure fluorocarbon but there are other good brands. The fluoro won't degrade from UV exposure, will not weaken during use due to water absorption, is less visible to fish, and more abrasion resistant than regular mono. You can keep it on the reel until it becomes too short to use or until it develops so much spool memory that you can't stand it anymore, whichever comes first. Leave some of the old cheap mono on the spool as backing so you won't be wasting expensive fluoro that will never see the light of day. If you are filling a spinning reel, put a little less fluoro on than you would with mono. I like to leave about a 1/4" lip unfilled on the spool. That helps control the fluoro, which is a little "springier" than mono.

No such thing as fresh versus salt water line, but I'm with Jig Man - change out that line that's been sitting on your reel for 2 years. It may be UV and/or heat damaged and it certainly has a bad case of spool memory by now!

Yeah, I see no reason to fill a spool with expensive fluoro when half the spool will never see the light of day. The only line I don't use some backing for is 15-20 lb mono.

G10/FR4 circuit board comes in various colors but not clear. Makers usually use polycarbonate (aka Lexan) sheet for clear lips. G10 is a fiberglass cloth thermoset with epoxy. Here is a supplier who may sell small sheets of white (slightly greenish white) that is popular among bait makers. I haven't ordered from them yet but they list small sheets and sell retail. The price seems fair: http://www.eplastics.com/Plastic/G10_FR4_Glass_Epoxy_Sheet BTW, the .032" is 1/32" and is the right thickness for bass baits, IMO

I think your friend is right. A shorter rod of the same material, same guides, same line, same reel, same fisherman has a little less blank material to attenuate the sensation of a bite. But in the mix of things, the slight difference is not very significant. Longer rods cast farther, move more line quickly when setting the hook, and give more control while fighting the fish. Short rods cast more accurately at short distances. Both have their place. It's natural for guys to rationalize why the equipment they use is the best. And maybe it is for them if it increases their confidence! But that's usually just self-justification, not fact. Make up your own mind.

If your line breaks in the middle of the cast, it's because you have a line knot in the middle of the spool or (most likely) you are causing a backlash in the middle of the cast. With the spool turning at 20,000 rpm, it only takes an instant for a loop to develop, knot, and break the line.

Fluoro vs mono (same diameter) will get you about a foot deeper on a deep diving crankbait, to answer the specific question. I don't like braid because of handling characteristics and because I don't like casting with a knot in the line to include a fluoro leader. To each his own. As far as ripping out trebles, that depends on the line plus the rod action and I don't think you can consider one without the other.

Five minute epoxy will hold it forever. If you break the tip top, you can heat it with a flame to soften the epoxy and pull it off the blank without damaging it. The hot melt glue works but as you have found out, it isn't always as permanent as you want.

Reel companies suggest filling the reel to about 1/16" below the top of the spool. The less line on the reel, the slower line goes out during a cast, the more braking effect there is, and the less likely it is to backlash, all other things held equal. So if you overfill the reel, you aren't doing yourself any favors. You aren't saving line (which is one misguided reason guys do this). One aid to avoid backlashes is to make a long cast, strip off a few more feet of line, then tape over the spool so that a backlash cannot progress beyond that amount of line, no matter how poor your casting technique. I most often see neophytes backlashing because they whip the rod tip at high speed without enough control. That may work with a spinning reel - never with a baitcaster. You want more distance but what you're doing is overpowering the cast, over-speeding the spool, and inviting a rat's nest. Ease up, develop a controlled casting motion, and you'll be able to get more distance when you learn the rig's limitations (rod + reel + line + lure) and can loosen the cast control and brake system.

I think fishing unweighted plastics causes lots of gut hooked bass. It's not easy to detect a bite until the fish swims off. The same thing happens deadsticking Super Flukes and Senkos. I eventually decided to crimp down the barbs on my EWG hooks and that solved the problem. I lose virtually no fish. I'm not sitting in the bottom of the boat performing surgery and worrying if the bass will survive the process. And I'm back to catching fish a lot faster.

A Superfluke is a pretty meaty bait and you'll boat more fish using a wide gap EWG hook because it will still hook the fish if the bait gets balled up on the hook at the hook set. I like to coat Superflukes with an oil based fish attractant like Kickn' Bass. It will let the fluke jump right up the line on the hook set, avoiding the "balled up" problem, and BTW, it also makes the flukes last longer.

A few yrs ago, I got "Precision Casting" by Mark Romanack. It's a book listing the measured dive depths of various crankbaits. The author got a bunch of fishermen to do a number of casts and measured their distances. The casters were asked to label their casts as short/medium/long. The averaged results were "remarkably uniform". A medium cast was 70 ft and a long cast was 100 ft. Can KVD make a 210' cast on average? Color me skeptical. Who measured them? I'm betting nobody.

Abu makes a C4 in 4600 and 5600 sizes. I have an older C4 4600 that works great for Carolina Rigging due to the fast gear ratio. IMO, their spools are too heavy to make a good pitching reel unless you only pitch heavy jigs and plastics. It's not that you CAN'T use them for anything, just that there are better choices. I'd stick to throwing lures of at least 3/8 oz with one.

There are brakes - if not magnetic, they are centrifugal, under the left side plate. There are usually 6 small plastic brake blocks which are snapped outward to turn them ON and inward to turn them OFF. The centrifugal force of the spinning spool forces them against a brake drum to slow the spool and prevent overruns at the end of the cast. A typical scenario is to run the reel with every other block ON, for a total of 3 ON, 3 OFF. Check your owner's manual. JMHO, forget all the blah about how you SHOULD have your cast control and brakes set. Set it up in different configurations until you find the combo of brakes and cast control that works for YOU. As you gain experience on the reel, you can modify the settings as your thumb becomes more "educated",