You know it is bad when your reel winds in and sounds like a coffee mill in action. Yes, I've been struggling with most of my bait casters as they all have significant use on them. Unfortunately I've not managed to service the bearings adequately, till this evening! Let me back up a bit and explain.
Over the past couple of weeks I've been trying to find a suitable way to lubricate the bearings. While I'm able to get to all the bearings I've not been able to properly clean and re-pack them in grease. I've been researching all the information posted on line, specifically the fantastic amount of information at Tackletour.com. Their articles are all crafted well with good photos to complement the helpful information. Through reading all the various articles I've known just how to complete the bearing service. Now I just needed the tools.
As previously stated accessing the bearings was not all that difficult. Fairly straightforward. Interesting it is very similar across all the bait cast reels that I own. My challenge was to get the retaining clip off the individual bearings so I could remove the side cover and expose the actual bearings for cleaning and re-lubricating. Always that one thing. My research revealed that most are able to be removed using a needle. Unfortunately all the needles I tried were not sufficiently sharp or small enough to disengage the clips.
Recently my lovely wonderful wife reorganized our linen closet where we also stored all sorts of care products. In doing so she located my tube of professional grade dental probes. Aaah, now there is a sharp point! Also suitably stout for the task at hand. Yes, it was. Using the dental probes I was able to easily remove the retaining clip followed by the bearing side shield. This allowed me to properly clean out the bearings and the rest of the assembly of debris and old lubricant. Yes, the lighter fluid did have a difficult time cutting through the very old residual lubricant. Fortunately, some aggressive swirling helped to get the solvent to do its thing. After the bearings were cleared off it was a simple matter of packing the bearings back with Tetra lube. < we shall see just how well that works and for how long >
I progressed through all the bearings and serviced each with a good cleaning and re-lubricated. After buttoning them all back into the appropriate position I took the reel to the yard for a few casts. Previously it was quite the accomplishment to make it all the way to the hedge. My second cast almost easily cleared the top of the hedge towards the neighbor's yard. I had to deliberately stop it short by clamping down on the spool. Impressive casting with very little input effort.
I may eventually change over to the Lucas Oil Red & tacky #2 which I use for a number of other applications. That has slightly more viscosity over the tetra lube. All in good time as there are other reels to address too. Gotta get them ready for some bigger fish action.
My initial impressions are positive. I've got to put it through the paces before making another assessment. Hopefully that opportunity will come soon enough.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Nice and easy
Well, it all appears to work. I just have to keep things nice and easy. I managed to connect with two LMBs within 30 minutes. So not too shabby for very bright blue bird skies and low 90s with winds at 15+ mph.
When the first one hit, it was clearly an ambush attack. The bait had just bounced around a standing cattail reed and then stopped hard. I thought the bait had connected with the reed and the hook might have embedded into it. I gave the line a little twang to confirm that I had tensioned on the reed when the line moved out towards deeper water. As I hauled back I could feel the lower drag setting peel out when loading on the fish. The other thing I noticed was that while I was cranking on the handle the spool was not turning at all. Ok at this lower level of drag there is limited aggressiveness available. That is ok as I could clearly see this fish was hooked nicely in the corner of the mouth with the hook in the pocket. So just take it easy and enjoy the moment. It turned out to be a few moments as this one was not in a hurry to comply. It was a healthy almost 13 inch LMB that had been eating well. It did have a very nice location. Interesting enough it was in less than 12 inches of water.
The second LMB came about 30 yards down the shore. Again with the lack of visible structure available to the fish, I resorted to placing the bait as close to the weed ring as possible for the maximum amount of time. So keeping the retrieve parallel was the key. There was no interest in the retrieve until the bait closed within 2 meters. At just over a meter the bait was again stopped and moved out laterally to deeper water. This was not a gentle take more like a smash and dash. Once again the lower drag setting kicked in so while I could attempt to seat the hook the tension the fish was exerting was far greater than my input so just enjoy the ride. This one made very concerted efforts to really work out the drag on my reel. The several short runs pulled out quite a bit of line. Sort of like the bone fish runs on the TV programs only limited in scope. I would say equal in thrill and enjoyment factor.
Now here is the interesting part. I thought the casting quality would improve by using the lighter line. Not so much. My max distance appears to have been reached. The amount of casting effort is reduced greatly . So while it is easier to cast using the lighter line, I'm not getting any noticeably farther. I will say having the more supple line is nice. Still had some minor spool over runs but that was reasonably corrected by adjusting the magnetic brake to a higher level. Of course casting in the wind is always great fun...
