bulldog1935

@GreenPig unfortunately, that particular creek has been San Antonio's sewage and cholera route for 300 years. Here's my bikefish bike, for parking at county road crossings, elsewhere in the hill country, where cars aren't allowed to park.

We had a great weather window at the end of last week before the next freeze hit., and it will be warming up again this week. Here's the '85 Merc I show above, rebuilt to fit my 36" inseam, on it's maiden 24-mile break-in ride. My bike and kayak fishing buddy Lou has finally retired from the business world, and taken a part-time job with city parks, riding the greenways in 4-hour, 20+ mile shifts. I met Lou at his shift-start trailhead and followed him. Stopping at all the trailheads to check for vagrants, graffiti and broken glass made for both a good pace and good distance for my break-in ride, getting to know a new half-step triple on the grades, brakes, fit - all that stuff. First couple of weeks, riding 25 miles on consecutive days was really hard on Lou - especially, there's so much terrain covering the expanse of the greenway system. San Antonio has always been flood prone, and all the flood plains are park land, connected by trails that follow the creeks. It's so neat, how close you can be to neighborhoods, malls, and downtown, and not be able to recognize it from the wooded trail. There are 4 trail stewards assigned to every 10 miles in all daylight hours. Minimum wage, but a great part-time job. I was impressed the other day how strong he rides now for 72-y-o. Part of the job is talking to people, helping them with repairs. The trail stewards have to attend online classes for first aid, CPR, bike mechanics, etc. Garrulous Lou fits right in, interfacing with people is his best skill, and he loves it.

look at it this way, it's a lot easier than trying to describe the world by feely. E.g., the difference between a parabolic rod taper and a progressive rod taper - with more weight, the progressive taper loads a band moving progressively down the rod; while with more weight, the para taper loads more of the total rod length. I know a cane rod builder who describes a para taper as having a certain "twitch" Let's see if I catch fish on the Apr 3rd tide...

The system that makes sense is Japan. Everything is sized by traditional silk thread sizes (diameter) - braid, mono, fluoro. The rest of the world also uses diameter for reel capacities. Only the US has established pound-test-capacity as a dart board. Japan uses the # symbol to represent their traditional symbol https://www.jpfishingtacklenews.com/japanese-line-size/

@TnRiver46 I can't help it, tensor analysis and mechanics of continuous media is a worldview.

Japan X-braids fit the bill here. 35-lb YGK and Duel x-braids are the same diameter as 15-lb Sufix 832. Even 45-lb is 0.265 mm diameter (0.010 inch) Here's the diameter-based spool capacity calculator. https://www.pattayafishing.net/fishing-reel-line-capacity-estimator/

Sunny days and light south breeze are always nice to be out. But if you do the math, it takes more than a few of those to warm up a large water body.

There's a big void in the question, because braided lines cover the range from XUL to offshore. Even targeting only bass, there are reasons to fish 8-lb to 60-lb. Like most things on this forum, there will be a brand loyalty bias to most replies. I never met a 4-strand braid I liked, though I have Seaguar loaded on a couple of near offshore trolling reels. All around winner for round and best-behaved on both spinning and b/c is Sufix 832. If biggest bang for diameter is your goal, look at the Japanese X-braids, YGK and Duel, Yamatoyo at the cost-effective end. I'm going to edit this for @cyclops2 post right behind me - it's unfounded Extreme different methods are used for making braided lines. Coming up with an excuse to buy junk is just that. e.g., the X-braids have 90% of the strength in the different-drawn center strand, and the 7 outer strands are there for toughness and abrasion resistance. The braid winding begins with different quality fibers, and the winding result itself gives different densities. The better coated braids are fused when the coating is applied. Each brand has their-spec coating, which gives the lines different properties. X-braid coating-wise, I like YGK best on spinning tackle, and Duel and Yamatoyo better on baitcast. It's one thing to say something, something else to put it through the ringer over a few years.

actually, they were a clean sheet of paper. Lew's design separated the LW from the freespool, which improved everything about casting a baitcaster.

