PhishLI

This is interesting, and not that it means much really, but I have a K and a Tat 150 and have concluded the exact opposite. I absolutely prefer nylon lines over braid on the Tat 150, whereas nylon/fluoro made me hate the K. Actual hate. I found 30lb braid to be ideal here though, and 50lb being the upper limit, IMO. Any greater than 50 and I can feel the line fighting its way through the line guide and it bugs me. Even 8 strand. Ultimately, and not that it means anything, but I still don't really like the K all that much, especially compared to other reels that I prefer. But for now, at least with braid, I don't want to smash it against a tree. So, what's my point? It's definitely not to cause an argument here, or to suggest that you're a doofus, but for the picky among us it's hard to predict how anything will actually feel in hand, or how quite specific recommendations will play out in use. Our personal yet polar opposite observation in this particular instance illustrates this perfectly.

My brother shot out my way last weekend to wade for a few hours just before light rain was supposed to move through the area. Right before the rain was forecast to begin the strangest undulating horizontal cloud formations quickly rolled in over us. I wouldn't have been surprised if an alien mothership broke through the spectacle and landed in the lake. A few minutes later a tornado alert came in over our phones. It was calm at that very moment, but it didn't last. We were fishing just about as far as we could've been from the entrance, and within about 5 minutes into our walk back insane wind, rain, and crazy lightning bolts were upon us. We ran as fast as we could while navigating tree roots that crisscrossed our path out, and fallen leaves that made things very slippery. Hail was next, so by the time I got back to my truck I was soaked through and covered in hailstones. Three tornadoes touched down, but nowhere near us. Oh, and we didn't get a nibble, but we're not dead, so that's cool.

Winter finally dropped on us tonight, and the north winds made it wicked once night fell. My buddy struck 1st with a scrappy little bass, but that was all the gods would grant him. I struck out with LM, but the Pickerel were biting. They fight hard in 48* water, so no complaints here.

We started right before dark tonight and I struck first with a juicy Rainbow on a RI Skinny Dipper. Go figure. A savage Pickerel hit my 5" Fish Arrow J-Shad, but was kind enough not to shred it. My brother wrapped things up with a nice angry bass on a 7" AZ Fisher wake bait.

My idea of a workhorse reel is one that's not specialized, is general purpose, rugged, and easy to dial in when switching commonly used bass baits. It won't get funk'd up easily by a puff of wind like one beloved brand is prone to. The Tatula 150 fits that description. Mine has remained smooth after winding in plenty of 2-3 ounce wake baits, and will throw a 5" senko a good distance easily. Gear smoothness hasn't changed, and no sticking thumbar issues. With its metal frame and metal handle side side-plate, it seems that it'll remain dependable. It's built better than my Fuego CTs, and I've flogged those for 4 1/2 years with no issues whatsoever to report. The 150 is a solid workhorse for $159.

My condolences? Welcome!

I thought the same thing until I didn't.

Most of the water bodies closest to where I live are called lakes, but they're in fact ponds by any measure. With the exception of one 100 acre spot that pretty much sucks, these places are 9 to 25 acres. All are very shallow in general, but one place has a narrow 15' trench way out in the middle on one end. Other than that they generally range from 3-5 ft deep with occasional smallish deeper pockets of 6-10 feet deep. In reference to your question, I've seen things work out differently at different times, so there's no hard fast rule. I agree with @papajoe222 that you should step softly while traversing the shoreline, and with @WRB that you should be aware of the light and the shadow you cast on the water. Aside from that good advice, you just never know how bass will react. I've been out on dead calm cold nights with several guys slinging swimbaits that sounded like dinner plates hitting the water, and everyone did quite well. In this case the bass were spaced together closer than usual, and being competitive the sound of baits hitting water resembled topwater killshots and called them in. The opposite has happened too. In this case I'll change presentations. My smaller confidence baits are 4" paddle tail swimmers like a RI Little Dipper and MB Hazedong Shad. Neither makes a big splash, and both have gotten me a ton of pond bass including a few of my better fish from these places. My point is that there's no right answer, and that you need to have options ready and you need to adapt. I've thrown wakes for an hour and blanked, but then switched to a crank down wake and blasted them. Making the bait run 6"-1ft beneath the surface was the difference maker as they weren't coming up top during that session, period. The upside of blanking is that it forces you to be creative and change things up, even if it's just subtly. It's the perfect time to experiment with things like retrieve speed, cadence, etc. It's pretty cool when you do something differently, it pays off, and you end up with a new angle to work with in the future.

