bulldog1935

Lou and I both worked so hard clearing off our desks to get out the door, the physical exertion was rest for our brains. Turned out to be a pretty good window, because the rain hasn't quit since, and the bays are getting worse with freshwater inflow. Just a few hours away, but always great to get there. After dinner, we walked Fulton Beach Pier, which is recently rebuilt and re-opened after Hurricane Harvey 4 years ago. @Tail Slap When my daughters were growing up, it was a ritual - dinner at Cap'n Benny's, fish Fulton Beach Pier for an hour, a cigar, catch 40 nursery trout, then ice cream. It's where I honed UL skills for nite-lite specs. Cap'n Benny's was run by the mayor of Fulton and her grandkids - they didn't reopen after Harvey.

...and I just checked Asian Portal - I got the last Valleyhill stock in that configuration - it was $100 less. It's very nicely spec'd and finished. https://valleyhill.taniyamashoji.co.jp/1549

I've been on month-to-month with AT&T for 10+ years and no contract, with new phones I bought 3rd party. With limits, I pay $50/mo and get an occasional use charge when I travel. $300/yr sounds like a very good deal.

No direct experience with the rod, but in that length, it's pretty easy to make a fast ML rod with a soft-enough tip to cover that lure weight range. At the cost-effective end, my 13 Fishing Omen Green spinner is definitely there, but the tip on that particular rod would be too soft for a baitcaster, while their bait version has a faster tip and starts at 1/8 oz. The Omen ML bait was my first Toray graphite rod - very light in hand, very fast, and my go-to ML At the spendy end, just bought a 6'7" Valleyhill with the same wide lure weight range for BFS bass fishing. A lot of credit to the reel, but first lawn cast test, it was casting 1/16 oz loaded jighead to 100', and 1/8 oz farther than I'd ever want to fish. Nothing noodle-y or goose-y about this rod - it feels fast even with 3/8 oz. So it can be done, if it's done right. In my case, 1/16 oz was the baseline for my rod choice, but the notably wider heavy end on the Valleyhill caused me to spend extra over the Major Craft and Jackall BFS choices, and very happy with this rod.

Gary Borger has the best talk on fish "smarts" - really, his talk is on stealth. He said the guys who can claim to be fish psychologists note the smartest fish, carp, has an IQ of 12. You're probably never out-smarted by a fish, and I wouldn't anthropormorphize spite or moods into their motivations. His point about natural selection, brave and inquisitive fish become fodder. Big fish aren't smart, big fish are cowards. But I do remember one shut out December day on our trout tailwater. Sitting on my tailgate, peeling my waders, there was a size 6 hex mayfly on my shirt. He was laughing at me.

Been shopping in Japan 20 years, since you had to use a broker for the language barrier and their banking laws. Easier to shop there now - best place for reel parts and of course JDM tackle. Compared to the broker days, English is better, payment is better. I always check closeouts, lures, and tools for an idea that may click. My last order included these Smith split ring tweezers - $6.73 SMITH SPLITRING PINCETTE PLIERS The Texas Tackle Factory pliers will let me work #4 and larger split rings. The jeweler's set in the middle added #3 and #2. The Smith tweezers for the first time let me work #1 and #0 split rings, but they work beautifully across the board for every size split ring, from tiny to offshore. Showing my favorite Megabass Dog-X, great size comparison, can't remember the color, but to me it's Major Mullet, and sporting swapped-in VMC salt trebles - the TTF pliers worked great for that, but so will the Smith. Except the size 8 trebles on the bottom 3/16-oz Pins minnow, all the finesse plugs had tiny trebles size 14 to size 18 - too small for my use - I swapped for (salt) plug singles, size 8 to size 4. Threw in the range of spoons because they're pretty. The 38-mm plugs have #0 split rings, and had pointless size 18 trebles. But if you're already shopping in Japan, will ever be removing or swapping split rings, I'd recommend checking tools for the Smith Splitring Pincette Pliers.

