OhioFisherman

It has been my experience that once you get a reel properly tuned in there isn`t much cause to open it up except for cleaning. Side plate on the older Curados unscrews and will come off, newer ones pivots, pins hold it on. Still not much chance of loosing it on the older Curados, unless you work at it? No experience with anything but older Abu and Shimano bait casters to speak of, a few casts here and there at friends urging to try out what they bought. I have a mix of Abu and Shimano reels, Abu`s generally older, different brake and adjustment systems, not really much adjustment needed unless a radical weight difference in lures? Different approaches by different mfgs to make the professional over run problem disappear, some just spin offs of old methods. Old school Abu`s had centrifugal weights also, just a different look to them. When you bought the reels the spare parts tubes had light, medium, and heavy brakes, one set was installed on the reel and you had to take it apart to change them. LOL in the old days we used to put a little tooth paste on the main gear and pinion and run them over night with a low speed motor to lap them in to make them smoother.

8.75 pounds.

http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-ABU-507-MK1-CLOSED-FACE-FISHING-REEL-stunning-/230510844323?pt=UK_SportingGoods_FishingAcces_RL no line twist with these

Actually no disadvantage and it is done a lot here, I have also rigged tubes carolina style. It`s just a different look or method. Colors and shape of the bait can be important, kind of a match the hatch deal? One time a buddy I was fishing with had 5 bass landed and I didn`t have a hit casting to the same spots, I was using a junebug zoom worm and his was a watermelon blue. just a few shades lighter in color. Another time we beat the banks up using the same colors on the same water, worms, lizards, tubes, not one hit. A switch to a hellgramite shaped lure got me 3 bass in 5 minutes, a limit for that particular tournament, just in time to get back for the weigh in and 3rd place. Buddy still using worms, lizards, tubes never did get a hit. Method of rigging allows you to put a lure in places you ordinarily wouldn`t fish it? I like fishing tubes with a tube jig insert, just some places it isn`t the best plan because of junk in the water. Had days in the spring before they started the closed season here for the spawn and the smallies had moved into back bays to spawn, a 4 inch texas rigged lizard would out fish a tube for them, so would a jewel sculfin, which looks sort of like a gobie. I have my preferences in lures also, but what counts is the fishes preferences? I will use my stand by lures, until I can form an idea on if it is the location or not the right bait. No point in throwing a surface lure or spinner bait, ect. if they will take something else better. Really not a lot of dramatic changes in fishing, if it is old enough it becomes the new rage.

Depends on where and what I am dragging them through? On open waters like Lake Erie with much weeds or other junk in the water a spinning reel and 8-10 # line. Really not much junk on the bottom just rocks in the areas I fished. Weather can be a factor though, if I had to go heavy with weight to keep bottom contact, windy conditions, 1/2 to 3/4 ounce tube insert, I would use a bait caster set up with 10# line. Working a tube through slop texas rigged, old stump or fence rows, areas I know have a bottom filled with junk? a bait caster and 17# mono or an Abu 507 and 17# mono. Also used different hooks, practice days and fun fishing I would go with a light wire hook, Mustad black nickle, with 17# line they will straight out on snags, caught enough decent bass that losing them on practice day or fun fishing is no problem. Game day? Gammie 604 or VMC barbarian. A 4+ bass can bend the Mustads pulling it out of cover.

A turtle,(snapping)a frog, (bull), dead shad, lines, lures, rod and reel, net, clams, bowfins, gar, two ex wives, live released, just too weird for me.

It was a common misconception here in Ohio that all you needed was a rear plate, LOL perhaps just lazy yanks? installing one plate in a year is enough work? Cities and states here short of cash, so they now issue tickets for one plate. If they give you two with matching numbers when you buy them? seems that would indicate you need both?

Comfortable with either, job specific tools that can overlap a bit. I also use some semi-closed face spinning reels with no bail.

