fin

I caught a rod and reel - a Shimano Caenan & Ugly Stick, and cleaned it up and got it working again, fished with it for a year or so, then one day hooked a carp while the rod was sitting between my legs and the rod flew into the lake and I haven't seen it since. Maybe some other fisherman found it...

I'm not sure if that is really getting into that groove. You can get to it by removing the rotor and putting some oil through the hole on the inside of the rotor and letting it drip down, but you'd need to hold it at the right angle. Removing that cover by itself is not dangerous, unless you flip the bail while you have the cover off. Then the spring might go flying. If you lose that spring, which is easy to do, you can be put out of commission unless you have another one the right size. At least now you know the symptoms if it starts sticking.

I found a Googan Squad lure, the first one I ever found. I’ve never bought anything of theirs because there’s something I just don’t like about GS. I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of one of their videos, but I’ve heard lots of people hate them because of their videos. Academy moved a lot of the Zoom products out of the way to give the GS products more prominent shelf space. Their stuff seems more expensive, and I think that led to other brands raising their prices. Those are the only reasons I can think of for not wanting to use their products. This lure is the first thing of theirs I’ve ever had. It’s a crawfish squarebill, and the paint job is alright. It’s similar to other lures I’m having luck with right now, but I won’t throw it. I don’t exactly know why. It’s like I feel I’ll be cursed if I use it or something. That is a bias.

That part is hilarious - imagining you walking away while the kayak is sliding downhill in the background. The rest of the story sounds too much like how a lot of people drown. I'm glad you made it, and hope you find the video!

I’ve seen several dead headless black chickens floating in my lake. I also regularly see oranges and flowers and stuff floating around. I think it is two separate religious groups - one for the chickens, and the other for the fruit and flowers. I have a picture of my weirdest catch, but it’s not for family viewing. I hooked a backpack floating in the lake. Inside was an artificial part of the female anatomy (from the top of the legs to the bottom of the belly), lube, a remote control, some kind of pump, VR glasses, and a few other gadgets. I looked it up online and it was almost $1k worth of stuff. When I first picked up the backpack and felt how soft and heavy it was, I started thinking, what if there’s a human head in here? Then when I opened the pack (with a stick) and peeked inside and saw the flesh color and what looked like real skin, I about had a heart attack.

I keep my cellphone with me for the camera and in case I need to call 911, but I agree about the other things. I watched a few videos when they first came out, and I got burned out on that real quick. I don't have the patience to watch those videos, but I will spend all day fishing not even getting a bite. I don't think the problem is with my patience. Music on the water is a big pet peeve. Really any noise-making that drowns out the serenity of the silence and the sounds of nature aggravates me. I keep a whistle in my backpack for extreme situations. When a boater pulls up near me with their music playing, I start playing Smoke On The Water on my whistle. They usually don't hang around long.

No problems today, so maybe lubing that groove did the trick. We'll see if it keeps acting right on the next few trips. That's an easy spot to overlook when lubing. I know there's a spring in there that can pop out, so I avoid opening it up.

Hey, it's my only theory, don't ruin it, okay? ? All of what you say is true, that's how it's supposed to work. The primary purpose of the ramp is to close the bail, but it also keeps the rotor from turning, whether by design or accident. And none of that mechanism has anything to do with oscillation. Agreed. My question to you is, what happens when the plunger doesn't quite return all the way to the closed position? Let's say it sticks about 1/16" or so from the correct position? Would that create resistance? Would it interrupt the travel of the spool? I don't claim to know the answer to that for certain, but I have a suspicion, and I think it can be proven by flipping the bail the next time it malfunctions. I hope I don't come across as argumentative. I know you're being helpful. I'm just trying to explain my point. I'm open to any other suggestions as to what is going on with this thing.

I opened it up to look at the mechanism, and there is a piece called the trip plunger that slides up and down along a groove that was a little dry, so I lubed that real good. It all looked okay though, no obvious damage. . That plunger makes contact with a the body frame and prevents the spool from turning if the bail is open. There is a spot on the frame like a cam (probably not the right mechanical term) that the plunger hits to stop the spool from turning. I guess if the plunger was stuck half-way, it might rub against the high spot on that cam and cause the resistance and prevent the spool from oscillating. I dunno. I guess we'll see what happens when I try it out tomorrow.

You're right, I don't think the problem is in the gear box, I think it's in the rotor/bail - something binding, not releasing all the way, rubbing against the frame body sometimes.

I was thinking along the same lines. I think engaging the bail is connected. That's the only thing I can think of that could be "resetting" it so that it works fine on the next cast. I wasn't able to test my theory today because it only messed up one time out of about 50 casts, and that was when it hit me. The next time it messes up, instead of reeling in my line, I will open the bail and close it again, and I'm thinking it will temporarily clear the problem. So does that ring any bells with anyone? That's got to be pointing to the problem. The spool won't turn when the bail is open, and something in that mechanism is what's got to be causing the problem. I'd have to take it apart again to see. Maybe related to the bail spring, which broke like the first month I owned the reel.

