jace

On the topic of invisibility, i thought i would share my experiment from last week, i think there's something the fluoro. hahah. I shore fished most of last week because in some cases it was outproducing trolling...and a lot of boats are trolling within casting distance of shore fishermen. Anyways, my story is i think there's something to the line visibility and catch percentage here on the coho's. What' i've noticed is a lot of peple have switched to heavy 30-65# braids because of numerous rock snags. on many days, i was the only one with mono, actually 15# and I had a short 25# fluoro topshot tied on. My catch rate is much higher than people who are beside me doing exactly the same thing. This is in a bunch of maybe 6-10 people, all casting vibrax spinners, same colors, same lure size. I'm even started changing lures every 10-20 minutes after spotting the difference in my hookup rate to rule out lure color as the reason. It didn't matter what color i had on, i was clearly getting more. The only difference is the fluoro before the lure and i'm getting close to 2x the fish of people literally beside me. And it happened last night also, people beside me with heavy mono and braid, me with light mono and a fluoro leader. I had 3 fish in an hour + and nobody else even had one on. People don't wire leader, only a snap swivel and the lure so all the fish see is lure and line. This was the brand new Trilene fluoro in the gold foil box which i can now say is amazing. I havn'et had a single breakoff even with these big agressive cohos, like i saw with the older more brittle berkley Vanish. I don' t know of a specific line meant for downriggers but i've used braid on one for a few years. 200# powerpro . It tracks straighter and you don't get the electrostatic hum which is originally why i switched.

way off. The girth on this fish is probably 20" and it's around 30" in length. I duplicated the image of knife, copy/paste/rotated it to match the position of the fish. It looks like about 1" coming out the other side. It's big and fat for a coho, but not big compared to others i'm getting. I should take more pictures but i don't really think of it..too busy fishing and getting the lines back in. thanks for the funny comments from all the gore lovers out there. blood soaked gloves and a pair of Bruno Magli shoes coming up.

it's a coho. Kings aren't running where I caught it. It's a pretty big coho, is that why you think it's a king? Check the length of the 1st ray on the anal fin and you can see the white gumline.

What makes fishermen happier than bloody decks, eh? I've eaten fish every day for a while, i'm coming in with a few fish everyday, giving away a lot of it to friends who are trying to fill their freezers for the winter. I think i'm just about done with my own keep of this fish, on average they clean out to 6-8# each and i need to save room for other species. I believe the local coho derby leader is over 19#, it's too bad more people don't buy derby tickets. If i'm lucky, i'll be able to get photo of a shot fish for you GCD. I think all the hunting people would like it, just seeing it the first time was hilarious to me. ..not to glorify the actual fish shooting part but the whole scenario of seeing a person pull out a handgun to land a fish.

I haven't posted any of my catches so i figured I should start. The run is not too bad this year for me and I've been getting into these fish past few weeks. They started out a little smaller but now they're getting nice and fat. fresh sea run fish with a really wild fight. for scale, the rapala knife has 9" blade so it's about 14" overall. it's a coho..

I thought some of you might think this is interesting. This is after being on vacation for just 10 days. Not all lures were used every day. All these were brand new when i started this year. the the mirror shine of the blades is gone and the white tarnish is permanent, the corrosion on the hooks goes down deep, well into the metal. effects of saltwater on tackle made for freshwater.

brought in a good amount of fish in the last few days. 4 of them were a good size including 2 coho's 10# and 14# and a chum around 15-16#. All landed with a little bass setup. 100 size duhwa low profile baitcaster reel and a short gloomis rod. I'm losing fish though because i can't get a good hook set with the rod...time to switch to a meat stick.

fishing in saltwater can rust your lures in your boxes after 1 day. spinner blades lose their chrome/gold shine on your way home after a long day and it'll be down to the steel after a week. They make boxes with rust inhibitors built into the plastics. I think this is probably the same product used in VCI impregnated anti-rust paper/plastic sheeting. If you have some very expensive lures, you can buy sacrificial strips made to go on your hooks which draws the corrosion from itself...i think it's made by Owner or one of the other big fishing companies. The boxes impregnated with antirust compounds are made by flambeau, i think.

you must ahve been on one of AC's smaller flights, AC's allowance is also forl 115 total linear inches What a lot of people do these days is print out any applicable policy details regarding anything that concerns them where they may be on the borderline, and hold the paper in their face when an employee tries to tell you otherwise. You should always be in the clear most of the time if you do.

No surcharge because 8'10" plus your diameter is in the 115 linear inch limit for outdoor gear. and that would ahve counted as the free checked bag for one of you. The limit is only 62" for suitcases and other non-outdoor gear. 17 rods for 3 guys. that's as bad as I am. I go with a bag of reels and toys as my carry-on, who needs clothes and deodorant.