never mind, figured out we were talking about the same thing... gratuitous decoration since I'm here

One more set of Trout in the Classroom photos - these were from Thursday when a 4th grade class made their annual pilgrimage to release trout fry they raised from eggs into the Guadalupe tailwater. The kids were excited. Just as many parents attended After praying over their fish to find their place in the plan - even if that's to be food, acclimating the fish with river water, and also acclimating the kids in the coldwater tailrace, each released four rainbow fry into the river. Karen, on the right, began TIC in Texas almost 20 years ago, and after a few years with a leg injury, volunteered me to take it over. She now ramrods Texas Women Flyfishers. The teacher on the left, Kate, is the daughter of one of the late founders of GRTU. Karen and Kate had stories to swap about Kate's dad.

before thumb gets educated, the old-fashioned gravity-way of setting spindle cap tension is still a good idea to help prevent impossible backlashes during learning curve. After your mind and thumb get it together, no reason to have spool tension for anything but end-play adjustment. Something Daiwa did intentionally was made it really tough to get to and adjust the zero adjust spindle cap. You do have to adjust it for spool swaps - in fact, you may have to open it wide before you can close the palm cap on a new spool.

I've never bought a reel, but piecemeal titanium fasteners, various handles knobs and reel decoration parts to get special threading Ali Express seems to have a pretty good system for keeping track of their vendors - I did place one order for small parts that was never acknowledged, and received the time-set instant refund from Ali Express. So their system works. Slow boat shipping from China, but also reliable - Ali Express bundles their own cargo to USA, then get it to USPS. Ray's Studio is in Thailand, btw.

The only difference I've found in schematics is the bearing retainer, which makes the spool bearing sit deeper into the spool, and farther from the pinion bearing. There's probably differences in the spools themselves, newer G-series v. 105, differences in spring rates in the SV that gives them a different braking curve. Daiwa sells their aftermarket spools with different springs for different lure rate ranges.

what I like about long, narrow boats, aside from speed and distance, is straddling them for easy-chair fishing.

here's what fuels my boat

There is also a Google Translate ap for cell phones that will let you photo a page in Japanese, and it will translate it for you: Pick the camera icon, and it does the rest

Lew's Super Duty G five years in the salt now - paid $130 new from an ebay discounter. I upgraded the spool and spindle bearings with 3 non-shielded HD bearings, so they get oiled after every extended trip. For 1/4 oz and up, it out-casts every other reel I fish around it. I literally can't remember a backlash except the day I had a one-turn wrap on the rod tip, and retired it for my spare reel. It came back fishing 20-lb Sufix 832 braid over Mason big mono backing, and I've enjoyed it even more. The design and parts manufacturing between mid-range and flagship reels are pretty much the same. What you pay for in the high dollar reels are expensive materials - magnesium and titanium - and greater manual attention in assembling the reels - parts pairing for extra smoothness.

Big time fan of weightless and USB-charge Nitecore NU-20. $30 Hands-free for rigging, and a wide range in brightness settings from just-rite-nite-lite to blind-your-neighbor-should-you-choose. Also a funny story - went looking for mine. Oh no, it was in a clothing article that went through the wash. Works perfectly...

Needed a few reel parts, and started a cart at Plat. Best place I know for schematics and parts, and JDM lists divided spool parts you can only see on US schematics and parts sources as a complete spool assy. I always look for good stuff, lures, especially finesse, and tools to round out my order and make my FedEx charge worthwhile. Includes some tiny salt-resistant split rings I need, and really trick Smith split-ring tweezers for the fine stuff. Also some tiny salt jigheads you can only find in Japan. In lures, I added Tackle House Rolling plugs and Moovy plastic bodies. Tackle House is top shelf (Megabass makes larger version rolling plugs), and I've also had good luck with TetraWorks lures. The Movvies have a notch that forms a swimming plug lip on your jighead. You can install them between fast (retrieve or current) and slow. Borrowed this Plat video for Movvy, and another for the amazing action of the Tackle House rolling plug (will probably swap those size 14 trebles for size 6 singles), and the 4.5-g lure (or should I say 70-gr) is a virtual bullet for BFS. have some Z-man Neds arriving today, and a salt shad body color I was down to my last. ok, here's the rest and this is too cool - I've never been able to work #1 and #0 split rings before. With the Smith split ring tweezers, they just glided.

