heyerfam@bellsouth.net

The larger braided line may help aleviate the "digging in" that causes nasty backlashes but two other things you can try........first loosen your drag, due to braid having no stretch the drag with a braided line needs to be set lighter than with mono or floro...........yes it makes perfect sense and it will keep the braided from burying in your spool with you set the hook hard, the fish will still get hooked. Second one is a Tip I heard which works great........throw a nice long cast and then hand strip out the equivilent of another long cast worth of line and then cut a small piece of electrical tape...it won't go all the way around the spool and then reel the line back in. This gives you plenty of line to fight a fish but will keep the braid from "burying" any deeper into the spool than the tape. Hope this helps

Try to find out if you have any friends or relatives that work for Johnson Controls Inc. JCI makes both the Optima batteries (which are the leader in my opinion) and also all the batteries for Sears along with several other brands. If you sweet talk a JCI employee, they can actually get the Optima batteries at about 1/2 price over stores (I bought 4 while I was employeed by JCI) and they will ship to your friends house. Great warranty and superior duration, make sure your battery charger is for AGM batteries, old ones aren't and it makes a difference.