.ghoti.

Me too. What's wrong with Hot Sauce? I have 5 PT reels, two spinning and three baitcast, that are all scheduled for cleaning this winter. I did not do it last winter. Just got busy and ran out of time before the fishing season started. I need to tear them down this year. I don't normally go more than one year between cleanings. These reels come from the factory with Hot Sauce. I ordered some Hot Sauce, grease and oil, as part of a larger order, and was thinking of using it on all my reels. You know, keep the inventory down, make life simpler, etc. So, what's wrong with it?. Does it break down, gum up when cold, endanger unendangered species, cause high blood pressure, or ??. Or is it just the messy part you don't like? I've used it once. I bought a PT with 4;1 gears, thinking I would like it for crankbaits. Wrong! I ordered 6.3:1 gears and installed them recently. Got the HotSauce all over me while relubing the gears. My fingernails looked like I'd been playing mechanic. I know the Tackle Tour guys think highly of it. But they think highly of everything. So, do I need to rethink my options on lubes? RM, I'll trust your take on this subject, you being the professional. Just like to know the reasons. Thanks in advance, GK Hula Popper, send you reels to the pro. He'll even give you a discount, just for being a member here.The first time I tried to clean one my own, the whole thing ended up in a ziplock bag while I waited, first for a schematic from Shimano, and then for the parts I lost when it came apart. I do all my own now, but I had to learn a couple of expensive lessons along the way. I have a few reels that are basically junk because I either screwed "em up or lost parts that can't be replaced.

(ie....fugggeddaboudit ya'll) Now that's funny. I don't care where you're from.

Catt, that interesting. I didn't know the 200 size outsold the 100 size reels. I would have thought the smaller, lighter reels would be the top sellers. Guess that's what I get for "thoughtin". I pay attention to these details myself. For bass fishing, line capacity is not an issue, but I would think that weight is. I'm all for smaller and lighter. Maybe in some people's perceptions smaller and lighter mean weaker. Beats me. Cheers, GK

I have one, a 7' MH, which I got on sale for $100. I use mine mostly for T-rigging, with PT reel and flouro line. It's a very sensitive setup. Maybe the best you can find, at this price range. These things go on sale on a regular basis. If you can wait until they do, you'll get one of the best "bang for the buck" deals out there. I'll buy more. I got mine this spring and have been using it all this year, with the balancing kit intstalled. e77 raises a valid issue. I started out with enough weight in the end to achieve a neutral balance with the reel in the seet. I don't like this at all. The combo is too heavy with that much weight on board. And, I could not hit the broad side of a barn with it. It totally screwed my accuracy. Throughout the year I removed weights from the end, and now have just one small weight left. I'll probably take the whole thing off. Glad I saved the original butt piece. RoLo brought up another good option. The new series team Daiwa Light & Tough rods are an excellent value. I got the 6'3" model, have used it for most of this season, and will be buying more of these. The model I got is supposed to be for topwaters. Well, in my opinion, the handle is way too long for topwater fishing. It's rather difficult to walk the dog with that much handle getting hung up in my vest. I use it, with a Daiwa Millionaire and flouro line, for senkos and ikas. Very light weight, accurate and sensitive. Both of these rods have an enlarged handle. BPS calls it a Power Hump. Daiwa doesn't call it anything in particular. I've come to like that feature. It has little effect when palming the reel, but feels more secure, to me anyway, while casting. If you have small hands, you may not like this feature. I have three rods with this type of handle, and now the rest of my rods don't feel as secure while casting. To answer your original question, yes, the JM rod is a good buy. You'd have to spend a lot more money to find something better. Good luck, GK

