bulldog1935

@AlabamaSpothunter NOAA thunderstorm warnings say if you can hear thunder, you're in direct threat of lightning. But across the water, you can hear thunder 10 times farther away. \

Wind and weather prediction from Friday night through Monday afternoon said stay away - 60 to 80% rain chance for all 3 days. Saturday wind looked bad, Sunday wind looked like good fishing, and Monday was too far to know. The weather services were wrong about most of it. My buddy Stevo made the call - with the big automatic awning on his Oliver trailer, knew we'd have a good time even if we cooked and drank beer. With his boats in storage at Rockport, decided on two vehicles, mine to shuttle kayaks - his to haul the travel trailer and run errands. We were staying at Palm Harbor RV park in Estes, with Estes Flats in our back yard. We arrived with dry and enough daylight to have our boats staged for Saturday morning. Crossing the ferry to Port Aransas to fish East Flats on Mustang barrier island was high on our list, because Steve had never fished there. We ran the drill early Saturday morning, driving through sheets of rain. Even with the wind shelter, 18 kt gusting to 26 was too much, with Doppler showing continual storms moving up the coast. We made the call at the marina ramp to return to the trailer. I took this photo for Josh, because a different morning launching 9 kayaks here, my photo caught him in a nature call - hey, I cropped it before I published it. We were back in the trailer watching a movie, but Steve was watching weather updates and Doppler on his phone. At 10 am, he called a window in both the wind and rain, and we drove 200' to launch kayaks at the RV park bulkhead. While NWS was calling 12-kt SSE, we were getting 12-kt NNE - after 1 mi paddle across, and 2 mi into the wind, a perfect drift down our favorite Trout Bayou. Dead center of Trout Bayou, I hooked up a dink. Nope - when it got close to the boat, it turned on redfish shoulders. Second time close to the boat, she did a tailstand flapping her head, and it was a major trout. Drift sock in, right now. She made at least four trips around my boat, two stopped attempts under, and was giving me a sleigh ride. I measured a quick 26", but you be the judge - - my beam is 28", and this is my lifetime speckled trout. Caught on Z-man Minnow-Z, Mood Ring, and 1/8 oz Texas-eye jighead. The lure color is my favorite in clear water overcast, reflects blue and transmits pink. This was a lot better than a bad movie. Our 2 hour window was over with the wind building to 18 kts, and a tough tack across Estes Cove to get back in. Calorie deprived and jonesing, we made a run to Steer Burger. We crossed the ferry again Sunday morning, and the weather prediction had everything wrong - no rain, and no wind - none to move us onto fish, and none for stealth cover. We paddled 8 mi to cover everywhere in the flat and shallow lake, mostly without fish. The hot sun and still air finally drove us in. Instead of predicted ESE, a light NW wind was enough to drift-fish the mid-depth shelf across the flat on our way back to the marina, and we found dink heaven. Almost every cast got small reds and trout - a tail shot of the day's 16" red. Since Monday was a short day on the water, we chose to stay at Estes, and were joined by a new friend we made at the Redfish Rodeo last fall, with his son on a first paddle (Steve said, "you brought bait"). We launched in calm at 6:15, expecting the predicted SE to come up later, and headed due E to Little Cut. Before we got to the cut, the shoal was black with bait, small reds tailing and slashing bait. Light NW glided us onto the fishing. I was catching rats on my prop-tail topwater shrimp, and having a blast. Our friend and his son went in after 3 hours, and reported 3 redfish, two of them just 1/2" below slot. When we got enough ESE to drift, I drifted twice from the oyster close to Little Cut into deeper grass, and found those nice just-under-slot reds our friend had been into. Finished our last drift at the first duck blind and headed in to pack out. Different color Minnow-Z, green/grey with red flecks. Especially since I owe Steve for the call on my lifetime spec, a beer-thirty photo in his Outback before our last-mile paddle in. We finished packing out in light rain, and drove through walls of zero-visibility rain on the way home. Great trip, would do it again in a heartbeat. We outsmarted the weatherpersons.

