Reel Repair by Alan Tani

NIce! Where's Marlo?

We used to get plenty in the 30 - 50 lb class and catch them on normal Yellowtail tackle using metal jigs, sink it deep, wind fast and stretch the arm muscles a bit. Great fun.   We would often find them near poling boats, but had to keep a reasonable distance as smaller boats in the vicinity weren't popular with the large commercials.

Where Yellowfin love a surface lure these Longfin generally don't take a lure in the top water.
Like all fish around here they are also becoming very scarce and the last few times we had to travel a long way to find them.

Great sporting fish.

Dewayne got a nice one,,,,,

Fishing this weekend,,,,

OK

no, I'm Shaun

Hytek, are you Mike?

I got in last week a $500 order of Black Label balsa crank baits.  Also, a few reels and rods in past couple months. I found a new/unused Shimano Calais 200Mg-5. I have several from 20+ years ago and love them. Very smooth and well made. I also got a new Stella 2500 with shallow spool and double handle, a 2500 Twin Power with shallow spool, A current Antares DC MD for mid sized swim baits up to 3 oz, and also for A-rigs occasionally, and I have a Megabass P5 destroyer rod Mark 56. It is for mid sized swimbaits and the antares DC MD reel will go on it.
I also cleaned up a few of my older rods to include cleaning, filling, and sealing the cork handles, repairing missing chunks from the cork, inspected all ceramic line guides and replaced one chipped tip top guide, and washed and waxed the entire rod/blanks. They look much better and seem to even feel better, even though I know that is not possible. I have a couple more to recondition in the coming weeks.

fins is perfectly good stuff.  when you spool it up, keep an eye out for inclusions in the weave.  you can find these little "dust bunnies" in any brand of line.  otherwise, it should be fine.  braided lines has one job. it's just gotta not break.  if it does that, then the only other factor is cost.

for metered lines, i personally use the jerry brown patriot that changes color (red, white, blue) every 50 feet.  it makes the count easy.   

Bass Pro sells it or used to. Haven't seen it in years. I did use fishing freshwater bass and it performed very well. I wouldn't hesitate to use it again. I liked the Sage green color and the feel of it but it did get the "fuzzies" after awhile