OK that's it. I'm gonna give his braid stuff another shot. After seeing what RoLo and Avid had to say; two gentlemen whos opinions Ive come to respect, I'm not going to be totally pig-headed about it. Besides my sweetie just brought home two spools of Spiderwire she picked up off the clearance rack at Wally world. One spool each of 30 and 40lb test. It must be a conspiracy. I just finished rebuilding two older Quantum reels. I think the # is EX600, or something like that. I had broken the slide cam on both by overtightening the screws during the re-assembly process, completely dorking up the magnetic cast control. They are both in fine condition now. These are wider spool reels than most of mine, and hold quite a bit of line. I'll spool them up halfway with some elcheapo mono, and top off with the braid. I'll use the 30lb test on one reel and the 40 on the other. Went out to the garage and dug out two older Berkley rods. Both are 7' rods. One is medium power, one is med-heavy. The medium rod will get the 30lb test and the med-heavy rod will get the 40. They're both about 7 or 8 years old, IM6 graphite, and what I'd call moderate action. If I could remember what the rod names where, I'd tell ya, but I don't. One may be a Bionix or something like that. The other I don't recall anything regarding a name or series. Will these rods be OK to start with using the braid. I really don't want to buy more just now. I probably won't have any results to report until next year. Good luck, GK

The Chronarch has, I believe, a six pin centrifugal braking system. Try turning on 3, every other one. Now set your spool tension knob so that your spool, when the bait is dropped from a level rod, doesn't quite stop when the bait hits the ground. You want it to run on just a bit. Start out with the tension knob tight, and gradually loosen it until you achieve this performance. You'll know you're there when you get an "almost" backlash. Now cast. Try using a sidearm motion instead of the old overhand cast. You may find that easier. And don't try for any long distances until you get a little better at it. If you are new to the baitcast game, you may want to give this a try. Don't fill the spool all the way to the top. Leave about 1/4" of the spool empty. The reason for this is that the centrifugal braking system is speed dependent. The faster the spool is rotating the more braking force is applied. A partially empty spool will spin faster than a full one, giving you a little more help with line control. Keep this fact in mind. At low settings, your brakes are not doing much at the end of the cast, when the spool rotation is at it's slowest. You'll need your thumb then. Start training yourself now to apply your thumb to the spool and not the line. This is also easier to learn if the spool is not completely full. You can practice this while you're watching the game. Keep the rod tip up, the spool tension very low, and drop a sinker at your feet. Feather it down using your thumb on the side of the spool. It will quickly become second nature. Don't do this with a crankbait. The womenfolk tend to get upset when you hook the cat. Good luck, GK ps, you might try some nice, limp line, like Trilene XL to start with. It's quite a bit more forgiving than some of the stiffer lines line XT or Big Game or flourocarbon. It will be a bit easier to learn with. Cheers

Not trying to be a smart alek, but if you have a setup you love, why look for something different. Get yourself another Chronarch and a St Croix. Just get a different length/action rod to fit a different application. There is something to said for using the same reel on all your rigs. If I had it to do over, I'd do just that. Cheers, GK

I use both. I don't really see much of a difference. My two favorites are Quantum PT's ( low profile ) and round Daiwa Millionaires. If you get specific, you can find differences related to line size and line capacity. You have to decide what your application is, and buy a reel that will do what you want. I wouldn't put a Pixy on a muskie rod. And I wouldn't put a Calcutta 400 on a finesse rod. You'll find both round and low profile reels to fit most applications. It's just a matter of what you're used to, in most cases. One thing you may look at, if this is an issue for you, is retrieve rate. I have a Quantum PT with 7:1 gearing, It cranks in 27" of line per turn of the crank. It's marketed as their "burner" high speed reel. A standard Abu C4 with 6.3:1 gearing cranks in 30" of line per turn of the crank. Which one is the "burner"? Cheers, GK

I use one of these http://www.gerber-tools.com/Gerber-Diamond-Knife-Sharpener-9841.htm With the hook point facing away from you, make a few light strokes on each side, and the top, going away from you. Don't sharpen with the hone going into to point, only away from the point. I dip my hone in the water first. It seems to work better that way. If three or four strokes on each side don't do it, then tie on a new hook. You're going to remove too much material. I check and sharpen mine regularly. Anytime I think the hook has come in contact with anything other than the bait, I check it. I believe Chris may be onto something. If you oversharpen, you may very well change to hooking angle of the point. I'd never considered that. I will now. The above direction do not apply to those X-Point hooks. I don't try to sharpen those. Good luck, GK

You need to know the diameter, not the lb test of the lines. Divide the stated diameter by the new lines diameter. multiply this result by the stated yardage, and you get an answer in the ball park. Won't be exact, but close enough for government work. Cheers, GK

Crowded elevator smell different to midget.

