FloridaFishinFool

I thought about using Navionics too, that is until I cross checked their so called "contour" maps with the real world and discovered Navionics contours are no where close to the real world and extremely inaccurate. I regularly fish a lake here in central Florida and I have downloaded the official government bathymetric map used by county governments as well as state government agencies and it is considered very accurate since it was measured by real humans who came to the lake to make an accurate map for government purposes. And then there is Navionics map. No telling where or how they come up with their so called contour lines and depths, but they are not even close and so I did not download it.

I guess it revolves around how much a reel is used. If you hardly use your reels in 35 years I can understand your point, but for my 13 year old Shimano curado's I have had to replace the yoke in each one about every 3 or 4 years because I use them all the time. There is no other part inside a reel (like mine) that wears as much or as fast as the yoke. I have been repairing reels for about 35 years as well and from my experience yokes are the part I replace most often. It is a common maintenance issue for people who use their reels as heavily as I do. This issue also revolves around the design of the yoke too. A plastic yoke wears out faster than one with a steel collar or a pinion gear with a washer between the gears and plastic yoke. The moderator should encourage discussion not shoot people down and discourage anyone from contributing. His point was lost on me, but the shoot down was not. If I follow the "logic" of his opinion then regular maintenance is a non issue since worn parts just makes a reel work better- worn gears, worn yokes, wear everything down and heck the reels are just better and smoother. I guess the reel engineers should design reels like that to begin with and forget maintenance since worn is better. That is how it comes across like it or not.

The yoke is designed to keep the pinion gear in a certain place in alignment with the drive gear, and not too tightly shoved down onto the spool connection. The very fact it wears the yoke as seen above proves the pinion gear wants to move outside of the position engineers designed it to be at- and the yoke resists this movement getting worn down in the process. Some manufacturers put a washer on the pinion gear itself to stop this wear. I also showed an image of an improved yoke with a steel collar added designed to stop this type of wear. Designed to keep the pinion gear in a particular location inside the reel for a reason. This is done by professional engineers who design and build reels for a living. So if you think a pinion gear being shoved down through the plastic yoke more tightly jammed up against the spool is not a regular maintenance issue and much ado about nothing, you are certainly welcome to your opinion. My local Shimano dealer would also disagree with your assessment. I surely do not want my pinion gear being jammed up against the spool tighter and tighter with each use. I'd like for my pinion gear to float on the spool shaft exactly where the engineers designed it to be so my reels stay smooth. This thread was started by someone asking about common maintenance issues. I put one out there and you shot it down. ***Also you should be aware that these forums are intended for the sharing of knowledge and experience. People have to want to contribute. When you undermine and shoot down someone's genuine attempts at sharing information, you take away the future willingness to contribute. Why should anyone post anything if people just jump in to shoot it down? Then what is the point of sharing? What you have just done is a negative. I went through a lot of trouble to take images to show the common maintenance issue and you shot it down as nothing. Don't expect people to contribute if all you are going to do is shoot them down.

I knew it! We have the same situation here in central Florida too. This past weekend when I was out on six different lakes I was looking for beds and was not seeing any. The fish were indeed down deep doing nothing. I trolled around the edges of the lake in crystal clear shallow water and did not even see any fish period. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. No activity. We managed to catch 3 bass in 3 hours but that was it. All little males getting ready for spawn. These lakes are all connected by canals 3 and 4 feet deep and soon they will be loaded up with spawning bass and like you I'm hoping to catch a few DD mama's off the beds... But hey, at least you got to fish! You could of been snowed in somewhere!

The only thing I did not like about the new CU-201G7 I bought was that I could feel the gears mesh right out of the box. I sold it within a week on ebay. I expect it to be smooth. Mine was not. Because of that experience I have moved on to other brands of reels. I have recently purchased a new Curado i just to see what it is like, but I have not received it yet and can not comment on it. I still have 8 Curado B series reels which includes one 3.8:1, one 5:1, two 6.2:1, and four 6.2:1 BSF models which I love and I will not get rid of those old reels. I was using my 3.8 B series reel this past weekend and just amazed at how smooth it is to use. I can not feel the gears on those B series reels. Super smooth. The curado standard to compare all others to. But it was the G7 that caused me to veer away from Shimano all together and into other brands. I hope the new "i" is smooth out of the box. If not, it will be my last new "made in Malaysia" Curado.

