philsoreel

Man that sucks. Tell you what, it's not a full spool but I have some new, unused 20lb. P-Line CX Premium that I'll never use. It's a smaller diameter line and has alot less stretch than Vanish. I'll let you have it if you want it.

Fluorocarbon line Gamakatsu Heavy Cover Flipping, RI BMF hook, Rebarb Straight Shank Gamakatsu 3/8-1oz tungsten flipping weight Is a basic snell stronger than a, for example, uni knot or is it's advantage on a flipping/punching rig just the angle the hook moves to on the hookset. Is it both? The same question for braid. This is a new style of fishing for me. I just picked it up 6-7 months ago so constructive criticism is welcome, wanted even.

I didn't even catch that. The Fi is pretty outdated (I assume it is anyway)compared to the new Flugger. I was comparing it to the Stradic CI4.

I was pretty impressed with the Pflueger's weight to begin with until I noticed that the numbers are a little deceiving. When comparing the two, the smallest of the Pfluegers (whatever model number it is) is a smaller reel than the Stradic Ci4 1000, smaller spool, less line capacity. Not saying it accounts for all of it, it may or may not, but the numbers are skewed in the Pfluegers favor.

Can't you sneak into X tackle store with $20 and buy a spool of Seaguar Abrazx or Invizx without your wife knowing? The repercussions of a mad wife are minuscule compared to losing a fish because of bad line in my eyes.

Agreed but....I've found some applications where the line that says "Fluorocarbon" on the box works better than the one that says mono. lol

Not saying it's infallible but I'm playing with a spool of 8# Tatsu right now and no matter how soft it is for a fluoro it still has that guitar string effect. On semi-slack line FC's have a much better ability to carry a vibration than mono. I'm also playing with some 12# Sunline Super Natural mono...the closest mono to FC I've ever used and it's still not mistakable for FC. I've been on a quest for a year and a half to find the end all of FC's for myself. If it's being done, I believe it's in the cheaper range of lines. With premium FC's the sensitivity is just crazy.

I have and it's been a long, costly journey. I was kind of ticked at myself for not just trying Tatsu to begin with but I did find my favorite jig/t-rig/c-rig line along the way so it ended up being worth it.

Seaguar Tatsu 8lb. Fluorocarbon Shimano Cumara CUS-DX72M 7'2" Medium X-Fast Shimano Stradic CI4 2500 1/16th and 1/8oz. Shakeyheads Please remember this is just my opinion, not empirical evidence. That being said. Upon opening the package my reaction was uggggh...ok. That really cool looking line spool, the gold square turned 45 degrees, is just a decal. Maybe I'm naive but I thought it was something different, not that it has anything to do with the line. Anyway, just feeling of the line initially it's soft,slick, and very small. Spooling up it lays nicely and doesn't make that kind of crunching noise that some stiffer fluoros I've tried makes. Knots (uni) tie nice and easy. I was a little concerned about that area because I tried Seaguar Grand Max FC Leader Material, which is also made using Seaguar's DSF two resin double structure technology (bigger words=bigger price tag lol), and it can be a pain to tie sometimes. To the water.... Immediately, a little better handling and casting distance is noticed over the last high-end FC I tried, Toray Bawo Premium Plus Hi Grade. It's not a huge difference but when you're throwing light finesse stuff like a 1/16th oz. shakeyhead, any difference is noticed. I personally believe the slight differences are mostly due to Tatsu 8# being a smaller diameter than Toray Hi Grade 8#. There's another difference though...stretch. I know plenty of others have already posted about this but there is a more noticable difference in stretch. Tatsu is also the better line in this category to me. Like all others (IMO) Tatsu is still lacking in this department but it's not a big issue. In fact, most would never notice but stretch is one of my pet peeves. Knot strength, tensile strength, and impact/shock strength have been superb. I've only had one break-off and it was 100% my fault. I haven't been fishing it long enough to really get a good idea of how abrasion resistant it is other than not having to retie often. Really, I haven't had a situation where I said, " Ugh oh, I better retie". The few times I did have just been out of habit. So far, Tatsu is living up to it's reputation. I really don't have anything negative to say about it. It's not light years ahead of Toray and Shooter, the two other elite FC's, but I will, for now, crown it Cream of The Crop in the light line FC category. By my standards anyway. Now when it comes to the 14-16lb. category it's going to have a hard time beating Toray SH Upgrade. I'll find out when my SH Upgrade gets worn out enough to warrant a change...it's lasted 8 or 9 months of really hard, bottom contact, heavy cover fishing and shows no signs of needing replacement. Until then.... I would like to convey my deepest sympathy and send my thoughts and prayers out to the families of the victims of today's and April 15th's tornadoes throughout the Southeast, East Central Ms. and West Central Alabama especially, as these are my neighbors per say. I hope they can endure, recover, and prosper in the days to come. I wish the same to others I'm not aware of outside my region as well. Sincerely, Phillip W.

Braid- Palomar or Basic Snell Mono- Palomar Co-poly- Palomar Fluorocarbon- Uni I will use a Palomar on super soft fluoro like Invizx but the only reason I tried it was because I saw where it had a higher breaking strength on TT's FC Showdown but is an exception that doeasn't happen much with harder fluoros.

I always do this with fluorocarbon and braid. Depending on the spool size, I usually fill about the first third of the spool with mono or old fluorocarbon. On "my" reels this saves me a large amount of line but is still plenty of line left just in case. I want enough extra line to account for alot of re-ties and to never get spooled down to my line to line connection. I use an albright special knot when connecting my braid mainline to my mono backing and a uni to uni when connecting my fluoro mainline to backing. The uni to uni is IMO easier to tie mono to fluoro, mono to mono etc, etc Just my two cents....

