bulldog1935

I understand why we all have more than one reel, but some of you guys can't count.

duh

I haven't used any braid smaller than PE#0.6 and, yes, broke off a snook on that - figured that was ok. I've been rolling Allbright knots 45 years and shooting them through fly rod snake guides. I tie improved Allbright leader knots 14+4 No reason to switch now. BTW, I rate both braid coating quality and life by how the braid glides when rolling this knot - - if coating peels before 3 years, I switch brands. and didn't break off this redfish on PE#0.6

I cannibalized the wood-grasp Haneda Craft titanium handle from my red Smith Plugger for my Ambassadeur 5000D project. It's ok, I replaced the Plugger handle with red alloy from Bright River. also matched the red thumb rest on Plugger. 5000D Avail 5-mm spool with YGK pentagram let me finish the braid charge in green. The rod grip is hen's teeth Headhunters 10th Anniversary King Fisher grip made by Bright River. (good Yahoo search using ideograms and unopposed snipe) 5000D combo with Glaflex 3-power S-glass blade is a joy to cast and crank in my 1/4- to 1/2-oz river kayak niche. I set the Avail mag brake casting 1/8-oz loaded jighead, and added the small centrifugal shoes from 2500 for the heavy end. Abu already made 5000D light-in-hand, and it's both lighter and slicker with full-Avail-alloy+BB level wind, including alloy pawl with oil reservoir. Also has the GoldWorks skeleton spool bushings, and they cut the bushing friction in half. NOS Abu parts in my reel include new brass main gear and pinion, new A/R dog. (frame No. is '73 first run) I used carbontex drag washers on both sides of the ratchet plate + the lower, worn bronze washer (flipped the worn side down against mainshaft flange). Couldn't ask for smoother drag, and it maxed-out at 2-1/2 lbs, which is right for the 5000D. I also put the 3915 bronze washer against my new brass main gear, and moved the concave spring washer between the two stainless flat washers. (the old steel main gear was brinnelled by hard contact with the concave spring washer) And I'm already paying for this by adding mag brake to OP's Langleys - one of my Target mods is entered in ACA casting competition this week...

those colors work great

Pays off when you're on the water and everything works perfectly as designed. Electrons are cheap - even a terrabyte to store them all isn't spendy these days. - cam cleat for plastic stringer

Adding one more option here. Amazon sells a very fine velcro tape for wrapping electronic cables. I use this for wrapping line on spools - just need enough overlap for it to grab itself. You can re-use the strip an infinite number of times - my travel sail bag always has a partial roll - you can wrap multipiece rods together with it and you'll find a gang of handy uses on a kayak, such as keeping your plastic stringer staged. @WRB-2.0 - when I began using mylar/acrylic tape for seizing knots in bungee and sailcord (also wrapping ends to cut), I compared mylar (polyester) to kapton (polyamide). Then, the only place to buy either was Grainger, and kapton was 3-times the cost of mylar. That was 15 years ago, mylar is UV-resistant and waterproof (kapton isn't), and I've replaced worn trolley sailcord without first needing to replace mylar tape on my seized knots. They also sell a slightly thicker version of polyester/acrylic tape for securing guides on surf rods (ends tipped with black mylar). Wraps of acrylic glue on polyester film essentially becomes a composite (and you can easily remove it with no residue).

Sounds like you're heading in the right direction. Your rod and reel choices will do the job. Spinning tackle is a good way to begin. Spinning guides are "rings down", which helps with the rod toughness during shock loading and extreme bending. (not a recommendation, except for braid, this is Shimano Stradic and ML e-glass kingfish rod) People who like round reels on top of the rod often perfer spiral-wrap rods for trolling, so the upper half of the road loads the same way as a spinning rod. (Tica Caiman and Jigging World rod) Though note, these also need a gimbal-butt if you want the weight of the reel to stay on top in a rocket-launcher rod holder. The spinning rod (doesn't need this) will naturally hang with the reel weight down, in the correct position for trolling and fishing. Trolling from kayak - my friend Glenn Madden is so famous on the TX coast, every time he drives down the beach in the summer, there's an armada waiting for him, to follow him down the beach and offshore to the rigs. He's using e-glass rods and Seigler lever-drag reels - he also makes all this look too easy.

Mylar/acrylic film tape - you'll find dozens of uses - beyond thin, easy to remove, never leaves a residue. It's so tough, I use it for seizing knots on kayak trolley line, and the tape lasts as long as the double-braid sailcord.

@F14A-B Not just tide motion, but bite windows also exist in freshwater rivers and lakes (latter also have sun, moon, and wind currents). Heavily-hit fish stop feeding as a defense mechanism. This is why you see no-bite cycles that last 20 to 30 minutes. When the desire to feed overcomes defensive shyness, one fish will eat, and all join in feeding in competition. Then they all settle back into another no-bite cycle. Another thing we notice in the salt, fish feed more aggressively at new moon than they will at a full moon, simply because they get to feed all night in a full moon

Of course prayers for the families and the recovery responders. I can't imagine the trauma of recovering lost children from a 6' thick flood wash pile. A lot of the news coverage is nuts - most of that, if you haven't been here 40 years, it's beyond your imagination. Every route out means crossing the river somewhere. Most of the lost children at Mystic were in a school bus and van in the flight caravan (led by loaded army trucks) that washed away during the flight. Exactly the same thing that happened in the 1987 flood tragedy - in 1987, they were following the sheriff's orders, took the best route out, and it wasn't enough.

