Garry2Rs

With most brand name reels you get what you pay for. The top end stuff is out standing and the entry level stuff is so-so. Many of the problems folks have with their new reels is caused by too much grease and/or grease where it shouldn't be. These reels are built in Asia and must survive a long sea voyage and possible years on the dealer's shelves. They are often way over-lubed when packaged at the factory. I once looked at some mid-priced Quantum reels on sale. In the product review at BPS or Cabela's roughly 50% of the buyer thought they were great and the other 50% thought they were total trash. Now that is too wide a margin to take seriously...Something was obviously wrong! The complains were about noisy bearings and reels that were un-tuneable...I love a challenge, so I bought three...Two for myself and another for a friend, who already owned one. Out of the box, one was perfect! One had a big blob of grease on the brake side bearing that had migrated onto the brake drum, the third had dry bearings. A little lighter fluid fixed one and two drops of oil fixed the other! If you don't check the bearings and check the braking surfaces before you use a new baitcaster, you are asking for trouble. Ditto as on-going maintenance. There are no self lubricating bearings! Some reels, like a Corado 50 I have, seems to want a drop of oil if it's been out in the rain. Others like my Chronarchs and Calcutta's seem virtually bullet proof. Better designs, better bearings? I suppose so, but all mechanical things need some TLC once in awhile. Don't over look an annual or biannual professional cleaning...I took a Calcutta in for a small problem last month, and was amazed at how much better it worked after being properly cleaned. This reel was last done professionally about two years ago. I felt it was still working fine. It just goes to show how over time even well maintained reels slow down without you noticing. Most reel repair shops charge $20.00 - $25.00 for cleaning and adjusting a reel. If you bought a quality reel, this is money well spent. Garry2R's

In theory the metallic finishes are better on sunny days when they will have added "flash." On dull days KVD recommends painted lures and blades for higher visibility. I found I had more hits on these baits when I slowed down the retrieve. Unlike regular crankbaits, that only give a general impression of the living thing, these lures are really hard Swimbaits. Being ultra realistic, letting the fish get a good look at them is a good thing.

I bought a spool of new Berkley NanoFil in 10 pound test. The line is a very bright-white! Before I left for the lake I used my trusty Magic Marker to blacken the last two feet of line to tone it down a little. I knew the colour wouldn't hold-up for long and as expected it went from black to light grey over about a three hour period. The dry ink might have compounded my problem, but the finish is very very slick! I tied on a 1/16 oz. jig, using a regular Palomar and when I tightened the knot it slide right out! Again the ink might have been a factor. I retied using a Uni, but for extra grip, went through the eye two times, this knot held firm. After a little use, the ink faded and line's finish either wore, or gained some texture, because on subsequent reties I had no problem with either the single Uni or regular Palomar knots slipping. I found that, although I had tried to spool-up under good tension, after a couple of casts the spool seemed "loose." Using the boat, I ran the line out and rewound to get a truly tight spool. As I fished, I tried to stay aware of any slack at the reel when I closed the bail. When I noticed "soft" line on the spool, I made a long cast to remove it, and rewound to maintain a tight spool. This is only good sense with any line, but especially with braid on a spinning reel. This was the only "problem" I experienced with Nano-Fil. Initially there was also quite a bit of curl in the line. This relaxed as I used it and the soft spool syndrome became less noticeable...The fact that both issues decreased with use might suggest that they are related to the slick finish and it's breaking-in with use. I had no problem catching Bass and Rockbass on this new line, with the blacked tip using a small jig and grub. To complete my test, I cut the darkened area off and went with straight bright-white line. There was no point in using a crank or other reaction type bait to test my white line. To truly see if the fish would rejected the line I needed to use a dead-stick type of presentation. To make a fair test, and to add some variety for myself, I continued with the tiny jig and grub, but added a jig and curly-tail and a wacky-worm to my arsenal. Above the water the line is highly visible, so it is very easy to dead stick with. This LMB grabbed the 1/16 oz jig and grub. The close-up shows 1/16 oz jig. Note how bright and how small in diameter this 10 pound test is. This SMB showed no hesitation about hitting the wacky worm I was worried that the process of creating a single strand would make this line as subject to twisting as plain old Mono...This doesn't seem to be the case. I have about six hours of spinning on this line and so-far-so-good. I suppose the big question is: "At twenty bucks a spool is it better than anything else?" I can't say it is much better than Sufix 832 which I think is the "standard" for braids at this point. It's different and I'm glad I tried it. I want more hours to see how it stands up. The painted finish on other Berkely lines soon wears off...Will this be the same? One thing I now know...This line isn't re-branded Fireline Crystal and is much smaller in diameter and much slicker. It does cast easily and seems to go farther on a cast than I would have expected given the small size of my baits. However that's hard to judge definitively without two identical rigs. One other bonus, doesn't seem to bring in as much water as regular braid does. In a few weeks I will be off to Arizona and will continue to use this line all Winter. By next Spring I will be able to tell you how NanoFil stands up over the long haul. Garry2R's

