OnthePotomac

Depend on the water I guess. For instance, the Potomac has salt content although not a lot, so if one of my reels got dunked I would strip it, dry it and relube. On the other hand, a reel laying on the deck during a heavy rain get pretty wet. and they survive.

I second AJay's comments. If you shop around you can find a good price on the Jackhammer. They are really well made chatterbaits and the Yamamoto Zako's are very effective.

Drag on all the way?

I had a BPS Pro Qualifier on my frog rod for three years with 50lb braid and it worked great. surprisingly husky little reel and I got in on sale for $80 Never a problem with it..

Try 10lb flouro and see what happens.

Good thing about a problem like this, you will always remember it now.

Look inside the cast control cap and you should see a fiber pad inside, probably square. No pad, no tension. Sometimes they fall out and you don't notice it. Easy to get from BPS reel repair. There is another one under the bearing in the removable cover where you set the brakes.

Both of my K's are on Carbonlite 2.0 white MH rods. Looks great.

As I recall in cleaning mine, the collar does stick up a bit, you may not have noticed it when you took it apart. Assuming everything is properly seated and you have confirmed that. It can drive you nuts making sure the drag star is aligned properly to fit down over the drive gear. You have to just keep turning it slowly until it slides all the way down.

Take a look at the BPS ProQualifier reels. I had one for over three years on a frog rod and even though I am a Shimano nut, I was really impressed with that reel. I strip my own reels for cleaning and again was impressed with its build. It cast well and was problem free. I traded it in on the Spring Classic sale toward a Chronarch MGL and got a $50 credit for it.

I use my Carbonlite 2.0 MH fast tip rods for all plastics, unweighted and weighted and all jigs with fast reels. My Carbonlite 2.0 mediums for cranks, top waters and spinnerbaits. Love those new gripes on the 2.0 rods.

Try Shimano ACT 2 grease on your drive gear teeth. It is their drag grease and they recommend it for smooth gear operation. Especially for their microgears.

You may find that 6'6" will serve you well for skipping docks.

Mine is a 7'2" medium Carbonlite with a 2500 Diawa Capricorn and 8lb mono. Really fun to fish with.

I also started with BPS Extremes when I got into bass fishing upon retiring 20 years ago. I switched to their Carbonlites when they came out simply because they are so incredibly light. The old Extremes served me well and never failed. My Extreme spinning rods were Woo Daves rods, who is still fishing opens.

Another vote for the 50lb. I have it on my frog rod and it behaves nicely for frogs. Plenty of strength and you are not casting rope.

Another vote for American Legacy. I was fortunate to grab three Curado 50E reels as they were on the way out a few years ago from American Legacy for $97 each to the door. Great company. A happy grandson has two of them.

With regard to throwing Senkos, or Senko type worms, I have both of my K's on 7' MH Carbonlites with 15lb Invizx and use both for weightless worms and other plastics.

Fishing Dad, don't know what size braid you are using, but a small diameter braid will do as what happened to you. I use 50lb Sufix 832 and it works fine. You also may want to get your frog out with side arm lob instead of a power overhead cast. You will get good distance and you will not have to fight the braid behavior. I still use it on my frog rod, but gave it up for my other rigs for 10-20lb mono and 15lb Invizx because I just got tired of screwing with it on the water for my style of fishing.

Another Curado K fan here (2 now). Absolutely beautiful reel in design and performance. Mine are 8.5:1. It a nice size being 10% smaller than the Curado I.

I am also a Berkley spooler user as shown above and for the last 15 years. I don't change line unless I get a professional over run infrequently (LOL) and my program is an annual line change where in I clamp the Berkley to a work table for a couple of days and go to town on line changes. Love it.

I have a 2500 Diawa on both of my 7' Medium Carbonlites and a 2500 Shimano Sahara on a third 7' Medium Carbonlite. I have never felt the need for a MH spinning rod and all reels have only ever had 8lb mono on them. And this is years of fishing the Tidal Potomac massive grass beds. Never lost a fish through equipment failure. All three rods only fished plastics, or tiny crankbaits.

Best not to take a wrench to the nut (Part 4863) I always do finger tight. No need for a wrench.

I have not had a problem spooling line on either of mine, but "dialing them in" gave me some fits, but success prevailed and now they are performing just great I throw plastics on both of mine on 7' MH Carbonlite rods and on the one with a Senko I ended up with the outside dial on 6 to get it right. Both reels have two brakes on and 15lb Invizx on them. So far I cannot complain on distance with either of them. Let me add that out of the box I removed the two spool bearings and the XShip bearing, which has nothing to do with spool spin, and cleaned them thoroughly, then lubed with Yellow Rocket Fuel. Shimano ships their reels over oiled. Are you getting good uniform travel on your worm gear while you are spooling line on?

The Shimano Malaysia facility is not an independent operation which marches to its own drum. It is supervised by senior Shimano technicians, some from Japan, and abides by the same quality control standards as the facility in Japan. This is what Shimano says.