Dabluz

Garry2Rs has explained it pretty good. I use another method. I adjust the main adjustement (the one one the opposite side of the reel from the handle) so that the spool just starts to move from side to side on it's axis. It must be only a very slight movement. No clicking sound. Too slack and the line will get caught between the edge of the spool and the body of the reel. Too tight and the bearings can no longer turn freely. Ok...now it's the time to play with the centrifical brakes. Those are the plastic doohickies that are at the end of each spoke of the brakes you see in the photo. These plastic sleeves fly out and rub against the side of the body of the breaking mechanism. The higher the speed of the spool, the harder they rub and try to slow down the spool. You don't want too many of them to rub because they will rob you of initial spool speed and casting distance. You need and want the highest initial spool speed at the start of your cast. However, you want the speed of the spool to decrease as fast as the speed of the lure through the air decreases. Like Garry said, start out with half of the sleeves at the end of their spokes. Pull back ever 2nd one so that even the brakes are balanced then pick a lure with a certain weight....say 3/8 or 1/2 ounce. When casting, do not force your cast. Keep your lure close to the tip of the rod. A quick flip back to load the rod and a harder quick flip forward to cast. Let go of the lure a bit earlier than you would with a spinning rod. The lure must lob a bit higher into the air. You can get fancier later on. If you get backlash, try to reduce it by just tightening the main adjustement at the end of the spool. But not too tight. Keep your thumb very close to the spool of the reel and do not hesitate to slow the spool down or stop it when necessary. When the lure touches the water....stop the spool with your thumb. If you still get backlash, push more of the plastic sleeves towards the end of their spokes. If you get no backlash right from the start...you can push more of the plastic sleeves towards the center of the brake mechanism. When you change lure weight....you will probably have to change your adjustements. That's why pros have more than one rod all set up for a particular lure or set of lures. Just like a golfer who has to use different golf clubs for a particular job. You will find that some lures, even though of the same weight, will fly through the air at different speeds too. Take apart your reel often, clean the bearings and use special bearing oil. Even different types of oils will make a difference in how the reel works. The lighter the oil, the faster the bearings will turn. However, the very light oils do fly off the bearings so the bearings have to be cleaned and oiled more often. When there is no oil, the bearings will deteriorate really fast. Some reels have magnetic brakes and centrifical brakes. It's often mentioned (4X4 braking system). The magnetic brakes work opposite of centrifical brakes. With magnetic brakes, the faster the spool turns, the less effect the magnetic brakes have on the spool. When the spool starts to slow down, the magnets have more and more stopping effect. This is great at the end of a cast when the lure is moving much slower but the spool is turning too fast. It's a lot like an educated thumb. Don't expect your baitcaster to cast as far as your spinning reel. That's not what you are using it for. You are using it for more accurate and controlled casting with stronger line. No twisting of the line when reeling or fighting a fish. Line twist makes a line weaker. More casts per hour of fishing with a baitcaster. Stronger and smoother braking system.

Imagine that expensive system going haywire during a show! There is almost always something that goes wrong during a show. The more stuff you use and depend on....the more chance of something going wrong. Jimmy Hendrix spent years trying to get his guitar perfectly tuned. I doubt that a perfectly tuned guitar is impossible. Actually, some chords do not sound "perfect" when a guitar is perfectly tuned. Certain chords will make a nice throbbing sound while others won't. Tuning a string just a tad will make these other chords throb but the original chord will no longer throb. Hohner diatonic harmonicas are not tuned exactly the same as the Lee Oskar diatonic harmonicas. There is also the fact that if one person is singing....it's easy to spot when that person does not hit the note perfect. Get 2 people to sing, it's quite easy to spot the one who is a bit off key. Get 100 people singing and there are 2 or 3 people just a bit off key....it's called "harmony"...lol. If all the voices were exactly the same and in exactly the same key....it would sound like one voice...only louder.

