matuka

My buddy and I fish fast. Land fish, Unhook with the pliers, toss the fish back , toss the pliers toward the middle of the deck and back to fishing. Along comes tournament day so Dave's excited. He lands a fish, smoothly unhooks it, places it in the livewell and as if choreographed, tosses my pliers in the water. It wasn't till he picked his rod up and fired a cast that he realizes what he had done, then has to fess up. We laughed it off. Another time I hung a deep diver in the rocks in about fifteen feet. Out comes my retriever, a monstrosity of a bulldog garnished with a bunch of short chain links. It is attached by braided Dacron, a Quantum baitcaster and a cutoff rod. Quite a project and pretty heavy. I unleash the thing on the crankbait and retrieve it. Reeling all the line back on to the "thing" I see an untidy loop or three that I must correct. I'm drifting out and I push the freespool. As the retriever sinks, all the loops bind up, catch, and yank the whole rig out of my hands back into the lake......gone

Thumbs up to the Procyon. Piece by piece I am upgrading from my old Stradics. Overall much better. Only thing I don't like is for my taste it takes too much revolution of the drag knob to make a difference, as in if you suddenly tie into a big one.

Any stories about lost equipment? What kind of stupid maneuvers have you commited to result in a rod or such swimming to the bottom of the lake?

Overall a C-. Only had one memorable trip pounding Clear Lake with 25+lb limits three days in a row. The delta is my real exam paper however. Still have a lot to learn about punching and frogging. Avoided the skunk all year, and caught decent numbers. All of fall fishing was taken up by work.

I can understand your frustration. But a lot of us have a lot invested in tournament competition and time is your currency. If a person is safe in their craft, I've made phone calls or helped with small repairs, given them oil etc. Potentially harmful situations are of course different obviously. That being said, I have cut into my tourney time if it was clear I wasn't going to win. Just dumped my fish into a competitors live well, and towed a family in.

Just another thought cuz I've had my share of covering problems. If you will be trailering with your cover on get the best you can afford. As you know they aren't cheap. Aurora or Deans. come to mind. Keep it only for trailering or away trips. If used for everyday/all day storage, yes the sun and elements will ruin it in short time. For everyday storage at home, a decent canvas cover with a draw rope covered with a good, but still replaceable tarp should cover it.

I'll second the Owner Ultra shakey head as well, and I've tried a bunch of them. the centering pin just makes life that much easier, and can't argue with Owner hooks. Only problem is with grass. I haven't found one yet that really performs well in grass.

Does anyone see any advantage in using fluoro coated lines? Why would manufacturers make these?

Spro Phat fly. I/8 oz on really skinny line.

I didn't know Dirty Jigs had a wire keeper. At least the ones I have do not. I looked at the TW website, and still couldn't find them. Blade runner tackle has wire Keepers. Could there be a mishap? I have a bit of experience with both.

But what if you caught celery and onions when using it as a scent on a plastic worm?

Kudos to Lou. We all here in NoCal have been waiting for the record to come out of Bullards. Quite a place where when things are right a limit of spots in the high twenties is needed to win.

Ok, I wasn't involved in this one, but I have to share it with you anyway. Our bass club,(all guys)had a very nice woman join a few years back, lets call her Jan. She presented herself well, and knew how to fish. Of course the chatter amongst the guys was if you were partnered with her, what do either of you do when nature calls. Game day comes along, and she is the co angler with a guy, let's call him Steve. By mid-morning Jan needs to relieve herself and asks Steve to back into an overhanging willow. Gentlemanly Steve complies as apparently she's had experience with this maneuver before. Steve is casting off the front and hears a bit of a splash behind him. Not knowing what it is, he resists the urge to turn around and find out. Five or so seconds later he decides to risk sounding stupid and asks "how ya doing"? No answer. Forget it. Steve turns around and sees a pair of tennies wiggling above the water, and the owner submerged somewhere below it. Steve to the rescue! The details of this part were never revealed, so I guess you can fill in the blanks. Jan slipped while squatting, got tripped up on the rigging and had daintily slid into the drink. Now imagine trying to get back in with your jeans wrapped around your ankles, and not make a sound and preserve your dignity. After the "rescue" I guess they had to laugh real hard. Steve issued her a rainsuit and they fished the rest of the day. Jan took all the ribbing like "little mermaid" and "Bubbles" in stride as well, later being elected as a board member.