Quantum has some new reels coming out soon. Drilled spools and some drilling on the reel's frame, to reduce weight, has been done before however this is a totally new approach. These reels are designed with all non essential metal removed. On the casting reels this meant using plastic plugs to fill some holes, but the end result is a very light but strong frame. Quantum claims that this design is much stronger than a solid magnesium framed reel, while being lighter. In one "Timex type" advertising piece they run over the reel with a pick-up truck. Follow this link for more info. Quantum link

I used to fish at Dunnville. The fish are moving up from the lake. To me, it make sense to be close to the lake. Lots of people fish from shore, below the dam, on both sides of the river. If you have a boat, you can fish all the way out to Lake Erie. I had good luck down near Fish Master's place...close to the break wall. My best trolling lure was a Baby Bass Rattlin' Rap. You need to hit bottom once in awhile with your bait, but if you are stuck on shore lures are snag prone. If that's your situation, live minnows might be a better choice. Garry2r's

Hello D. with 2R's I was out with a couple of clients on Saturday. We fished for bass on Stoney Lake. It was supposed to be overcast, but turned out to be a very bright day. It warmed up nicely and it was great to be out on the water, but it wasn't exactly great fishing weather. We caught (and released) about a dozen mixed SMB/LMB on plastic worms and half a dozen more on a spinnerbait. The fish seemed to be picking the worms off the bottom, not hitting it on the fall, so we went from weightless to a split-shot rig to get the bait into the strike-zone faster. I have no pictures to post because I broke the view-screen on my camera by carrying in around in my pants pocket. I would gladly replace it with a model that only has an eye-level view finder, but I can't seem to find one...I guess that is too old school. It looks like I will have to get a faggy-looking little pouch to wear on my belt, to keep from breaking the screen on the next one too. Garry2rs

Nice shots, and a good way to fluff-up the post count...

HTHM helped me with mine and with my daughter's place. You could PM him. Garry2r's

From what I read the new Chronarch is a slight improvement on the old Corado, at close to the same price. This all has to do with the falling US dollar. If you liked the last Corado, the new Chronarch will be even better, but it isn't an aluminum bodied Core, like the last model was. Garry2R's

On Sept 11th 2001 I was fishing the Grand River between Dunnville and Lake Eire. No phone, no radio, just me in the boat until dark. I did notice one strange thing...Normally there were dozens of contrails from all the jets crossing the lake. That day there were none! I shrugged it off to some strange atmospheric condition. That evening, when I started to drive home, I learned of the attack. In a way, while it was still very tragic and shocking, it was somewhat easier to learn in that way. By then, most of the facts were known. I'm sure that folks who were watching all day must have struggled through the many conflicting reports, speculations and rumours. I'm old enough to remember the day JFK was killed in Dallas. I was watching TV when the news broke...At first it was a report of shots fired at the motorcade, then confirmation of shots, but the President was unhurt, then that he had been taken to the Parkland Hospital, and finally Walter Cronkite took off his glasses, wiped his eyes and reported that the President was dead. On 9-11 I was spared all that and basically got the whole story at once. Of all the stories to come out of that day, one of the least told is of the skill of Canadian air traffic control and Transport Canada officials in landing about 250 unscheduled airliners on the East Coast. American air space was closed and the dession was made that it was too dangerous to reroute planes to cities like Montreal and Toronto. There might be Terrorist on board any of those flights. It's very moving to me, the way that local people pitch in to help take care of those thousands and thousands of travellers who were stranded in Canada for the next five days. I recall that more than 6000 passengers landed in Gander Nfld, a town of only 10,000 people. Somehow they were fed, and housed. Things like transportation and showers were arranged, crated pets were cared for, prescriptions were filled, and all without cost...This is the type of generosity and quite heroism that gets lost in the retelling of the more dramatic events of that day and the days that followed. One small sidebar is that Transport Canada fell back on the Y2K emergency plans that were not needed, but were still on file... Garry2R's

The Albright Special makes a smaller, smoother knot than the Uni-Uni. It passes through the guides better and is less prone to pick up moss etc. When you tie it, be sure to wind the braid around the Fluoro or mono. Garry2rs

If you want big Cat's in that area head for Dunnville or Port Maitland. You can fish from shore at both places, but a boat obviously gives you more options. Garry2rs

Nice going guys!

Radio Shack or some other electronics place can sell you a plastic bracket to hold the 8"D" cells. This is an inexpensive way to convert your fish finder into a portable.

My three bank charger has a fuse. If yours does too, is it blown?

