shimmy

That is one awesome and mentally tough woman right there!

Catching a bass over 7 pounds in MN sounds like you have figured out a really good lake!

Hey all, one of my cheaper spinning reels seems to have the drag loosen periodically. One click down makes the drag too easy to out. I want to make the drag adjustment tighter at the lower setting. I know buying a decent reel would solve this problem, but seeing if this is solvable. I think the drag is loosening one click down during the cast. It is very easy to move the drag tighter and looser at the lower setting. On a heavier setting, I don't have this problem. Not on every cast, but enough that it effects the fishing when I get one. Any thoughts?

Awesome man! Nice measurements too. Very legit! We don't want any fake measurements out there; very dangerous.

Not sure about you, but I enjoy my guilty pleasure of reading about high end fishing gear. He has provided a lot of valuable information about higher end gear and would prefer it if he kept sharing!!!

Question, this may be a stupid question, but here it goes. If you buy a JDM version and want parts or don't know what parts you need replaced and need it serviced, do you have to send it to Japan or will the US-based shimano companies service them?

after a year's worth of use, it got pretty loud. After I cleaned it, it quieted down in both reels, but still has the geary noise inside that will most likely not hurt the performance whatsoever, but is still less buttery smooth than when I have it serviced. Since i have the exact same issue in both reels, it makes me feel like it is the gears which are just slightly louder than they should. I guess my next experiment is trying a different grease with the gears.

I have tried that as well. One interesting note which may help isolate the noise in both reels, when I completely loosen the drag till it can't loosen anymore, it still has barely enough pressure to turn the spool and is butter smooth. It feels perfect. But then when I tighten the drag to a realistic setting, the noise increases, which makes me believe it is the gears. While some are saying this is a lower end reel, every time I sent it in to be serviced, it returned butter smooth. So it is user error and not the reel. With this, maybe other people's suggestions that it is the Ardent reel grease that is not good enough to give that butter smooth feeling in the gears?

I hope so! Yeh, i have tried to pinpoint the noise, but cannot. Driving me nuts. I started off by having all the bearings unrelated to the spool being oiled only. Then one by one, I added grease to each bearing, reassembled, and tried again. The quietest I got it was when I greased all the bearings outside of the spool and greased the crankshaft and drive gear pretty decently. Nevertheless, it is not butter smooth yet...I wonder if the grease from Ardent is less optimal or if I am doing this wrong.

Question and not sure if the answer is quick. I want to get better with reel maintenance. This is my first year trying to do maintenance on my reels. I have started with my Lews Tournament Pros. I have recleaned the bearings multiple times. Soaked in lighter fluid, on another round soaked in WD-40, then resoaked in lighter fluid. The bearings spun just fine after all the cleaning. My problem is, I have greased the gears pretty well, pinion gear greased decently, worm gear taken care of (on one reel I did oil, the other reel grease just to feel the difference), and have oiled side plate wherever there could be any type of friction. My problem is, even though I know the reel is oiled and greased well, why does it still make a bit of a noise while i reel? The spool and all the spool bearings are oiled (not greased), and it spins just fine. But, when reeling, there is still the subtle grinding noise. The noise is not bad, reel works perfectly fine, but it is not butter smooth like it is after i send it in for repair. For grease and oil, i use Arden reel butter and grease. I have also oiled, very very lightly the roller clutch bearing on one reel and slightly greased the other roller clutch bearing just to see if one would be more buttery smooth, but both reels still have that slight noise. I have taken the reels apart 100 times, but cannot with all my fine tuning get the reel to be butter smooth where there is no noise reeling. Again, spools are fine. Any advice? At this point I don't know what I don't know so I would love any feedback. I don't want to send the reels in and want to get more independent with this. Any tips would be great, thanks! Shimmy

Fished it several times. I would suggest getting the topo map and finding a few spots worth poking around. The whole lake is covered in docks. There is a lot of grass and can sometimes become over vegetated. I can't speak much to walleye, panfish, or musky, only for bass. The lake gets a lot or pressure. There is one island that is a pretty big submerged island off the point of musky bay at the north end of the lake. It can get pretty shallow, but may be hard to find without electronics. It can be pretty decent. I feel like the whole lake has fish. I generally have more luck on the north end of the lake and the southwest docks (which are deeper than most docks on the lake). Any kind of creature bait will do you well. A lot of pressure so the jig still works, but is less productive than a creature bait texas rigged in my opinion. Throwing a chatterbait around has done me well for numbers (white/chartreuse). If I had three baits, it would be in this order: #1 - Creature bait texas rigged; #2 - chatterbait covering water and bouncing off of weeds); #3 - topwater frog (either weedless or hollow body frog). Please report on your success.

So, it sounds like for the 893, the shimano bantam is the best balance. If I go 853, I could go Aldebaran. Anyone have the 853 paired with a bantam or does that not take advantage of the potential to be an extremely light setup with the Aldebaran...

