bulldog1935

Until I discovered new Japan glass for small water kayak rods, the very best glass bass rod I had ever fished was Falcon Classic (I come from Berkley TriSport and Fenglas Lunkerstik). Narrow rated lure range of 1/4 to 1/2 oz gives away it's para taper. Casting 1/8 to 3/8, it's a glory. But at its rated 1/2 oz top end and, if you tried going beyond, it turns into a slinky. @Bankc - no way to snap-cast this rod w/ heavy weight - you'll just be waving at yourself. Otherwise, it loads deep, and casts a looong way. Also good for snappy hook sets, because the flex isn't in the tip.

I buy my rods to fish in the bottom-third of their lure-weight rating. I have a couple of rods that are comfortable fishing in the top-third of their lure-weight range. I used this overlay rod load curves photo, identical lure-weight range in two rods, to show Eric the difference between progressive and para rod taper. The progressive rod is going to feel more comfortable pushing its max weight - the para rod will feel like the end of the world is coming at max weight. If your lure weight under-loads the rod, btw, you'll find your cast going off to the side in the direction of your rod swing - should be using a lighter rod.

Heavier braid has more surface tension and friction leaving the spool, so hokey. There would be no reason to use threadline braid if it didn't improve cast distance. With a baitcaster, you can reduce spool mass and inertia, needing less brake. People knew this 100 years ago. One difference could be on a deep spool, 80 yds of 60-lb braid weighs less than 650 yards of 10-lb braid.

@waymont The capacity is greater than Daiwa lists, really a perfect spool for 20-lb braid, especially Varivas PE#1. Last October redfish rodeo, 5 days, pretty much caught everything on it. Very good casting 1/8 oz. Will cast lighter, and will also cast much heavier without any adjustment. If you've never used Daiwa SV, you set the mag brake for light lure and wind backlash, and the SV takes care of all the heavy stuff. LW pitch is increased so you can go to really fine threadline braid without ever a line-dig worry.

I once found a discontinued and discounted Livre single handle closing out at Plat. A $29 short Gomexus carbon double handle on ebay. Turns out Gomexus copied Livre (except for the titanium). Mix-and-match short double with Livre post, Gomexus handle, and Avail knobs. Perfect match on low-geared JDM 1000S Inexpensive Tsubaki hook keeper with the matching carbon _____________________ First Gomexus handle I bought, I was setting up a Tica Caiman on offshore slow jigging rod. The handle Tica offered was all stainless steel, and weighed another reel. This was another inexpensive handle, $15 on Amazon, and came with a 35-g pot-metal knob. All to match an inexpensive Jigging World spiral-wrapped rod. Swap to a Livre EP37 knob turned this into a really nice jigging combo with zero torsion on your hand when you're fishing. (a niche I don't fish often enough to justify a Conquest 200).

BTW, if you go way back, topwater dog-walking plugs were the very first lures fished for bass in America. The term dog-walking was coined by Paw-Paw Lure Co. in 1918. In his 1881 tome, Book of the Black Bass, Doc Henshall called dog-walking "The Bob", and described then that Florida bass fishermen had already been using them for 100 years. Appropriate photo - this is a Chubb Henshall bass rod and c. 1910 Bluegrass 33 8'3" - Doc also takes credit for designing the first bass rod under 12'

I've always had this thing for topwater lures that still make action at rest. When I was 19, caught my first big bass, 6-1/2 lbs, on a yellow Jitterbug in a long rest. Suckered her out to the middle of a bowl-shaped cove, 50+' visibility, using more pause than retrieve. These are Japan wood plugs, not exactly latest purchases, but assembled over 6 mo or so, when I was buying other things in Japan. Clockwise, GaullaCraft Baby Shake Hip (basic squarebill) 7/16 oz; Ninna Mofri, which blows me away for sit-still action; Less is More Lim's Morphie; Life Bait Flap Frog. The big plugs are all about 21-23 g (up to 3/4 oz). I will fish these, maybe not hard, certainly for effect and fun.

I'm talking to Shane about that same blank as a 3-pc BFS UL pack-rod blade for my new Bright River short-grip offset handle, which is made in Japan for round reels. They call this reelseat an eyespot (only SS grip in stock when I ordered) - there's a spring-loaded rotating pocket that clamps on the reel foot. I ended up in the rod market because a friend gave me a gift trade on a '78 4500C that I've always wanted to race out - it's the only Ambassadeur model that can use IXA 1033 double ball bearings. Thought about selling the reel, but it's too nice to let go. It proved to be the fastest reel I've built yet. Found a place to put it on the Bright River Concorde 5' MM glass rod blade. And it's a really pretty rod. The blank is half black, half red So now I have a triumvirate for bass fishing wide, slow spots in hill country aquifer recharge rivers from kayak. 6' MH graphite for frogging, 5' glass MM for plugs, 5-1/2' glass ML for finesse spinnerbaits and micro-plugs. Close fishing, seated in kayak. All these combos skip-cast with aplomb, for getting under cypress overhang. Downriver, the ancient dam is stacked with lilly pads.

I tried it for salt ML niche. Spool bearing swap to Roro. PE#1.2 braid The centrifugal brake always cost spool speed and distance with light lures. My mag-brake Super Duty G always out-cast it with 1/8 oz The deep spool Super Duty cast 1/8 oz at least 20% farther. Sold all my centrifugal-brake Lew's reels, bought Daiwas with Roro-X and Ray's Studio spools - no need to ever look back, though I still like my SDs.

