Goby

What truly matters is that the strap is under the roller as to ensure that the bow eye is held in place properly. That being said, most trailers are designed in a manner where the strap coming off the top of the drum would give the best angle/positioning to achieve the above, the best. Not sure I have ever seen a trailer with a winch stand that is designed as such that the strap coming off the bottom of the drum would be all that logical... There may be no other form of manufacturing in the nation with sloppier quality control than the boat trailer industry though, trailers in general really, competition so fierce they have the profit margins down to hardly anything, leads to a lot of improperly set up trailers and most marina's are barely a notch above the manufacturers in common sense and quality control themselves... Then you take into account more than half the folks buying the boats don't know any better, leads to a lot of what you have mentioned above, trailer setups all over the map...

We have lost over a foot of snow overnight here, lots of rain, lots of rain for the amount of snow we have especially. Gonna be a messy next 24 hours, with all the standing water most things will be akin to an ice rink by morning.

Every single person I know that bought a Garmin, which is over a dozen and at least 6 of them use their boats to make a living, misses their old Minn Kota's... None of them have had failures with the Garmin, they just like the Minn Kota/Humminbird duo much better. Humminbird mapping is second to none... My Ulterra has over 700 days of use now, still going strong... I would not suggest an Ulterra to everyone though, if you are a bit abusive towards your gear, you may not have the same experience with an Ulterra as I have, but the ability to launch my boat and spot lock it without getting out of the truck and then to just spot lock next to the dock until it's time to load it on the trailer is priceless for me. My boat has literally never been tied to a dock in its life, this has saved me countless hours over the years launching/loading my boat and when I go down to places like Tennessee where many ramps don't have a dock or the dock is quite a ways off to the side from the ramp "makes no sense to do this" the Ulterra works flawlessly for such things as I am pretty much always solo... Early Spring or late Fall when the docks have been pulled here, I can launch the boat and pick myself up at the shoreline with the trolling motor, all you need is muck boots to keep from getting wet, etc... I even drive the boat on the trailer with the trolling motor lol One time I forgot to plug the trolling motor in and launched it, had to swim for it... Thank God it was 70 degree water lol

Yeah, the only knots I am tying with it are a perfection loop as my entire leader system loop/loop connects and I am only using 30"-40" in length at a time with about a foot of 40 pound wire off the front. I run 40 pound Shinsei as well in this system. The only attribute that makes it better for my application than say Blue Label is it's much much stiffer. Blue Label is great stuff, just like the Shinsei better for this specific application. Another good one is Cortland XTR, it's more like Blue Label in characteristics. Before I found Shinsei I primarily used Blue Label and the XTR in 40 pound for my Predator leaders.

Do you have to keep the Z-Man skirts away from other skirts? Are they made out of the same stuff as their plastics? Thanks in advance!

Assuming you still have those spools of Sniper, you should consider sending them in to see if they are actually, defective. Would be really cool to send them to Sunline, but also save some to have someone independent test. How old were the spools? Were they normal or bulk spools? SUNLINE America Co., Ltd.WarrantyLine performance can be affected by a wide range of factors besides the actual line. These factors include exposure to heat, ultra violet rays, rod guides and knots used. Type of knots used with parti As you can see, in 2025, they changed the formula for FC Sniper, the more impurities "yellow tint" you remove from a fluorocarbon line, the weaker it gets typically, one has to wonder if this wasn't the cause, but that would depend on if you had the old or new, etc... Now you have me curious lol, like a d**n cat chasing a lazer pointer sometimes lol SUNLINE America Co., Ltd.The History of FC Sniper: The Fluorocarbon Line That Rede...If you’ve fished bass seriously over the past two decades, there’s a good chance you’ve had a spool of Sunline FC Sniper on your deck, or you’ve been outfished by someone who did! Since its debut in 1

P.S. FC Sniper isn't the same as it used to be, it now utilizes their plasma rise technology, it didn't always. Would be interesting to see which configuration of FC Sniper you are having issues with, the old or new. I haven't experienced any issues with either, but I pretty much just use it in 16 pound these days, use more Shooter than FC Sniper. It might be that these changes made it a less viable leader line. No idea, was never my favorite leader material, but do like it as a mainline. The only version of FC Sniper I ever truly disliked, was the green dyed version, it was stiffer and more brittle than the clear version. Sunline doesn't like making colored lines, mono or fluoro, so it might not have even been made by them, may have farmed it out to Varivas, Toray, etc... No idea, it was definitely different though.