@AlabamaSpothunter I also need to give credit to Steve on my lifetime trout. We were in the middle of monsoons, wind and rain predictions by weather services were totally wrong, and Steve called a 10 am window for us to launch (200' from our RV pad), by watching Doppler on his phone. We only got 2 hours before the wind drove us back in, and that was enough to cover 3 miles up Trout Bayou and drift halfway back - then tack the building 18 kt wind to get back in.

@AlabamaSpothunter - yes, Zillion uses magseal drive bearings. It's my braid-raced Zillion that's embarrasingly pretty, on a 3-year spool of PE#1.2 X-braid - probably good that I had to replace my leader after Arroyo trip in Feb.

The single best braid I've used on spinning tackle in PE#1.2 (25-lb) is YGK BornRush. I was zinging light lures into coast wind with it this past weekend. Varivas 8 is a close second. Varivas is easy to find, with a US website and Amazon store. Florida Fishing Products Distance braid is made by Varivas, and I fished a spool 4 years. Generally, softer FEP coatings cast better on spinning, while harder coatings resist line dig on baitcast reels. In the finer threadline sizes, YGK finesse braids are tops. All Japanese X-braids are made by Izanas - differences are fiber and wind density, and choice of coatings.

Caught my lifetime specked trout over the weekend, 28" No words to describe the riot and pandemonium, but I'll try when I write a condensed report of our coast kayak monsoon trip. even the rat reds were riotous last weekend my previous lifetime spec was 27", caught at Green Is, Lower Laguna Madre, 2005

Not in ML - they are fast through the mid with the ML in a light tip. They are shocking light-in-hand.

Omen Green uses the same T30 (Toray) blank as Fate Black. I have two - great rods - and my buddy flipped over his. My ML baitcaster is the least-expensive rod I take out, and will never be without one.

@Obi_Wan - I'll tell you everything. ? The Smith Super Strike handles copy the old Fenwick Champion handles from the '70s, but are made in magnesium. They offer short, long, and pistol-grip cork. They sell rod blades separately, or with a pistol-grip cork handle. Asian Portal does the best job of stocking Smith Super Strike. (this is the Super Strike short handle). Found my first on Amazon.jp for $140 - my second on Yahoo was even less, $90 (plus brokerage). Bright River (Brightliver) handles are aluminum, and a bit more skeleton. They offer a range of handles and reel seat clamps - this spring-loaded rotating socket is called an Eyespot (4" grip is Bright River Super Short) All of these handles are made to fit the reel feet on Isuzu Ind. (not the car maker) bench-built reels. They fit Ambassadeur feet more securely with a reel seat shim, which both Smith and Brightliver sell (or you can work out your own shim). Modern Japanese offset handles use a 12-mm butt-ferrule diameter, while the old Champion handles used 3/8" (9 mm). They offer collets for the handle vises that will let you use old Fenwick blades. They also sell the 12-mm-OD ferrules in a range of ID sizes if you want to build your own rod blade from blank. A tip on the rod blade ferrule - you want to wax it (paraffin) - otherwise, the plastic collet may crack when you try to switch to a different rod blade, and they are tricky to find, even on Yahoo. There are other Japan brands making handles and blades (they all swap), including Frog Products, APHL, Robelson, and a few others. Can't find any now, but Robelson makes carbon handles. It's all made in limited batches, sells out in Japan, and you have to keep up with Tokyo tackle shops to snag them. If you can't find the Super Strike rod you want at Asian Portal, you'll probably need to use a Japan broker (noppin.com, Rinkya, ZenMarket) to buy from a tackle shop or their listing on Yahoo (Masamichi at noppin and I go back 20 years). What you don't want to do is buy on ebay - scalper prices there double the retail, especially with the good exchange rate we've had for over a year. I'll admit it took some patience and experienced Japan shopping to find what I wanted. Here are the 3 river kayak rods I showed above one more time - all 3 combos skip with aplomb. Top is custom Ambassadeur 4600 Express on Smith 6' graphite MH SS60GMH (Reservoir Magnum), which is my frogger, rated 1/2 to 1 oz Custom 4500C on Bright River 5' glass MM Concorde, rated 1/4 to 3/4 oz. (this reel gets an alloy Haneda Craft handle when I clean out my noppin cache). Isuzu-built Smith Plugger baitcaster on Smith 5-1/2' glass ML FO56 (Top Water Light), rated 5 to 18 g, and stated to be optimized for 1/2 oz, but it fishes down to 4 g for me, and caught that bass I show above, and here again. The progressive-taper rod had plenty of backbone to turn the fish when it wanted to go under my kayak.

