MickD

I never heard of it before your post. It will not be quite as small as an FG, but will be much smaller than at double uni, and as you said, very easy to tie. Will try it next time I need a line to leader knot. Thanks for posting about it.

Got it, thought you were referring to my post. Agreed, who would want a knock-off of anything? The reels I've bought have not been knock-off.

Not sure where knock off reel comments are coming from. In my post I mentioned a tennis racket, not reels. By the way the racket was a "name brand." Except it wasn't.

Does the motor have a third water intake, possibly under the horizontal fin on the lower unit? My old Suzuki did, and I had to tape it shut so the muffs would provide the water and the engine would not suck air into the third intake. I never used antifreeze, simply put the engine vertical and let it drain. But now with a new Merc, I'll check the manual to see what is recommended. I think most if not all water pumps have a small hole that will drain all the water out of the pump. But, check the manual. Too much at stake to not be sure you're doing it right.

I have bought a number of reels on Ebay and have not been disappointed yet. I have purchased new and used spinning reels and new BC reels. I am leery of used BC reels because they are so easy to screw up, like the clutch on a manual trans car. Treat it right, it will last forever. Treat it wrong and you can fail it in minutes. I look for the seller rating and only go with 99% or 100% satisfaction and a reasonable return policy (I've never had to return one). Usually shipping is free. I never buy insurance or warranties. I believe that the consequences of a seller screwing a buyer on Ebay are so severe that few sellers will risk it. I'm a little less confident of China sellers (my opinion only, based on a fake name brand tennis racket purchase one time).

It is amazing to me how we all "know" a lot less than we think we do. I would look to my engine manufacturer for the answer to this question.

Funny how some knots work for some people but not all. I have never experienced reliable Albertos. It could be because of the sharp twitching I do so often with smaller swim baits. Or there is something in my technique that is wrong, but I've tried it dozens of times, so have given up on it. The FG is a knot that has many ways of doing it wrong, and small differences in technique, that may not even be noticeable to the tyer, can result in a failure. It wasn't until I tried the tool in my previous post that I got to the point that the knot could be tensioned before the half hitches with no instances of the leader sliding out. One thing that might help is to notice the shape and symmetry of the knot before you tension it. If it looks loose, bumpy with weaves out of place, it most likely will fail sooner or later. If the weaves are perfectly aligned, tight to each other, it most likely can be tensioned properly and will not fail. The method on the internet which doesn't require loading the braid during weaving is, in my opinion, less reliable than the braid-tension method. Without the tension on the braid it is difficult to hold everything tight and to get perfectly aligned and tight weaves. I gave up on that one quite a while ago.

The biggest contributor to a successful FG knot is to keep the braid under substantial tension all the time. If this is accomplished the braid will lay on the leader tightly with every weave looking perfect. The challenge in doing this has always been that most of the time I couldn't keep the braid under tension in my teeth-sooner or later it would slip. Here is what changed my FG life-and is a lot more comfortable on the teeth. Get one of those reusable twist ties from a hardware store, one of those about 3/16 in diameter, about 6 inches long. They have a soft surface and a wire inside. Bend it into a V and wrap the braid around it a few times at the V, then bite on it and the thread together. No slip, no tooth discomfort, no chance of damaging the teeth, and you can hold good tension on the braid while you make the weaves. The form of the knot is perfect, and since each weave can be made quite tight, when you get twenty of them on the leader, there will be no slip. Now maybe there are some lines I haven't tried that need their coating scrubbed off, so that should help. But since I've been doing it this way I get a perfect knot every time, and no tendency to slip while doing the half hitches. I tension it very tightly after doing the weaves just as before, but now I never get one that slips during tensioning.

