black94gt50

If it's badly stripped take a very small drill bit and just drill it out, or take a dremel and cut a slot in the top of the screw head and try to take it out with a flathead screwdriver. I'm not familiar with the handle or if the nut retainer on those reels are plastic, but you can heat the metal where the screw is and it'll prob come out a lot easier.

Exactly. I'm like to set the brakes up to where my thumb is needed for some resistance on the spool. It's all bout practice and time spent casting over the years. Most modern reels are pretty much set and forget for the most part.

Tnix, I agree mono would affect the depth, but if he tried a smaller mono like a 10-12 pound test, I don't believe it would affect the depth enough to worry about unless your trying to get super super deep. Same thing with the copolymer. That's just my opinion though. Mono is about all that everyone used to use ya know.

Back before I had enough dough for a good set of rods, I used a bass pro tourney special 7'6 heavy to crank with. This was back several years ago, I caught plenty of fish with it, but lost more than my fair share of fish. I could literally see where the hooks would rip holes in the mouth of fish and let the hooks be thrown, resulting in a lost fish. Since then I have switched to a 7'8 glass rod for all my big medium and deep divers. Once hooked up with a fish, I can tell a huge difference when fighting the fish, and with hooks staying buried in the fishes mouth. If the Duckett heavy is all you have, the best advice I could give you would be to use a thin mono or copolymer line, that will stretch with hooksets and cut down some on ripping the mouth of the fish. Lighter drag settings could help also.

Has anyone tried a hawgtech handle or a lews carbon fiber handle on a pro qualifier? I assume there would be no issues, but wanted to check.

Yea you may as well use it as backing. The stuff is terrible. My fishing buddy got a new rod last year and put viscous 15lb test on it and was having a hard time with it, I just figured he didn't set the brakes up right on the reel, so I cast with the reel a few times and it was the most terrible line I've ever felt, words cannot describe it. I don't ***** much and can use about any line, but this stuff was borderline unusable.

I agree that the dual braking is awesome, with that being said the mag braking on the lews are way way better than most Reels I've had with just mag braking. My lews speed spool works flawless and is a super easy reel to cast. I love both the speed spool and the pro qualifier. I'm actually going Friday to get another pro qualifier since the bps sale starts.

Out of all those, speed spool hands down. Metal frame. I've got one that I crankbait fish with and love it. They are small reels and the mag cast control works great on them.

Zona is awesome, he is a funny dude with a heck of a personality. His show always provides me with a lot of laughs. I didn't get to watch any of the classic, I'll just have to wait for espn. I'm sure it was still better than watching anything that was on tv, right?

Mid to deep runners I use a 5.x:1 ratio. Squarebills, lipless, and any other shallow cranks I use a 6.3:1. I throw a lot of squarebills and burn them really fast with a 6.3:1.

They look the same size as the cI4, if so that's a comfortable reel and not big at all. I've never fished with one but checked them out at store and I like the profile of them a lot. Would be very easy to palm.

If I'm not mistaken z-man trademarked the coffin shaped ones. You can get the rounded ones at barlows tackle online store. I would think if you really wanted the coffin shaped ones you could get some big spinner blades and flatten them out and cut to the shape wanted or just get some strong sheetmetal and make your own. Just depends on the time you wanna spend on them.

Me and dad put a ez-troll in his stratos 185, very simple, no need to pay someone to do it. We originally wanted a metal tray, but after checking out the composite ez troll at a boat show, decided to go with it. Your not gonna break it, bottom line. Has a lifetime warranty. It has raised feet inside the tray where you mount the pedal, so if water gets in the tray your pedal will not be submerged. That's something the metal trays didn't have. Cutting the hole will not effect the structural integrity of the boat whatsoever, so it's no big deal. Haven't got to use it on water yet, hopefully will this weekend, but it has to be better than standing there all day with your leg hiked up.

The salesman at kodak bps in tn told me last Saturday that they already had a big order of the new curados in and sitting in the back. Now if that true or not idk, just what he told me.

Check out Powell diesel glass rod at TW. 7' long has a short enough handle that would be great with poppers and top waters with trebles. I use mine mainly for squarebills and lipless cranks. It would also do good with hard jerkbaits. I love throwing a square bill on it. They are priced at 59$. It's a great rod for price.

I almost always have my Texas rigs pegged, but I find myself only fishing Texas rigged plastics flipping and pitching into heavy brush, docks, etc.(which I do a lot).

