NBR

Hale is right on target. I tuck my motor all the way under give it full throttle and as I come up on plane back off the throttle a bit and trim until I hit the sweet spot which you can hear. Also you will not have any steer torque. My boat will go straight down the lake without really holding the wheel. When I'm set up this way I can run from about 3800 rpm to wide open throttle without any further trim adjustment. If you back the throttle off and start to porpoise you have two choices, 1) trim under a bit or 2) increase the throttle. When you watch boats go down the lake I would say more than half are trimmed out to far. They are throwing a high rooster tail when the majic height is usually about as high as the top of your motor.

Check with your home owners insurance company. I have mine covered under my home owners considerably under Progressive. You will want to check any restrictions with your home owners.

I'm with Roadwarrior, hire guide he should put you on fish early the first day and you won't lose valuable catching time.

Unless I could find someone at a carpet place that was very knowledgeable I would order bunk carpet from BPS.

Don't think bass or walleye, the fish don't know what rod and reel you are using. Think of the water you fish, what lures you want to use and how. Then get an outfit appropriate for the lure or lures and your water..

Standard 6"wx2" thick are actually 5.5'wx1.5 thick. Do what RIBassGuy said for longer life.

Hawgin, When I saw your trade offer I stopped for a moment and considered replying in a positive manner. Then I got thinking, first I bought the Curado to see what all the hype was about if I traded I might never know. Also if I got three reels I might not have enough rods to go around so I would likely buy more rods. Too many rods and reels can degenerate into a negative discussion when I'm trying to get the lady to understand why we don't need some trinket or another and there she stands looking at two rod racks bristling like a porky with things she looks at as trinkets. I'm not sure just how many baitcasters I have but I'm sure it is closer to 30 than to 20. Some are new but some also also go back to my "Whippersnapper" days when now I'm for sure in the "Geezer" class. I will keep you in mind!

6.5 Pounder, I can't speak with personal experience but a guy I fish with pretty often bought 1 about 3 years ago. Liked it and bought another. I think he now has 3. He fishes 3 or 4 days a week in the summer; plus at least a 2 week vacation. He works them pretty hard and is very satisfied.

I have many different kinds of reels but my favorite is an older (at least 15 yrs.) BPS that I bought as a spare for a boat-in Canada trip. My reels get reasonable care. They are lubed and wiped off regularly during the season and about 2 years out of 3 they are partially broken down, cleaned and relubed with both oil and grease. My BPS reels have lasted as long as the Shimano's, Daiwa's and Quantums I have. I think my Curado is a better reel than any of my BPS but time will tell. I question that it is twice as good which is about the price difference.

When trailering the motor is trimmed way out increasing the lever arm and thus the torque on the transom. I have trailered over 4000 miles many years. Equate this to hours on the water and look at the added transom flexing. I wonder why they named it a transom saver?

Put the line through 3 or 4 guides on your rod then tie to the reel spool. I use an arbor knot. Put the spool of fresh line on the floor label side up. Run the line through a heavy book or through your fingers to put some tension on it so it will go on tight. Make sure the drag is tight so it doesn't slip.Take 5 to 10 reel cranks and loosen the line to see if it twists. If it doesn't twist fill to 1/8" from the spool lip. If it twists flip the fresh line spool over and fill to an 1/8" from the spool lip. Making sure the drag doesn't slip is super important. Cranking against a slipping drag is in MHO the biggest cause of spinning reel line twist once you get the line on the reel twist free.

Like said, read Reel Mechanics information on setting up your bait caster. If you are set on casting light lures you might want to consider exchanging the rod for one rated down to 1/8 oz. lures. I would start out with mono in the 12 to 14 # range and the limp or easy casting type. I use Berkley XL but most line companies have equals. My water is not loaded with wood, weeds, cane etc so all I need to watch are the rocks and check for line nicks often. Learn in the back yard or drive way. First just to get the practice lure out there and then with accuracy, then distance and accuracy. After the basics you can start the specialty casts. If you don't get backlashes that are easier to cut the line off the reel than pick out you will be an exception. I've been using a bait caster for over 60 years and I'll probably do something stupid that causes me to resort to the knife again. Once you obtain the skills I thinkyou will love using a baitcaster. One of my buddies started using baitcasters about 5 years ago and that is now all he uses. I think he has gone too far. In the spring I have 4 baitacsters and 1 spinning outfits. The in the summer it is 3 baitcasters and 2 spinning outfits.

A transom saver transfers the torque load of the engine when trailering from the transom of your boat to the boat trailer. When the engine is trimmed up to trailer, every bump no matter how small puts a load on the engine that trasnmits to torque on the transom. When I load my boat I run the trim down until the trailer cross member just deflects a bit. The transom saver will also protect the trim/tilt system a bit by reducing shock pressures transmitted from the motor and bumps to the cylinders. First, I would not trailer any boat/motor combination without a transom saver. Second, I would question the technical capabilities of any dealer who said you didn't need a transom saver. Think about it; you have a boat/motor system worth 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 thousand dollars and you are not going to buy a less than $50 gadget to protect the most hight stressed area of your boat?