kayak fish these are all new Japanese rods, 6' and under - offset for round reels

@KP Duty maybe he's a Trappist monk.

Note that USM 1000-size Shimano is JDM C2000. In Japan, 1000 is the same body with slightly smaller diameter spool (same pitch). In Vanford 500 (which is made for USM only), you give up worm drive for smaller-pitch locomotive drive. I've caught doubles with mixed snook, redfish, and seatrout on my 500 Tica Cetus with 4-lb copolymer (heck of a $45 reel if you want to fish mono), but I'm much happier with C2000S and threadline braid in the same niche.

@michaelsrex The Silver Wolf handle is ZPI SSRC carbon that comes without the knobs - I already had the knobs from the alloy handle on an Alcance (I had an Avail STi2 to swap into the XS-geared Alcance). The Zillion has among my favorite Avail STi2 - extremely light with titanium spindles - those are Avail A knobs. I like both of these longer handles (97 mm and 100 mm), on high-geared reels. All these handles with their big EVA knobs are lighter than stock alloy handles with I-shaped rubber knobs. My lower-geared Steez has Studio Composite RCSC, 88 mm, which is also extremely light with carbon tubes in the giant knobs. @Darth-Baiter they always look better this way

I like them both. I like aftermarket spools on Zillion or Steez better than the Silver Wolf stock spool for fishing threadline braid, but anybody looking for 8-lb mono or 20-lb braid, the Silver Wolf stock spool has greater capacity than it's rated. The Silver Wolf is also line-dig-proof, with a faster LW pitch that lays the line wider to prevent dig.

At the current exchange rate, all of Japan is still 25% off.

@msgf91 There's not much difference between Stella and Vanquish - Stella has stainless gears (expensive to broach and wear-proof) and forged magnesium rotor (expensive to form)- Vanquish has wear-coated alloy gears and CI4+ rotor - the rest is the same, including forged magnesium body, titanium bail. Vanquish is notably lighter weight than Stella - an ounce. Just the facts, ma'am. https://www.jpfishingtacklenews.com/shimano-vanquish-2019/ https://www.jpfishingtacklenews.com/new-shimano-stella-18/ All the Shimano '18-22 worm drive (except New Stella) interchange parts - and are the same reel design using different MOC and number of ball bearings - '18 Stella, '19 Stradic, '19 Vanquish, '20 Vanford, '21 Twin Power, etc.) Stella has the stainles gears and forged magnesium body and rotor. The rest use wear-treated alloy gears and body/rotor MOC that are cheaper-to-make. Stradic and Vanford are made on Malaysia assembly line - the rest are made on Japan bench with parts-matching for added smoothness. But they all have the same design improvements of '18 Stella. @FishTank's '23 Vanquish, built off '22 Stella, has slightly longer spool stroke, and added spindle stiffness to go with it.

for how long - these are finesse catches on Stradic 1000, 2000 and Vanquish 2000 Educated guess, 400 like these over 4 years (all male schoolie speckled trout) There's also a point where better threadline management improves fishing. @FishTank's point about cast distance (wind knots, etc.) is spot on. Rhetorical - have you noticed there's never been a thread complaining about line lay on a post-18 Shimano worm drive - pick a different brand, and you'll probably find one. If you want to know the difference between the pre-'18 and post-'18 Shimano worm drive (Stradic FK v. FL), it's here. Improved spool pitch, improved drive (with larger-diameter, finer-teeth gears), improved spindle stiffness, improved A/R clutch, labyrinth seals.