Cool thread. I like to catch different fish. My wife and I travel a lot, so we get to try different fish, in different areas. Here's a few I haven't caught, but would like to. Sturgeon and alligator gar, the largest of freshwater fish. One each of these would probably be enough for me. Grayling. Never been far enough north to get one of these. I think they just look so cool. Not big, but on my list. Steelhead. Rainbow are fun, steelhead have to be that much better. King Salmon. Big, strong fish, awesome table fare, what's not to like. German brown trout. I've caught one at Taneycomo. about 9", that's not good enough. Redfish. Sounds like fishing for bass on steroids. Snook. I've caught a few, but no big ones. Tarpon. I've caught one, a 32" baby. Like to get a big one. Marlin. Just once, just because. Permit. Went after them once. Didn't catch any. I'll probably think of some more, but that's the main ones. I'm with RW on the big saltwater stuff. I don't really care for the tackle this fishing requires. Some of those rods and reels are just small cranes. And I don't like trolling at all. I'd just as soon watch the paint dry as go trolling. Cheers, GK

Avid, I haven't seen a mudbug for sale in years. I know I have a few, somewhere in storage. Storage means I have no idea where it is. It's about time for me to start organizing my tackle again. If I run across any of these baits, I'll PM you. If I find some, I'll send "em to you. I'm gonna guess, that when I find them, they're gonna need new hardware. Storage also means an unheated garage. Probably all rusted. I'll let you know. I know I bought several, on advice from a pretty good fisherman here, who claimed that this bait was the best one ever invented for cranking deep structure. Well, it may be for him. I never caught a thing on one, and not for lack of trying. Cheers, GK

PYONGYANG, North Korea (The Onion ) -- A press release issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency Monday confirmed that the October 9 underground nuclear test in North Korea's Yanggang province successfully exploded the communist nation's total gross domestic product for the past four decades. "This is a grand day for the Democratic Peoples Republic Of Korea, whose citizens have sacrificed their wages, their food, and their lives so that our great nation could test a nuclear weapon thousands of feet beneath our own soil," read an excerpt from the statement. "Now the rest of the world must stand up and take notice that the DPRK, too, is capable of decimating years of its wealth at any given moment." North Korea's announcement would appear to support the CIA's intelligence information on the blast. According to the CIA, over 500 tons of compressed purchasing power, the equivalent of 40 years of goods and services produced by the impoverished country, vaporized in 560 billionths of one second. The device consumed 15 years of peasant wages' worth of uranium, two decades of agricultural- and fishery-export profits' worth for its above-ground emplacement tower, and the lifetime earnings of the entire workforce of the Kilchu fish-canning factory for tungsten/carbide-steel bomb casings. "A nuclear device that size explodes with the force of 10 to 15 tons of TNT, or a moderately sized economic boom," said Ronald Shimokawa, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "The detonation most likely sent the burning, liquefied remains of North Korea's economy deep into the Earth's core." Across the country, North Korean citizens cheered wildly after learning their nation had violently transformed the equivalent of 2.3 billion hot meals, 11 million housing units, and 1,700 hospitals into their component atoms. Others celebrated by gleaning recently harvested rice paddies for leftover grains. "This fraction-of-a-second blast is what I, and my parents before me, have given up everything to achieve," said tractor driver Chin Lee-Park, whose machine was cannibalized for bomb derrick parts in 1997. "It is truly a great day for North Korea," added Lee-Park, who then died due to a combination of malnutrition and tuberculosis. The North Korean government has long been suspected of building up a clandestine stockpile of capital, evidenced by their tendency to shut down national programs that provide its citizens with food, clothing, medicine, shelter, transportation, water, sanitation, education, living wages, and means of communication. A North Korean diplomat defended the decision, saying that citizens "need to make certain sacrifices so their country can afford the basic human right of national security." International suspicions intensified earlier this month, when satellite surveillance revealed that Kilchu farmers had burned the nation's last remaining wheat field to make room for the test site, that peasant shacks were being dismantled to provide the necessary materials to construct a cradle in which the bomb could be lowered into the ground, and that thousands of starving, near-naked Sangpyong-ri residents were digging an 800-meter vertical underground shaft with wooden rice spoons. In addition, an estimated 75 percent of North Korea's metallurgical wealth and gypsum stockpiles were repurposed for use as stemming materials to backfill the test site's hole prior to detonation. With the test, North Korea joins an exclusive group of nations that spends a huge percentage of their GDP on nuclear weapons programs. Yet, despite North Korea's claim that it will proceed with further nuclear testing, the international community is skeptical of whether it has the means to do so, in wake of news over the weekend that leader Kim Jong Il has authorized the use of the remaining three percent of North Korea's GDP for the construction of six monuments bearing his likeness. I copied this from The Onion. They have a rather brash sense of humor. You can find it online, if you wish. Be warned, The Onion is not for everybody. If biting social commentary is your thing, then, by all means, check it out. If you are easily offended, do not go there. They are inclined to poke fun at anything and everybody, and sometimes in a not so nice fashion. Don't say I didn't warn you. cheers, GK

