yellow door 1

Haha - that reminds me of a quote my 14 year old reddy Guru once passed on - "If you dont reckon reddies can take drag - Keep fishing till you catch one that does". Its the same with Swivels - if you dont understand how they work - you may not be able to get the best out of them. and if the Swivel youre using doesnt undo twist in braid - try another one Alot of people think wisdom comes with age and experience - because they assume the elderly have used the same analytical powers that you have applied to life. But Ive met a hell of alot of dumb, old, clueless fishing farts, wh

Yeah I was recently given some advice, by an incredibly well credentialed individual, on the subject at hand. He said he'd worked for 15 years at various yabby farms and said raw potato would out fish kidneys by a long way. It turned out to be one of the worst baits Id ever tried and it got smashed by kidneys. The nets were placed side by side 30cms apart. And his advice was complete bull dust in my local waters So no matter how well credentialed an individual is - its always worth checking things out for yourself - especially an internet guru That definitely goes for my a

Yeah if you do some of your own tests - you might be able to bring yourself up to speed. You need to start seeing being proven wrong as a positive - I genuinely love being proven wrong - especially in fishing - because its makes you smarter than you were yesterday and a better fisherman

Yeah I spose if you havent tried it might be difficult to believe - but once you have watched the swivel taking twist out of your braid with your own 2 eyes - it gets much easier. My technique involved stretching the braid at 10m intervals then releasing tension so even a dodgy swivel can spin. A high quality ball bearing swivel would be even better suited to the task

yeah being able to make your own parts can save you alot of time and cash - Ive made shims out of take away food containers before. Last time I sent a reel to Daiwa to get the bail arm replaced, it came back missing a part. I called expecting them to say "sorry for the inconvenience - we'll send one straight out" - Instead they said I'd have to send my reel back to them so they could check it. It was going to cost me more to post than the part was worth. and I have to wait another few weeks to get my reel back So I did some surgery on an old reel and replaced it. This littl

There are also guys that swear that manually closing the bail arm after each cast (instead of tripping it by using the reel handle) is a good idea. The explanation Ive heard is because you take on loose line and it adds a half twist every time you do it. Ive always manually closed the bail arm. So I havent got to experience the issues related to using the reel handle to do it. But I am very cautious not to take on loose line while coming up tight to my lure

Im my experience reels loosen up and shims compress over time - so what was perfect straight out of the box may need adjusting after a year of big fish and even bigger snags Even tiny shifts or changes can have a big influence on line lay - nearly all my reels need reshimming after a year or 2

It always helps to watch a few vids on the subjects before Diving in Someone will phrase something in a way that really helps it all click into place.

Heres a guy addressing my most common problem - his doesnt even look that bad compared to some of mine in the past NB - his reel is massively underspooled (Probably a result of all the wind knots) (I'd be packing more backing on before respooling that reel) and not all diawa reels have the same shims - some are much smaller and require the removal of a rubber band to get to the shim stack. So find a tutorial for your reel before doing it - some will require little picking tools to dislodge bands and shims - a straightened fish hook is a handy tool for reel maintenance if you dont hav

a shim is like plat form shoes - it makes your spool sit a couple of mm higher on the stem - this will influence the way line wraps around the spool. If your spool is to tall - line wraps more heavily around the base of the spool. If you spool is too short - line gathers around the top of the spool forming a bulge up there. If these bulges are too pronounced they can cause issues and seriously decrease the amount of line you can fit on the spool. Some reels are really simple to change shims - you just undo the spool and slide a shim down the shaft and bang - its done.