Did you pull the pinion yoke and grease the ramps, clutch mech to frame, and thumb bar pads? Something's dry or hanging up within that list.

20LB BG is .018" diameter. You should be able to get about 240' on that reel's spool. I seriously doubt you'll be casting a plastic or resin wind catching fish shaped swimbait farther than 150' all that often unless you plan to bomb cast constantly with a 9' rod. Something to consider; Hard backlashes are uncommon with mono, but they are wicked with braid. I fish with a few swimbait freaks and have watched them launch a number of big baits after a hard backlash when it. They've all converted over to heavier mono. All of them. One more thing; SV spools don't like hard backlashes with heavy baits. It's quite easy to strip the dog pins on the inductor ramp that's locked into the spool. You can find replacements, but why mess with that scenario.

Do you have a reel in mind? Personally, I use 20LB Big Game for baits starting at 1.5 oz thru 3 oz. Way too much stretch for me with 17LB Siege or Big Game. Plus, I have total confidence socking home large trebles found on most baits with 20LB BG, especially on baits with stock hooks. It's remarkably strong line. I haven't been broken off once.

Maybe. maybe not. What I can say, because I've serviced mine several times, is that the Curado K sucks a lot of water into the gear housing for some reason. Rinsing the outside isn't going to help with saltwater intrusion on the K. I can't say whether the 150 is better or worse in this regard. Still, I wouldn't fish it in salt myself. Shimano has reels like the Tranx 200 that are built for inshore duty. The spool's bearings are ARBs( anti rust bearings) and it has bushings in key areas, plus a sealed drag and water shedding schemes. Since the Curado K and 150 do not list any of these features, well...

The gear you use doesn't mean much at all. The bait you're using at the moment can make all the difference, but at times a ton of different baits might have caught a particular aggressive fish had you pulled it right past its nose. There's no way to gauge the mood of the fish until you start catching them, and that can change in a flash. Maybe they just ate before you got there? Maybe the baitfish are moving away from you. So many factors. There's a random nature to fishing. What worked yesterday might not work today, or it might. Bank fishing can be a grind. Bite windows are often short, and they're not always happening where you're fishing or when you've chosen to be there. You might be way ahead of one, or way behind. Sometimes the fish are simply shut down due to external factors. Time on the water, grinding it out, and the ability to process your failures successfully will advance your chances. But, not everyone is cut out for it. Anyone can chuck out a worm and bobber and catch panfish. Not everyone is built to constantly resolve the Rubik's Cube that's bass fishing, especially on a tough fishery. Watch a few pro tournaments. Even the best of the best get befuddled plenty. There's a local spot that I was aware of but had never fished. I got a whipping there for months when I started going there during daylight sessions beginning in September of that year. Baffled. In talking to the regulars I found out that they also couldn't buy a bite except for very random catches. Besides my own regular skunkings, I didn't witness a single person catch a bass during the day there until late March of the following year. Most of the regulars lamented that the place had been fished out, and it sure seemed like a dead lake. Once I took the leap of going at night, or super early during darkness, everything changed. Since then I've bagged a ton of fish in the dark at this lake, including some legit lunkers for the NE. So, this place isn't fished out and it, like other super shallow lakes around here, is better fished under the cover of darkness where the bass are willing to move around freely. Brutal defeat over the course of a few months, and a little gathered info, taught me this. Doesn't mean I'm always there at the right time, because there are active bite windows and lulls at night too, but I often find a bite. BTW, it's not uncommon that a skunking is turned around by throwing a hail Mary pass using a bait that was my last resort, or the last thing I thought that might work based on what was working previously. Some people like to say that a bass is a bass where ever you go in the country, and that "X" bait is "deadly" where ever they throw it. I call BS on that. Lakes that are right across the street from each other can fish differently. Presentations that work in one simply don't work in the other. Like I said earlier; Time on the water. You need to gain experience by cracking codes like timing, location, bait selection and presentation, and by further eliminating previous errors you've made. You either have the will power to put in the thought and work, or you don't. If you do, the floodgates will probably open. If you don't, you'll probably be stuck with random catches or just dumb luck good days.

