.ghoti.

check this site http://www.rainylake.org/ In-Fisherman just called this lake one the best places in the world for smallmouth. I can attest to that, and pike and walleye and muskie. Lots of options for lodging, package deals, etc. None of them what you would call really cheap. But with a small group, driving and splitting expenses, you can have a trip of a lifetime without spending your life savings.

Sad, but true, Pond Hopper.

WELCOME TO ILLINOIS: WHERE OUR GOVERNORS MAKE OUR LICENSE PLATES.

Been having the same problem, at home, the last three days. Or, more correctly, my wife has. I haven't had time to investigate.

What do you mean, do they talk like that? Around here, they put it on their tee shirts and wear it.

Congats, my friend. Now, frame that sucker, and put it where you can see it. You deserve a little mental self-serve pat on the back every now and then. And, just for record guys, Dominick needed very little tutoring.

First, see if you can locate a schematic. try here if you do not have one. http://www.mikesreelrepair.com/schematics/ If it's been sitting around for years, you'll need to remove all the old grease from all the parts. This will require a total breakdown. Soak all the parts in something to remove the old grease and oil. I like Simple Green in hot water. Carburetor cleaner will also work, but keep it away from any non-metal parts. And, if you use it inside, your better half will have something to say about that. A toothbrush works nicely for scrubbing small parts. Soak all the bearings in lighter fluid or acetone. You may have to soak them twice, using fresh fluid, if they've been sitting long. If the IAR bearing seems to be working, leave it alone. This part will cause you the most grief. If you have to clean it, be very careful removing the cage and needle bearings, noting carefully which direction everything came apart. When it's clean and dry, lube the needle with oil, not grease. Use a Q-tip to oil the cage, each needle and the races. Make sure you put it back together exactly the way it came apart. That actually applies to the whole process. That's where the schematic is handy. You can also help yourself by following a procedure for each reel. Lay down abput three feet of paper towel, than tape it down. As you remove each piece from the reel, lay it out in order. Clean each part, and put it back on the towel back where you picked it up from. When everything is cleaned and relubed, put it all back together in reverse order. Again the schematic is most helpful. When I'm doing all my baitcasters, I use grease on the gears, and oil for everything else. For my spinning reels, it's oil for the bearings and grease for everything else. I like Reel Butter oil and grease. Use lube sparingly. More is NOT better, particularly in the case of the IAR bearing. I use a q_tip to apply oil to small moving parts, and a soft toothbrush to apply grease to the gearing. Good luck, it's not difficult if you go about it systematically. Take your time with it. Cheers, GK

I bought two of them last spring. You can put 5 or 6 normal sized cranks in each row. Put the box in your tackle bag, put the bag in the truck, drive around, put the bag in your boat, motor around a bit, open the box, pick up a crank, and get a string of 5 or 6 baits all connected together. If they came with some sort of dividers, they'd be very nice.

Hey ID, I've met and fished with Lee. He's a very generous guy. Give him your address. I'm sure he'd mail you a box full of fillets.

Absolutely nothing.

Now that's funny. Nice visual ;D ;D ;D

Lost my shirt trying to draw to an inside straight once.

A Russian couple were walking down the street in Moscow one night, when the man felt a drop hit his nose. "I think it's raining", he said to his wife. "No, that felt more like snow to me", she replied. "No, I'm sure it was just rain" he said. Well, as these things go, they were about to have a major argument about whether it was raining or snowing. Just then they saw a Communist Party official walking toward them. "Let's not fight about it", the man said, "Let's ask Comrade Rudolph whether it's officially raining or snowing". As the official approached, the man said, "Tell us, Comrade Rudolph, is it officially raining or snowing?" "It's raining, of course", he replied, and walked on. But the woman insisted: "I know that felt like snow!" to which the man quietly replied: "Rudolph the Red, knows rain, dear".

One thing I've always wondered was, why, after traveling at least 4.3 light years, did they proceed to the nearest trailer park and kidnap the village idiot?