If you look inside your curado reels the part that wears the most and the fastest is the pinion yoke. You will find a piece of plastic who's job it is to hold in place (retrieve position) or move (cast position) a spinning piece of brass- the pinion gear- each and every time you push the cast button or reset it on the retrieve. And even when the reel is engaged and the brass pinion gear is spinning, it is spinning held in place by that plastic yoke and nothing else. When you have a brass gear with sharp edges on each gear tooth grinding on the plastic yoke every time you turn that handle what do you think is going to give? It is the plastic yoke. Like you I have curado reels. 8 of them. I have been maintaining them for more than 10 years. And the only part I have to replace more than any other is the pinion yoke because Shimano uses only a piece of plastic for the yoke. In other reels they make the pinion yoke out of solid metal, but even that wears out, and on yet other reels they try and compensate for this wear by placing either a plastic washer on the pinion gear itself to ride in between the gear teeth and the plastic yoke, or they add a metal steel collar to the plastic yoke to prevent the wear I am describing. So let me show you from my own reels. Here is a worn out yoke from one of my curado B series reels. The camera angle does not show the wear all that well, but the following photos should. In the following image I turned the worn yoke up on a brand new yoke below. Can you see the angle wear along the top of the yoke where the pinion gear rests? The new one below shows a perfectly 90 degree angle, while the worn one does not... Here is the pinion gear inserted into place on the worn yoke. I have circled in yellow the wear pattern under the brass gear. Notice it is no longer a perfect 90 degrees all the way around the yoke where the brass pinion gear sits. Now remember, this plastic yoke is all that there is in the reel to keep the brass pinion gear where it is suppose to be to mesh with the main drive gear and also connect up to the spool at just the right precise location. Worn plastic yokes allow that pinion gear to "float" around and find a new location to rest and worse of all wobble around in there possibly causing gear misalignments! Replace worn yokes! This is a regular maintenance issue. #1 on my list. Nothing else inside any of my reels wears as fast or as much as what you see here. Nothing. Here is the same brass pinion gear now inserted into a brand new yoke. Notice the perfect 90 degree angles different from the worn yoke above??? Here is a Penn metal yoke. Notice the wear??? This is a common maintenance issue and should be number one on anyone's list who cares about maintaining their reels to like new condition. Some manufacturers have compensated for this wear issue by upgrading and improving their plastic yokes with a steel collar designed to prevent the Shimano wear shown above. Unfortunately the JDM Shimano corporation has not done this, but the Korean made Bass Pro and Browning reels do have it! You asked what are the common maintenance issues with baitcast reels and this is one of the most important and probably most overlooked too. Not in my reels!

The most common parts to replace are the plastic parts that receive the most wear. First and foremost is the pinion yoke. Next would be clutch cam and brake shoes would be on the top of my list. Next I'd check drag washers and the line guide if it is really old to see if there is any wear or grooving issues needing to be replaced. Most other parts are either metal or just don't get a lot of wear like the ones I mentioned above. Replace as needed, but definitely keep some of those yokes and brake shoes in stock!

Actually it is not unrealistic. It is becoming the norm more than anything else. If you want to spend $180.00 on a $30.00 reel that it cost the manufacture to make that is up to you. But if I want to spend $30.00 on a $30.00 reel that has every bit the same performance as the reel you spent $180.00 then who is getting the better deal? That is my point. I simply choose to no longer spend on spent reputations. I have shimano stradic reels that cost $180.00 that give me less quality of performance than my $30.00 Tokushima. What some of you are not getting is that your $180.00 reel is simply artificially inflated to that price when the reality of it is it is just another $30.00 reel. I have experienced this myself. Recently I purchased a Shimano 201G7 and on the bottom of the reel foot it said "made in Malaysia" and right out of the box I could feel the gears meshing. I hate that with a passion. I sold this made in malaysia junk G7 in less than one week on ebay. Today I have replaced it with made in Korea Bass Pro reels that are super smooth right out of the box and have more features like both centrifugal and magnetic braking adjustable from the outside of the reel so when I am fishing I don't have to disassemble the reel to make an adjustment like the Shimano curado is designed. Reality shows me I can get the same performance of an artificially inflated reel price of $180.00 in a $30.00 reel.

