The Honest Angler

I happen to like manual spinning reels, meaning those with no bails. Instead of the typical ungainly bail wire that flops back and forth, there's just a round line button in front of the line roller. Line is put on or off the line roller by hand (or your index finger) for casting and retrieving. Here's an ultra-close-up of what the line button looks like on one of my reels.

There are fewer line tangles because there's no bail to throw loops of slack line against the spool. You won't snap off any lures when casting, either, because there's no bail to close prematurely and unpredictably.

Unfortunately and until very recently, the only spinners available with manual bails have been the high-end Van Staals. Otherwise, you were left to modify your own reel by cutting off or otherwise removing the bail while trying to keep the line roller functionally intact. To its great credit, Shimano has introduced a manual-bail option on two spinning- reel lines for 2009. Both the Saragosa ($190 - $300) and the Spheros ($110 - $180) saltwater series allow the addition of a manual-bail kit ($20 - $30) in reel sizes 5000 through 18000. The kits include a line button, counterweights, screws and directions. If you're a surfcaster or inshore-saltwater angler, this is a very big deal for a fairly reasonable price.

Now if only Shimano would make some freshwater versions....

I was rummaging through some of my digital photo files last  night and came across this big walleye (29 inches, to be exact). It's  one my wife caught as were we fishing Rainy Lake in September near  International Falls, Minnesota. The lure is a Lucky Craft Pointer  jerkbait.          

Lures from Lucky Craft are expensive; around $17 for this  one, for example, which makes it especially painful when a northern  pike cuts one off. On the other hand, they work.

On this trip I  specifically tested this lure against competitive jerkbaits in the  same sizes and color patterns but costing only $6 to $7. On the big smallmouths we were mostly catching there, the  Lucky Craft baits outfished their cheaper competitors by almost  exactly 3 to 1. I was amazed. I think if someone had told me first  there would be such a difference, I would not have believed it. Now I  do. But maybe it's just me....

If you're putting tackle away for the winter, a few minutes  spent now in taking care of your spinning reels will save you major  headaches later. I don't mean a full maintenance and cleaning job-- although that's a good thing--just cleaning under the line roller on  the bail and making sure that line roller rotates easily.          

Line twist is endemic to spinning reels. There's just no way  to avoid it because of the way such reels work. But a line roller that  doesn't roll makes things worse. If the line roller isn't moving, the  friction created on the line forces more line twist toward the front  of the line where it's most apt to tangle when you cast or start to  retrieve.          

Some line rollers have one or two ball bearings inside. On  cheaper reels, there will be a simple bushing instead of bearings. In  either case, undo the little screw or nut that holds the bail to the  rotor arm, thereby freeing the line roller. Clean the inside of the  roller and the bushing/bearings with a light solvent, then add no more  than one or two drops of oil. Reassemble, making sure the line roller  moves freely, and you're good to go for another year.

Jim and Millie B. from Illinois wrote me a few days ago, asking if I knew of any reference books on antique fishing flies.

No, I don't, because there aren't any. At least not any good ones. Most of the pertinent reference material is spread through flyfishing books on more general historical topics.

One good one is Paul Schullery's "American Fly Fishing: A History," which seems to be out-of-print but with used copies selling on amazon.com for about $20. If you have a specific question about a particular fly, you might try contacting the folks at the American Museum of Fly Fishing. Andrew Herd's fly-fishing history website is also worth a look.        

Jim in Mo, a new reader here, asked over the weekend if I knew that Stren and Trilene (fishing line) were both owned by the same company and if I thought the two brands would still be allowed to compete.          

Yes, and yes. Actually the Stren brand was bought by Pure Fishing quite a few years ago, which put two formerly arch competitors under the same roof. That said, Trilene is still Trilene, and Stren is still Stren in that they look and feel differently in fishing, each with its own loyal following. It does seem, though, that they don't compete against one another as viciously as they used to.          

Which brings up the whole question of consolidation in the fishing-tackle industry. Pure Fishing, which began as Berkley, acquired a whole bunch of brands such as Abu Garcia, Mitchell, Stren, and SpiderWire over the past 20 years. That ensemble was recently acquired by Jarden, which owns K-2 skis and Coleman, among other things, and at about the same time acquired Shakespeare fishing tackle.          

There are other examples. Rapala (Normark Corp.) recently bought Luhr-Jensen, the northwestern lure-maker. Zebco Brands (W.C. Bradley) now owns both Fin-Nor and Van Staal, which are a far cry from inexpensive push-button reels. And as our economy continues to head south, I think the pace of consolidation will increase.          

If that's what it takes for a good old brand and product line to survive, then I guess consolidation is a good thing. But I also think that consolidation tends to stifle innovation, in which case we as the angling public are the losers.

So I had a long phone conversation the other day with James Therrell, the brand manager for Cajun Line. (Frequent readers will understand why we had this conversation.)