There's a reason for that - Shimano built those Lew's, then stole their design.

@TnRiver46 hey, they're all lunkers on this tackle.

There are two things to do in the surf, and I split my tackle into two functions - stake out meat on spider weights gets the 11' rod and the reel weight just about doesn't matter. For casting lures, you want something light enough to cast all day, on an 8' rod. The Japanese make 10' rods light enough to do this, and both Tsunami and Okuma have some good 8-9' rods. Here, think 1/4- to 1-oz. My 11' Tsunami 1102H to cast 1-4 ounces gets the Tica Samira SBAT long-cast - this is a honking big reel with a 74-mm spool diameter and weighs 20 oz. That said, I used to fish my 7-1/2' inshore MH rod in the surf with 2-oz spider weights and got spooled by plenty of bull reds (landed a few, too). The most important seal on a spinning reel is the A/R roller bearing. Every Tica in the size class has an effective seal there - and so does Daiwa because they share Tica's design (Tica builds many Daiwa reels). No worries at all with the BG here. As far as line roller goes, Shimano would be my last choice for the surf - Tica and Daiwa also share line roller design - no seals, but simple, effective, and easy to clean.

@bigspirit on ebay they're selling the new line roller to retrofit on '18 Stella and '19-'21 derivatives (Stradic, Vanquish, Twin Power, etc). Shimano p/n RD9840. It looks like they finally copied Tica and Daiwa lead with a TiN-plasma-coated part. As far as MTCW dual-bearing, no-seals titanium line roller, which retails (+VAT) for $90 (Fishingshop,kiwi sells it VAT-discounted - oops, never mind - OOS). Seems like a no-brainer to have a braid-functioning Stella, Vanquish, Stradic, Twin Power, Vanford. Susie's 25" (male) speckled trout on XUL - it made two 50-yd runs.

The Japanese have this thing about saving face in tight spaces, and most of their fun travel is on trains. That's why they love multipiece and telescoping rods. One of my earliest purchases from Japan - they make this glass fly rod also in 10-pc. It's one of the better small rods out there. Here's another use - bikefish - park at the high bridge on the State FM road, then bicycle to the county road crossings where you're not allowed to park a car. I recently added this Smith telescoping rod, which also fits in the half frame bag, and is even more convenient, since you can haul it rigged and ready to fish. "Texas brook trout" will take this as readily as they will this

@WRB That was my very first Lew's, bought when Larry's Tackle Town in Rockport was still Larry's - I bought the rod first there, and fished my Millionaire 6H on it until surf sand killed the worm gear (nickeled brass). Daiwa wouldn't support the part, and I bought the Lew's, though I had already given my dad a BB1-LM that wasn't marked Browning for an earlier Christmas gift. The BB-1NG fished the salt into the 90s, and some time in there, I added the BB-25SW, after giving my dad one of these, too. Was buying all Falcon rods by then. Fished the SW to 2019, next to my first Super Duty, and finally retired it. In fact, this was its final redfish. BTW, I replaced the BB25-SW with my first Daiwa since 1978.

The math shows that spigot ferrules don't affect the bulk modulus change, and therefore the rod taper, across the joint. (This is different for tip-over ferrules, which add a stiff spot). Fisher and Tarantino knew this going into the '70s. What ferrules do add is weight, which most heavy-tip rods don't need the help there. In general, you appreciate the weight difference of a 1-pc rod, but may bemoan hauling it around. My latest favorite JDM rod brand, Valleyhill, offers some 1-pc rods, one of which I own. 6'7" all-range BFS 1-pc But most of their rods are 2-pc spigot ferrule. They make up for the added ferrule weight by using all titanium-frame guides on their tip sections, and you'd be hard-pressed to notice they're 2-pc in all but convenience. 7'5" MMHS 2-pc Another part of the good trend in rod-weight-loss-diet is needing less material to get the rod taper, incorporating helical graphite cloth layers and impregnated nano-resin. Different rod, but this is the extreme-light spigot on a high-grade Yamaga Blanks rod - freaking 8'3" (finesse) rod weighs under 2.6 oz. you guys who throw away your rod tips, use the thinnest film of Gulfwax (paraffin) on the spigot male. Rub it on, then rub it all off - your rod will stay together and easily separate when you're taking it down.