Hootie, one thing you are not considering is that the Chinese realize that a lot of people have low opinions of them. So what are the Chinese doing about it? For one, the Chinese are buying up name brand companies and buying their already established brand names and market shares and reputations. And for two, a lot of Chinese companies are getting up on their game to improve their products to earn an improved opinion of them and their products. And for me, Tokushima has done this with their top of the line spinning reels which I am now buying because they are trying to improve and I like the price for what I am getting. Simple as that. Shimano on the other hand is going backwards in this game. They are keeping their prices up there while they quietly have more and more of their products made cheaply in China, but keep the prices up there hanging off the coattails of their past reputation. A perfect example of this is the curado G7 I recently purchased new. It was made in Malaysia. Right out of the box I could feel the gears. My Bass Pro reels are smoother and they are made in Korea. I sold that G7 in less than a week on ebay. With the curado G7 I was paying for an old reputation Shimano threw out the window with their made in Malaysia junk Curado.

My Tokushima reel cost me $28.00 to my door with free shipping. Today they are now $38 for the same reel. Cabela's marketed them a few years ago for $130.00. Boca bearing company probably spends less than .50 cents to buy Chinese bearings. Once they are imported to the Boca warehouse, now that same bearing is $17.00. I sort of figured if I was going to be buying products made in China anyways, I'd just rather buy direct and save and cut out the middle men like Cabela's and Boca and others who mark them up to artificial prices. I have been doing very well buying direct from China and presently I have no regrets so far. The only reel from China I did not like was a Bill Dance signature series reel I bought used in a pawn shop because I wanted the rod it was on, not the reel. That made in China Bill Dance reel was cheap junk but I kept the made in China rod. I gave the reel to a kid to learn to fish with it. By the end of 2015 I plan on all of my spinning reels being Tokushima. All changed over from the Shimanos I have used for years and years including stradics- which I found plastic bushings inside of rather than ball bearings. Today virtually all of the reels I am buying and using are either from Korea or China. I just sold my last Shimano Chronarch to some guy in Poland. Hope he likes it. I replaced it with a Korean made Bass Pro Johnny Morris reel and like it better. It may not be as nice as the chronarch at $279.00, but it is smooth and I like it and parts are cheap too if it does break. ***While I do like some Chinese and Korean made rods and reels, I am picky about which ones and have not had any problems with the choices I have made so far, but I can not say the reel the OP is looking is a good or bad reel as I have never had one so please don't consider my support for some Chinese products to include the reel the OP is considering.

The bearing count for baitcast reels can be misleading. 4 of those bearings are in the handle. You generally find three on the spool, one under the crankshaft, one on the line guide, and one stacked next to the AR bearing which is sometimes also counted as a bearing. So if you see a baitcast reel touting 10 or 11 ball bearings, you can pretty much figure 4 of those are in the handle. I use several baitcast reels with 10 ball bearings and my pflueger spinning reels have 10 as well, and my Tokushima spinning reels have 13 or 14 ball bearings. A lot of people say the extra bearings don't do much, but if you could see and feel how smooth and easy to operate some of my reels are because of those bearings it might make you a believer too. I have worked on reels for nearly 35 years and I have moved towards reels with more bearings rather than less. I have reels with fewer bearings and most of them are either gone or tossed into a box unused along with my shimano spinning reels that came with cheap plastic bushings rather than ball bearings. I have seen and felt the difference that well placed ball bearings can make in a reel and I like it. No turning back for me.