I appreciate the feedback everyone. Do you think that the reel would be better balanced for a 853? Sounds like people are liking the heavier reels. Second of all, what is the new metanium coming out?

K, so I have reviewed several threads on this topic, but am looking for some additional feedback. I will be upgrading my jig rod and reel combo soon (jig rod to an NRX 893c JWR) and will be pairing either the Shimano Metanium mgl 151 XG 8.5:1 or Aldebaran 51 MGL 7.4:1. Both will require different line and a different approach. I am a bit of a fish out of water jig fishing with a reel with a smaller spool. I love all of the reviews for both reels and they are both enticing. Nevertheless, I fear that getting the Aldebaran will affect my style of fishing. I jig fish with long casts and fish northern pike infested waters with some vegetation and stumps. I wonder if I used a 15# tatsu or 16#/18# sunline super fc sniper line, it may unspool. However with it unspooled, how bad is the gear ratio and is it that big of a deal if the spool is not that narrow? Have no idea...Need help! The other approach is to fish braided line or braid with a fluoro trailer to manage the Aldebaran. If this is the case, what braid have people enjoyed? I know I can't go wrong with a Metanium, but just wanna make sure that if the Aldebaran is a magical unicorn, then I want to see how this has worked for others and how I could make it work. Thanks Shimmy

Awesome Dwight! What an awesome trip. Absolute giants!

Well, it can't be a "perfect" trip every time. Still an amazing trip. Weather must have had them off just a bit. Any highlights for lures? What depth? Speed of presentation? What was the guide's take on the results of the trip? What rods did you bring? I would love to know your proven travel method (types of rods and rod carriers for the trip). I am guessing the week was probably a difficult week of fishing, but you found a way to turn it into a plethora of 7s with 8s and a great number of 9s. Well done. We will tag along together one of these days. That time is coming soon!

Fished this week in the Ottertail County area. This may have been the worst weather I have ever fished in a week. 20-30 mph winds the whole week with the exception of one day. There was another day where it was 15 mph, but gusts of 30-40. I had planned on staying Friday and Saturday, then leaving Sunday, but then had a blizzard Thursday night. I actually don't mind fishing in the snow, but was nervous about the launch ramps and drive home. Too many extraneous variables, so I decided to play it safe and left Friday morning. Fishing was tough most days. My favorite lake had a kill off this winter. I honestly feel like I lost a best friend with it. It is so sad and the lake was becoming an incredible fishery. Too many big bass and not deep enough to sustain the oxygen needed. Serious bummer. Had over a 28 lb bag out of it last year and now it is never going to be the same. Went to some of the other next best lakes. They are very unlikely to produce a 28+ lb bag, but was able to get two 25 lb bag days during the two days in the 60 degrees this week. Went back to one of the lakes 2 days later and did terrible. The bite just shut down. If I could go out in a couple weeks I would since I am sure it would pick back up, but the bite was so rough. The only pattern I found out there was find a different lake. Some lakes would be shut down while other adjacent lakes were ready to play. No pattern. Fish were scattered, never clumped up like I can usually find late fall. Type of grass didn't matter. Some clumps of grass had a school of bass, but all were small. Big fish were lone rangers for me this week. I had one 5+ lb bass (that i didn't know at the time), that bit my brush hog maybe 20 times on at least 10 casts until he was finally on and I just set the hook. I found that a lot of missed jig bites wouldn't follow up on the jig, but would take the brush hog on follow up casts. Maybe the traditional senko follow-up would have worked, but I needed something with weight given the ridiculous wind so the brush hog did the trick for me. All big bass were in 6-8 feet of water range. Didn't catch a big one deeper or shallower than that. But again, there may have been some that followed it from the shallows and committed once in that depth. Don't know. Tough week with a few good days. It will get better out there, but I won't be there to experience it. I almost feel like this first real cold front got them skiddish, but the next one will let them think of feeding. Fished by myself so I was not able to find some patterns out in a good time on most days. Best lures of the week were #1 -jig, #2 - brush hog, and #3 -chatterbait worked as a jig in murkier water. Caught some on rapalas, spinnerbaits, frogs, and swimbait, but nothing over 5 pounds. Few highlights of the trip, I bought the bass pro shops goretex parka and bibs on sale and they handled all of the ridiculous weather. Not only did I stay completely dry, but they stopped the wind. Best purchase for me in years. Bought some conventional "rain proof" gloves which failed miserably after holding one fish. I need to find a legitimate pair of rain gloves that are actually rain proof. Any suggestions? Other interesting things, had a northern jump at the boat so high that as I moved my face, it bit my hand and I then bled all over. Then the stupid thing jumped again at me and headbutted the boat. Never seen that before. Other bad northern highlight, went back to a good lake i previously did well on and within 3 casts, had both of my chatterbaits snipped off. Ouch. Hope you guys get in to them.