To continue in garry2rs steps I will explaine why. The first baitcaster that came out had very primitive gears and bearings. This lasted for many many years. The main bearing for baitcasters is the one that the spool spins on. For a long time, this bearing was only a hard smooth object...usually a type of hard rock or jewel. Since it could not be installed on the side where the handle and the gears were installed...it had to be installed on the opposite end of the spool. When casting, the rod and reel had to be held so that the spool revolved vertically on this bearing. Since most of the fishermen were right handed and cast with their right arm, it was easy for them to cast then twist the rod so the handle was up at the end of the cast and the spool was revolving vertically on the bushing. Even when the first ball bearings were introduced to baitcasters, the only place where it was possible to place them were at the end of the spool opposite the handle. Over time, other bearings were installed to smooth things out. Even the handle and the gears would disengage to increase the speed of the spool but the bearing at the end where the handle is installed could never be really disengaged. To get the maximum speed and length of turning time, the best way is still to only let the spool turn on one bearing. Even today, very few spools are really free spinning. In any event, I still prefer for my spool to spin on only one bearing instead of 2 bearings, so when I cast, I twist my wrist at the last second so that the spool spins on only the main bearing. It's like throwing a baseball. And it does make the lure go further. I have left handed baitcasters too. On a pistol grip rod and using light lures and jigs, I often use the left hand baitcaster so that I do not have to switch the rod to my left hand in order to reel. However, I found that my right wrist does get tired from all the work. For really fast cranking....my right hand is faster than my left hand even though I have been using spinning reels for over 40 years. If you are equally good at masturbating with either hand....I guess that cranking a reel handle real fast is not a problem for you. In my case, I prefer using a baitcaster with the handle on the right most of the time and to me it's a good idea to have both types of baitcasters.

Lots of good info so far. Starting out with 14 or 17 lb mono is a great idea. Don't buy the really cheap stuff though. It's too stiff. Vanish....check the web to see what fishermen think of that stuff....lol. I have used 12 to 50 lb braided line on my baitcasters. I have narrowed it down to 20 lb braided line. The best braided line I have used is Mason Tiger Braid and Tuf-Line Plus is also excellent but hard to find. I did not like the Power Pro as much as the Mason Tiger braid and the Tuf-Line Plus. The draw back with the Mason Tiger braid is the fact that it is actually 2 types of braid. There is a core of parallel fibers (like Fireline) in the center which is surrounded with a braid. Tying knots in this stuff is touchy. You must inspect the knot after it has been tied. Sometimes, the outer braid gets stripped back at the knot. The only knot that has worked good for me was the simple Palomar knot. For Fireline, I use the Double Palomar knot. There are sites on the net where there were independant tests done on the different types of lines. Braided lines won all the contests (strength, abraision etc). The tests were done with 20 lb test mono and 20 lb test braid. The best mono for abraision resistance is good old Stren but the reason for this is the fact that 20 lb Stren is quite a bit larger than the other ordinary monos in 20 lb test. Abraision resistance is actually more dependant on the diameter of the line than it's strength. That's why some IGAF monos can be huge even though their tensil strength is low. Braided line is not 1/2 or 3/4 as small as mono. It's about 40% smaller than mono. 20 lb braid is about 40% smaller than 20 lb mono. Most lines are way underated for strength. Ex.; 20 lb test Fireline breaks at over 45 lbs. Almost all of the 20 lb test braided lines test over 35 lbs. However, braided lines due to their lack of elasticity, are not able to withstand much shock. It's like a steel chain compared to a steel wire cable. The cable can withstand much more shock. If you want to see an excellent site on baitcasting, use the word "fishingelbow" in a search engine. He has probably the best site about the baitcasting world.

I would be a bit leary of putting one of these systems on one of my guitars because bending strings is part of guitar playing. You bend a string to achieve higher notes and vibratos. Most string benders don't even have a vibrato arm at the bridge because of the system of springs prevents some hard full bends. I think that the automatic tuning system would try to adjust the tuning while the guitar player is trying to do some string bending.

The guys here in Quebec who fish the St-Lawrence use huge baits this time of the year. Things like 6 inch curly tail jigs and swimming lures etc because the walleyes just gobble them up at this time of the year. I was surprised when I heard about that. Walleye season is closed in my area at this time of the year so I don't get the chance to use big baits for them. In the Chibougamau region at this time of the year, most of the walleye fishermen are using 9, 11 and even 13 cm swim baits.

You could also take a trip to a pet shop and bring your camera with you. I'm sure that one of the employees will hold on of the turtles for you to photograph.

Yes....those ducks do smell bad. However, not as noisy as the "pull my finger" ducks.

The best plummage is in the spring during the mating season.

Even the 100 series reel is enough. I just bought a 7 foot MH Team Daiwa 1 piece rod ( 1/4 to 1 ounce) the other day "used but almost new" for 25 dollars. Wow.....nice rod. It's a very fast rod.

I would also recommend a 9 weight line and 9 foot rod combination. I have a 7 - 8 weight outfit and have trouble casting out large flies for pike (no bass up here). I also recommend a fly reel with a large arbour. Okuma reels seem to have the favour on sites where there are comparison tests. For the line, it would be a weight forward floating line of the highest quality. I haven't bought any lines in the past few years, but in those days, I tried a Cortland 444 and found it too soft and sticky. I like the Scientific lines a lot.