A pretty good year for me. Fished a lot in here in Illinois, including a couple of new places. Also got to fish in Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Canada, Panama and Mexico. No PB's, but a lot of fish, and several species. Largemouth mostly, but also caught smallmouth, spots, hybrid striper, rainbow, walleye, pike (my favorite), muskie, crappie, bluegill, carp ( maybe the strongest fish in fresh water), bonefish, grouper, pompano, barracuda, peacock bass, and by accident, a few catfish. Like I said, a pretty darned cool year. From here on out, it's gonna be mostly crappie at my closest watering hole and muskie at the Shelbyville tailwaters. It won't be long until it's too cold for me. I do not ice fish. The waters around here don't freeze deep enough for that, most years. I went through the ice a few years ago, and I've sworn off ice fishing since then. My goal for this winter is to get a rodbuilding bench set up, and practice wrapping and finishing on some of the broken rods I've accumulated. I hope to have a couple fo new rods built before nest season. A big part of this will depend on the kids getting some of their stuff out of the garage, so I'll have some space. We can only hope. Hope everybody had a good year, and let's hope for a better next. Cheers, GK

Been doing this for quite a while, when the water is on the cool side. A small jig below a float is my standard crappie rig. I've caught enough bass while crappie fishing to add it to my bag of tricks. Any type of float will work, but a slip float is the most efficient. Any kind of jig will work too. But in cold water, the hair jig (fly) will outproduce all others. Any of the small drop-shot style plastics will work, rigged on a jighead, beneath a float. Just make sure the rig is weighted so the float barely floats. One of my favorites is a wacky-rigged french fry, with a shot about 18" above the hook. I like to let this drift into weed lines or brush. I'll pull it just a little bit and let it settle. It's rather like very slow senko fishing. Obviously, drifting into cover is not a light line technique. But, most of the time, I'm using a small slip float, 1/16oz jig, and a small shot, with 8lb test, on a spinning rig. You can cast it or drift it. Most of the time this is a slow presentation. In the coolest of water, the less you move it, the better it will produce. Flourocarbon line is a plus for this technique. I've used it down to about 10 feet. To go below that you need stouter line, heavier jigs, more weight and bigger floats. Bites are mostly subtle, and with too light weight a rig, fish too deep, you will not detect a lot of the takes. I always use a scent with this rig. For me, this has not been a big fish technique, but will put some fish in the boat. Way2Slow, that's an interesting version of it you're using. I've made a note of it, and will be giving it a try. Is this your own invention?

I wish. Too many obligations to fish every day. When you factor in winter, which removes about 3 months from the available times, I get in somewhere around 150 trips a year. And a lot of those are 2 - 4 hour trips after work. It's rare for me to manage an 8+ hour outing.

