LOW7681

I tried previously to link it to a photo web hosting site but could not get it to take. I've quite a bit of experience in posting photos to forums and I must be doing something wrong here. I ended up posting the photo to the following link. Hope that I'm not violating posting rules. Don't want to get banned from this site as it is excellent. http://www.tackletour.net/T3Forum/viewtopic.php?p=222147#222147

Sorry, for some reason photo attachment did not work. Don't know why--jpeg is only 56kb.

Several years ago I made up a sheet of the various wide gap hooks that I've used past and present. Decided to photograph it and post in case it is of value to others. Not surprising there is a difference in the length and gape of hooks of the same indicated size among manufacturers. Bob

On my bait casting rigs: For carolina rigging and fishing "frogs" thru lily pads or other weeds use power pro 20-50# test. Most of the time I pitch drop baits (soft plastics and jigs) or use a senko type bait. I use primarily Stren Original in 14 or 17# test. It must be around thirty or more years ago that I started using Stren Original and in the ensuing years used almost of all of Berkley's lines and some of the p lines. Primary lines were Big Game and XT. More recently spent many years using Bass Pro Excel. Nice line, inexpensive, reasonably limp, usually tests close to its pound rating whereas most other lines break above. But like Big Game it has more stretch than most monofilament or copolymer lines. The end of this story is that in the past three years I have returned to Original Stren. It has a nice balance of abrasion resistance (may be one of the best of monos), lower stretch, and pound test per diameter. I do carry a reel loaded with 10# test Seaguar Carbon Pro fluorocarbon for situations where the water is extremely clear and nothing else seems to be working. For spinning gear use primarily 10# Power Pro with a fluorocarbon leader as almost all of my spinning rod use for bass is for smallies in rock laden water.

I have number of M&N Tackle 1/32 oz, 1/16 oz and 1/8 jigs with Gammie hooks (probably 3/0). Have fiber weed guards. Most have no skirts. If anyone is interested in them please e-mail me. siti1234@earthlink.net

I put mine in my curbside recycling bin without reading it. The gentleman that empties the bin sets it aside so at least some use occurs. Too thick to use conveniently. I'm no tree hugger but that catalog causes me concern. Bob

Thanks everyone for your responses. Will now "test" the Compre rod to check out its' deflection at the tip and 16" back from the tip to see how it compares with my current fast action med. heavy and heavy action 6' rods. Will also put a reel on it and do some in-the-store pitches. Bob

Over the last 20 years I've a lot of experience with older G-Loomis rods and St. Croix Avids from 6-7" in length in fast action Med. Heavy and Heavy. I picked up a Shimano Compre 6' extra fast action casting rod in med heavy action. Of course the rods stiffness extended further to the tip than a fast action rod. The rod interested me. However, I can't come up with a reason for buying it--except it is light in weight and is 6' in length. Although it is med heavy, it seems stiffer than a med. heavy fast action 6' Loomis mbr rod. That is not a draw back. Eighty percent of my fishing is pitching jigs, large tubes, and creature baits. Use primarily med heavy or heavy action rods in 6'length. (Actually the rods from reel seat to tip are only 3-4" shorter than a 6'6" rod.) Favor the shorter rods as I fish close to fish (docks, or very heavy tree cover, or lilly pads.) And, because after fishing for over 60 years shorter rods are easier on my arm after a day on the water. Any perspective on the advantage of the compre rod described above based on its' extra fast action. I've never fished on extra fast action rod before. After writing this post I'm thinking perhaps this occurred as it is getting close to fishing season and the bug to buy as bit me. Thanks for any response.

Over the last decade my fishing partner and I have gone thru many thousands of yards of Excel Mono in 12, 14 and 17# test. Excel based on a line diameter basis is not as strong as Big Game, Stren Original, Trilene XT, XL or Sensation. It is not especially abrasion resistant and it is somewhat stretchy. Two positives, it is inexpensive and it coils less than the other two mentioned lines. It is an easy casting line. I've gradually switched over to Stren Original in the past couple of years for several reasons: I have switched almost entirely over to Shimano 50 MG reels so line capacity is reduced and 17# Excel is thicker than 17# Stren yet Excel (knotless) breaks at 19# and Stren at 21#. My 14# test Stren breaks at 19-20 #. So except for pitching I've gone to 14# Stren to get more line capacity. And, more importanly Original Stren is very abrasion resistant and I routinely fish heavy cover, rock,wood and lilly pads and abrasion resistance is important.

I've used Diawa SS1300 (and 700s 1600) spinning reels for what seems to be around 20 years. Still use them even though they are old. There is no bail spring to break. Never had a problem with them. The front drag is excellent. There are smoother cranking spinning reels and reels that the handle is quicker to stop on the anti reverse. And, perhaps the "new" big spool reels that are claimed to cast further will--I just don't know. I doubt if there is any reel with a similar size and shape spool that would outcast the ss1300. For making long casts with suspending jerk baits I used the 1600 reel with 15# test power pro line. The much larger spool does increase casting distance over the ss1300. What I don't know is the reliability of the new ss series. I recently purchased my third ss700 and noted that it was not made in japan as my others are.