Some people believe if it isn't a dang 250$ reel and 300$ rod that's it's all junk. I've fished with cheaper bps reels in the past and while they aren't nice by any means, that's all that could be afforded at the time. I have nicer stuff now, but sometimes something on sale is a good way for some that are less fortunate to get some good gear.

Get a 6.3:1 ratio for squarebills, don't mess with the lower ratios. You wanna fish em fast and with the lower ratio you'll end up cranking yourself to death.

Snes super black bass , it was awesome. Man that was a long time ago.

I agree with you, but it's still way way way better than anything else on tv with all the reality crap they show now. I can't complain at all though my two favorites denny brauer and Edwin Evers won the last two mlf tournament. My favorite was when Denny won it, he smokes all those guys on flipping docks. The old man still had one last one in him ha.

I like the trokar flipping hooks really well. As far as everything that I don't use a flipping hook with, it's mostly mustad. When I buy new stuff it'll prob be Trokar though.

7.1 will make the initial start up of the top water bait a lot easier. Can get the buzz bait to the top a lot quicker and maintain the speed needed easier. Like one guy said, you can always slow down your speed if you need to.

I just recently bought a mettle and although I haven't had it out on water, I've thrown it around in the backyard. I think it would do good with the squarebills. I use a citica 6.3 ratio, which is the only ratio I throw squarebills on. I fish them pretty fast, I feel that fishing them at a higher speed gets me a lot more bites. I fish them around a lot of cover and anytime I bump into a piece of cover I give it a good pop while continuing reeling fast. I use p line cxx 12 pound co polymer on squarebills, it's tough, cheap,cast good and works great with squarebills. I think you'll be happy with the mettle and the p line cxx sir.

As others said, the mettle is the best cheap reel you can get. I've heard about them for years and just went up to academy the other day and picked one up. They are on sale right now for 39 bucks. First thing I did when I got home was tear it apart to see how it was built. It has a 6 pin braking system a lot like the shimano citica curado etc. The actual brake in the side plate is held on the side plate by three small screws, which is different from most reels I've had with that type of braking system. Most have been molded into the side plate from what I remember. The handles had two bearings in each grip instead of bushings that most reels in the 100$ range has. The handle itself is very plain jane. There was a bearing sitting on top of the anti reverse bearing in the reel. The inside race of the anti reverse bearing was plastic, somethig I haven't seen before. But with the extra bearing stacked on top of the anti reverse bearing, I don't believe flex would be a issue. The drag is nothing special, it has one washer on top of main gear and one underneath. Idk how well it will wear, but replacement carbon washers are cheap as heck and easy to replace. I will say that when I cranked down on the drag that it felt pretty sturdy. It had a bearing in the side plate, one on the inner spool shaft and one on the reels hand side side plate, where the cast adjustment is. I haven't had it on the lake yet, but I throw some old flouro on the reel and a 1/2 ounce jig and put it on my 7'6 flipping rod and played with it for a hour or so in back yard pitching and making some casts with it. It cast good and done very good flipping at targets. Now it doesn't feel as sturdy as my pro qualifier, lews speed spool and bb1, or citica, but for 40$ it's worth a shot. Academy will pretty much exchange it out with a brand new one if something goes wrong with it. Even though it doesn't have a big badass drag system on it, I'm gonna put it to the test and flip and pitch with it for a while. I've had and do have some nice reels, bought this one to see what's up with the h20 reels. Sometimes 150 or even 100$ isn't in the budget. My outlook on the reels priced in the 40-75 dollar range is as is: first always, always look for metal frame, then go to stores and put a hand on the items you are interested in, and don't be afraid to take the side plate off and check out construction of that part of the reel. I love my citica and lews but if I was going the cheaper route, there's no way that I would even mess with them. They have graphite frame which WILL flex and put all the strain on the gears. The way I see it, is that your paying a extra 20-30 bucks for the shimano name for their cheaper reels. This is just my opinion. Good luck with your search, and I hope your happy with the reel you end up with sir. Most important thing is, go get the reel of your choice and get out on water and have some fun.

I'd take the side plates off and check everything over, a lot of companies will over grease junk from the factory, but most the shimano a I've seen don't seen to have that problem. With a reel of that price I would think they would take better care assembling than with the lower priced ones. I guess if it doesn't feel right send it back, like I said with a reel that nice, I'd expect it to be good to go out of the box.