Just random thoughts, like mentioned a bad spawn some years, lack of expansive shallow shoreline area, habitat for young bass and their food supply. Most fish are cannibals, lack of food? eat the first thing you can ambush! A lot of ponds here are stocked, and I don`t think some use good judgment stocking them, if you only put in bait fish that grows to a small size they might all disappear as food. Larger bait fish can possibly become too large for bass to eat them all, hence some survive to spawn. I know people here that have to throw pounds of bait fish in their ponds each year, little fat head minnows that don`t grow very large, and a bass has to eat a lot of them for a meal. By the end of the year few if any are left. Lack of minnows, whether chubs, shiners or what ever and the small pan fish, and bass become the food supply, especially with little shallow weedy water to hide in. A poor insect hatch can also affect the survival rate of small bass, there is a size limit on what they can eat. Some lakes have the ability to be fish factories, others just have fish. There is a reason lake erie is considered the most fertile of the great lakes? it has the right blend for the majority of the species in it. LOL, plenty of lakes here you can fish for a life time with out seeing a 6 pound bass, even one some one else caught! On others they are fairly common, but not normal.

N/G has some good programs, watched a couple last week. Studies of the cause of dropping water levels in the upper Great Lakes. 6500 year old tree stumps in 40 feet of water in Lake Huron? Glaciers compacted the ground by the shear weight of the ice? and it is still rebounding? Heck I thought I moved slow! Building the new Camaro at the Oshwa and St. Catherine`s GM plants. The CA in Camaro must mean Canada?

Always great to be marking fish and not be able to get a bite, it leaves you guessing. Walleye can be just as aggressive or finicky as bass, I have caught a lot of them casting lures for bass, and also just light nibbles on a worm harness, perch seem to hit harder at times. Take a single hook on a wire leader or Snell, slide a worm weight on your line, 1/4-3/8 ounce tie on a snap or swivel snap, attach the leader and hook with a decent size shiner or chub and see what happens? Caught a number of different species in deeper water, some were something of interest and some just interesting. Buddy got a 31 inch walleye doing that, the next day a bowfin pushing 20 pounds, but a mix of fish from the same area, smallies, largemouth, crappie, and pike. If they won`t hit you won`t know. Some times a minnow struggling in front of them can trigger a strike even if the bite is tough.

LOL, all you need to know about line http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_7611_100017000_100000000_100017000_100-17-0

Nice! It`s funny how you can catch them in the same spot or area and one will be a fat pig and another the same size will be streamlined? Some may start they fall feed early?

About the only thing else I can offer is keep things in perspective? You should be fishing because you enjoy it, catching and being outdoors. I have seen guys spend a ton of money on fishing, 25 - 35k on bass boats, vehicles to pull them, gear and tackle. Then it became work, and they gave it up. Not every one can or will reach the same skill level, but it can still be fun? if you don`t expect too much out of it. Good at it can just happen, or never happen, every one is wired differently, and there is a bit of a luck or timing factor. Knowing the waters you are fishing well is never a bad thing. It can eliminate wasted time, but don`t get the idea that some thing has to work, some days nothing will, at least for you? Every trip out is a new adventure, you are exploring the waters, and some times you find happiness, being happy at it is what counts!

Well I would go looking around a bit, a lake map will help if you can get one, the only other way is to use your depth finder. Drop shooting works, but not my choice for a search bait especially for deep smallies. It isn`t unusual for guys here to fish 25-30 of water or deeper for them, I have caught largemouth in water over 20 feet deep. Depending on how much wind and wave action you get on that lake a 5/16 or 3/8 ounce tube insert in a 3 1/2 or 4 inch tune can be used to search the bottom, or in between, if they are suspended over deeper water they may take it on the fall. Under windy conditions on Lake Erie I would go to 5/8 or 3/4 ounce on a tube insert. Smallies will hits trolled crankbaits, when fun fishing or looking for some spots to try on tournament day we would troll a deep diving crank and have a marker buoy ready to throw out on the first hit. A gps helps, I didn`t have one. A blade bait like a vibee, silver buddy, or heddon sonar can be used to search, make a long cast, let it settle to the bottom and give it rips off the bottom, you may lose some to snags, but you can develop a timing to drop and jerk. Look for deeper areas near the deep weeds, and sharp drops or humps,they might move deeper during daylight hours or in waters with a lot of boat traffic. Find baitfish and you may find smallies, they like crawfish but minnows are probably most of their diet. Is the lake known for big fish? on some waters a 20 inch bass of either species is rare.