Close to my house, Canyon Lake on the Guadalupe has a 140' earthen dam with a spillway designed to one side. The 2002 flood was 12' over the spillway, and carved the gorge below in a few days. It was a 34" rain. Discharge was 120,000 cfs, exactly twice the discharge that came down the river this past weekend. (the 27" overnight rain I mentioned at my house discharged 98,000 cfs in Cibolo Creek) In the Guadalupe river basin below the tailrace, there were cars 30' up in the cypress trees. Of course everyone saw this coming, and everyone was evacuated. People along River Road who know about this don't build drywall houses, but cinder block that they can hose out. Canyon Lake caught the flood discharge from last weekend, and lake level went up more than 10' - but note, it's still 15' below conservation water level, and 40' below full.

@KP Duty - congrats, friend - my favorite Zillion - it arrives missing all the right parts. orange is cool - I wish they made spools and trim in green. here's the color, on Ale toe clips

I guess there are some Japanese pianists, but I've handled too many Japanese grips that were too small for my human hands. The ridge in the rear was intended to split 3rd and 4th fingers for pinky contact on the blank, but on my hand, it split 2nd and 3rd fingers, and split them wide. I modified this rod grip with cork tape and X-shrink (just right now). Some knob choices with the Japanese are simply a style choice, based on their fondness for last-century tournament-casting reels, such as Langley Target. I've replaced more than one skinny alloy knob, including Zaion, for equally light weight and grippier. Sure can't complain about my finese results.

I shared this with a friend on FFR about the size and speed of Texas monsoons. Texas monsoons form when Gulf moisture meets Arctic moisture and El Nino (warm Pacific moisture) all at the same time. Movement gets pinned by high pressure to the NE. Memorial Day flood Austin, 1981, I was watching out my full-wall office window as noon became midnight - that's a 70,000' thunderhead. It rained 7 inches in one hour. I've seen the same midnight at noon in San Antonio. Until Hurricane Harvey rained 36" in 24 hours on Houston, North American rainfall record was Goldthwaite, TX, 1935, rained 35" overnight - that town is about 100 mi north from my house. All that came down the Colorado River for Austin's record flood. Closer to Austin, it was compounded by D'Hanis rainfall of 20 inches in under 3 hours. Famous Austin photo, house going over Miller Dam. Flood crest was 42'

I'd say knob composition makes zero difference in reel smoothness. (a pair of knob bearings is always smoother than one bearing and one bushing) Knob composition is mostly for appearance/asthetics - handle and knob weight makes a difference in finesse feel - lower wind inertia and less torsion on your grip. Larger knobs have a power factor that you can feel when reeling, and as long as those big knobs are light weight, they don't interfere with finesse feel.

I only backlash when I'm trying to backlash, that is, searching for incipient backlash when setting up casting brake on bench reels. In this case of fixed mag brake, you set the brake by the number and size of the magnets. I've said before, most on the forum complaining about line dig with threadline braid are finding deeper backlash that they missed before. Unlike mono, braid is beyond limp, and backlash makes 180-degree loops that are invisible. Always make sure you strip line deeper than what you can see, to find the deepest backlash loop. The most useful tool for picking out those 180-degree loops is a plastic toothpick. When I'm lawn casting for reel set up, I always have a Doctor's brush pick in my pocket.

Mystic is only 8 miles downriver from the Guadalupe headwater springs. I've been watching the monsoon on doppler since it developed 2 days ago. It just sat there and dumped 3 in/hr. The flood drained off the Guadalupe-Llano divide - no way for any kind of warning at 4 am. (my house is above the US-281 shield on the map) I've also been following the flood crest down the river using USGS. The river is a tiny creek there - just the south fork of the headwaters. Close to home - a Mystic Xing bass. The monsoon didn't begin breaking up until today - we had a 5-inch one-hour rain from it this morning, but I'm right on top of the Cibolo-Guadalupe divide - high and dry - 4 mi from the Guadalupe, and 450' above Cibolo Ck. My house has been through a 27-inch overnight rain without problems.

Tackle Warehouse sells G-nius

There's a whole culture that fishes nothing but old and antique tackle in organizations like ORCA and NFLCC. Old Langley, Skilkast and Marhoff on old glass, cane and steel rods. They enter this tackle in ACA casting competitions. I'm making a niche for myself adding mag brake to vintage Langley reels. Casts half the weight twice as far, and improves reliability over the full range, including ACA 3/8- and 5/8-oz. With the mag-brake mod, Langley Target will fish 1 g, and Lurecast will fish 2 g

Congratulations on the outstanding score. Possibly, also condolences for entering the Dark Side of bench-made precision. Our best work on Ambassadeur only comes close to Isuzu. Great time to travel to Colorado, and leave July humidity at home. Take plenty of photos...

@Bigbox99 I've bought a few odds-and-ends from BaitFinesseEmpire and JDMFishing (west coast piecemeal importer) because it was convenient. adding small tariff to already small item, really wouldn't care But looking at rod and reel prices - thanks, but no thanks, I'll import my own.

And Top JDM Shop in US (oxymoron) is already marking up 35% over your purchase price in (actual) JDM. Tariffs will hurt his business, but not yours if you shop in Japan. Though people I know who import commercial from China and Japan (Shane at Graywolf rods) aren't slowing down a bit over tariffs. The only YouTubes I watch are my friend Glenn (Prof Salt) and reel take downs. I do like YouTube Music in my truck.

Import tariffs will affect vendors who import commercial volume for retail sales. They don't affect personal use import up to $800/shipment duty-free. JDM price increases have Nothing to do with import tariffs, but Japan inflation. YouTube goober is probably not your top source of information. https://ship4wd.com/logistics-shipping/import-duties-from-japan-to-usa Last version of this Isuzu direct-drive reel sold out 5 years ago for JY 34,100 Current version of of the same reel sold for JY 78,000

For posting links, you never need anything to the right of the first ?