Fine, but I have two Takamiya, 7'6" ST and 7'9" tubular tip, I've fished over a dozen years, including sight-fishing 22" and 23" seatrout in summer canals - these were modest-priced rods. They've landed doubles with snook and redfish on 2-g-jig tandem rigs. Standard fare for us imitating glass minnows in the Texas tropics during standing winter trips to Arroyo City. Newer, I have 8' NS Black Hole (modest priced), 8'3" Yamaga Blanks TZ Nano (flagship), and just added the Yamaga Blanks 8'2" Blue Current III baitcaster (mid-priced). I've seen Lou and his wife both crank in the Major Craft ST until the tiptop doubled over to the first guide, and they're still catching fish on the rod. Autter on ebay has three models of NS Black Hole Dark Horse Rockfish II (two UL, one ML) in stock currently, and I can recommend my 1st-gen rod as workhorse UL.

Here are 15 choices, fluorocarbon 1-lb test or less, and in stock (the search sneaked in a few over 1 lb) they also have good prices on tuning parts, handles, and braid.

Abu 5500C3CT hands down - the answer to the title of this thread. Tournament distance casters all use variations on this reel. I recently set up a Steez for 2g with Roro-X spool (lightest 6-g spool made), and fishing in the same spot that I was before using a Vanquish C2000S on an 8' UL small game (rockfish) rod, I was casting 3-g plugs on the baitcaster on 8'2" small game rod farther and more accurately than I could 5-g plugs on the small game spinner. That said, you're in the XUL universe casting less than 1 g, and even though some BFS spools claim they can do it, I'd be looking at long Japanese small game spinning rods with solid tip and 0.3-g low-end capability. Major Craft is a good place to begin. My buddy has one rated that low and it fishes the light stuff very well. They're designed for casting from shore to fish sign. The nicest thing about the Japanese rockfish rods, they have a wide lure range and can still fish 1/4- to 3/8-oz at the high end (the longer the rod, the higher the high-lure-weight end). Major Craft, NS Black Hole - makers with US importers - don't import these rods here - you have to find them in Japan or Korea.

I'm going to add the first vote for Seaguar fluorcarbon in 12-lb. Not the spendy Tatsu, but Red label. If you choose the equally cost-effective Yo-Zuri copolymer, I'd recommend 10-lb.

What the OP stated on the first page is that he's experiencing mid-cast wind backlash on long casts. He wouldn't know this if he wasn't feeling it with his thumb. The solution has also been given - add one click of mag brake. Any talk of technique, mechanics or start-up backlash is non-sequitur, or simply projecting.

and still, without P2 pinion, but 3 HD unshielded spool and spindle bearings swapped-in, my Super Duty G fishes on and on and out-casts every other reel I fish around it. I'm sure it's safe to say P2 pinion is an upgrade to drive-life durability in Lew's reels. While the performance and durability of my long-lived Super Duty G that doesn't have P2 pinion says something good about Lew's LFS reel frame quality.

I put my P2-pinion SP through some serious big fish work last week, and the reel fared well - still buttery smooth. took this photo before with the open spindle cap when I was working on spool bearings, to show the spindle gap. But would be hard-pressed to call the pinion and bushing any kind of gap. It won't work with a press-fit, since the pinion needs to slide horizontally. I didn't check, but I suspect the pinion gear is tapered.

the symptom is too much spool shim. Might get the same result operating with a too-low drag setting. If the line isn't sitting deep in the line roller, but on the edge of the bail might also get that result. Can you show a photo of the spool stop on the spindle with the spool removed?