That's when my dad got us up to drive to Tennessee every summer and Christmas. Also when he filled this stringer on his 90th birthday.

The rod is a Browning Hi-Power 7-1/2' inshore MH with a blade that telescopes into the handle. It was the first graphite rod I ever purchased. Cut a swath up and down the coast in the 80s and 90s. @WRB Tom, jgestar on FFR and owner of FFR, is a Silaflex collector and historian. Here's the wiki on Silaflex fly rods https://wiki.fiberglassflyrodders.com/wiki/Silaflex

and if you want to imitate gobies, sculpin, killifish (mud minnows), you have to be bottom-bouncing. Any time bottom-bouncing takes fish, the fly pattern is just about irrelevant - except you need it to keel hook-up. They want the mud balls. I've seen 5-lb bass following a bottom-bounced fly on clear flagstone bottom, slamming their head sideways into the bottom over and over trying to eat the fly. Teeny line, T-130, etc. When our tailwater is crowded, I can go to the deep tannin pools no one else fishes and bounce-up big rainbows on a cats whisker. They follow the fly forever and pick it up when it's sitting still. . same with white bass

Been awhile, but SW is always the best price on Lamiglas. They did me right on these two - no complaints with their packing, shipping, and service. Before Japanese rockfish rods, these were the old-school distance rocketships.

Curado BFS has a big fan club. A friend in FL says his casts as well as his Daiwa Zillion with Roro-X spool (I'd be from Missouri on that one, though). If you ever have the desire to fish light braid on a baitcaster, you get there by getting spool mass and inertia down - no such thing as too light or too little line capacity. I would recommend going the other route - big diameter reel with aftermarket BFS spool - but there just aren't any more aftermarket spools out there - they've pretty much all been bought up.

@TnRiver46 My UT was in Austin - in Tennessee, my school was Vandy - so long ago, it was the year we beat the Vols at Thanksgiving. Also, I never fish weighted flies - always sinking lines - slime lines and Teeny lines. Have caught mackerel on TS-250 and suspended snapper on TS-350. Inshore, if I'm fishing more than mid-thigh deep, I go to slime line, or in tide passes with strong current, the TS-250. However, I always tell others this about my salt finesse - they make salt fly rod obsolete - with this, I can cast 1/16 oz to 130' This whistler pattern works for both gobies and sculpin we have gobies in our limestone creeks

When you work on handle knobs, they come with little bearing-puller hooks, and my work box, which is an open Sp. cedar cigar box has several of them loose in the open lid. I've never looked back after replacing with MTCW. Fishingshop,kiwi has stock in bright finish - I believe shipping is $32 https://fishingshop.kiwi/M-t-c-w--Mtcw-Line-Roller-Ver-U-Silver-Shimano/ Hedgehog studio has them at retail and $28 to ship, both heat-tint titanium and bright finish. They also have a diagram showing the assembly. https://www.hedgehog-studio.co.jp/product/3947 but there's not much to it - put all the old stuff aside - all you need is the screw and the sex bolt axle. Stack right size shim washers, bearings and line roller in the right order - of course it comes with a new pair of bearings. The thicker red shim goes to the bail side.

Form follows function. If bling comes out of improved function, more power to 'em. I actually used to hate the look of Japan spinning reels with Livre parts when they turned up on ebay. Then I fished with some and changed my mind. I'll never get used to colored rods, though.