bulldog1935

Beach Cliff in LA hot sauce is the traditional fishing lunch. (the pickled herring steaks, not sardines) When you pop the can, pour the oil on the water, throw out some cut bait, and catch a redfish during lunch. Stevo can eat cold pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

MM is the choice rod for kayak fishing in most situations. Sitting so close to the water, fishing mostly swimbaits, MM dampens the action you put into the lure just about perfectly. Also usually tough enough for hard turning to keep a big fish from running under your boat.

If you've ever fished the Kenai at 2am in June it's nothing for a millwright to leave his desk at 3:30p, drive or fly to Kenai, fish all night and be back at his desk at 730a.

tuning reel handles becomes an art, and you can use it as a science with your retrieve rate and fishing niche. Reels never come with a handle knob I want - and maybe even the handle pitch and balance - swapping for what I do want is pretty much automatic. (yes, knob shimming is everything to find that point where they spin like a bicycle wheel without end play) IMO, the bearings that come in the Daiwa handles are the very best bearings for handle knobs offered by anyone (including Livre) - they fit snug on both spindle and in the knob boss, minimizing wind-direction play in the knob.

not really, depends very much on the rod taper and how stiff they want to make the butt - the weight is more dependent on the wall thickness. If you have enough strength to resist diameter collapse, thinner wall is geometrically stiffer (greater MOI) than thick wall, and of course larger diameter is also stiffer. St. Croix Legend Glass used composite helical wraps to get that diameter-collapse-strength and keep the wall thin. Here's my S-glass St. Croix Legend, one of the lightest-weight glass rods I've ever handled, and an MM workhorse. I've mentioned this rod is lighter weight than my IM6 graphite Crowder MM bait rod. that's a big Tica Libra SX3000, about the same reel as a Shimano 5000

I don't get the modern urge to give every bait color a name that doesn't describe anything, but I'll add a nod to Z-man's color combos working light really well.

at least you came to the right support group

they have also have a reaction to taste, swallow into their gullet (or crushers) or spit out. Reactionary hook setting will rip mouth membrane in many salt fish from seatrout to mackerel. Hope this helps. Brandon harvested the roe for more king bait. your skin excretes oil just like fish do, and it's tenacious on everything you handle

it's not as limp as Red or Blue, tougher to roll an Allbright knot and collapse the Gold loop, but it can be done with practice. (the green is a 1-m mark in 35-lb X-braid) I only bought 30-lb Gold for surf leader, and still plan to use Blue for everything lighter.

40 years ago I learned about fish-scent poultice from a S. Padre guide. His rule then was smear the lure every 3rd cast. The point of using it is to mask the smell of us on the lure. The newer stuff is a little more tenacious. At least use it on the lead and steel. my Alaska guide buddy wears gloves for the same reason - so the bait doesn't smell and taste like us

kinda learned it from my dad - he must have planted his boat on every sand bar from Port Aransas to Port Isabel (he always let my mom do all the stressing). Fish here, the tide will be back. This was his 90th birthday trip last year Have to admit, he looks 10 years younger holding his overnight stringer. (Mom was there, too)

bring a camera and change definition of the day's success after all, this isn't supposed to be stressful

can one up that - I know a guy who put the spent coffee grounds on his ice cream.

I don't want to see what he's weighting the line with...

different reels, but you couldn't pry my Avail handles, etc. JapanTackle also sells Avail, and may save you 10% or so over Hedgehog.

Tackle tinkering is always great. Also functional reel pimp I got lucky. An e-friend just offered me a desirable fly reel for my time in exchange for spending his money and dressing up 5 of his spinning reels.