BassBandit35, that is an excellent article. thanks. i have it bookmarked now.

Thanks guys. I did a little prospecting in the archives; that pile of stuff in the corner of the garage, and found a few baits. Found some Risto Raps, still in the packages. Found some old Poe's 400's still in the packages. Found some DD-22's still in the packages. Found some DT-14's that I do not remember buying, and look too new to have been there very long. I have a better head start on this than I thought. Looks like I need to add a few Fat Free Shads, some DT-16's, DT-20's, Strike King Series 6, a few new hooks, and I'm ready to go. Stringjam, I looked at the 4400's and I think I'll add a few of those also. Only a little outside of my comfort zone, but they look gooooood. Thanks again guys. GK

Take it from, I've been there, done that, got the tee shirt. Reel mechanic will tell you he doesn't have "upgrade" bearings for PT reels. He will tell you to look up Boca bearings. I did that, got some ABEC 7's in the corrrect size and found that there was little difference. Certainly not worth the 30 bucks I spent finding out. The original PT bearings are a ceramic/stainless hybrid bearing. Hard to find something much better. I'll give you two things to do that will make a difference. 1. get rid of the hot sauce, and buy some Ardent Reel Butter grease and oil. It takes a lot of soaking and scrubbing to completely remove all the hot sauce, but the time and effort is worth the trouble. 2. While you have the rest of the parts soaking, remove part labeled 1H on the schematic. That is the brake race, or drum, if you prefer. Don't let the springs (1J) fly away when you remove the screws (1K). Now get out your trusty Dremel tool, install a felt polishing wheel, apply some polishing compound (jeweler's rouge), and polish the inside of the race. I use a felt wheel about 1/8" thick and about the diameter of a nickel. Apply the rouge sparingly and often. It's much neater if you work inside a ziploc bag. the rouge tends to fly off if you apply too much. Wear glasses, of course. You don't want that stuff in your eyes. Work your way around the race slowly, with moderate pressure applied. The race will get warm. I keep a wet paper towel handy to use as a heat sink. Wrap the race up in the wet towel when it becomes too warm to handle. Dry it off, apply more rouge to the felt wheel and keep going. It will take about 45 minutes to get a mirror-like surface on the race. What you will have accomplished is to remove any minor surface irregularities. The brake weights now have a much more even surface to travel on. This will make braking smoother and more consistent, and will eliminate some of that annoying whine that these reels exhibit. You will also get a wider, useable range of adjustment from the ACS system. Clean it up with a toothbrush and hot soapy water. You have to get all the rouge out. It will be everywhere. While you still have the Dremel out, polish the ends of the spool shaft. This only takes about 5 minutes on each end. Also polish the surface of the long shaft ; the part of the shaft that rides inside the pinion gear. You can get creative, and make a tool to polish the inside of the pinion gear, if you like. Turn down a piece of dowel using your Dremel, and some fine sandpaper until it just fits the inside of the gear. Rub a little rouge into the dowel and carefully polish the inside of the gear. You have to be very steady and absolutely straight if you do this. Don't do it if you're unsure of your ability to keep the dowel centered. Again, clean it up completely. You do not want any of the polishing compound in your reel. One last step. squirt a bit of silicone spray in a samll container. A big shot glass works nicely. You want to soak the end of the spool that has the centrifugal weights. Swirl it around a bunch to clean it all out. there will be some errant hot sauce in the guts of the weight mechanism. Change the fluid and spin it around until no more gunk comes out. let it dry. Now finish cleaning and re-lubing, and put it all back together. Grease goes only on the gears. Apply it with a stiff brush, or an old toothbrush. Work the grease deep into the teeth of the gears. More is not better if it doesn't totally coat the entire face of each gear tooth. remove all excess grease. Oil for everything else, included the levelwind gear and pawl. I use another old soft toothbrush to lube the levelwind shaft. One last tip. Be careful during the first few casts with your "tuned" reel. You will not be accustomed to the way it now performs. Cheers, GK ps, the polishing tip can ne used on any reel with centrifugal braking. Try it. You won't be disappointed, and may even be impressed with yourself.