So the first experience with the lighter line on the bait caster is positive. We shall see how the next session goes.
When the first one hit, it was clearly an ambush attack. The bait had just bounced around a standing cattail reed and then stopped hard. I thought the bait had connected with the reed and the hook might have embedded into it. I gave the line a little twang to confirm that I had tensioned on the reed when the line moved out towards deeper water. As I hauled back I could feel the lower drag setting peel out when loading on the fish. The other thing I noticed was that while I was cranking on the handle the spool was not turning at all. Ok at this lower level of drag there is limited aggressiveness available. That is ok as I could clearly see this fish was hooked nicely in the corner of the mouth with the hook in the pocket. So just take it easy and enjoy the moment. It turned out to be a few moments as this one was not in a hurry to comply. It was a healthy almost 13 inch LMB that had been eating well. It did have a very nice location. Interesting enough it was in less than 12 inches of water.
The second LMB came about 30 yards down the shore. Again with the lack of visible structure available to the fish, I resorted to placing the bait as close to the weed ring as possible for the maximum amount of time. So keeping the retrieve parallel was the key. There was no interest in the retrieve until the bait closed within 2 meters. At just over a meter the bait was again stopped and moved out laterally to deeper water. This was not a gentle take more like a smash and dash. Once again the lower drag setting kicked in so while I could attempt to seat the hook the tension the fish was exerting was far greater than my input so just enjoy the ride. This one made very concerted efforts to really work out the drag on my reel. The several short runs pulled out quite a bit of line. Sort of like the bone fish runs on the TV programs only limited in scope. I would say equal in thrill and enjoyment factor.
Now here is the interesting part. I thought the casting quality would improve by using the lighter line. Not so much. My max distance appears to have been reached. The amount of casting effort is reduced greatly . So while it is easier to cast using the lighter line, I'm not getting any noticeably farther. I will say having the more supple line is nice. Still had some minor spool over runs but that was reasonably corrected by adjusting the magnetic brake to a higher level. Of course casting in the wind is always great fun...
So the first experience with the lighter line on the bait caster is positive. We shall see how the next session goes.
On the Lighter Side
Well the temperatures are well into the 90s and getting close to 100 on occasions. Fortunately the smoke has cleared up a bit and we have right at 30 miles visibility. We are normally much clearer and can enjoy the more distant vistas.
I've been in the experimentation mode as of late. Mostly using creature baits as those tend to draw more attention than the simple worm. It seems the compact size has something to do with it too. I'm guessing that it more convenient to chow down on for the fish. It does also confirm that the lighter weight the bait is, the more interest is generated.
My intention is to try 6 lb mono on a bait cast reel. Given all the memory and looping of the mono-filament being spooled on the bait caster should not be such an issue. We'll see in short order. I'm hoping that I've amassed enough skill to diligently operate this setup without too much fussing about.
The initial impressions were promising. I drew down the well used 10 lb mono that was currently on the spool to about the 1/3 to 1/2 point. Clipped it and attached the 6 lb mono and proceeded to fill the spool back up. Amazing just how much of the smaller diameter line will fit on that. It almost exhausted my supply. I'll eventually need to stock up on some of that bulk spooled 6 lb test line. Might even get lucky for one of those father's day bargains. Ya never know...
The warmer weather, school summer release, summer time activities, have all contributed to increased activities at the pond. Now with the pending closure of the National Forests, might even see more folks out there. With that fishing as slowed down a bit. Still getting the occasional LMB but the predictability is challenging. The pond is drawing down quite a bit due to lack of rain. So the pond has limited visual structure for the fish to associate to. The only green vegetation is a small concentration of algae and some sparse weeds. The cattails appear to have suffered greatly from that killing frost back in late January of this year. Having been to the other lakes in the area and viewed the effects there, the cattails all had a distinct line where there was a frost kill and the new growth below was working its way up. At our pond the cattails are all brown right to the roots. None of them are showing any signs of any green content. You would think that even after all this time some parts of the plant would have survived. The brown stalks are all that are standing there as the water line continues to recede.