Maybe he tows with a motorcycle...HAHAHA

As usual Apsley missed all the excitement! Or I slept through it... I was out with the pup at 5AM. There were still a few flashes but it must have been far off as I didn't hear any thunder.

Take Pigeon or Buckhorn, the other two are quite small.

If you do not back the drag off it will, eventually, take a "set." I had this happen with a rod and reel that I didn't use for quite a long time, perhaps a couple of years...I still had it in the boat, but the rod was a little heavy and the reel was of lower quality than some others that I used regularly. I go south in the winter, so this rod didn't get an "end of season tune-up." It just rode along out-of-sight, out-of-mind. When I pulled it out to show it to someone I gave the line a tug...The drag had gone from perhaps 9 or 10 pound pressure before it slipped to who knows what? Perhaps as much as 20 or 30 pounds pressure. At some point it broke loose and acted normal. I pulled about 50 yards off against the drag at various settings and it seemed okay, but I'm sure this isn't something that you would want, so loosen the drag off between trips or at least at the end of the season.

The use of a mono or fluoro leader with braid has been kicked around before and, of coarse, opinions differ. Where and for what a person fishes will effect their opinion. Leaders might make a lot more sense to a guy with one or two outfits than to another guy with 12 rods on the deck, each dedicated to a specific technique. My ideas are based on about one hundred fishing days per year and 12 months of open water fishing for Trout, Panfish, Bass, Pike and occasionally Musky. Over time many of these opinions have changed. I hope that I never become so smug that my opinions can't change yet again. However, for what they are worth, these are my current thoughts. There is no advantage to using a leader with braided line while using reaction baits like Cranks, Spinnerbaits and Inline spinners etc. These baits are moving and imitate injured or fleeing food. This triggers the predator's natural instinct to chase. I use white, yellow, chartreuse and green, blue and straight green braid and see no difference in results with reaction type baits. With dead-stick baits like Senko's, drop shotting or fishing under a bobber with plastic or live bait there might be an advantage to a fluoro leader. It could be argued that a leader is better for Shaky-head and other jigs. I will leave that one up to you. My experience is that even slow moving baits like shaky-heads are still reaction baits. With top water baits, like Spook's and poppers and for jerkbaits I use heavy (20 pound) mono. This isn't for invisibility, but rather for the stiffness of the line which helps to keep the bait from running over the line and fouling the hooks with stop-and-go or walk-the-dog retrieves. There is a case to be made for a leader on a jerkbait. On the other hand if incidental oos Bass don't notice the wire leaders I use while Pike and Musky fishing, then plain braid isn't going to scare them either. Again, I use heavy mono to help keep the hooks from fouling. With Senkos on a windy day, I think I have better results with straight Fluorocarbon because it sinks. The new Fluoro-braid might be just as good, but I haven't tried it yet. In my opinion the wind dragging regular braid across the surface prevents the worm from falling in a natural manner. This tugging on a bait by wind and/or cross currents is called "Drag" by fly fishermen. I believe that drag is the reason that fish refuse or ignore a bait, not so called "line shyness." Many Trout fishermen are convinced that they need super light leaders because the fish can "see" the line...I believe that the actual reason these thinner lines work is they have less cross section to be effected by drag than heavier lines. Garry2R's

That's all there is to it! I believe that the number of brakes required has more to do with the rod than anything else. When I had more rods than reels I switched between a 6.5ft MH and a 7ft M and noticed that the softer rod didn't need as many brakes turned on. Modern reels, where the side plate swings away with the turn of a dial, make small adjustments easy. Not like the olden days when you had to disassemble the reel to make a slight adjustment...grin.

If they get a 9.5 in California, I might just wind-up with ocean front property in Arizona!

If I were going to spend $100.00 on a new musky reel the Shimano Cardiff is the one I would choose. The C series Abu's are okay...I still have two and use them for musky, but they are 1950's designs. Because these reels were designed for dog-leg handle rods, they sit too high on modern reel seats. Most have only two centrifugal brakes and adjustment is done by changing the colour of the brake shoes... Access to these shoes requires that the reel be disassembled... They also have a well known weaknesses in the worm gear...It needs constant oiling because if it dries out the pawl quickly wears out. I commented on reel size because there is a tendency among new musky guys to assume bigger is better. If a 5500 is okay and a 6500 is better then a 7000 must be even better still and so on. I have seen guys with saltwater reels on heavy bass rods or relatively light musky rods that were a nightmare to cast and reel. Balance is everything, without it you have a rig that will wear you out.

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Please don't just buy the largest size reel without thinking about the rest of the package. The size of the reel needs to balance the size of the rod. If you put a 6000 series Abu or a 400 series Shimano reel on a bass size rod it will be top heavy. Musky size rods on the other hand will balance these big reels. There is also a 300 size Cardiff that might do the trick for anyone with smaller hands. Garry2Rs