I run two 12V trolling motor batteries in series for my 24V trolling motor. Decided recently to replace my resettable circuit breakers and ordered two circuit breakers designated as 12 V, 50 amp. One for each battery Distributor sent me two circuit breakers and they were labeled as 24v, 50 amp. I assume they are incorrect? If so, what are the ramifications if I use them? Thanks!. Bob

Thanks for the info. I have some tender tubes and they are a little short for a 3/0 hook. I noticed that the ones with a different color "tail" were thicker. Perhaps double dipped head. Ended up ordering a package of Yamamoto 3 1/2" tubes; Gitzit 3 3/4"tubes and Kevin Van Dam 3 1/2" tubes. And darn it, I forgot to add to my order the 3 1/2 inch zoom tube. It was on my list. Picked these tubes as they were available from one tackle store.

I'm an avid tube fisherman both for smallies in the far north waters and LMB in the midwest. It is summer and finesse fishing seems to be the call of the day. As a result I'm trying to locate tubes that are about a 1/2" shorter than the typical 4 inch tube. Want to use the tube with a 3/0 wide gap hook. Specifically the body length should be somewhere between 1.75 to 2. And, a diameter of about 0.475 as opposed to the body diameter of a typical 4 tube of 0.625. In other words a tube between the Guido G-4 tube which is too slim in the body and a full-sized 4 tube. I usually fish my tubes with a Gary Yamamoto inside weight which rules out the Guido tube. The tubes are fished texposed and that is why I wish a little smaller body diameter in order to get enough of the hook exposed on the hook set. What I've run into with my initial search is that while a little shorter tube would work well with a tube hook as it is fully exposed they would not work well when texposed. Or as is the case with Bass Pro Tender Tubes the overall length is O.K but the body is too short. Also, their tube diameter varies widely. Any assistance in locating this size tube is appreciated.

Jigs over texas rig when fishing around lilly pads or reeds in northern waters. Two reasons--the jig is less likely to get snagged around pad stems/reeds and the bluegills, perch and rock bass that frequent these waters pull a worm, grub, beaver etc down on a TR and expose the hook. A sure snag situation. For fishing wood my first choice is also a jig, just feel the bulky bait and how it works thru the wood encourages strikes of larger fish. In more open water usually fish a worm, grub, beaver or tube. Or fish these lures when I can't get a jig bite.

There was no table/graph on stretch. Stretch was mentioned as per below: "Stretch: Surprisingly, a biproduct of our tensile test was our ability to watch the stretch in each of our line samples before they broke. We stopped short of collecting data on this observation due to a number of questionable variables, but the one thing we can clearly state is, all the fluorocarbon lines we tested have either the same, or in some cases, more stretch than our baseline Trilene XL. We hope to address this at a later date, but for now, as far as we are concerned, the claim that fluorocarbon lines have virtually no stretch is absolutely invalid."

Tackle tour has tested a number of fluocarbon lines for tensile strength, knot strength, abrasion resistance, stretch. They used Trilene XL for the mono comparison. Link is: http://www.tackletour.com/reviewfluorocarbontest.html

Does anyone know of a source for yellow Polaroid sunglasses of a fit over type that have high light transmission ? Both Fitover and Cocoon make yellow tinted Polaroid sunglasses; however, their light transmission is still approximately between 10 and 20%. This is not enough different in light transmission from the amber and grey lens especially when one is fishing early or late in the day or on a markedly cloudy day. A decade ago an optometrist made a pair of prescription Polaroid sunglass in yellow that had a light transmission of around 50%. Unfortunately I can find no one that can do this now. Perhaps some are available via the internet , however because of my prescription it would be difficult to do an internet order. It would seem that individuals that fish for species where it is important to identify structure would have a need for a sunglass with a high light transmission. I mentioned fit over type in the first paragraph because perhaps there is a sunglass out there that would not be the type like Fitover or Cocoon brand that would still fit over a very small pair of prescription glasses. Thanks.

I've been fishing Bandits ever since they came on the market and I've never been satisified with the hooks that come with them or similar size cranks as they are a little on the small size. I just prefer a little larger hook than that which comes on most cranks as I feel my hookup percentage is better. But a # 4 hook is too big. VMC makes a treble hook called a "Short Shank Rapala" and also one called "Rapala Treble" in size 5. Has anyone used either one of these hooks? I would be particularly interested if the Short Shank hook in #5 is short enough that the hooks will not tangle. Thanks. Bob

I recently purchased double tailed, single tailed grubs--plain and spyder from a company. They are closing out these and are offering them for the price of 3.99 for sixty and 4.99 for 120. They are quality and even have the name of the company molded in the tail. Colors are limited. I made two separate purchases and they arrived by USPS from California into the Midwest in 4-5 days. Knew nothing about the company until two weeks ago. My question is: Is it against the rules to provide the companies name and/or URL here. Searched the help section and did not see any rule against it

I'm curious, when using Gammy EWG hooks with 5" senkos do you texas rig or texpose? The reson for asking is that if I do use EWG hooks for senkos I texpose. Don't feel comfortable texas rigging a EWG hook for senkos or worms. More and more I'm using gammy off set shank worm hook in 4/0 or the Owner offset shank wide gap worm hook for 5" senkos and texas rigging then. Both hooks are sproat bend, not "U" bend. Have had no problem with hook-ups and a lot less snagging problems with bluegills pulling the hookpoint open or pulling the senko over thru brush that occurs when texposing.