I've used left crank spin reels and right crank BC reels since I was a kid, and that's a long time ago. I am naturally a right handed person. Two years ago I injured my left rotator cup and found that with my baitcasters I had trouble jigging blade baits, so thought the solution would be a left crank BC reel so that my right could do the jigging. Within a few months I found myself trying to retrieve my old right crank BC reels with my left hand. I had gotten used to the left crank. I now prefer the left crank BC reel to my old right cranks. Bottom line, it's about what you prefer, and one can get used to either even after using only one for many years.

I also don't understand what you are proposing. Stabbing a Dremel into an empty spool to remove the 10# FC? If the spool is empty. . . Oh, just figured it out, you're going to drive an empty spool with a Dremel to take off 10# FC from the reel spool, replace it with 14. I expect Dremels are way too fast for this, but give it a shot. You doing spin or cast? 14 # FC on a spin will be a horror case. You can remove line from a reel spool without damaging it, and later reuse it, but maybe not with a Dremel. They turn thousands of revs per minute , don't they? If I were trying to not have my baits go so deep I think I would let out less line, experiment with the right length behind the boat.

I don't think you can go wrong with any Daiwa. I just ordered a new Tatula to replace an old reel that finally died. I still have a number of Cabela's Prodigy and other Daiwa designed and produced spin reels , and they have served me very well for a long time, and still do. Pfluegers are very smooth, but there is something about the geometry of them that bothers me. Like they are a half a finger off with the relationship of the foot to the lip of the spool. Don't worry about any reel's big drag number promise. You don't need a 20 pound drag; you need a smooth drag. And Daiwa's are smooth.

Another way of saying what Tom is saying is that while the gear mesh ratio remains constant (8 revs of the spool for every rev of the crank handle) the actual working overall ratio changes with how much line is off the reel. Therefore the crank effort would be highest with a full spool and lowest with an empty spool. The more line you take in with each crank handle rev the higher the effort will be. I hope this helps rather than hurts.

Just like the transmission gear ratio on cars, except the nomenclature is reversed. A 5.x to one reel is like first gear in your car compared to an 8.x to one which is like maybe third gear. The lower the number the lower the effort to reel and the less line per reel handle crank you will retrieve. The higher the number the higher the reeling effort and the more line you will retrieve with one handle crank revolution. Having said that, I have found little difference in effort between the different gear ratios, most likely because the reels are so efficient these days. Where I notice a difference is with trying to slowly retrieve a spinnerbait. With a 7.x to one reel I have I find myself always tending to retrieve too fast. So I've gone back to my old Calcutta 5.3:1 for my spinnerbait rod. I like the higher numerical ratios for everything else. Maybe a big, deep, crankbait would be noticeably easier to retrieve with the 5.x than with the 8.x.

The oil probably lowered the viscosity of the grease that was there which would lower the damping effect of the grease giving more feel of the teeth meshing.

I believe that all rod and blank manufacturers will agree that the high end, lighter, more sensitive, high mod rods are in fact more affected by stuff like high sticking and hitting one against the boat, as in jerking lures. I've seen statements from some of them to that effect. Is it a problem that should keep a reasonably careful person from investing in them? Not in my opinion. I have only upper mid to high end rods (build myself) and while I screw up now and then, I've not broken one except for catching of a shoe on one in the boat, essentially high sticking, and jamming the tips into a bulkhead of a rod locker that didn't control the rods well enough in travel. Remember this ad? One of my favorites.

Do you have a separate charger for your starting/fish finder battery?l If not, you could be simply discharging it yielding low voltage which usually is the cause for anomalies that you describe. If you do a lot of time on the trolling motor, with the big engine not on, but the electronics on, then you are using a lot of amperage without much recharging time. Happened to me because I thought the charger purchased with the boat charged all batteries. It didn't. If not using one of your fish finders, put in on standby. It will not use nearly as much amperage, and will come back instantly when you hit the power button again. I am surprised that bigger wires are fixing problems like this. The amperage is significant, but not so high that wire size should be an issue. About 6 amps for a modern fish finder.

