[Been A Bit Quiet For A While]

Hi all

Now that we are home again, after 3 weeks in Sydney, I feel happier about letting you, my fishing buddies, know the reason why I have been a bit quiet on the fishing & reports front over the last month or so.

Unfortunately, about 8 weeks ago, Keith was initially diagnosed with an ulcer, but an endoscopy showed stomach cancer and following more tests & laparoscopy showing that surgery was required urgently, he was in hospital having major abdominal surgery just over 2 weeks ago. He was in intensive care for 3 days, then up on the Gastro ward at North Shore Private Hospital. He basically had 11 days of no food at all & as you can imagine, was hanging out for real food. My main task now, is to have him eating 'value added' meals & drinks, 8 times a day, as his stomach is only tiny now, after having most of it removed. Gastrectomy is the surgery they used to do on morbidly obese patients in an effort for them to lose weight.

Keith was already skinny, so even skinnier now! It is just over 2 weeks since surgery & so far, everything is going to plan - he has amazed the nurses & surgeons with his quick recovery but now just has to take it easy & 'make haste slowly' for the rest of the recovery (not easy for a fitness freak like him) but it was his fitness that has given him the top recovery rate. He is quite philosophical about it all, really, happy that he won the 2 World Championships in Sept last year .... and just the day before we left to go down to Sydney for the surgery, he was given a Life Membership to Forster Triathlon Club - only 3 had previously been given out. In 9 months or so, he should be able to eat a "3/4 sized" meal of what ever he wants, but just now, it is lots of small, soft, non spicey stuff. As he goes 'off' some flavours more than others, if anyone has any interesting 'softer' recipes, I'd love to try them!

Currently, he is really doing well (tho no weight put on yet, having arrived home last Fri) and we go back to Sydney July 20th for another round of appointments to see whether he needs chemo or not. If he does, we should be able to have it done at Port Macquarie, as they have an excellent, fairly new facility up there, and not as far to drive as to Sydney. I'll make sure I take my rod along & possibly my yak!

From months back, I had arranged a busy weekend of fishing from the Sat - Mon, including the Lure Tutorial on the Sunday .... and poor Stewy didn't know what hit him when he rang all excited about it the week before & I said I may not be able to attend & then just blubbed Bigtime! Thanks for your chat on that day, Stewy.

Many thanks also to my many buddies who were 'in the know' for your terrific support - it really did help keep me sane & even laughing at times and will do so into the future. Especially to those of you who have shared your own experience after recovering from cancer with me, I thank you for this, and for your positive encouragement.

So, I hope to hit the water again when the weather clears up a bit and start catching fish for the table, this time, not for release, as we've been told to eat it at least 2-3 times a week now! Good excuse to get out, anyway! Cold & wet yesterday & today tho!

Just a note to yourselves & your partners - if in any way, your personal habits change for longer than a week or two, for Gods Sake, get checked out by a Doctor - DON'T PUT IT OFF FOR MONTHS!!

Cheers for now - hope to see you on the water some time!!

Roberta

i had 1 foot in grave, other on banana skin,good as gold now, chin up

[New Reel Tutorials From Alan Tani]

With the growing number of king-jigging posts at this time of year, I've copied a couple of reel rebuilds from Alan Tani with his kind permission.

Here are a couple of reels that are tough enough to press into service for the task, which have been added in the tutorial sub-forums...

Shimano Trinidad TN30

and

Daiwa Saltiga 30T

Cheers, Slinky

good stuff,do 1 a week

[Question On Leaders.]

the reason for the short 30cm leader is so your braid knot is outside the rod tip when you cast.especialy if there is wind blowing.knot hits the guide,bird nest.snaggy country you need mono or fluoro,i use 30cm with lures and lots of times none at all, fewer knots,have they got teeth? is it snaggy?hope this helps.

[Abu 7000C Syncro]

thanks for this one.another easily to follow.my preferred reel for the kayak and beach.i jusr remove the worm gear,cover the holes with electrical tape.did you measure the drag before and after the new washers.youre a bit of a wiz slinky.not like the eggbeaters are they!!! cheers ps those brake blocks, i use beads,small or large,depends what distance youre after

[Daily Spinning Reel Maintenance]

i have spoken several times with innox,and their recommendations are innox3 for most parts,frames,spool cleaning etc; innox5 for the bearings.any salt water resistant grease works on the inside to prevent corrosion.you can get it all here in oz.works for me.hope it helps,cheers

[Tournie Win]

Thanks everyone , and all the support is greatly appreciated .