The water has been quite turbid lately. There are areas near the center of the pond that are less dense. I'm guessing that it is all due to the wind churn. We've had our share of wind power this whole season. That dry hot blowing about that continues to evaporate even more moisture from the area. The stained water has made for some really exciting fishing. Many of the bites have been right along the shore. Recently I had two notable incidents. It is so thick that you can't see the bait when it is submerged beyond 1 inch. I had made a parallel cast and was retrieving it slowly. Just as I was making my final movement before lifting the bait out of the water there was a very light tap. I hesitated to see if there would be a follow on. After a two second pause the follow on came only this time with a bit more emphasis. It also followed with a protracted take which gave me the opportunity to respond. It was wild to tension up on less than 2 meters of deployed line. Fortunately the drag was there to save the day. Once I got connected the fish was rather upset and peeled off line in a brutish manor. I'm guessing the extra effort was due to the proximity of the shore line. It took off straight away for the deeper water. The aggressive behavior surprised me.
The other incident occurred yesterday when I had a similar retrieve that was just about to reach the weed ring. I paused for just a touch before starting to lift the bait. The weed rig exploded as the bass apparently was right there in the weeds and simply rolled on the bait. The pole loaded up but the second roll by the fish was enough to throw the hook. So I never really got the hook into it. However that was sure exciting and fun to experience.
So we'll give this lighter bait casting setup a go to see how it runs. I'm looking forward to casting it about to get a feel for it. I'm thinking it might be just the way to go when using mono.
I've been in the experimentation mode as of late. Mostly using creature baits as those tend to draw more attention than the simple worm. It seems the compact size has something to do with it too. I'm guessing that it more convenient to chow down on for the fish. It does also confirm that the lighter weight the bait is, the more interest is generated.
My intention is to try 6 lb mono on a bait cast reel. Given all the memory and looping of the mono-filament being spooled on the bait caster should not be such an issue. We'll see in short order. I'm hoping that I've amassed enough skill to diligently operate this setup without too much fussing about.
The initial impressions were promising. I drew down the well used 10 lb mono that was currently on the spool to about the 1/3 to 1/2 point. Clipped it and attached the 6 lb mono and proceeded to fill the spool back up. Amazing just how much of the smaller diameter line will fit on that. It almost exhausted my supply. I'll eventually need to stock up on some of that bulk spooled 6 lb test line. Might even get lucky for one of those father's day bargains. Ya never know...
The warmer weather, school summer release, summer time activities, have all contributed to increased activities at the pond. Now with the pending closure of the National Forests, might even see more folks out there. With that fishing as slowed down a bit. Still getting the occasional LMB but the predictability is challenging. The pond is drawing down quite a bit due to lack of rain. So the pond has limited visual structure for the fish to associate to. The only green vegetation is a small concentration of algae and some sparse weeds. The cattails appear to have suffered greatly from that killing frost back in late January of this year. Having been to the other lakes in the area and viewed the effects there, the cattails all had a distinct line where there was a frost kill and the new growth below was working its way up. At our pond the cattails are all brown right to the roots. None of them are showing any signs of any green content. You would think that even after all this time some parts of the plant would have survived. The brown stalks are all that are standing there as the water line continues to recede.
The water has been quite turbid lately. There are areas near the center of the pond that are less dense. I'm guessing that it is all due to the wind churn. We've had our share of wind power this whole season. That dry hot blowing about that continues to evaporate even more moisture from the area. The stained water has made for some really exciting fishing. Many of the bites have been right along the shore. Recently I had two notable incidents. It is so thick that you can't see the bait when it is submerged beyond 1 inch. I had made a parallel cast and was retrieving it slowly. Just as I was making my final movement before lifting the bait out of the water there was a very light tap. I hesitated to see if there would be a follow on. After a two second pause the follow on came only this time with a bit more emphasis. It also followed with a protracted take which gave me the opportunity to respond. It was wild to tension up on less than 2 meters of deployed line. Fortunately the drag was there to save the day. Once I got connected the fish was rather upset and peeled off line in a brutish manor. I'm guessing the extra effort was due to the proximity of the shore line. It took off straight away for the deeper water. The aggressive behavior surprised me.
The other incident occurred yesterday when I had a similar retrieve that was just about to reach the weed ring. I paused for just a touch before starting to lift the bait. The weed rig exploded as the bass apparently was right there in the weeds and simply rolled on the bait. The pole loaded up but the second roll by the fish was enough to throw the hook. So I never really got the hook into it. However that was sure exciting and fun to experience.
So we'll give this lighter bait casting setup a go to see how it runs. I'm looking forward to casting it about to get a feel for it. I'm thinking it might be just the way to go when using mono.
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