My dad bought me a funny fishing jersey this year with pretty much every possible fishing sponsor on there. We had a great laugh and now I wear it all the time on the water. I laugh when I think about people looking at me in the small jon boat wearing this professional looking sponsored up the wazoo jersey, being a poser on the water or maybe taking things too seriously. I am not a tournament angler and have the utmost respect for them. I will not pretend to be good tournament angler or think I would do well until I actually try it out. So if you see a guy that looks like a poser in a non-professional boat, it could be me having a giggle to myself.

Love the reports. That 5.89 bass looks AND is huge. Awesome catch and great bag. You guys have been consistently landing nice fish and seem to be killing it in tournaments. Always fun to read the reports. Will be out in MN this Friday for my fall trip. Hope you all do great and hope to get very lucky myself. Troy

Great to see you Dwight. Hope all is well with you. Still catching big bass as usual.

Great fish, looks very long. Farther away shots like that from another boat ALWAYS make the fish look smaller. But that fish still looks great. Well done.

Anyone notice any size differences with fish with big mop jigs with big trailers (mega daddy) in Minnesota? More high 5s and 6s from it? The times i have tried to upsize all of my jigs did not seem to produce anything different for me, other than when fishing visibility issues. Then again, I have never really tried that long. When I am feeling crazy, I may add a brushhog to my Jig, but that is rare and have not done it enough to feel like it made a difference. Anyone have other experience with using giant jigs and trailers?

Got out from the 29th to the 6th of October for my fall trip. Was 7.5 days of fishing. Water temps were 50 - 54 all week. It was the week when it was overcast and rainy EVERY day. One advantage to that was the consistency. Went out with my brother-in-law. Fished the Otter Tail County area again. We had good 5 fish limits the whole week. Since we enjoy keeping track of numbers, our lowest limit was 23 lb 14 oz, most limits were in the 24 lb and 25+ lb limit. Highest limit came on a day when we figured something out that was just weird. Limit came in at 28 lbs 6 oz. Was an incredible day. We had 9 bass over 5 pounds with a 6+ being the biggest. Pretty crazy. The first few days I made the mistake of fishing memories. Don't get me wrong, I think memories are a great default to have and work more times than not, but this clearly did not work. Prior to the 28+ lb day, we had nearly written off the lake since we were catching so few and rarely had a nice one (something in the upper 5 pound range). We had fished deep and shallow to no success. Our shallow fishing on the reeds yielded very few fish. We had skipped over the barren looking areas since, there was nothing there, but dirt. After failing to catch a good fish, we decided to junk fish and just fish slow and intentional on every spot. Low and behold, the barren areas were the ONLY places on the lake with fish biting. It was pretty crazy. My guess is that the crawfish were more loaded in that area? Perhaps there was more gravel and it was warmer? Combination of both? All i know is the years prior, the fish were not here and only in the reeds or weeds deep and shallow. The bass were not biting anything suspended or moving, only baits sitting on the bottom. Jig or Brushhog were equal with producing size and numbers. Tried a lot of baits, but nothing seemed to do well. My buddy is great with the brushhog and it seemed to pick up fish i could not catch. We rotated positiions in the boat, but it didn't seem to matter. The brushhog and jig (one in the front, one in the back) went together like peanut butter and jelly. Great duo to fish on the boat. Slow rolled swimbaits worked, but it had to go really really slow, like painfully slow. Anything moving too fast picked up the snakes. Altogether, we caught a couple 6+ pounders on the trip and over 20 5 pounders. I was lucky enough to catch 47 bass bewteen 4.0 lb - 4.15 lbs and my buddy caught just as much. We caught very few small fish in all the lakes we fished. Terms of pattern, aside from the barren spots on the one lake, all other lakes had no pattern. Just junk fishing. I feel like this is unfortunately the case for many smaller bass lakes with no shad. Just junk fish. We had found very few schools throughout the trip. Biggest walley came in at 6 lbs 11 oz (caught unintentionally and was my first fish of the trip). Here are a few fish from the trip. I don't post pictures of my buddy due to his request. Probably better that way since his big fish can make my fish look smaller. We never ventured to the metro area though. All lakes were under 400 acres and public. Saw very few boat pressure and mostly dealt with hunters shooting around us on all of the points. We caught 90% of our fish on the main lake sides and practically nothing in the coves. Here are some pics. Short - roughly 18-19 inches? But over 5 and a half pounds Some of the fish on the 28+ lb day My biggest of the trip, good long arm picture... Another short and dense high 5

Dude, that is a giant for Wisconsin!!! Well done. Hard earned. One of these days we will have to head out!

Giant! Just a toad. Awesome to see you get them giants. A bass that fat, you never know how heavy it will be. Very exciting.