I found this yesterday, which when you read the data, makes a lot of sense why I have found Sufix Advance fluoro to be the best leader material for my uses. Simply put, it stands up to abuse better than any other fluoro I have found, while still maintaining some user friendliness. When fluoro stretches, it doesn't typically return to its previous state fully, meaning it becomes weaker and weaker... Sufix Advance overcomes this more than most, much much less deformity. I had never seen this data until yesterday, but it 100% confirms my non scientific suspicions... Wasted a lot of money trying a lot of different fluorocarbons to figure it out. I have tried just about everything under the sun and it is like night and day difference how much better this stuff has worked for me as a leader material, attached to braid. Note, this is the mainline, not the leader material, the leader material has a much harder exterior coating and is stiffer, sure it has more abrasion resistance, but it doesn't hold an Albright knot very well and I don't like ultra stiff fluoro, especially in lighter pound test, more finesse type stuff. https://www.tackletour.com/reviewsufixadvancefluoro.html I have used it as a mainline, but it's not the best on a spinning reel, not that bad on a baitcaster, but it does have more memory than say Tatsu, probably a smidge more memory than FC Sniper too, but if it is, it's a very very small difference. Overall, a quality product though, should probably use it more as a mainline.

If bite offs are a concern, P-Line Shinsei is the "hardest" fluoro I have ever seen, it's also the stiffest by a decent margin. I use it to make my leaders for fly fishing Muskies when I want a longer leader, but still want to turn over a fly the size of my fore-arm. That crazy amount of stiffness aids in turning over the flies... I still use wire for a bite guard, but if I wanted to run a fluoro bite guard for toothy fish, Shinsei would hold all 3 of the top 3 spots for that sort of thing ranking wise in my book... Have many Friends that now use it as bite guards for Muskies out East, where fluoro is more logical than our Midwestern strains of Muskies that are more prone to biting through fluoro at times... If you can get around the stiffness, I guarantee you would have the least amount of bite-offs using that stuff, it's the best fluoro bite material currently in existence... Red Label & Abrazx are two of the least abrasion resistant fluoro materials in existence today... You could go with just about any other fluoro and get more resistance to bite offs. Invizx is even more abrasion resistant than both of them... I really truly do not understand why a company with the pedigree that Seaguar has, even sells Abrazx... Baffling.

I have tried them all, my favorite fluoro for leader materials is one of the oddest, but Sufix Advance mainline fluoro, "not the leader material" is by far my favorite for fishing off the front of braided line... It never fails, it holds albright knots like no other and it's not as rigid as most "leader material" fluoro.... I could use anything I want at any price point, and that is typically my go to... Most of the bonafide leader material is too stiff for my liking, I have fished Sunline V-Hard for like 20 years, the old distributor used to hook me up with it, despite it not being sold stateside. Used to "test" a lot of new lines for him before they would get sold here in the states. It was great for using for leaders for float fishing steelhead, could handle the shot being placed on it, etc... it's bomb proof and probably the best for that type of thing, just too stiff to be a good Bass leader material... I never felt Seaguar blue label was nearly as tough as V-Hard, but it is a bit more limp which is a good thing for Bass fishing applications, but there is just something about that Sufix Advance fluoro that just suits me perfectly... I do a lot of snap jigging plastics for Walleye's, it's astonishing how hard they want that rod snapped most days, 10 pound 832 to 8-10 pound Sufix Advance mainline fluoro, that combo has taken some serious abuse from me and never failed me, never. Had Muskies eat fish I was reeling in, straighten heavy jig hooks in the process, line nor the knot failed. The knot at the jig will fail first when you get snagged... To me that type of fishing is hardest on a line and knots, much more so than most manners in which I fish Bass with braid to leader combinations. You are literally snapping a very stiff rod as hard as you can, over and over and over lol One of my favorite things about the Sufix fluoro is, I can use a simple 13 turn Alrbight knot with that braid, it's the tiniest of little bumps, goes through guides with zero issues, etc... never have to worry about where the knot is or if it will grab on the reel or guide train when fighting fish boatside, etc... Most other fluoros I have tried, that knot doesn't hold as well, with the Sufix, it does, every time. I have used Albright knots for decades so can tie it with my eyes closed, which is a big deal when fishing at night, etc... It's durable enough, it handles zebra mussels, etc... just fine and cheap enough that when it gets a nick in it, you could care less about replacing a 6' chunk of it... A 300 yard spool is like 20 bucks... YMMV

I never thought of cutting a shorter section and weighing it on a scale, that would tell you a lot. Interesting stuff, seems like you have done your homework, I enjoyed you and the guy named Tom's posts here on the site "may he rest in peace" going through the archives, there is more seemingly "good" info on lines of this nature in the archives of this site than likely anywhere else. Will be interesting to see if in the coming years with AI advancements if there is really any breakthroughs in line tech, most of the best lines on the market, mono, braid or fluoro have been around for many years. I never found any of the YouTube tests to be very applicable for my needs, there is one test in particular on YouTube that claimed a certain fluorocarbon line to be the best in that test, so I bought a spool last year, Spro Gouken, holy moly, if you thought Invizx was a stretchy line, that Gouken stuff is like fishing with a banjo string, you can literally hear it stretching, just working a skirted jig and trailer you could feel the stretch lol Was awful... Couldn't get Shooter back on my reel fast enough.