Have done it and still do it. As long as it doesn't lay over it's fine in my book.

I really wish TT would have included Tatsu in their FC Showdown.

Hmmmm....it seems a spool of Tatsu in my future is inevitable. I haven't had any stretchy hookset problems yet but it did feel a little on the mushy side when I tied on a heavier shakeyhead and went deep. This is getting aggravating. I LOVE Solaroam Upgrade 16# for jigs/t-rigs but I think it would be too stiff for a lightline spinning set-up. Awesome hooksets and sensitivity. Might just give 7# Shooter a try. It had the lowest amount of stretch of all the FC's in TT's FC Showdown.

I agree 100% percent with everything that's been said here. I like a strong hook, a broomstick, and a hookset that will cross her eyes when jig fishing. HOWEVER, if he's using a medium or light wired jig then he's probably doing exactly what Hack said...bending the hook just enough to tear out.

So, you haven't actually used Bawo PP Hi Grade but Tatsu is the better of the two???

Every Seaguar line I've ever used had terrible stretch. I have not used Tatsu because I was worried it would be just like all the others. I've been fishing the new Toray Premium Plus Hi Grade every day for a week now on my shakeyhead rod and this is what I think about it...it's a Premium Plus High Grade fishing line. It's looking like it's going to be finding it's way onto a few more of my reels.

I am totally in the dark about modern fishfinders. I'm looking at these two. Lowrance Mark 5x DSI Gray-scale $299 + $50 mail in rebate making it $249 Humminbird 570 DI $299 Looking at them in a BPS magazine the Humminbird's actual images look clearer and more detailed but still...I know nothing about the features and don't know which will be better. I'm mostly concerned with clarity and detail of structure, bottom composition, and thermocline exposure. Navigational features are less of a concern to me. I'm trying to stay in the $300 range. I figure if I stick to gray-scale I can get a better unit in this price range. HELP!

Not being arrogant here but I was proud of myself today. I went bream/crappie fishing today. Didn't carry my big tackle bag just my small crappie/bream bag. I did however do a little run down of things I needed to transfer from the big bag. My little bag has mostly what you want to carry on any trip but I added my little bitty razor sharp scissors, bug spray, and small hemo stats. On this trip I also brought my shakeyhead rod/reel and a tray full of robos in case the little guys weren't biting. Well, the little guys were biting and I had a great time. When the sun dropped below the tree-line they turned it off. The bass were making quite a ruckus so I tossed a very light shakeyhead (didn't have a topwater lure with me) with a RI 6.95 Flirt in White Trash and reeled it kinda fast shaking some with the tip held high to stay near the surface. Second cast caught a nice 3-3.5lb. I get the fish in the boat only to realize it's hooked deep. I couldn't remember the trick for getting a hook out by coming in from the gills that pops it out easy and I didn't want to leave a jighead stuck in the fish. By now it has gotten pretty dark out and I have all the tools to get this hook out without killing the fish except one....a flashlight. I was very upset with myself for forgetting the one tool that was probably going to be the reason I was about to lose this fish. Luckily there was just enough moonlight shining so that I could see inside it's mouth and got the hook out with minimal damage. The reason I say I'm proud of myself is because when I realized that fish was hooked deep I lost all concern about my new Cumara rod and Stradic CI4. I didn't even think about it basically being thrown to the side and literally getting both the rod and reel scratched and dinged enough that the resale value just went flying out the window. Yes, I devalued that rod and reel by $100 or more dollars but the fish lived and that made me proud. I know I did nothing more than most other anglers would have done but it still made me feel great knowing that fish is still alive and probably hiding in some cover ambushing minnows right now.

I should've added that I typically close the bail manually (by hand) but there are times when I don't and that's when it gives me problems. I guess it's mostly when I make a bad cast that I turn the handle to engage.

I have an older (2002-2004ish) Daiwa Regal 2000 4I spinning reel. Picked up 4 of them at Hudson's Dirt Cheap for $13 a piece in 04. Sold three and have been fishing this one for a few years. Been a pretty decent reel except for the bail not staying together. It would pop out and had no set screw so I cured that with a clear epoxy but now it's starting to give me problems engaging. Sometimes I'll make a cast and turn the handle to close the bail but the bail doesn't close. The handle and rotor will turn but bail will still be open. Anybody know what might be causing this and what can I do to fix it?

I'm still undecided on a lot of favorites. There's a few different lines I trust for certain techniques but one I am totally sold on is Toray Solaroam Superhard Upgrade. I use it for my jigs/t-rigs/c-rigs. One 16# 164yd. spool gives me two full spools on a Shimano Core 50MG7. I have been using that line since October of last year and it shows no sign of needing replacement anytime soon. Yes, it's really expensive but if it lasts a year it will be alot more economical than spooling up ten or more times this summer with a cheaper line. I fish, on average, about 5 times a week including the winter. I have put many many miles on this line, even caught my PB 10.73lb. on it last month and it's still in excellent condition and have only used half of the spool. When this spool finally gives out, whenever that may be, I still have another brand new full spool left. Hypothetically, let's say each spool lasts me 9 months. That's a year and a half of line for $37. That's a really good bargain to me. As far as other applications I would go with PowerPro or Sufix 832 with or without a good leader material when braid is feasible. P-Line CX Premium is an outstanding, affordable line for most applications other than topwater. When mono is needed Sunline Super Natural Mono is my top choice. Nothing wrong with Sufix Elite Camo mono I just prefer the smaller diameter of the Sunline. Just my two cents...

I tried the 10# on spinning gear and it performed nicely. Pretty tough stuff.

Did someone say Sexy Shad?

Line size/diameter is another crucial factor. Just the slightest bit too big can cause you all kinds of trouble.