Ghoti, your whole post is just completely backwards to my experiences, but of course your welcome to your opinion. Again, the only thing I could ask you is, why do you suppose braided line causes "you" this long list of problems, but provides nearly nothing but great benefits for me ? Chris, beats the heck outa me. You say potato, I say spuds. When I said "maybe I can convince you", I was pulling your leg a bit. It almost sounds as if your leg came off in my hand. If I've offended, you have my apologies. It was not my intention. From discord arises discourse. And that's one of the ways this old dog learns new tricks. I used to have braid on all my reels. I was one of the first around here to jump on the braid bandwagon. Iron Thread first, then Spiderwire. I loved it for the sensitivity. In that category, braid is the all time world champ. Nothing else even comes close. Not arguing that point. It's also the strongest stuff out there for any given diameter. Not disputing that either. I used braid for several seasons, gradually becoming disenchanted with it. And it was not the knots, handling, digging, slipping, poor shock strength, wrap aroung everything kind of problems that did me in. It was being out fished time after time by guys using mono. This happened too many times to be some kind of aberation. Way too many times. More than often enough, by far, to be statistically significant. I even spent one year fishing braid and mono side by side to test this. That was the end of braid for me. Note that I still have braid on my muskie rods, and on one bass rod I use for deep jigging and C-rigging. When a braided line hits the market that's as hard to see underwater as flouro, then I might be persuaded to give it a try. Until then, thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to the advantages I perceive in Flourocarbon line. ( perceive being the operative term here, for all of us ) On another tack, I've gradually switched to lighter line weights. As I've moved down the line weight scale, I've caught more fish and the fun factor has increased. For me that's what it's all about. Most of my bass fishing is done using 10lb test flouro. Sometimes 8, sometimes 12. Around here, a 5 pounder is a giant, and is a lot more fun on 10lb mono than on 65lb braid. And Chris, if the fish in my area were anywhere near the size of those awesome pictures you posted, I might have a totally different view on the subject. If I caught a bass the size of some of yours, I'd need to change my shorts. My PB is an 8. Cheers, GK

I'm much more comfortable in shallower water. But, sometimes the fish aren't there, and you have to look deep for a bite. In couple of my regular haunts, 18 - 25 feet down is about the limit. Doesn't seem to be much below that. I guess that depends on the thermocline. But, it's a good zone for mid-day bass fishing. I'll mostly use a T-rig with the largest plastics. 10 and 12" worms, 5 and 6" tubes, big brush hogs and creatures, etc. This is good place for the paddle-tailed worms. I'll start with a 1/4oz weight, and only go up if the wind demands it. This is slow fishing. Next option is a jig with a spider or hula grub. In the 1/4 - 3/8oz sizes, these can be fished faster. Then a jigworm. !/8 - 1/4oz ballhead jig with a thin ribbon-tailed worm, or a straight tail worm. A floating worm can be good when you need to really slow down, and just soak it in one place. I don't do this very often. It drives me crazy. For all these, dark colors are the most productive for me. As a side note, on Table Rock I discovered that a reverse rigged Fat Ika can be fished at 20' or a little more. It's a slow proposition, but I found it worked. The Ika, rigged backwards, sinks a lot faster than when conventionally rigged.

I'll take smallmouth over largemouth any time. There just aren't that many places in central Illinois to find smallies. I'll take pike over either. My pike fishing is a trip or two up north every year.

I don't used braid because what Lightningrod suggested happened to me. I was working a Super Spook along a weedline. Twitch, twitch, twitch, pause. On one of the twitches the line wrapped around the second or third guide from the top, a bass hit the Spook, I set the hook and the rod snapped about 12" down from the tip. Ruined the whole day. So, what can you do to convince me? Nothing. I'm already convinced. Maybe I can convince you. Here's what I see wrong with the braid. 1. It will slip on the spool. Solution; put some mono on first. Result; time wasted. 2. It will wrap around anything and everything. Solution; pay no attention to what your lure's doing. Spend your time paying attention to what your line is doing, and spend some more time getting it unwrapped. Result; missed bites 3. Visibilty. All fish will be line shy at some times. Solution; tie on a leader. Result; another knot in your rig. Something else to go wrong. Every knot is like another fitting in a piping system. Another place for a leak to happen. Also, I've seen a guide insert popped out when a guy with a 3/4oz jig on was casting with the knot about halfway down the rod towards the reel. 4. Knots. We all know about that. 5. It digs into itself on the spool when under tension. Solution; use larger diameter line. Result; you now have line on your reel which exceeds the capacity of your rod. Medium-heavy power rods seem to be what most people use for bass fishing. Most are rated, at the top end, for 17-25lb test line. So what happens when you use 65lb test line on a rod rated for a maximum of 25 pounds? Duh! Besides, I can't remember the last time I saw anybody catch a 65 pound bass. 6. It costs way too much. Solution; use something else. 7. Don't even think about what this stuff will do to a spinning reel. Been there, done that, said all the words my mother used to wash out my mouth with soap for using. 8. Very low shock strength. It will break sometimes on the hookset or on a hard cast. I launched a Castaic swimbait into never-never land once. Solution; there isn't one. Is that enough? It is for me. I use Transition for all my plastics and jigging now. When it first came out, it was junk. Only good for making slinkies. I'm color-blind, and sometimes have a hard time seeing the line against the water. I can see the Transition very well. Which is why I bought it in the first place. The original version was just too user unfriendly. The poor handling charateristics totally outweighed the benefit of increased visibilty above water. It is much better now. The new version is still easy for me to see above water, still changes back to less visible below water, and now handles like mono. I still use Trilene XL for cranks, spinnerbaits and topwaters. I started experimenting this year with flouro and copolymers for these applications. Here are the conclusions I've drawn so far. I'm not gonna mention any brand names while the jury is still out. I don't like flouro for topwaters. Sometimes, letting the bait sit, and just slightly twitch it, is what's required. This is harder to do when the line sinks as fast as flouro. I'm leaning toward using flouro for spinnerbaits. I like the extra sensitivity. I'm probably gonna continue using XL for cranks, although I'm still experimenting. A little extra stretch is a good thing when using baits with treble hooks. But, a little added depth from the flouro can also be a good thing. Jerkbaits, despite the treble hooks, are much better served with flouro. The extra sensitivity, lower visibility and negative bouancy are all just what the doctor ordered for suspending baits. I'm using Vanish for jerks, at this time. I will be experimenting with other brands. Not attacking anybody here, just my fifth of a dimes worth. Good luck, GK