Maybe they don't know this, but mailing expensive items is smarter than checking it. I get fidgety every time I check my rods becasue you CANNOT buy extra insurance for "excess valuation" on outdoor gear. It's all a big scam because they know they're rough with our baggage and they don't want to be liable for for a pair of $800 Sage or Loop fly rods packed into a case. So if they smash your rods and flight case, you'll probably get a few hundred bucks out of it. The maximum is something like $600/bag up to $1500 max per passenger. I'm partly making up those numbers but they're in the ballpark. For peace of mind, mail and insure the rods if you can arrange for somebody to receive them.

This is actually the best idea because mailing it will cost less than the airline surcharge for additional checked bags.

I bought some a while back, seems okay but time will tell. It can only be better or the same as Vanish, nothing can possibly be worse. As far as the difference between leader and mainline, it's the spool size and range of line tests. Leader material starts as low as normal line, but goes as much high as 400-500# for most leader products like seguar, Trilene, Stren, etc. ..we don't see them here in SWO stores, but they're out there. They come in short spools because nobody needs a 1500m bulk spool of 400# line, actually, most lines 200# and above come coiled in plastic bag rather than spooled. I've heard some say they make leaders abrasion resistant but i think that's a marketing strategy for most lines, the key difference is higher tests.

That's the biggest problem with the micro light sized spinning reels the spool size is no good regardless of what gear ratio you have. 100:1 around a spool the size of a thimble will still only take in a foot of line. Just how small is your reel? If you're looking for a small reel but not necessarily a "ultralight" by classic definitions, look into the US Reel supercasters. They're small lightweight reels with near normal sized spools. I think the price range is about $80 - 150 but i could be off on the top end. I saw them when they first came out. They're definitely cool and built with a purpose.

You will have no problems. The warranty on all St Croix rods except ice rods is either 5 Years or Lifetime now depending on what model series you have. You have the receipt so you can get the full 5 years, but even if you didn't, they'll go by the code on the serial number which gives the month and year it was made and go 5 years from there. I go to 2 stores in the KW area, Rainbow is one of them. I don't think I said anything here about a reel I had a minor problem with about a year ago... I didn't even buy it from Chad at Rainbow and he took it and did the warranty servicing for me, free of charge. I did not know him in any way before he bought the store, in case you're wondering. That's good service that keeps people coming back, and i have no doubt that he will do right by you and this rod. Meanwhile, at another new store, I was totally burned when the sales guy tacked on an extra $10 on an order through BPS which he said would be the same price, i was given a price when i made the order, then $10 was tacked on when i went to pick it up. NOTHING I saw had the higher price on it including the order form receipt i got with the item when i left. This was not a mistake, he said something to the effect of "i didn't know how much it would be..and this is the price" BTW, this is an item that costs $25 if i wanted to get it in Toronto. It is $30 at BPS, and no local stores have it. I ended up paying about $57 total for something i could have gotten for $25+tax the next time i was in toronto. And the other stores i go to in KW are Catch 'Em. and Natural, i will not be going to the 4th store in that area again.

the size restriction limit for outdoor gear is 115 linear inches for L,W, and H (as opposed to 62") and that will count as your one free checked bag. ..so now i'll be travelling very light this year with everything that can fit in carry-on, and i'll have to buy everything else i need when i'm there. the other fees that might affect you are $25 for additional bags, another $50 if it exceeds the 62", and an additional $50 if it's over 50# with a 70# max. This is pretty much all airlines going anywhere. There are a few exempt flight destinations but not enough to matter. There are some smaller flights with no free checked baggage allowance.

that sucks. the reel turned out to be a $70/day rental. Contact one of their service centers (one of the very few) to order the bearing and replace it yourself. Mikes reel repair on the west coast also carries reel bearing upgrades for most brands and might be able to help you even though it's the roller you need. Not many reels have good anti-reverse rollers including shimano..all shimanos.

Haha. a word that starts with B got changed to queenes. ..not sure what that is but maybe there's a legend for the forum word swaps.