Junk? Some may be junk. Some are decent reels. I am replacing all of my Shimano reels with Chinese made Tokushima spinning reels because they are nice reels. I was out fishing with it yesterday. Not all Chinese made products are junk. It is my opinion a majority of the products people are using today are made in China- even some Shimano products too. And as one comment already mentioned his Pflueger reels are made in China too. And we all know how popular the China made Pflueger president reels have become in America. Are those junk too? If they are, then that is successful junk. Untold numbers of fishing rods are also made in China- even if it does not say so. A lot of rod blanks are being bought cheaply from China and assembled somewhere else and a well known brand name is applied to it, and people buy them up no wiser for its true origins in China. My point is that a larger percentage of products that we use come from China even if it does not say so. Fishing line is another product often made in China and refined in other countries with a well known brand name. If you do a search on all the companies who actually make gel-spun PE fibers used to make braid and superlines you will find there are only about a dozen companies worldwide who actually make it. But how many brand name companies are selling braid fishing line today? Far more than those who actually make it which can only mean one thing- like many of our reels, the lines we use are in fact made in one of those dozen companies with nearly half of them in China. A lot of people who buy just the rod blanks from well known American companies who spend hundreds of dollars on rod blanks may not even know they are buying a Chinese made rod blank to build their favorite rod. Is it junk? Guess that is a matter of opinion. So we sit out here and argue which reel is better when both came out of the same factory. We sit out here and argue which line is better when much of it was all manufactured in the same factory. Most Boca bearings are sourced from China. I simply choose to go around the middle men like Boca and buy direct from China and save. But you do have to choose wisely as China produces good stuff and cheap bad stuff no doubt. A lot of people are buying what they think are JDM products when the truth is they are made in Malaysia, Korea, China, Singapore, Philipines, etc. And they try and justify this by saying but it is made for the Japanese markets as though that completely saves the product from a made in China origin. The truth is JDM has two meanings- Japan Domestic Market and Japan Domestic Model. They are two completely different descriptions with two completely different meanings that are largely lost on those who swear by the JDM products not made in Japan. It seems to anger some of them to no end to have to come to the realization their love of JDM is being betrayed because the items they hold in their hands are in reality Chinese made or Korean made, or Malaysia, Singapore, Philipines, etc. anywhere but Japan. So does this make all that stuff junk too? If so, people sure are buying it up and loving it. Just yesterday myself and some other forum members met up here in Orlando to do some fishing. They used all Abu reels made in Korea. I had with me only one Shimano reel that said "made in Japan" and all the rest were made in Korea too probably at the very same factory who made the Abu Garcia reels they used. So we enjoyed a nice day out fishing using a bunch of junk I suppose. But what was nice was our junk performed flawlessly. Very smooth reels. Some reels are many years old and still work like new. Rods made in China. No telling where the lines were made. My Chinese made Pflueger president reels and my Chinese made Tokushima reels are smoother and easier to operate than any Shimano I have ever owned and today I am replacing the Shimano reels with made in China spinning reels that I like much better. My Chinese made pfluegers are now 5 years old and still work great like new. My Tokushima spinning reels are now two years old and work great like new. If this stuff is all junk, then I guess I am a junk collector and will continue to collect Chinese junk because it is inexpensive and it works. You just gotta choose wisely is all I can say and it is often trial and error. The Vexan rod I used yesterday for the first time ever is marketed by an American company in Iowa. The rod blank was made in China. It is marketed in USA for $150.00. It is super light and was an excellent rod and I had a lot of fun yesterday fishing with that piece of junk. I might even buy some more of them.

Just today I took out my new 7'11" IROD and casting it with one hand was uh, difficult to say the least. The longer rods are not as well balanced, and can cause muscle fatigue much faster. You really have to be in shape and have strong muscles to use one to its maximum effectiveness. I am now 50 and not as strong as I use to be and it was more difficult for me. I noticed trying to get my accuracy dialed in was more difficult. I was throwing off by at least 10 degrees or less with one more foot of rod. Another forum member here also tried it out and he was using two hands to cast with it. Longer rods require more physical strength. Or they will wear you out fast!

I prefer cork for an arbor. It is lightweight and will not crush. Fishermen have been using cork since the 40's or longer. They are easy to make by hand too.