Yeah, I have over-tightened the rotor nut before, but that's the only one I can think of that's really a possibility. I just had it apart last night, everything looked good.

I'm not sure if problems started after reassembly, but it's possible. That's why I was wondering if maybe I had something misaligned, but that gear is round (parts diagram) and there's nothing I can see that's eccentric. After I started this thread I took it apart and lubed everything again. Everything looked fine, nothing dry, no sharp edges on any of the gears. I've had it about 3.5 years. It might have a thousand hours on it. I've been lubing it regularly the whole time. The problem has only been happening for a month or two, I think, and that is about the last time I had it apart. I'll take it out tomorrow and see if it happens again.

Every now and then, I will cast and then when I start to retrieve, I feel resistance, like my line is wrapped around the tip of my rod. When this happens, I've noticed the spool is not oscillating all the way forward - the line doesn't get wrapped around the bottom quarter inch or so of the spool. The next cast it will function perfectly. It's oiled and greased up, unless I've missed a spot. I'm guessing the drive gear is getting worn out? Maybe I've reassembled it wrong after maintenance? I know on Shimano spinning reels there's an alignment point, but I don't see that on the President. I'm wondering if it fails, if it's worth the parts and shipping, or if it would be cheaper to just buy a new Daiwa.

The Georgia DNR identification site says: . "Spotted bass and Alabama bass are very similar, but spotted bass have blotches above the lateral band that touch the first dorsal fin, while on an Alabama bass the blotches do not touch the first dorsal fin." . And then they have those two pictures, and I can't see what they're talking about. . I've seen other sites that say a DNA test is the only way to be sure, or you can count dots in the lateral line with a microscope. I mean if it's that hard to tell, who cares unless you've got a record? I fish in the upper Chattahoochee basin, and I may be catching some Alabama bass, but to me, they're all spots. I noticed there's no record listed for Alabama bass on the Georgia site. . https://georgiawildlife.com/fishing/identification . https://georgiawildlife.com/fishing/recordprogram

This is really true on an item like this. It's not going to get any cheaper. The longer you own it, the more enjoyment you'll get out of it, so what are you waiting for?

I leaned a rod against the side of my car while I was getting something out of the back seat. After I got out whatever it was, the rod fell over and the door shut on it without me even touching the door or the rod. It's the invisible hand of the bait monkey.

I fish mostly alone and most of the people I see fishing, fish alone. I have friends I cross paths with at the lake, and we sometimes spend more time talking than fishing, but we’re almost always talking about fishing. If you don’t have someone you can tell about your catches, it takes a little bit of the fun out of it. One of the guys I used to like to fish with started talking about politics all the time. I would change the subject and he would go right back to politics. I got to where I started avoiding him, and he eventually disappeared a couple years ago. Nobody at the lake knows whatever happened to him. I miss talking fishing with him, but I don’t miss the politics. And that kind of illustrates how I feel about fishing with others - I’m there to fish, not socialize or debate politics or whatever. That kind of stuff ruins the experience for me.

NWS/NOAA is a great service. Not to get political here, but it’s important that people appreciate and understand what we have. There are lots of companies that want to sell the information that NWS/NOAA now provide. I’d hate to lose them. Check out these images: https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/index.php Click on the map to see your area. I have no idea what all those are, but I’ve found them helpful before, especially when trying to figure out when the clouds would break.

Sometimes State employees actually come in early. I swear. I've seen it with my own eyes.

The list of types of lures that work for me is much shorter than the ones I've struggled with. The past couple days I've been throwing the exact same color/model of a diving craw crankbait that my buddy has caught like 5 nice largemouth over the past week, in the same place, and I can't get a bite on it. I've had good success with squarebills, but I've never had a lot of success with divers. It's probably because I'm too cheap and don't want to lose them, but I've been crawling this one right along the bottom, doing nothing but bouncing off wood and rocks. It still ain't workin'.

This ain't no rodeo. Even if you ride him for 8 seconds, it still don't count ?

Now there's a video I want to see! ?

It looks sort of like a more modern version of a Pflueger Palomine. It would have to be a topwater, right? I wonder if it is one of those lures that's supposed to make bubbles.

Date. Start/Finish Times. What was caught, what it was caught on. Where I fished. That’s my basic format, the minimum. When, where, what and how. You’ve got to keep it simple and easy, otherwise it’s easy to fall out of the habit of doing it. From there, I might add all kinds of details that I think are important at the time. Sometimes I add stuff just to assist my memory, like incidents while fishing, people I fished with, what they caught, reel maintenance, all kinds of stuff. I have access to weather/water history online, so I can always look that up later if desired. A text document, like Word or TextEdit provides the maximum flexibility, but a spreadsheet document is best for extrapolating data. You can set up a spread sheet so that you’re only checking boxes and entering numbers. I started years ago with a single text document without putting a lot of thought into it. Sometimes I wish I had done a spread sheet, but my random notes can go on and on, and that wouldn’t work well with a spread sheet. A picture is worth a thousand words and is automatically time stamped. Yep, some years it might be early February, the next year it might be late March. They can't read a thermometer either, but they always seem to show up when the water temperature is right.