Get flexible by stretching every day and change the game by using this:

Nice day today, but fishing is the worst in my super shallow local lakes directly following a good rain, so I sucked it up last night and got wet. I'm not superstitious, but the 1st cast curse was in full effect for 2 hours after I bagged a hard fighting 3 1/2LBer on the Beast Coast Miyagi Swimmer. Even the smaller fish are really charged up lately. Got nothing but a few random pecks after that on an assortment of slow rolled rolled swimmers, jerk baits, etc, but something nice grabbed the tail of my Rat 40 yet somehow missed the hooks. At about 12:30am stocker trout began breaking the surface, so I tied on a 4" BBZ1 Shad floater and bombed it way out there on my 7'9" cranking rod/Curado K combo. I rarely if ever get bit on topwater or anything near the surface during rain at this place, so I wrapped the hook's shank with lead tape to give it a super slow sink. It paid off quickly with another scrapper, but then lightning sent me packing.

Looks like we're getting a near repeat of Monday night here. I did OK. I'll be wading off the same western bank chucking heavier baits directly into the wind until the rain chases me out.

Depends. Gotta be careful if you're sensitive to it. Some people get quite sick from it. Around here the BL/Grn was bad this year. Several lakes that are usually lush with weeds were totally void of them with the exception of Lily pads, if they grew there to begin with. Algae blocked the light, so nothing weedy grew. It did nothing to improve the bass fishing, and will definitely hurt this year's class of bass fry. Probably a a total wipeout in the desertified lakes.

Moonlight, even 3rd quarter moonlight, over our shallow lakes means a dead bite. Forget about topwater or anything else. A little ripple changes the equation completely. It's not close to as good as a new moon and ripple, but the odds go way up.

It's hard to believe it's late October around here. Pads are still high and a slick of muck algae is still covering prime shallows choking them of 02. Weeds are still mostly crispy and fresh. The past week's lower temps have started to loosen up the algae slicks a bit, but now they're covered with fallen leaves. Still, some areas have opened up a tad, so it's less of a task to fish certain spots. On top of that we've had little rain here, and the water has been extremely low. Last night heavy T-storms were supposed to hit around 9pm. My plan was to get a few hours in and book just as they hit, but they never did. A smattering of mild wind driven drops hit around 11 pm, but that's when the action finally started. The only thing they wanted were small paddletails like a Little Dipper slow rolled on the bottom. First up was a hard fighting 3-9, then a scrappy 2lber. Somehow a decent Pickerel didn't chomp through my leader, then a catfish shredded my NorieS spoon tail shad. Worked a different spot for about an hour with the Dipper, but they weren't interested. Tied on a Beast Coast Miyagi, which is much larger, and this group of fish were all over it, but I kept missing. Finally, I hooked into a nice heavy fish and thought I'd socked home the 6/0 Beast hook for real, but when I tried to turn him away from a branch 6 feet away from me the slack I gave him let him jump and shake the bait. He landed in a pile of slop and branches against the shore, so I tried to grab him but it wasn't meant to be. A solid 5 1/2 pounder at least. Oh well, but I can't complain. In a split second the skies opened up with dime sized raindrops and lightning, so I boogied.

I have to get a Zillion 1000 first, but my very next reel after that will be this one: https://www.lews.com/en/shop/casting/cpbc Fished with my friend's. There's nothing I don't like about it. It's tiny, fantastic, and the ACB braking system is tops in my book.

A rod is just part of a dynamic system. You're part of that system. Your thumb is a small element here. The biggest factor is how you unconsciously calibrate to the rest of the moving parts, but mostly to the rod, then any particular lure you have tied on at the moment. The weight of the lure hanging off the tip of the rod will instantly inform you about casting velocity, speed, and release point. It's a feel issue that you'll get better with over time. If you end up with multiple setups eventually, rods with different power and actions, you'll become calibrated to all of them and nesting will all but disappear.

Really? I guess you haven't dealt with Lew's service department. They're outstanding, fast, and go above and beyond. On the flipside my quite young at the time Curado K had several internal issues, problems they were well aware of in that particular production run btw. It was gone for 8 weeks.

The real difference maker is the double supported P2 pinion on the Lew's reel the OP chose. It has kept my TP LFS smooth while fishing totally choked out water. None of the BPS models have it. Nothing in the BPS range uses Lew's ACB braking system, which I personally feel is superior to any other centrifugal system out there, so not really. The magtrax braking system is different than the PQ2, so you may find you'll need to adjust a bit. The LFS is a solid reel. It's surprisingly good for bombing frogs.

nope

I throw a 5" Caffeine shad a lot rigged on an Owner Twistlock 4/0 un-weighted. They cast a mile on casting gear and are way more durable than a 5" or 6' GY senko. When/if they get torn they go back in the bag and get the Mend-it treatment once I get home. I've been cycling the same bag for months. They've all been fixed over and over again. Great bait.