OnthePotomac

My experience with Viscious floro is that it is not a good spinning reel floro, but I am using the 10lb on two crankbait rods for the second summer now and it has performed fine. I use a uni knot on a duolock snap for my crankbaits with no problem. Great price.

I use 10lb Viscious floro on three of my baitcasters for worm and crankbait fishing and found it to be durable and easy to use and this is in the tough environment of the Tidal Potomac.

I put BOCA ABEC 7 Orange Seal ceramic spool bearings in my Citica 200E's and what a difference. No need to change the spool. BOCA has a 4-pac for $54.95, which makes the cost per bearing very reasonable. My advice is save your money for a drive shaft bearing, because it is not load bearing and you will notice little difference on your retrieve from the bushing well lubed.

Stay with mono. Floro sinks.

Although I use Shimanos, when you are fishing with a $280 Quantum you can't go wrong, which is what KVD is given.

I could not agree more on the excellent quality of the Curado E7. It will sling a weightless worm a mile.

Everyone may find this line guide hardness chart of value: Ring Hardness Values Stainless Steel (SS): 400 Chrome: 800-1000 Carbaloy: 1000 Aluminum Oxide: 1200-1400 Alconite : 1300-1500 NanoLite : 1800 Zirconia: 1000-1400 Zirconia PVD: 1600 SiC: 2200-2400

I throw Senkos on 10 and 14 lb floro on my Citica and it will put them out there a very long distance. You can improve your distance with this reel if you clean your spool bearings before you use it (lighter fluid works fine) and put just a drop of any high quality bearing oil on them. I use a 6'6" MH BPS Extreme Woo Daves for my worms. Shimano tends to over lube the bearings.

I have been using BPS Excel mono in green for 8 years now on the Potomac in 8, 14 and 20lb and found it to be a great mono. The 4-10lb is $8.99 for 1500 yds, the 12-17lb is $9.99 for 1200 yds and the 20-30lb is $10.99 for 900 yds. If you order any two spools you get both for $7.99. I fish it in some pretty fierce junk and it has never failed me. Limp and strong.

Coopie84, if you want to get into cleaning and lubing your own reels, I recommend a great step-by-step DVD put together by Connie and Tommy Kilpatrick (two highly regarded people in the bass fishing community) at http://www.lakeforktacklerepair.com/ It will be the best $30 for reel maintenance you ever spent. I bought one three years ago and needless to say I have saved a bunch of money maintaining my 13 reels.

This depends entirely on what make of reel you have. Some manufacturers recommend drag grease for the drag washers and some recommend no grease on their drag washers. The difference is in the material they use to make the drag washers.

I use 14lb floro for my jigs and 10-14lb floro for my worms and it works well for me. No leaders to mess with. I worm fish with a baitcaster. This is for the Tidal Potomac, which is loaded with heavy grass growth and wood.

I read an evaluation of several rods in that price range on another forum by a rod builder, who is very particular, and he gave the Carbonlite a favorable evaluation.

I may be wrong, but I believe Clarus rods have not been produced that long.

Yes, that reel has two BNT0194 bearings, one is in the left cover and one is under the cast control cap. The other bearing through which the spool shaft passes is a BNT2170 for the pinion gear. There is also a tiny bearing under the drive shaft (BNT0031). This is a really great reel and I wish I had bought more than three.

This is what you need on how to supertune a reel. http://jdntackle.home.mindspring.com/index%20page.html My caution is that you be very careful in using any sand paper on a surface, internal or external. You can change the tolerances from the manufacturer very easily. Some super tuners use a jewelers rouge to buff a high gloss surface on parts with a Dremel.

I started last spring with braid for my plastic swimbaits, then switched to 20lb BPS Excel mono and had better success with my hookups. I like the little extra boing mono gives me and it helped get my swimbait down deeper.

This is a good site. http://www.animatedknots.com/

Thanks much.

Thanks much. I was headed in that direction (thinking Simple Green), but wasn't sure. I also see different approaches to lubing them after they dry. Some use Reel X and some use Super Lube.

I am afraid to soak them in anything because of the the plastic around the rollers.

I have been curious about upgrading my reels with ceramic Boca Orange Seal ABEC 7 reel bearings , so I asked BOCA for answers to my five questions below and got a great response from Garith Burrows at Boca. I thought it would be worth sharing his responses with other anglers. I am not selling these things, just sharing. Some comments on bass fishing forums indicate that the user removes the seal, flushes the bearing and then applies oil. Orange seal bearings are supplied without lubrication and do not need to be cleaned. They come lube dry so that you can use whatever your favorite oil is. Are these bearing intended to be maintenance free? Not really. Because you use oil as a lubrication it is very difficult to retain it even with seals. The seals will prolong the use of the bearing before re-oiling however. If left dry will they wear faster? Yes, they will wear quicker. We do not recommend using them completely dry, although some people do. If the seal is removed and the bearing oiled, should this be a regular maintenance? It is advisable to regularly maintain your bearings. By doing so you will extend the life and the performance of the bearings. What are BOCA's recommendation for caring for the Orange Seal fishing reel bearings? We recommend that when you receive them the first thing you do is add your own favorite oil to the bearings. Because the orange seals are non-contact we advise keeping them on. The seals are easily removed and replaced, and if you should damage them we will replace them for the lifetime of the bearings at no cost. You should clean them and replace the oil every 2 - 3 months. Cleaning can be done with any solvent or a good thing to use is brake cleaner. Just be sure that the bearings are completely dry before putting in the new oil. Always take the orange seals off before cleaning.

I have had a Berkley spooling station for 8 years and like it a great deal. It makes spooling line very easy and fast with the right tension. Spooling spinning reels is no problem if you read the instructions on how to do it. The set up is slightly different than for baitcasters, but not difficult at all. I highly recommend it. I can't for the life of me figure out how anyone could break one, since there is nothing to break on it.

You can pick up a Curado 200E7 for $155 on this site. http://fishingreelworld.com/shimano.html

Also recommend that you look at the St. Croix Premier line. Superb rods in the $100-$130 price range.