Its important to note that Im no pro - but In my experience - adding a shim will actually accentuate that bulge at the bottom and will make your issues worse. And make sure your shims are properly bedded and laying flat I'd be taking a shim out and slightly underspooling the reel - give yourself a 1-2mm gap from the actual edge of the spool - at a glance it looks like your reel is over spooled and has a bulge down the bottom. One of those issues on its own, is enough to cause wind knots in my experience. That can be a problem when you get a reel spooled up at the shop on a machine -

and if you are worried about twist - you can always head down the park and use "Uncle Larries Uncontangulator" - then do up the drag and pack on your top shot nice and tight on the way in

Yeah tackle shops dont use those machines because they create great line lay on spinning reels- its because their arms would fall off if they had to spool every reel by hand. Nearly every reel manufacture has a patented line laying system on their reels "XWraps", "Rocket Line Management Sytem", "Cross Wrap" etc Im sure many of these "Line Lays" are just by-products of the way spinning reels lay line. Then the companies decided to give them a fancy name and claim they are a feature - they will all say that the way they lay line, stops the line digging into itself under heavy pressure.

Only problem with artificially creating a line lay is - the first long cast with a deep drop you make - your reel will have to take all that line back in. If your shims were out of whack - its going to lay the line back on the way it wants to. Depending on how out of whack - you may end up with 20m of line that wont go back on. Ive had reels where I've hand laid the line on with a bottom taper because I know it will be reversed and even out with a long cast into deep water. Getting the shims right is the best way to fix line lay issues The spool below was the first time I p

Heres my 3 most used reels at the moment - the 2 on the left still have a more pronounced top heavy spooling that the one on the right - so you can imagine how bad it was before I added shims. Any spooling that encourages line to leap off the spool, like really top heavy spooling, needs close monitoring or fixing, in my experience. Especially on reel used to cast maximum distance often. Slightly under-spooling so there is a 2mm gap between the edge of the spool and your line - can really help with wind knots aswell. You can often hear when your line is over spooled - it makes a

hey Des can you take a photo of how your line lays on the spool. I recently went through a very similar experience and misdiagnosed my problem as line twist. This happened due to a coincidence in timing. I was using a new lure that was helicoptering, when these wind knots came along I built a little swivel swivel rig and went down to the park and undid all the twist - packed it all back on tight Turns out my line lay was the problem. Mine was way too top heavy and I spooled it too close to the lip. I added shims to both my reels and respooled the top shot, so the line lay

But if you are going to use 100m top shots and shorten your line - you will need a strip of duct tape over the joiner knot. This will stop it causing problems while casting after you have taken 20m off your braid. Especially if you start throwing 30 gram metal lures on your bream gear when its used to 1/16th jig heads

If I get an unexpected break in oldish braid - I have found cutting off 10m can save respooling or reversing braid. The theory being that the last 10m is the bit that see's the majority of the rubbing on rock and snags. So get rid of that and you are back in the game with unaffected braid. I use thin braid and spool pretty close to the lip to start with - so I can afford to lose 10m a year. After a couple of times, its time to reverse the braid. Although I cant remember my last wind knot - its worth testing the hell out of that section of line before reeling it back onto the sp

Thanks Kelvin yeah I’m doing a head to head bait series winner stays on im going to revisit carp as I had encouraging results from salted and skinned carp but the fresh stuff with the skin on wasn’t quite as good Salty-ness had been a common denominator in all the victories, but the kfc had been the most dramatic victory I have witnessed so far A guy who used to run a Barra camp up north said KFC would out fish every other bait 10 fold . And if I’m being honest I didn’t give it a chance against my sardines which had beaten everything up until then. id

Haha - my lawn is 90% dandelions and the other 10% is ant hills - so it could do with a bit if TLC. I think a bit more metal would be required to get it looking good though 786.jfif 787.jfif

Just worked out if you clean the burrs off with a filleting knife - the drill bit actually leaves a cleaner hole - so this contraption was a waste of time. (but i wouldnt have worked out the fillet knife hack, with out making the dumb thing in the first place - so it has served a purpose in a round about way)

If you've ever drilled holes in plastic - you know there is a tendency for there to be a burr left on the other side of the hole. And if you are shoving manky bits of fish into that container - those burrs will catch every bit of mank left, as you try to pour out the contents. Thats why you build one of these. Ply wood and coat hanger construction Silky smooth holes with a smooth burr