Awesome photos, never really thought of fishing Bass in all my time spent out there, was always in pursuit of steelhead for the most part. Trying to remember which river it is out there that has the island full of Blue Herons, it's well known, dozens and dozens of Herons nest there, unlike anything you have ever seen. Jurassic Park meets reality sorta thing lol We have Blue Herons here, but you never see them nesting it seems, not like that anyway. I think it was near where the Clack dumps into the Willamette, if I remember correctly, the island is downstream of the confluence a ways on the Willamette, if you have never seen it, it's a must see. Really love and miss the PNW, taking my Wife to my old stomping grounds in a few weeks in the Coastal Redwoods, she has never been... She has no idea what kind of cool stuff she is about to see lol

After years of attending trade shows from coast to coast as a vendor, my observations were, they are great for the little guy that has a hard time getting his products in peoples hands, great for the guy trying to make a name for himself that is motivated enough to do demo's and they can be great for the boat companies or the like, especially those that sell direct and have little to no dealers. Everyone else is there out of passion in today's environment. The internet is better in just about every way to sell your goods these days... You don't always know how much you earned via these shows though as lot of guys will come and check stuff out, go home and do more research and then buy weeks later and many never mention they came to a show unless you ask, etc... For the most part, they are a love/hate sorta thing for the vendors, often times you get sick on the trade show circuit, exposed to all those germs from not so local places, etc... It's a grind... Spent many of days in far away motels dealing with the crud, it always seemed to happen when I had a couple extra days to go fishing somewhere cool too. Bed bugs are also a major drag, I am highly allergic and can tell you, they exist in more hotels, no matter how fancy than most realize... If you aren't allergic, you would likely never know you were being feasted on throughout the night... You could summarize 95% of the interactions with the general public at these shows as someone repping boats in these three questions. 1) How much does it weigh? 2) How much does it cost? 3) Are those stickers free. I swear most the people that attend them are just there out of boredom and to get free stickers LOL I think in the coming years you will see a lot less of them which is a shame, if you were just getting into fishing and truly wanted to learn a few things, generally the folks that do demo's and whatnot at those things just love to teach people to fish and will help folks to no end learn to cast or tie knots or whatever. I once did a show in Portland, Oregon and they got about an inch of snow, the City shut down, there were semi's just parked and abandoned on the major highways, when my Uber driver showed up to take me from the hotel to the trade show, he informed me he had just moved to the states from Kenya weeks before and had never seen snow before, he was scared to death lol. So we went to a parking lot and I gave him some pointers on driving in the snow lol Best Uber ride ever...

I fish a lot of Sieberts "Mini Jigs" with the "finesse" cut and absolutely love them. All of my Snipers and Mini Jigs from him are the "finesse" cut... No longer use anything other than the "finesse" cut in any jigs with 3/0 or smaller hooks.

It's a slow time of year here at camp, which leads to a lot of excessive thought lol I have spent more time online viewing line test videos and reading line test results, etc... than I care to admit. Something that has always caught my interest... Has anyone ever conducted tests that measured the sink rate and stretch of mono lines after 30 minutes in water, 2 hours, 4 hours, etc? It seems like most tests, if not all conducted that took into account saturation, left the mono in water for a full day, which isn't realistic for actual fishing conditions as obviously your line isn't always submerged. Each time the line is removed from the water and casts, does it shed enough to stop it from soaking up water? Once a line has soaked up water, how hard is it to get rid of it, does it ever "dry out"? My thought process is that, if mono is soaking in water, that would impact sink rate, but the longer I have ever fished throughout a day using the same rod and mono line, it sure doesn't seem like it changes. So, throughout the course of a day of fishing, is mono actually soaking up much water and to what degree? If in actual real World fishing conditions, mono doesn't soak up much water, if any, then these tests portraying the fact that as mono soaks up water, it stretches more would not be actually occurring throughout the day while fishing. Obviously if this is true, then without a doubt many copolymers or monofilaments in real World circumstances, stretch less than most fluorocarbon lines by quite a bit. Really really wish I had access to a real lab with the proper stuff to test this, with fluoro and braid coming on the scene so much the last 20 years, mono really took a back seat in so many ways, but have been fishing it more and more with moving baits and really digging it the past year. Any scientists on here with some logic that would bring any clarity to this? I have several lines here that are all claimed to be the same diameter, of .010" (10 pound Sunline Super Natural, 10 pound Seaguar Tatsu, 10 pound Sunline FC Sniper) I was thinking of attempting to test this once it warms up a bit this Spring and adding a couple more mono/copolys to the mix, like McCoys and Gamma, just because I have never tried them and would like to. Would be interesting to see. If Yo-Zuri could just squeeze a tiny bit more limpness out of their 6 pound .010" line, would probably be the ultimate, but I just do not love that stuff on my spinning reels.