For me, the best coffee that I make is by grinding Arabica beans, that I buy by the kilo at the grocery store, just before making the coffee. Ideally, the grinder must not heat the beans during the grinding but that would take a very expensive grinder to do that. I then place the very very fine ground coffee in a filter then pour just enough hot water over the coffee to fill a cup. The nice part of this technique is that it's easy to do when camping or fishing. I bring along water, coffee, filters and a tiny naphtha stove for brewing coffee in the boat when fishing. I only add a bit of sugar to the coffee. When I buy coffee in town, it's usually at Tim Horton's. However, across the street from my house, there is a tiny breakfast place that has the best coffee that I have ever bought. The owner buys her coffee beans then grinds it herself with an expensive grinder that does not heat up the coffee beans during the grinding procèss. The water we get at our house is great. A big bottling company wants to buy the rights to this water but the municipality turned them down. I'm sure that the quality of the water has a lot to do with the taste of coffee.

You can't base your choice solely on how thin the line is. Ex.: 20 lb Power Pro breaks at about 40 lbs...maybe more. It is safe to say that 30 lb Power Pro breaks at least at 50 lbs of tension. Then....along comes a company who sells another line and slaps the little sticker on it saying 30 lb test. This line is much finer and it actually breaks at about 35 lbs. The company is not lying however, they are sure to find a bunch of fishermen who exclaim right and left "my 30 lb braided line is much thinner than your 30 lb braided line". You can't trust what the companies print on their packages. Did you possibly think that maybe you could have been better off buying 15 or 20 lb test Power Pro and getting the same results as the Spider Wire Stealth? In strength test for 20 lb test line, the strongest was 20 lb test Fireline with a breaking point of approx 47 lbs. The strongest braided line was Mason Tiger Braid. I prefer Mason Tiger Braid over the Power Pro....not because it is stronger but for the fact that it is far limper and allows for longer casts with a baitcaster. The big drawback with Mason Tiger Braid is when it comes to tie knots in it. It has a tendancy to cut into itself so much care must be taken to tie the Palomar or the Uni-knot. I will probably buy a spool of Spider Wire Stealth soon. I saw some on my buddy's reel the other day. The line looks good and seems to be quite limp. The big problem for me now is the fact that all of my reels and spools are full of line and these new lines last what seems like forever. I am still using my old (over 10 years old) 14 lb test original Gorilla Braid on a baitcaster. It's now so washed out that it's pure white yet shows no sign of weakness.

Yes, the uni-knot is considered to be the strongest connection between 2 braids or braid to mono or fluorocarbon. However, the strongest connection is still via a swivel.

Yes...Power Pro is nice. So are the other braids. However, I do like Tuf-Line Plus (not XP or ordinary Tuf-Line) the most because it is a lot limper. It is white in colour which suits me fine since the fish usually look at it against a light background. Mason Tiger Braid is just as good.

I have the real old Sportspal....the one with the foam seats that are stored in the points of the canoe. From a sitting position, it can be paddled. When alone, the paddler must move towards the middle of the canoe to paddle and the canoe is quite wide plus there are the foam flottation cushions on the outside so it's better to sit near the edge of the canoe to make it tilt a bit and allow easier access with the paddle. It's not a real easy canoe to paddle but most of the time, I paddle the canoe and rarely use any kind of motor. The Sportspal's width makes it slow down faster between strokes and the outside finish on the canoe creates drag too. I don't know if the Sportspal still comes with oar locks but mine has them and in heavy wind, using the oars is a definite advantage. The Sportspal is not for paddling long distances or leisure sightseeing and exploration....it's a fishing canoe....and a great one for that purpose. For slowly trolling a fly or lure while paddling, it's great and not tiring but it does not move fast like a sleek narrow long distance paddling canoe. The best paddling position is in a kneeling position with your rear end just resting on the foam seat. It's best to put down a good soft impermeable cushion on the floor of the canoe so you knees dont rest on any of the aluminum ribs that hold the foam carpet in place. The Sportspal also has a tendancy to leak a bit. Applying sealant to the interieur seams is a good idea. The Sportspal is also easy to tow. Use the towing holes that are found at either end of the double pointed Sportspal. They are well placed closer to the water level and eliminate any wandering from side to side. I like to rest my rod against the gunwale and in order to reduce noise or eliminate scratching the rod, I apply a strip of foam weather stripping. It's cheap and easy to replace.