A word from your friendly neighborhood professor, the guy with the red pen and grade roster. If you think it's tough having to do all the work, think what it's like having wade through all that stuff, all turned in at the last minute, of course. At the end of the semester, all sympathy is gone, believe me.

You mentioned a center pin reel in another thread. What do you use this thing for? The reason I ask is, last year, in a fit of insanity, I bought an Alvey reel and matching rod. It holds about half a brazillion yards of 12lb test. I was using it to throw a C-rig about three times as far as I could throw the same rig on my best casting baitcaster, and having a blast, laughing my arse off at how far I could sling this thing. So, what the heck is it really meant for? Thought I'd ask somebody who just might know.

I use six of the ones I got from you, and two Stick Jackets. I prefer yours. They are softer and thicker than the Stick Jackets. Got any more? I could use four, and don't care what color they are. Shoot me a "real" price this time.

For the price I paid for them, they are very nice. I actually prefer the older 600 series reels. They're smaller, lighter, and quieter than the 700 series reels. No problems at all with any of them.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn't get all of them from the flea market. I wish I had. There have been some great bargains offered here. Let's see; 3 of the PT's, one of the Revos, the Summit, one of the JM reels and the St Croix reel came from board members. For the rods; two of the Setyrs, the Legend Tournament, and of course the Flechero Custom were bought here. With two exceptions, the rest of the stuff I found on sale or clearance. I paid full price for the Cumara, and the Airrus rods. I'm fishing with a lot higher end gear than I can normally justify, thanks in large part to the flea market on Bass Resource.

I'll admit to a preference for wood cranks, but for a different reason than most. We all know that all crankbaits are not created equal. Some just behave differently then other seemingly identical baits. Every now and then you find one that doesn't quite run true. It doesn't run crooked, or over on it's side; it has an erratic, back and forth, "hunting" action. When you find one of those, you've found a diamond in the coal pile. In my experience, you have a lot better chance of finding one of these "diamond" baits in wood than plastic.

That is precisely what I plan to do. ;D ;D

After a couple of years of buying, selling, swapping, trading, etc, here's what I've ended up with for bass gear. Reel Rod bait ENERGY PT 760 6'10" SETYR FPT H-MF TOAD/BUZZBAIT/SWIMBAIT JOHNNY MORRIS 6'8" ST CROIX AVID M-XF SENKO/IKA ENERGY PT 660 6'6" SETYR SPB MH-F HULA GRUB / JERKBAIT ENERGY PT 660 7' SETYR SPB M-F TUBE / SPLIT SHOT MILLIONAIRE 6'6" SETYR SPB M-F SPINNERBAIT / TOPWATER PFLEUGER SUMMIT 6'8' CUMARA M-XF T-RIG / JIG JOHNNY MORRIS 6'9" XPS PRO FINESSE ML-F FLUKE / TUBE ENERGY PT 770 6'3" DAIWA L&T MH-F IKA / HULA GRUB REVO STX 7' SETYR CLS M-F LIGHT T-RIG / JIG WORM MILLIONAIRE 7'6" SETYR CKN M-M CRANKBAIT REVO STX 7:1 6'9" ST CROIX LT ML-XF JIGWORM / DROPSHOT ENERGY PT 770 7' JMORRIS SIG MH-F JIG / T-RIG ST CROIX 250 7' FLECHERO CUSTOM MHM DEEP CRANKBAITS / C-RIG PFLEUGER SUPREME 8030 7'2" AIRRUS M-F FINESSE I think I've finally overdone it. It was compiling this list that prompted me to make the post in the flea market section that said I'm done with buying gear for a while. I printed this and hung it on my PC to remind me to keep my credit card in my wallet. Buzz off, bait monkey, I'm through with you.