I disagree with this statement. The line comes off the brand new original spool with line memory and it does not take long for it to develop a new memory from my reel's spools. The issue of line memory resides with the product itself and is not unique to me.

One thing I noticed missing in the OP was the line memory issue of mono which I absolutely despise with a passion! Talk about ruining casts... ugh! 20 plus years of mono was a way too lengthy unpleasant painful experience I wish I could go back and do over again, this time not using mono. I have made the switch to braid and fused superlines and the only thing I use mono for is backing on a spool and that's it. No looking back and no regrets.

Gluvit is one product tin boaters use to seal up leaky old rivets. I have drilled out rivets and replaced them with aluminum nuts and bolts and then used gluvit. Here is a link to the aluminum fastner supply company I ordered from: http://www.aluminumfastener.com/ Sometimes re-hammering old rivets can help to seal them up, and adding Gluvit can complete the seal, but if you have to replace broken or bad rivets- If you try to drill out the old rivets and replace them, just be aware you can not put back into the hull the same size as what came out because the reason it was leaking in the first place is because the rivet is usually working itself loose enlarging the hole slightly, so you will either need to replace with a larger solid aluminum rivet, but it usually takes two skilled people to do this job, but if you simply drill out the bad rivets and replace with an aluminum nut and bolt it is something one man can do by himself. Make sure to put the rounded bolt head on the outside of the hull and the nut on the inside. Then apply Gluvit and when done right it will last for years to come.

What about Dobyns? As close as I have come to them were in a Bait and Tackle store where I handled some of them and put them back in the rack because they were too whippy for me. I like solid rods, stiffer with plenty of backbone and the 3 different Dobyns I handled in the store were not for me. I grew up with rubbery whippy rods and today I avoid them. But if that is your thing, then go for it. I like the Irod's because they are designed by bass pro's for bass pro's- I have no idea who designs Dobyns- but I liked the Irod's and I like the *** *** rods too. I am so done with rubbery whippy rods! But hey, its a new year and I go back to that same store often and I will check out the new Dobyns and see if they have changed any...

http://www.irodfishing.com/irod-genesis-2/ IROD: IRG7113CC “Fred’s Crank Launcher” Fred designed this rod for deep diving cranks but will work with mid divers and larger shallow divers. Not your usual crank rod, this rod is all graphite and is not whippy and soft like others. It’s tip is strong enough to drive in a hook set yet forgiving enough to play the fish without ripping out the hooks. It will also cast any crank bait a country mile which is needed to get the big cranks down deep. Length:7’11″ Lure weight:3/8-1 1/2 Line weight:8-20 Power: Med. Heavy Action:Moderate They do have a 7' close to what you are looking for: IRG703CC “Gabe’s Rip Rap Special” Designed by Gabe for small to medium crankbaits and most reaction baits. Its composite of glass and graphite give it the perfect soft tip to allow for casting and hooking reaction fish, but has pleanty of backbone to turn the biggest of fish. Length: 7′ Lure weight:1/4 – 3/4 Line weight:8-16 Power: Med. Heavy Action: Fast

Well then you can change to a grapnel hook type of anchor if the current is too strong, or just use a heavier anchor. The mushroom is suppose to tip over and grab some in current, but nothing like a grapnel type of anchor. Walmart has a folding grapnel anchor for under $20.00 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Grapnel-Folding-Anchor-Galvanized-5-lb./11071227

As a kid I used an old window weight. But you can buy a mushroom anchor from walmart for under $20.00.

I'm just gonna throw this out there, but we are facing two cold fronts back to back with the coldest hitting on Saturday through that area. I would suspect that a lot of fish would be trying to seek a comfort zone from the cold down deep. So you might find a heavier concentration of bigger fish hanging off the steeper dropoff's to the deepest parts of the lake. Just a theory... but the warmer water may hold more fish on Saturday.