I tried 6 lb Vanish a few years ago. It took me 5 minutes to find all sorts of things that I hated about it. I sent it back to Berkley with a nice letter telling them what I thought of their line and added that Fireline was great stuff. They sent me back a new spool of Vanish and a spool of 6 lb test Fireline. I took the spool of Vanish back to the store and got a refund. Yeah....I'm worse than Scrooge.

I use a wide variety of lines since I have a good number of baitcasters and spinning reels and fish in a wide variety of situations. Most of the time, I use 4 lb mono. I just spooled up with my last filler spool of Berkley Sensithin so I guess I will have to find more mono that is similar to it since this mono is no longer available. Where there are lots of snags when vertical jigging for walleye, I use 6 to 10 lb Fireline. My baitcasters are all loaded with 12 to 30 lb test braided lines...Tuf-Line Plus, Gorilla, Power Pro, Tuf-Line XP, Spiderwire Fusion....all work great. I don't like fluorocarbon lines in the least bit. I do sometimes use fluorocarbon leader material but I haven't seen any advantage in using the stuff. It is not more abrasion resistant nor stronger nor less sensitive (less stretch) than mono. However, it does sink faster (an option that I rarely want anyway) and is far more expensive than mono.

I have a 14 foot Sportspal. I would say that you should buy a small gas engine for it. Even a 4 cycle 2 h.p. motor weighs only about 30 lbs.....which is less weight than a battery and electric motor. Then, buy a small electric motor. They are cheap. I use a 9 lb thrust 3 speed Minn Kota 15 and I can go against some pretty strong current and even at it's lowest speed, I find that it is still too fast for trolling. However, a 30 lb thrust electric motor only costs about 130 dollars new. I'm sure you can find a used electric motor real cheap.

I agree with Billy Bob. I have been using 4 lb mono for over 30 years for shallow water walleye jigging and have never had a walleye break off. The clutch on the reel takes care of that. I have tried 6 and 10 lb Fireline and I do catch walleye but somehow, I don't seem to get as many bites.....but, I am still experimenting. However, if the bottom is very dirty and I often getted snagged, I quit using the 4 lb mono and go to 6 or 10 lb Fireline. I would prefer using a limper line like Tuff Line Plus but none of the braided lines are fine enough. If they ever make 6 ou 8 lb braided line, I would buy a spool real quick. It's not true that braided lines are as thin as what is marked on the packages. Braided lines are about 40% thinner than good mono. This means that 20 lb test braid is about the same size as 12 lb mono.....not 8 lb mono. Put both lines up against a lighted background and see for yourself. The new generation lines are way under rated. Most of these new lines break at near twice the marked tensil strength if they are not subjected to hard sudden shocks.

If it's for fishing...a wider canoe is more stable however, not as easy to paddle. If you want to use a small outboard gas engine, a square ended canoe is recommended. If you want to use a small electric motor, you can use a motor support that holds the motor off to one side. If you want to do some sight seeing and paddling, a narrow canoe is better. A canoe for 2 people should be at least 14 feet long. If there is always going to be 2 people in the canoe, then a 16 foot canoe is recommended. Since I do a lot of portaging, fishing alone....I use a 14 foot Sportspal. Ok, they are a bit slower when paddled but they are very stable and very light.....but more fragile. However, I'm 60 years old and I can carry my canoe and all of my gear at once when I have to walk to a lake. Springbok used to make a pretty good aluminum canoe that has thicker aluminum than the Sportspal. Aluminum is lighter than fiberglass. There are some very light canoes made of kevlar and even higher tech products that are very robuste but they are very expensive and not very wide. There are even folding canoes for those who do not have much storage space. You can buy outrigger kits for canoes if you want something real stable. In any event, there is no such thing as the perfect canoe that does everything perfectly. The "Scanoe" is a great canoe. The low profile ends make it a bit easier to handle in the wind. I pretty sure that it's made by Coleman. It's a tough canoe, but quite heavy. Great 2 man canoe.