@garroyo130 I've never handled a Spheros SW or A, and use my large frame Stradic in the same niche. The drive, spindle and drag on this reel do everything I need here. If you give credence to Alan Tani, he didn't like Spheros. Spheros starts at this 3/5000 frame size, and goes up from here - in a hurry, to 20,000 size. I've always considered big drag numbers on paper to be just that. Seven pounds is plenty for near-offshore fishing, until you move up to those 10,000+ sizes and intended offshore targets.

too often and too divisive on BR Gear forum, and even off-topic. if others spending their money how they choose bothers you, better to not post, or OP a topic that interests you. I'll add @Bigassbass Stradic is the entry-level workhorse worm-drive Shimano. If you plan ahead, maybe do the math, saving for one good reel that lasts twice+ as long (keeps its on-spec performance 3 or 4 times as long) may be the long-term frugal choice. @FishTank - that start/stop thing makes a touch difference fishing big fish that are sipping tiny bait.

But it's wishful thinking to call these low profile reels. (all they really are is egg-shaped from the LW extended forward) You won't find a bigger fan of Lew's 1973 design, which separated the LW from the freespool and was a paradigm step in baitcast spool speed and cast distance (always read effort). They also offered smaller diameter spools, which brought your thumb a bit closer to the rod. This BB-1N on a straight reel seat is actually a bigger thumb stretch than Ambassadeur 4600C on the same rod. Noteworthy, if Lew had patented his design, none of those reels could have been made before 1995.

The Japanese call this device a reel stand, but it's really the ultimate hook keeper, which also prevents line twist on rod tip. It replaces the dust cap on the non-drive side. If you try one of these, you may never want another rod with a built-in hook keeper. Trickier to hunt down, but they also offer the thumbscrew type for hex-shaft reels. Gomexus and Hedgehog both sell versions of these. For baitcasters, this little add-on hook is offered by G-Nius

For four years, I've been saying Vanquish is the best finesse spinning reel ever made. Aside from perfect threadline management, which Shimano has pretty much conquered in all their worm drive reels above every other brand - What impresses me the most in Vanquish is starting and stopping wind. You put this reel beside another worm drive Shimano and you notice the difference - there is zero resistance to start winding, and even more impressive, the reel drive does not continue to push your hand when you stop.

Big diameter line, either braid or mono is best for backing, to keep the loaded spool mass down. When I'm topping deep B/C spools with braid, I use 20-25 yds 20-25-lb mono for backing. Big diameter line doesn't pack efficiently on the spool, and forms a lighter-weight spool arbor. Both large diameter braid and large diameter mono are less dense and, therefore, lighter weight than fluorocarbon.

@Bassmaster96 should be, all you need to do is tighten the right side cap. When you're bench-building an Ambassadeur, you ballpark center the spool using the end caps. You tweak both caps to get proper line lay filling the spool. But to final center the lined spool, you tilt the reel to the right and freespool-drop a weight on the line. You get the same pinion/spool-pin interference grind because the right cap is too far open. You tighten and keep repeating this drop to find the incipient tightening point where the noise goes away, then add an extra safety partial turn in the right-side cap. You do all this with the left cap open wide, and finish by adjusting final spool side play (or tension) in the left cap. basically the same on any reel, except newer reels don't have a left side cap, so all adjustment is in the right cap.

Trout in the Classroom year is winding down with trips to the tailwater to release trout fry. I have 36 schools active this year, with 6 trips to the river planned over 3 weeks. This was last week's 4th grade class field trip And yesterday, 6 high school Aquatic Sciences teachers came out with their families. The 7 schools so far put 600 trout fry into the river. of course, this isn't about raising trout... ... it's about raising conservationists.