I build my own rods , so have a lot of very fine rods. But millions of fish are caught every year on reasonably priced outfits. If you are satisfied with what you're doing, fine. Your rods will most likely be less fragile than top of the line rods. The way I look at it is that with bait casting, the reel is the most important component of the outfit. Sensitivity is less important than being able to cast well, and a $200 reel will cast better and last longer than a $50 reel, in my opinion. With spinning, where the reel simply holds line and lets it flow off a stationary spool, the reel is much less important, but the rod, with finesse techniques, becomes much more important. As stated above, it's about sensitivity, and the more expensive rods normally give better sensitivity at the price of fragility. Having said that, the biggest plus you can do for sensitivity is to use braid instead of mono or FC. If you are not, then you are giving up a lot on sensitivity , which is very important with some but not all techniques.

I wish that you who think you have the right to risk snagging boat covers, dock, and dock supports would simply find another place to fish. There is no one who is perfect enough to not, now and then, make a mistake that could result in damage to their property or danger to them and their kids. This is not world peace. Just back off. There is a difference between being right and being considerate.

I could be wrong, but I think the faster the action, the easier it is to high stick a rod. It's about geometry of our handling the rod and possibly the construction of the rods in which the taper between the very stiff butt section and the much lighter power tip is so short. And as has been mentioned many times before , the new hi mod graphites won't take what we got used to with the old glass rods. And in fact, the more you pay for a rod to get max sensitivity, the more fragile it is likely to be. Regarding the video, I don't agree that high sticking does any damage to the blank until it actually breaks. These blanks are very brittle. They have absolutely no plastic deformation. They are either in one piece or broken. BUT, with respect to the damaging of a rod without breaking it through its colliding with another rod or the lure nicking the rod, I believe that is absolutely true. That will damage a rod such that the rod will break later. Of course the bottom line is to avoid banging them around or hitting them with a lure, etc, and don't high stick, and the rod can last forever.

I have broken about 3 in the last 20 years. One I "high sticked" one by catching the tip on my shoe in the boat, and two broke in my rod locker which didn't hold the rods properly, the tip got jammed into a bulkhead. If you are breaking rods regularly you are not treating them right. Check out this article: https://www.rodbuilding.org/library/rodusage.pdf

Sounds like possible high sticking. Be sure to read the article at the link in the post above. High mod graphite rods will not take a lot of the stuff we used to do to our glass rods; that is the price we pay for the improved sensitivity.

The duty cycle on outboards is far tougher than it is for autos, no doubt about it. But I don't see the value of trying to determine the correlation anyway. To me the issue of maintainence is first, to do it so you are not risking an expensive engine and second, only do yourself what you are confident in doing. If you cannot afford to do the challenging maintainance, then maybe you have the wrong hobby. I did all but water pump impeller changes on my 17 year Suzuki 4 stroke 50, but it looks like my new 60 4 stroke Merc may have some things I don't fully understand. Will have that done by pros. By the way, my dealer charges $116 for annual winterizing which does not include plugs. The schedule calls for a major maintainence every three years. That includes plugs and all filters, maybe more. But I think i'm at a point in my life where I'll just let them do it all and be confident that it is done right.

I would not up-size at all. But I would go up on strength. Trebles come in slightly different lengths, but that doesn't have a significant effect on action or hooking. Going shorter rather than longer will help prevent the front hook from tangling with the rear on some lures. Find a quality 2x strength treble and buy it in a few sizes, like 4, 6 , and 8, and they will probably serve you well on most all your lures. A good quality split ring plier is well worth a few bucks extra (Texas Tackle). In general, cheap lures have cheap, weak, hooks.

https://www.rodbuilding.org/library/rodusage.pdf

If I were to do that I would be always using the line as an excuse for my not catching fish. And wondering if the fishing might be a lot better with a mono or FC leader. Different strokes. Not for me. I think that when fish are really active it will work fine, but when they are not, it could be a problem. I have a hard time believing that many pros would use quite light FC leaders on inactive fish if it were not justified with more fish.