There are many different styles of canoes. Some are narrow and go faster when paddled. Others are wider and more stable for fishing. For fishing alone....there is nothing better than the 12 foot Sportspal. It's just as wide as the 14 foot model. You don't have to paddle it because it has oar locks and you just row it. You can easily put an electric motor on any Sportspal. There is a support bracket for the Sportspals with both ends pointed. However, the 12 foot model (actually just barely over 11 feet long) is good for one person or 2 people and very little extra equipment. The first 11 foot Sportspal canoes only weighed about 19 lbs. However, I think they were not even 11 feet long. My 14 foot Sportspal is about 30 years old. I use it at least 2 times per week and have never even come close to getting into trouble with it. It weighs about 30 lbs (with 2 paddles and 2 foam seats) The reason I have the 14 foot Sportspal is because we are often 2 people in the canoe. When I am alone and go for a weekend camping trip, I can load my canoe with everything I need for the wilderness camping trip and go camping wherever I want. I can use a gas engine up to 2 hp on the side mount motor support. A bigger motor makes things a bit more complicated because of the weight on the side of the canoe. However, the big plus with a light Sportspal canoe is the fact that you can portage your canoe, the paddles, all your fishing gear, your camping gear etc .... all at the same time. I am 60 years old, diabetic, heart problems (pacemaker/defibrilator installed) and I still can portage to remote fishing spots while carrying everything at once. One place I go to takes me 8 hours to get there. Half of the time, I am carrying the canoe and all of my stuff at once. I wouldn't be able to do this with a fiberglass canoe. Hell, with a fiberglass canoe, I would even have problems putting it on my roof rack. However, with the light weight, you do have to cope with the fact that the Sportspal canoe is fragile. You do not let it bump into sharp objects nor do you stand up in it when the bottom is rubbing on the rocks. When the bottom of the canoe touches bottom, that means that there is no more than 6 inches of water under the canoe.....it's time to step out. If you do punch a hole in your Sportspal, it's an easy fix with metal tape. The only hole I have in my canoe was when I was dumb enough to lend it out about 25 years ago. It came back with a hole that the guy tried to camouflage. I removed the junk he used to camouflage the hole and put some aluminum tape. It's been there for over 25 years now. Maybe this year, I will remove the tape, remove the interior foam carpet and put new aluminum tape inside and outside of the hole then put back the interior foam carpet. I often stand up in my 14 Sportspal when fly fishing.....but it's not recommended. However, I have some buddies who have installed outriggers on their canoes. This makes canoes very stable. You can buy outriggers or make them yourself. In an emergency, you can even just tie a long branch across your canoe and tie 1 gallon Javex bottles to each end of the branch.

The only way to hurt the big gas companies is to only buy gas from independant gas station owners. Here is how it works. Independant gas station owners buy their gas wholesale for the lowest price. They are not forced to buy from a particular wholeseller. They are not obliged to sell it for a specific price either. Anyway, the sellers all compete amongst themselves to sell to the independant owners. Here is the scenario: The fuel truck leaves the gas plant. It delivers gas to it's particular sellers. However, after making it's rounds, there is always some gas left in the tanks. Instead of going back to the gas plant with fuel inside their tanks, they sell the fuel to independant sellers. Meanwhile, other tanker trucks from other gas companies are doing the same. Going back to the gas plant with fuel in the reservoirs is a big waste of money so they sell what is left at a discount. If nobody bought their fuel at the "brand name" gas stations, and instead bought their fuel only from the independants this means that the only way the gas plants can sell gas is to compete with the other gas plants. The one with the lowest prices sells his fuel. Did you know that if you buy a lot of fuel and if you do business with a local independant seller, you can get a discount? The independant seller is all too happy to sell lots of gas. The more gas he sells, the more money he makes and the more important he becomes to the gas distributors and the more leverage he has to get his fuel at the lowest cost to him. If Esso cannont sell it's gas through it's outlets, it is forced to sell their gas through the independant sellers. Big gas companies like Petro Canada, Esso etc, just love to buy out independant retailers. They offer lots of money to improve, remodel independant retailers in order to force the retailers to exclusivity contracts. The fewer independant retailers there are, the easier it is for the big gas companies to unload their gas at their own prices. It's real easy for the big gas companies to get together and fix prices since they are not really competing amongst themselves. If you want them to compete against one another, you have to buy gas from the small independant retailers. There are fewer and fewer of them every year. Sure, they may not be fancy looking, they may have wierd names but they are the key to keeping the sale of fuel a competition amongst the big companies. Sure, this will hurt the operators of the brand name gas outlets. But as it is now, it's the independant gas station owners who are getting hurt.

Another thing is to keep your back warm. Fishermen like to fish with their back to the wind. You must have something that cuts the wind and insolates the back. Even keeping the body warm all over helps. When we start to feel cold, we have a tendancy to tighten our muscles. I'm lucky. I rarely have back pains....even after a couple of hours picking nightcrawlers. However, I have noticed that if I don't keep my back warm, it does stiffen up. I'm sure that a sudden bad move and I could sprain a muscle.

Has anyone here made their own in line planer boards? Were they just as good as the store bought ones? Are there any special points that I should look out for when making my boards? They cost close to 30 dollars up here and I figure that I can make a couple for only a fews dollars.....if a homemade board is just as good. I have another problem. I can't find any releases up here where I live. Does anyone here on the site have any to sell that would work well with a small planer board?