i know what you mean with strength by design but the sidewall is narrow and flat, and to use your cardboard example, what happens to cardboard when you push on it the right way? with one finger buckles like a sock. Yes, it might be built stronger than steel but only against forces in specific directions. The way around that would be to use multiplied cardboard but then you start getting big and bulky. You can only get so much strength by design in a given shape that thin, there are limits, after which, more strength can only come from a stronger material or building a bigger final product. The perfect example of strength by design would be an eggshell. We can't crush it by palming it and squeezing because the shape supports itself but one tiny poke inward and it's game over. I'm not trying to sound argumentative or confrontational but if this plastic and design were so good, they could also build the main frame with it and strip off another ounce or two. It most likely couldn't deal with multi directional torquing without building a frame the size of a grapefruit. hmmm. I like grapefruit. ...and then i would ask why not the spool then? Imagine the UL casting you could get into with such a super low mass spool. The startup inertia on the spool would be amazingly low, and so much cheaper to make too. The bad thing about strength by design is you also have to thin it out to mold in your supporting structure , and when you thin out plastics like that, it gets weak. I would like to see the kind of force it can take on a handle side drop before there was damage compared to a metal sided reel because the reel will have to balance stiffness and flexibility. i.e. to see what the balance between flexing and bouncing back from the hit and being rigid stiff and cracking the plastic. you can't have both. tensile strength vs malleability As far as taking metal out on saltwater, I do it all the time. Saltwater casting reels have more metal in them, and a lot of them will switch to heavier metals like stainless parts. The most common metal in quality reels, as you know, is aluminum and if that has a problem in saltwater, you better get to the marina because there are tons of people with high dollar aluminum hulled boats out there in the oceans. ahah Alutecnos, Penn, VanStaal, Avet, John Baker, and Accurate should recall all of their $3000+ machined aluminum bluewater conventional reels. If anything, ocean fishing is where you need metal reels more than anything, not plastics. Ignoring corrosion as a factor, there's no way you could design a plastic reel that could take that kind of punishment. Large ocean fish, even the big chinooks in rivers, will rip out a few hundred yards, no problem..i don't think a plastic reel could take the drag heat or the line tension of a stand-up rod without exploding on you some day. I've been body slammed against the gunwale because i wasn't ready for a big head shake...I don't know if a plastic reel of any design could take that repeatedly. The only metal reels you can't use on salt the early magnesium reels, they're strictly freshwater, but manufacturers have gotten over that hurdle too by using better powder coating and fully sealing reels from salt air/water exposure. I understand what you're talking about though. I've fished saltwater for 1/3 of my life and I know how brutal it is on gear, but if you take proper measures, everyday rods/reels will do okay in saltwater. old new plastic metal aluminum...i've seen and used it all in salt. the trick is a good long freshwater sprinkling afterwards. I don't know if i'm stupid or crazy but I have 2 calcutta TE DC's, a left and right hand...I've been using the right hand exclusively in brackish and saltwater for a few years now. It seems to be okay but i'm still kinda waiting for the day the circuit is no good even though i do everything i can to clean it after each season. Maybe this is the year? One thing i will go with you on is that this reel will sell but not necessarily because of anything technically good or bad, but becasue north america has so many shimano queenes. That's the most concise way i can say it. ahah. Shimano's marketing has a firm grip the freshwater fishermen on this continent. From watching fishing shows from around the world, i know they're not as big everywhere, especially with the higher end, boutique type reels we're into. It's like Sage here compared to worldwide ownership. Where did you hear/read that shimano users asked for a good plastic reel? I'd be interested in skimming through that article. was the ridgid tool company involved with your school as well? I noticed you spelled it that way like other engineers i know.

In a round casting reel... seriously, get Snidley's daiwa CVZ for $150 in the forsale section. I want this reel but i'm having a tough time arranging to see it (he has no camera.) They're cnc machined bar-stock aluminum frame and both sides. lots to say about another company regarding this too. or depending on what side you're coming from. If this is doesn't work for you, look at the ABU Record reissues in the smaller whiffle spool (non-HC) sizes for about the same price. In a low profile, i would have to recommend the old Quantum Tour PT that's on sale everywhere for $129 even though i'm not keen on the maker (yet?). Both sides are metal on this one which is rare for a low profile and that's what makes this reel a little heavier than most...but for this price and only using it a few times/year, it's a good start. This reel has a few gearing choices so you need to decide what you want to do first. Once you discover the line control you have with a casting reel, you might use it more than a spinning setup or whatever you have now.

this stuff boils my blood because it's no more relevant to achieving their goals as with the whole gun registry fiasco. Doing anything to any gun range, where only law abiding people go, will have as much impact on street crime as which toppings i put on my hamburger for lunch will have on it.

Yeah, the Pelican boxes. that's the product i was trying to describe.

yes. I primarily fished pike when i was young, always using wire leaders, and i did see how it affects the action of hard baits like original rapalas. With the right leader and rapala combo, it will drag through the water straight as an arrow. I would recommend spoons if you're going to cast for pike. In the 20+ years i lived/fished up there, I saw spoons catch more pike than anything else.

ah. thanks for the story. looks like some of the details got twisted by the time it got to me.

I think it happened just a recently. The family saw him on the ground making noises and didn't know what happened. The only thing unusual was a piece of fishing line in his eye. The doctors and family were baffled until they xrayed his head and saw the 3 oz sinker attached to the line. It entered at corner of eye socket so the eye wasn't obviously damaged, went through brain, and hit the back of his skull.