I suspect our OP already mastered the obvious. Aftermarket spools aren't made for every reel, but it's possible to fish threadline braid on a deep spool reel by keeping the built-up arbor light enough, especially with a spool bearing swap.

You just missed out on a camo that sold out at LureShopSawa within the past few weeks. http://sawamura777.com/?pid=155135418 I checked Yahoo listings for you - they've all doubled the price

Mineral spirits, which is the carrier in Boeshield OP's, c. 1925

Could always try making an arbor from a wine cork. My normal deep-spool braid approach is to back with 20-lb mono, which only takes about 20 yds. This is lighter than braid because of poor stacking efficiency with big diameter mono - there's more air in the backing arbor.

ya gotta have a place to put all this stuff... I've been buying Meiho lure boxes with just about every Japan order, because they're astounding space-efficient. These two are the same 1200NS box, only 1" thick, and arranged for different lure types. But I ran out of places to stack these, and began looking at Meiho tackle boxes. Here is my VS7080 box arranged for last week's coast trip. The white bottles in one side tray are the Procure flavors, the front tray are the packaged titanium leaders. Two rod holders on the end. Inside, the overflow box for used plastic bodies and the keeper box for used titanium leaders. There are places all over the box to grab the top trays (keep tools, etc), and stable enough, you can stack more lure boxes on them. Below that, the bottom space exactly fits Meiho 800 boxes in the narrow direction, and 1200 boxes in the long direction. The three thin boxes are lure boxes, the max-thick 1200NDDM boxes are packaged plastic and other terminal for this trip. My buddy Stevo called it the Swiss Army Tackle Box. Easy to change up for different trips. They make plenty of other add-ons, including baskets for spinnerbaits. I bought this size because it exactly fits in the sternwell of my small 10' river kayak. Also discovered I had picked up some 30X0 lure boxes along the way that don't fit as efficiently in this box, so my newest Japan order will be a Bucket Mouth 5000 for stashing the rest of my Meiho boxes. Meiho has a US importer with a website, but good Japan shopping can find these for 40% of the US price. $20 for the base box above, lure boxes are $4 to $7 in Japan, the rod holders $15, the small outside boxes $5.

This is a really nice and photogenic buck with a noteworthy story (photographed again 3 mo later by another friend), but the rod is prewar Heddon Folsom Arms, and the reel is prewar JW Young that a Scot fisherman had a jeweler tastefully engrave his monogram. Did the cane rod and click pawl reel improve the fishing? It Made it. I would have quit 10 years earlier if all I had was a disc drag.

I could probably change my name to Hiroyuki. I totally understand the Japanese (not the language). I still have my Browning/Lew's from 1985 that fished the salt until just the last decade. My salt guide buddy fished through one of these in a year, simply because he was in the mode of being on the water every day, and leaning the rigged rod in a corner of the garage without ever thinking about giving it a rinse. When you live on the water, the gestalt thing has no value - the value is getting that record fish or putting someone else on it. When fishing is an expedition for you, limited time, big effort to plan and get there, the gear itself becomes part of the experience. The Japanese don't own a lot of gear, don't have a lot of time to fish, and ride a train when they do fish. They want every part of it to be just right.

If this is your reel, it's easy to get to, it's in the main shaft stack. https://www.ereplacementparts.com/abu-garcia-black-max-1701-ambassadeur-parts-c-187196_194578_194580.html You can buy a new one, cheep

Form follows function. But if you can get both, go for it.

Isuzu bench-made reels (includes Megabass Pagani) use NMB fine drive bearings.

After being sick and weathered out most of January, need to get back in shape. A good greenway ride this morning on Bonnie Blue, 25 mi and a 600' climb (that's as high as the whole state of FL). Even better, timed my ride to catch the single-track and land here just as they opened. Guys, this is why every bike should have a bag. Back home with my lunch treat - their champion cherry-glazed ribs.

@FrnkNsteen good observation on the 1xR, but it could be the handle (knob) itself. E.g., 1xR click on a bicycle drive is most always in the pedal.

Every photo you showed, the bearing retaining spring is in place. Did you remove the retaining spring before you tried removing the bearing?

All bearing races fit pretty snug in their seat, they always at least have alignment interference - if it's not straight, it's not going in. You have to want to get them out. Yours is likely compounded by the magnet field that wants to pull it back down. The little bearing puller hooks that come with handle knobs work pretty well. You have to walk them around and pull in several different rotation spots. As far as radial play in bearings, jack it up and put a new one underneath. The wobble you note counts as a brake on the spool rotation. In the old days, they glued a penny or nickel inside their spool flange to get that imbalance wobble for an anti-backlash brake. Today, it's solved with this

When Glenn publishes your article https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/finesse-101.html then you won't be the poser. As far as the OP question, answer = bad. Does for backing in a pinch. Varivas has a US website. Noteworthy, in the same diameter Kastking rates 6-lb, Varivas is 15-lb. It will be denser, rounder, harder, better coating.

hands down, 13Fishing Omen Green - the ML is my speckled trout rod. It's also the least-expensive rod I take fishing, and their warranty is excellent. If you want to cast into next week, a braid-raced Zillion with Ray's Studio honeycomb SV spool and PE#1.2 25-lb X-braid (Varivas, etc). From opposite sides of this tide pass, 1/8 oz jighead, I had to thumb my spool to keep it out of my friends.