Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Yes one side of the coin works and the other side of the coin fails.

Quote from: Keta on April 30, 2024, 11:57:42 PMA few wraps around the spool or like I do a double clove hitch then a uni, pull tight.

I respect your knowledge , so I assume that you start with Dacron with back to back clove hitches , then tie into braid with the uni knot .
    Dacron does hold ,I can not get it to slip by hand pull .  Braid on the other hand, side by side test fails .

I didn't wanna derail your thread with talk of a baitcaster but then I realized I have exactly 88 parts to the reason to not feel bad.

Not a special light spool. Just a stock abu lopro baitcaster. For now.

I think what matters is the knot keeps the tension. The time I saw the failure I was re-using old braid because I was just stripping it off with the drill at high speed to check spinner guide placement so I just did a slip knot. Well, it was true to it's name.

Pretend the loop of line that goes around the arbor is a coin. Flip that coin, and do some of the same tests. I'm very interested if that changes results.

:0)

Here are a couple more, and some by-catches

Over the past year I have been learning to bass fish. I had always resisted largemouth bass fishing, but it's hard to explain why. One large factor is accessibility, since I live in a state of extreme opposites. We have impounded rivers (that have filled up steep walled canyons) and created large 10,000+_ acre lakes, or we have very small man-made urban lakes 1-6 acres in size.  Both of these extremes cause access issues. There is minimal shore access in the large reservoirs, which then mandates a boat for fishing access. The urban lakes are all public access, and therefore get pounded by all the locals and fish are highly pressured after having constant fishing activity.

But I decided I was missing out on fishing opportunities and thought it was time to try my hand at a new to me style of fishing. It has been an excellent process and has improved my angling skills that will carry over into all the other fishing adventures.

I do not wish to own a boat at this time, so I would concentrate my efforts in the urban lakes. Close to home, easy to fish from shore and shorter, but more frequent trips meant I would be able to try out new things and grow into the large, and I mean LARGE, subject of bass fishing with artificials. I also considered my fishing conditions; small highly pressured urban waters. The majority of the fish are going to be smaller, 10 to 13 inches, so maybe my gear should be scaled down to target fish this size. If/when I travel to a large impoundment, I can always scale up and fish traditional sized bass gear.

And so the learning began... that giant video library that some folks refer to as a "University" got a lot of search time. I discovered information about BFS and I knew my idea of scaling down would work. I lucked out and found an ABU 2500c from a local retired fisherman who was unable to fish anymore and paired with a 2500 spinning reel I had a good start on my gear. I didn't do anything special to the ABU, just cleaned, lubed and set it up with 6lb yozuri hybrid line. It needs new bearing and isn't really good for anything less than 3/16 oz, but for what I'm doing right now, it's working very well as is. The spinner is a shimano stradic (another lucky find) spooled with 15lb braid and topped with various light mono for the task at hand. On 6'6" or 7' rods, these combos are working well.

The real fun part was picking out what lures/techniques to use. I have heard of all the traditional bass stuff: spinner baits, chatterbaits, swimbaits, plastic worms, dropshots, jigs, texas rigs, jerkbaits, crankbaits, etc... and this is where the university research paid off. I started to see that some baits were more effective in certain seasons and that angler skill in using these baits was a real thing. I found two guys in particular to be the most helpful, providing solid information about the why and the when, and even more important, they are willing to explain how to fish for bass on any budget, something not always found in the fishing world, or any other part of the world either. (A search for Matt and Tim will find these guys if your interested).

So I picked some relevant baits and armed with some techniques, I started hitting the urban lakes. And I found success. Over the course of a year I was able to catch several bass (and some cool by-catches) using several different methods during the changing seasons and conditions.  Even better, I caught some on plastics I made myself, which will be a topic for another thread on another day. So hear are photos of some bass and by-catches using underspin swimbaits, homemade worms on a shakey head, ned rig and crankbait.

A few wraps around the spool or like I do a double clove hitch then a uni, pull tight.

  All knots are crappy ,even the one I tied .  It will slip faster than a old lady on a icy sidewalk .  Please explain  :  I've never tied an arbor knot.  I usually go with a uni knot.
    I am trying to lean new tricks .

Quote from: oldmanjoe on April 30, 2024, 10:37:24 PM

Quote from: MarkT on April 30, 2024, 07:44:34 PMIf you're trying to fail, you're going about it the wrong way. You start with good knot cinched down tight and then tight wraps on the spool. Try tying a bad knot, not cinched down and then put the line on without much tension. Then you'll succeed, if that's what you call success!

  Can you tell me what is a bad knot to use ,other than the basic arbor knot .  Or show some examples please , something tells me all knots can fail .

I'm not spooling up some little baitcaster with an ultra light spool so that a couple of wraps of tape doesn't matter. Even on a small baitcaster a wrap or 2 of vet wrap weights what, a couple of grams? Not a negative for performance, especially at the bottom of the spool.

I've never tied an arbor knot.  I usually go with a uni knot. But any crappy knot tied by most spooling up their reel... a few half hitches, whatever, is a bad knot. Any knot (including an arbor knot) not cinched down well is a crappy knot. Plenty of people probably assume that the knot isn't key because if a fish takes you to the knot it's probably not stopping there! Then, in addition, if you don't spool it up under tension, well, that's how it can slip on the spool!

Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on April 30, 2024, 07:54:31 PMSo as fate would have it the experience of this afternoon gave me something to add to this.

I took a new reel to the shop to get spooled (metal spool baitcaster not a plastic spool spinner but nonetheless).

Dude looked at me funny when I said no I don't want mono backing but I do want tape on the spool. Then started a discussion about ways line fails on spools. It really highlighted how much misinformation is out there.

I hesitantly mentioned that if a knot is well tied, with a few arbor loops, anecdotal evidence shows the tape is unnecessary. but this spool has holes drilled so the tape helps with the sharp edges. And I'm glad I did it because even though his knot looked ok, I've never seen that much variation in hand-applied drag pressure on a filler spool. Including letting go entirely a few times. I don't know if I even wanna go cast this backlash factory he created, before I take it home and re-wind it.

            I am not picking on you but after reading your post , you fell into a trap ,
 " me thinks " .
    I have a hard time thinking why you took a special spool to save weight and added tape to it .  Now it is the same or more heaver that the stock spool .   The tape is now covering the hole that let water out and let the line dry .  Unless the holes were not dressed before finishing " Sharpe edges "   Machine spooling is only good as the person spooling , I prefer to spool my own reels for a reason .   OH OH if you get down to the last layer of line on the spool , your fishing technique needs tweaking .