Have to ditto the others. Test drive that Nitro, fill the livewells, bring some tackle, and a donut loving friend. See how well the craft gets on plane. I introduced a friend to bass fishing and he bought the equivalent boat a few years back and was bitterly disappointed. He gave it back to the shop, took the loss, and bought my Ranger. He's a very happy man now.

I have had problems with cranking batteries. My Evinrude takes a good charge to start it. Come tourney time, with all the graphs and livewells running, I've run low on juice quite a few times. The manager at the local bass boat shop told me to switch to a group 34 deep cycle with a whole lot of cranking amps cuz he has seen this with other Rudes. Surprised me, but it works.

Please just be mindful of flammable rags, (or steel wool ), in a tournament my buddies oil rag ignited. Someone behind him had to inform him that he was on fire. It took two extinguishers to put it out. Also, heavy objects need to be secured very well. Another guy jerry rigged a fastener for a spare prop and of course it broke. The flying prop damaged his hull pretty good before he knew it.

03' Tundra, smaller v8, yankin a heavy 20ft bass boat. I get 13-14mpg towing. I can feel the load going uphill. Don't like it but I just have to slow down and wave to the guys going 70.

One more just for fun. Fishing The Cali Delta with a nooby I felt more like a guide than a fishing companion. I handed him a Spinning rod and weightless senko. It can't get any easier. We were in a well known spawning flat with tules and a seawall. I missed a bite in the trough between the two and instructed Daniel to quickly toss back in there to that hot fish. In his excitement he launched a high one that got caught in the considerable wind. His senko flew about twenty feet left of target, over the seawall, which is about six feet higher than my deck. He was embarrassed and I acted like it was no biggie. Happens all the time. I kicked the T-motor into high and cruised to the wall. Daniel says he has something pulling on the line. Yeah right. I figured he hooked a twig that was twirling in the current. He held the boat steady at the wall and I hopped up and straddled it. It was then that I saw he actually did hook something. A four pounder was going crazy trying to get away from the wall and Daniel's senko. I'm bustin a gut by now. Luckily the fish couldn't throw the hook as I hand lined her up the wall and handed Daniel his prize, his PB as well. He's hooked now!

I use MANY Plano boxes, labeled on two edges for easy ID. One gallon zip lock freezer bags for area specific, or type specific soft plastics, also labeled. Favorite soft plastics like senkos in various colors are held together with HD paper clamps. Hooks are also sorted by size and style, in labeled planos with dessicant pouches thrown in to inhibit rust. One compartment has swimbaits: hard body types packaged and arranged vertically, and soft plastic ones laid horizontally. Well I think you get the picture. Yet after two days fishing the words "tackle" and "organization" are humbly mutually exclusive.......

Back in the day, when bass tournaments were fished out of boats that didn't even have rod lockers, Dee Thomas was kickin some serious bass with a rod somewhere in the eleven foot range. He was "tule dippin", a method which morphed into flippin as we know it. Competitors were complaining so much that tournament organizers had to ask him to use a shorter rod. They were afraid that pros wouldn't compete in they're events where Dee continued his method. He complied,(to his mutual benefit) and fairly arbitrarily picked a seven and one half to eight foot rod to keep every one happy. And so came the rod length limit that most tournaments adhere to.

Interesting stuff! It only seems obvious that viscosity is temp dependant, but I had no idea it could be that much! One of the oils I used to use, (it was red) would sure make it easy to spin your reel, but I remember that I, (as well as others), got tired of having to re-lube so often. Maybe it just plain spun out of the bearing as the season wore on. I switched to Reel X fir bearings, and Shimano brake grease where appropriate upon advice of several tackle repair folks. I accumulated all those little blue capped bottles over the years and thought I better just use them on my Shimanos. I don't mean to have a brand bashing conversation, but I am switching over to other manufacturers for my reels. I picked up a Curado I recently and was shocked that an afterthought note was placed in the box advising lubricating a braking drum ...after each use! Huh? Even then I had to take the spool out and remove the grease, (yes grease) on a portion of the spool shaft to get it to cast well. It casts well now, but I'm afraid I've hit my limit.

I have used a variety of other oils over the years, with variable results. I went back to the manufacturers oil simply from advise from various reel maintenance folks and internet advise from repair/manufacturers. Didn't figure it would be inferior to other. Anybody know if the oil Shimano supplies is synthetic?

Most of my baitcasters have come with a small tube of oil for lubricating the reel. Over the years, (not too many)the oil yellows up. Does anyone know for sure if this indicates that the lubrication properties are breaking down?

I know a lot of guys out on the westside who use the okuma for the reasons stated above. A lot of rod for the money.

Ross England at Clear lake guide service.