Paul, at some point, you may want to establish standards for yourself because, all too soon, space in your collection is the coveted item. Mine was never buy an item others would not line up to buy from me, with a couple other caveats. Then your time and labor is also rewarded - - here's that 1918 Douglas patent freespool + anti-reverse - winding backwards, the yoke lifts the pinion gear from both the spool and main gear - note there's a clutch in the main shaft collar and the delicate casting-brake spring, which this reel has in place of a clicker You've definitely done the right thing making contacts on ORCA, and already reaped some benefits, both knowledge base and gracious gestures (at least partly driven by making space). Neither your nor I probably have a goal of winning a display medal at a national meet, but all of those guys have long passed an acumen of buying and selling well. For those who may want to know the kind of things to look for, probably the best example I can throw up is the Pflueger Summit. My '51 Ward's catalog that Paul quoted on this page shows the postwar version, model 1993L, and you see a lot of those out there sold as "engraved Pflueger" Here's the one you can potentially make a profit - this is the prewar version, c. 1928. Rather than nickel-plated brass, it's nickel-silver, has all the patent marks, and is engraved - note the details on the end plates. It's also the amber handle knobs that give it away. Eric, the place you might want to begin is NFLCC https://nflcc.org/upcoming-shows/ ORCA is kind of a spin-off of the larger organization, and with a membership overlap that makes them almost a subset of NFLCC. For the fly reels, you'll find more history and interest on fiberglassflyrodders and classicflyrodforum.

cats whisker tied on Tiemco hook. I filmed an episode of KT Diaries with Kevin Townsend, True Texas Bass - it was on our endemic hill country limestone creek bass. In that episode, he made a day trip to the state hatchery, saw big alligator gar in their ponds, and broke out his fly rod to sight-fish gar to 150-lbs - it's kind cool to watch. KT likes his clausers for catching absolutely everything, I like my cats whiskers for exactly the same.

Gar are a hoot to sight-fish on a fly rod. They make astounding charges to grab a lure 8 or 10' away, then they make astounding aerials in the fight. (30" longnose gar)

@roadwarrior and @Columbia Craw I think the real point is the technology and manufacturing trickle down. If you look at entry level reels now compared to 30 years ago, they've made great strides and, especially in just the past 10 years, with explosion of computer design and manufacturing. Baitcasters are still a very simple mechanism - even their braking systems. Spinning reels are still the most complicated fishing reel mechanism, but they've really worked out the bugs with computer design. What you can't change is the cost of the materials of construction, the labor and investment to work them, and it's the performance and detail labor of those better materials that affect the cost of higher-end reels. Thirty years ago, we caught a lot of fish, 100 years ago, they caught a lot of fish. But 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago, it was unheard of for anyone except the wealthy or charter Captains to have a gang of rods and reels.

bet you're not paddling 8 miles Stevo always eats cold pizza and beer for breakfast. something else about kayaking - you have to get out the boat occasionally - makes it a good time to eat.

My best deliveries from Asian Portal, Japan Tackle, Hedgehog and Plat have each been about 40-50 hours. Fed-Ex flies nonstop now from Shennin-Shi to Memphis. DHL sometimes holds for a day in either Tokyo or Cincinnati - but not always. Plat can be slower getting off the mark, because they normally schedule their outgoing shipping around their incoming parts from Daiwa and Shimano, but if you happen to order on a Friday or Monday, you're in the mix. I paid $150 for my Stradic C1000S from Asian Portal about a year ago - that was when EMS Express Post could get it here in 4 days. A month before that, a C2000SHG (FL1000) for $160.

Kokatat dry pants and a good Gortex top shell do it for me.

On the flats prefer baitcaster most of the time, because of instant retrieve. Prefer the spinning tackle in the dark and especially before the coffee takes because you don't have to keep up as much with your lure landing, and am generally fishing topwaters then. With XUL, spinning is kind of a no-brainer for distance and countdown (in spite of strides in BFS).

In the case of Shimano, $200 reels come from a line in Malaysia, and I'm betting a $400 reel is made in Japan. I know in the case of Japan-made spinning reels, technicians at the bench match parts to improve smoothness and reduce inertia. The extra effort should also reduce wear in the long run. Asian Portal - $320 against a weak JPY