Either catching insects or minnows? some times the charge takes them out of the water. Actually had one jump clear of the water for a tube I had cast once. One of the 60 fish days, they were very aggressive, but none over 2 1/2 pounds, still fun though. Large schools of emerald shiners will gather around the break walls on Lake Erie here in October, sometimes you can watch the smallies and steel head rolling on them or jumping through to catch them.

Cool pics, Europe and North America used to be connected according to geologists, not really surprising to see some similar looking species of fish.

I have to agree with Harrison, to me it seems fish of the same year class hang together, there may be some differences in size of the year class but usually nothing extreme. A section of lake erie I used to fish you could get a smallie here and there, a mix of sizes, but usually under 18 inches. Then all at once you could get into a school where they averaged 19-21 inches. If you got 20 feet off the school the bite stopped dead. They move, they can be fussy, or they can hit anything that gets close to them. I don`t buy the bigger lure plan, locations, some areas tend to attract bigger fish. Some times larger lures will work, some times small and slow is the way to go. Some lakes a section of shoreline during the day was largemouth only, fish it at night and you got a mix, and usually the smallies averaged a larger size than the largemouth. Like mentioned, don`t be afraid to fish deeper water. You might catch a random big fish any where on a lake, depending on the season some spots just seem to attract bigger fish.

no limit on carp and sheep head here, a wasted resource?

Future Darwin Award recipients. humans interfering with natural selection.

The last one I used was an old Lowrance model, 35 or so years ago. A good tool for finding depth, changes in bottom contour, useful if you rent boats.

"I hardly fish jigheads that light, but considering your years of experience, bass fishing. I will certainly give it a try." LOL Johnny polite way of saying old guy? Actually the heavy fishing pressure here, smaller lakes, a 3000 acre lake is a big lake here and tournament pressure and shear numbers of people using a limited number of lakes. Just a plain ball head jig may have been the original shaky head? a small light jig forces you to fish slow, or you wind up swimming the worm, also effective at times. Actually lost a lot of very good fish when I started using that method 35 or more years ago, hook quality isn`t what it is today. Not hard to find or make small light jig heads now with a quality hook like the gammie 604`s, back in the day it was aberdeen and maybe a size 4 hook, a gammie size 2/0 to 4/0 keeps fish on a lot better with out bending. I will go smaller with jig hooks depending on intended use, a size 1 or 1/0 for crappie tubes ( 2 inch ).

Cats aren`t as slow to take live bait as some people may think, ex got one around 15 pounds one year and the next year one pushing 25 on big chubs on a slip float rig in the Shawanaga river. Seen people down here using chicken livers, beef liver, cut shad, blue gills(legal here) shrimp, a mesh bag with dog food( out of a can), gob of worms (hard to keep panfish away). Mostly cheap bait, some will chum an area for a couple days before they intend to fish.

AC lure? got a couple of them around here somewhere I think, old ones though, couldn`t find any 10# bass here in Ohio to hit them or the Musky jitterbugs. Old is new? Sassy shads = swimbaits? they have been around a long time and I have caught bass and pan fish on them, pike cut them off.

finesse baits? best one I have used http://www.productolure.com/proddetail.php?prod=SW4100 rigged texas style, on a 1/16th or 1/8th ounce jig head, or a drop shot rig, even as a trailer on a small hair jig. 13.20 per hundred plus shipping and they work, small catches all. a speck of weeds and lilies, 50 yards from massives weedbeds no apparent difference in weed types or water depths, on the G/B and me 20 feet from them, 5 bass 16 to 20 inches in 5 casts, distance may not be as important as stealth? and how important was stealth? pulling 5 good sized bass from a patch of lilies as big as a small car? not exactly stealthy? clear water and me standing in the bow? I can cast a fairly long distance, with casting tackle or spinning tackle, yet usually choose not to. A quiet approach and a flip or pitch 10-30 feet usualy works, less distance? less to go wrong? Long distance? searching for fish holding locations and on some lures getting the right depth. Everyone has their own methods, be open to ideas and use what works for you.