He's a former nuclear engineer turned fishing-line geek and a really knowledgeable guy. In the course of talking, I learned something very interesting about knot strength and braid, often known as superline.

It seems the pound-test label on your spool of superline has little to do with the actual strength of the line. These lines are most often rated according to the strength of a palomar knot tied with a particular line brand and size.

Thirty-pound-test superline, then, means a palomar knot tied with that line should break at about 30 pounds. This, I've been told by a couple of people in the line business, is common practice among line companies. They just don't tell anybody.

Tricky business, this fishing-line stuff.

Rick the intern again. Joe’s away and he’s reluctantly left me his blog. If you’ve never been an intern, allow me to share a definitive aspect of the experience: its highs and lows. There are some tedious tasks, but you also get to do some pretty cool stuff, especially at a place like Field & Stream.

For example: Last Friday I was sent home with a game called BOOYAH Flipstah and told to try it and write about it.  Not exactly backbreaking labor, I know. The point of the game is to improve your pitching when you’re kept off the pond.  It comes with a nylon mat, plastic-cup targets, two hookless jigs, and an electronic scoreboard. The jigs have magnets so that a sensor in each cup knows when you’ve hit your target and it can accommodate 2-4 players.

If you’re like me, you’re probably convinced that there’s an 8-pound bass hiding in your favorite pond and he’s laughing harder with every nine-ounce fish you release (yes, I’m sure 8-pound bass can laugh). You’re so sure he’s in a pocket behind that submerged stump that you’ve decorated it with seven-dollar lures until it looks like an underwater Rapala tree in full bloom.

So, the notion of sharpening my flipping skills seemed like a decent idea during the off-season. And how hard could it be? Kids are pictured on the box.

Well after 20 minutes of BOOYAH Flipstah one of two things will have happened. One: your pitching will be much improved. Or two: you and your roommate will have burned through a six-pack, having reached the conclusion that you’ll never be any good at flipping and that your best bet will be grabbing that bass off the surface when he dies of laughter.

So, if you’re serious about improving you’re technique when the flakes fly, then BOOYAH Flipstah might be worth the $99 (basspro.com).  But if backlashes send you reaching for Budweisers, you’re probably better off saving the c-note for the lures you’ll lose to that log anyway.

So I'm working at putting some tackle away for the winter,  which means I'm stripping old line from reels that I won't re-spool  until next spring. This got me thinking about line and wondering what  other people like.

Much of the time, meaning when time is short and money is tight, I buy one-quarter-pound spools of Berkley Big Game monofilament  at my local Wal-Mart. For about $8, that's enough line to fill a half-
dozen freshwater reels. Once in a while, I step up to Trilene  Sensation mono, which generally performs better but at a premium price.

For a superline, I fish mostly FireLine, which I've used  since it first came out. This gets spooled on both spinning and  baitcasting reels. To save money, I use the expensive FireLine as a topshot on a reel, filling about half the spool with cheap, nylon mono  first.

So what about you guys? Voice your choice, folks. I'm curious... .

Spinning-reel design changes relatively little from year to year, which makes Doug Hannon's WaveSpin reels almost shocking to look at. The serrated upper spool lip looks sort of like a circular-saw blade. I've fished one off and on for about a year now and still can't get used to the look.

When I get a novice fisherman in my boat these days, this is the reel I give them to use. A mid-size model sells for about $90. The serrations on the spool make it much harder to screw up and tangle. Slack-line loops that are sometimes trapped against a spinning-reel spool by careless or ignorant fishermen cause tangles much less often with this design. Instead of being pulled off the spool in a dreaded snarl when cast, slack-line loops tuck into the spool "teeth" and unwind in normal order without knotting.          

Fisherman generally are slow to change, and this reel is certainly a new idea. Have you tried one yet? Or would you?

If you fish with Shimano reels, you owe a lot to this guy-- Jeremy Sweet, Shimano's Reel Product Manager, with whom I was bass  fishing in Alabama a few days ago. Sweet is an exceptionally  talented engineering-type guy who could probably assemble the most  complex of reels with both eyes closed. He's also a pretty good angler.          

I get to pick his brain once or twice a year, and what I  found on this visit was that Shimano has what's already a runaway hit  for 2009: the new Curado E baitcaster. This reel won "best of  show" honors at the ICAST fishing-industry trade show last summer. At  7.6 ounces, the reel is substantially lighter than prior models and-- surprisingly--at about $180 actually costs a little less.          

Not that it's cheap. But baitcasting tackle in general isn't  cheap either. I recently calculated the average cost of all brands and  models of baitcasters in a major mail-order catalog, which turned out  to be about $140. When it comes to these sorts of reels, as with all  fishing things, you get what you pay for.          

I fished with a new Curado E sample, of course, which was as  smooth as a baby's bottom. It worked so well that casting and fishing  was just a little more fun, which I think makes it well worth the money.