I pinch the barbs down on every thing from crank baits, to jigs, soft plastic, literally everything. I don't notice either an increase in hook ups or lost fish. Pinching the bards certainly lessenes the damage done unhooking a fish either deep, lip hooked or as is so ofter externally hooked on cranks and surface baits. A pinched down barb is much easier to get out of you and your clothes. In a hot biteI think I catch more fish because I get the fish unhooked quicker and the lure back in the water sooner.

What Road Warrior says re being a bassfishing pro is correct but then for most all of professional sports fall in the same catergory. Consider all of the atheletes who start playing one sport or another and the small percent that really make the pros. It is miniscule. Issiah Thomas spoke to the Detroit high schools several years ago with a message that you better get an education because your chances of making it in professional sports was slim. I can't remember the year but I recall his statistic that no more than 5,000 athletes made a living from prosports without supplemental jobs elsewhere. I further agree that fishing is not well suited to TV. For myself seeing a larger % of the time looking at one, two or three people standing behind a podium of sorts telling you what is happening. Seeing little of the actual fishing; then watching a weigh in that to me is akin to a WWF promo causes my eyes to snap shut. Hopefully to wake up to see who might be the top 3 or 4 finishers.

My next rod will most likely be 6' or shorter so I can put a jig or soft plastic right in the spot I want on a bus or laydown.

I have never had to repair any reel that was less than 10 years old and I wouldn't spend the money to repair a reel with 10 year old technology. You can send them back to BPS for repair.

You aren't near old yet. I was playing highschool basketball when you were born and I'm not old. Aging but not yet old. I don't mind the aging but I sure don't look forwad to old. I agree about the shows that teach. My current favorite is Linder's Angling Edge followed by In Fisherman. I live in the north so they fit my life. As to the T shows I might watch a few minutes then go do something else or if I have nothing else to do the T shows put me to sleep about as fast as the other drivel on TV.

I forgot, I am 99% sure Pflueger makes their baitcasters.

You will no doubt get a lot of negatives but my experience has been excellant. I have 2 or 3 Shimanos including a Curado, 2 or 3 Daiwas, 2 Quantums, 2 Pfluegers, 2 BPS Rick Clunns, a BPS Prolite finesse and an older BPS that is so old there are probably no parts available. I bought this last item as a spare before I went to Canada on a boat in trip. This reel has become my favorite and it will be a sad day when it fails. I have been using baitcasters for over 60 years so my thumb is pretty well educated. Frankly outside of the cost I can't see much difference in any of them. I set the drags on the light side and use my thumb if I want to apply more pressure on the fish. So drags aren't important to me. I do prefer an externally adjustable drag control but that is no big deal either. Personally, I think they are a pretty good value and if I was in the market for a new reel BPS would get a lot of consideration.

Burley, The Berkley respooling station is not expensive, and has adjustable tension on the line and has cone shaped gizmos that center spools. Page 141 BPS 2007 master catalog, $26.99. Mine has got to be over 10 years old and has served me well. Using this has eliminated the need for me to badger my bride into holding the spool. It also eliminates her from knowing just how many reels I have so I don't need to justify needing a new reel. It does not work with spinning reels.

If your seals are leaking your lower unit oil will be milky. Your boat mechanic can check the lower unit seals with a low pressure air test. I say low pressure because if too much pressue the seal will collapse on to the shaft and seal not showing a true defective seal.

Heat the old numbers with a hair dryer. I use my wife's after written permission. This softens the glue, then I use one of those plastic scrappers used to scrape teflon coated pans. The first time I used my thumbnails and it took a while to get the stuff out from under them. I use GooGone to clean up any residue. I would not use anything abrasive on the gel coat. Before I came onto the hair dryer thing (from a marina) I hated the job but with the hairdryer it's not more than a half hour task. The last time I replaced my numbers my local boat shop ordered me a set of numbers in one sheet. Now my numbers are evenly spaced. Pricey but handy! I think you can get different fonts to suit your taste.

I spool mine with a Berkley Spooling station and have the same issues. I try to guide the line with my finger between the level wind eye and the spool if it is getting real bad. As Burley says it corrects itself after a few minutes on the lake. I don't understand why but I don't really care that much since it fixes itself

They won't dissolve in any reasonable amount of time if at all. There are techiques to getting barbed hooks out or like I do pinch the barbs down or buy a barbit which is a tool you can run down the line and cut the hook in two. The barbit also has magnets which bring the hook pieces out You can also do all of the above which is my method.