I just some digging into the history books on the Texas rig and found out that Nick Creme was not the inventor of it... well, some say he is and some say he isn't. According to the book "Catching Bass Like a Pro" by Steve Price and Guy Eake, on page 71, in chapter 10 they get into the source of the Texas rig and credit it to a local Texas fisherman named Robert Carey Scott in the mid 1960's to get down to submerged brush piles for bass holding up in them without getting hung up. Here is a link the above reference: https://books.google.com/books?id=g1ycmGO-ysUC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=history+of+the+texas+rigged+worm&source=bl&ots=tENW2fEEqd&sig=QJQh3-mVzH3JvkDZ0qrffm12wSk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rBncVKXHMfeTsQS45YDoDg&ved=0CFEQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=history%20of%20the%20texas%20rigged%20worm&f=false Here is part of a good article I found on the subject: http://www.expressnews.com/sports/outdoors/article/After-65-years-original-plastic-worm-still-made-5233392.php#/0 “(Goswick) called Cosma Creme to ask her for some plastic worms,” Kent recalled in his office last month. “But the answer was that production was too far behind. We'd have to wait.” Goswick wasn't satisfied. His next call was to a local rose grower. That might seem out of context, but Tyler is known as the “Rose Capital of the World.” Goswick ordered two dozen rose bushes be sent to Mrs. Creme. Kent eased back in his chair as he retells the story of those two fateful phone calls. “I'm not sure it was the rose bushes, but two or three weeks later, we were covered up with plastic worms.” The timing was perfect. There were other factors at work at the time, and Kent is quick to note them and how they all came together in the 1950s and early '60s. “There was a reservoir-building binge, and Texas was part of it,” Kent said. “Bulldozers would clear brush and it would be piled up. Then the dam would be closed, and the lake would fill. The brush piles were covered. They were out of sight.” 'Texas rig' Meanwhile, up the road from Tyler, in Tulsa, Okla., a banana and vegetable salesman named Carl Lowrance came up with an idea that would locate the hidden brush piles. In 1957, sonar was adapted to angling when Lowrance and his sons came out with a structure-finding flasher unit that looked like a little green box. It was the Fish Lo-K-Tor. Kent recalled that about that same time, Holmes Thurmond, a businessman in nearby Shreveport, La., designed the original fiberglass bass boat. Thurmond had been making plywood Skeeter boats since the late 1940s. In 1961, along came the upgraded Super Skeeter, seen at the time as the ultimate bass boat. It could handle a 35 horsepower outboard motor and skim across the new reservoirs at an impressive 30 mph. Bass anglers then had lots of new water and fast transportation as well as a way to “look” at the bottom of a lake and find the brushy, fish-holding structure. And they had that new soft plastic Creme worm that bass seemed to like. “The problem was that you couldn't get a worm down in the brush without getting snagged,” Kent said. “Fishermen lost a lot of worms.” It is not known who, or exactly when, but it was about that time and in the Tyler area that someone came up with a terminal tackle combination called the “Texas rig.” An inventive angler had cut the brass eye loop from a bell sinker, threaded it onto his line, tied on a sharp hook and ran the hook through the head of a Creme worm — then turned the hook and pushed the tip back into the worm. “The key was that for the first time the point of the hook could be placed back into the lure,” Kent said. “The weedless lure was invented. Now anglers could get down into the hidden brush piles without snagging.” Here are some more reference articles: http://www.northcarolinasportsman.com/details.php?id=841 http://staugustine.com/stories/052304/fis_2344511.shtml http://thecabin.net/stories/053099/out_0530990096.html If I had to venture a reasonable guess, I'd say that after Nick Creme moved his rubber worm production to Tyler, Texas that he along with other fishermen in the area spread the weedless rig throughout the area by word of mouth and that Nick Creme maybe learned it this way and became one of the first to market the idea outside of Texas. I'd guess the real original source for the Texas rig is lost to history and will never be known, but today we look back and give credit to those men who brought it out of obscurity and into a national exposure.

The anti-reverse pawl should be slid onto the gear. I usually put the two pieces together before putting them back into the reel. Add a little grease where the two slide against each other and make sure it is not loose. This image is from a different shimano, but the principle is still the same:

There are a number of us forum members here in the Orlando area. And we should do some fishing! I thought about starting an Orlando fishing thread for this purpose...