I'm gonna follow Avid off topic here for just a bit. My wife and I take a lot of trips. We like to travel and now can afford it a lot more than we could 10 years ago. The one thing that gets the farthest under my skin is some moron with a camcorder who'll loudly complain that I've ruined his video. Well, I don't care about his video. I will usually stop if I see somebody ready to take a picture. That only takes a second. I will not get out the way for minutes at a time to accomodate these people who insist on taking a camcorder every where they go. Don't get me wrong, if there's a way around, I'll take it. But, it seems more and more that I have to just stand and wait for some fool. I've gotten to the point where I refuse to do it. I'm coming through. You can wait. If you insist on blocking a path to take videos, then I'm going to get in your way. Feel free to edit me out. I've already edited you out of my experience. I have perfectly fine recorder. It's called memory. OK, I'm done. Sorry about the rant, but those things just @#$%^ me off. About the camera and scales thing; I always have them along now. Didn't used to. The scale is the most useful to me. I wish everybody had one. We'd hear a lot fewer reports of 5+ pound bass. I bought a Rapala Lok-N-Weigh. It measures in 1/4 pound increments. I measured a couple of packages of burger, a chicken, a roast and a turkey to check the accuracy. It's very, very close. Close enough for me, I don't do tournaments. I've been using this thing for two years now. I measure everything that looks like it'll be better than two pounds. I'm doing this little game with myself where I guesstimate the weight and then get an actual reading. After two years, I still guess wrong a significant portion of the time. I now just nod my head and go along with anybody who says they can tell what a bass weighs by looking at it. Here's a news flash for you. You can't. There are too many variables. Once you get a decently accurate way to weigh the fish, if you're honest with yourself, you'll realize that you caught about a tenth as many 5+ pounders as you used to think. Here's a little advice. Don't go showing off your new scale by weighing in your buddies 6 pounder at 3 1/2 pounds. He'll insist that your scales are screwed up, and that he knows exactly what that fish weighs. It ain't worth the hassle. Some day he'll spend the money and realize, just like I did, that most of those 5 pounders weren't. If you're gonna tell tales, you need the scales. Good luck, GK ( sorry 'bout the rant )

A very over-priced green light. Cabelas has been selling a cheaper ( $20 ) version for years. I used to use one for night time crappie fishing Sometimes it worked very well.

I wanted to use FISH, but I assumed it would have been taken, so I spelled it this way GH as in rough O as in women TI as in nation A little play on the spelling.

Just got a look at the Spring 2007 schedule. Spring break is the week before the planned dates for the BassResource.com roadtrip, so, I'll be unable to attend. Iwas really hoping it would work out. Maybe next time. Good luck, and safe travels to all who are able to make the trip. GK