We had a great day and Hopefully I will have a couple pics or at least a run down of what we did by tommorrow . We weighed a bag in for 4.075 kg and didn't have a fish under 30 to the fork . We stuck to our 2 main techniques of fishing suspenders in 1m of water and then blades in 10 to 15 feet , the fish didn't come all at once but each half an hour or so as we persisted with a pattern of working the blades slowly on the weed edge's .Mick's fish is a downright PIG and I hope to get the photo of it up this week , It fought like a rampaging Bull Elephant and had a head to match . Will try to get a full report done this afternoon , latest tomorrow ,

Cheers

Bubba

good one dan

[Reel Photos]

www.cpsfishing.com this is a site in thailand with beautiful photos of the inside of various fishing reels.they call it hoist.eg hoist saltist20h.open site,go down left index,fishing thailand. plenty eggbeaters and o/h.may save raiders a lot of work,esp;slinky.cheers just as an addition,after u open any tutorial scroll to bottom of page and click on cut hoist or rip hoist and more reels come up.

[Pfleuger Trion Lp]

Continuing the posts, here's today's workbench job. I've been using my Pfleuger baitcaster pretty hard lately and felt it was due for a bit more than an external clean and spray with Innox. Here's my once a year service on this reel.

I started by backing the screw out from the handle nut cap and removing it

Then the handle nut can be removed with a spanner

Removing the handle nut, you can then remove the handle and the spring washer beneath

then unscrew the drag star and remove the belleville and flat washers beneath, being careful to keep them in order and orientation. (stupidly I didn't include the washers in the photo... I'll correct that in the future)

I removed the cast control cap... it's not completely necessary but it takes tension off the spool shaft for when I remove the spool...

Next, I've removed the spool which is simply done on this reel by undoing the lock on the left side plate

removing the plate, and slipping out the spool. (unlocklable side plates like this are a great feature that allows you to adjust the centrifugal brakes or do basic maintenance) while fishing.

Baitcasters and overheads can be fiddly when it comes to the 'guts' of the reel and this one's no exception. Start by removing the internal screw that helps secure the right side plate (this can only be done after removing the spool and if you don't know it's there, you can spend a lot of time wondering why you can't get the side plate off)

The 2 external screws follow

and the right side plate just slips off

I wanted to swap out the original drag washer so the drive gear along with the drag washers was slipped off

A nifty replacement carbontex washer turned up courtesy of Smooth Drag. No one I've found produces drag upgrades for Pflueger reels but by providing measurements taken with a set of digital calipers, they managed to find a match for me...

You can see that as well as a superior material, the new washer has substantially more drag area

To install the new washer, first apply a coat of drag grease (Cals Drag Grease or Shimano Ace-2 Grease) to the inside of the drive gear.

A coat of drag grease is also applied to the carbontex drag washer

before being wiped off again with a cloth... (I need to get a different type of cloth as this one has a tendency to leave fluff behind)

Then the drag washers can be reinstalled... the prepared carbontex washer looks essentially clean but it has a coating of grease.

So that you can get at the rest of the reel, the drive gear and drag assembly can be removed from the drive shaft and put aside.

Next job is the clutch assembly (not related to the clutch bearing which is an 'anti reverse' bearing'). Be careful with this bit as there are a couple of 'jesus' springs (with apologies... not meant to offend but they are colloquially called that because that's what you'll say if they go flying off into the distance).

The disassembled clutch was put neatly on the towel with all the rest.

The final step in disassembling the main workings is to take apart the crank shaft and idler gear assembly...

... so that the crank shaft bearing can be accessed.

Previously in this service, I showed cleaning and relubing the bearings

But along with the carbontex drag a set of ceramic hybrid bearings also came from Smooth Drag. I've been wanting to try some out so this is my first swap. First, remove the right hand spool bearing... you'll need to remove the retaining pin first. The most practical method being to use an "Alan Tani" converted set of vice grips

Here's the new toys... this reel uses the same bearings as an ABU Revo. They arrived already oiled and since I've got some Xtreme Reel+ on order, I decided to install them as is. I'll clean out and relube them with the dry teflon lube when it arrives.

The left side plate bearing can be accessed by removing the retaining spring and the bearing can be swapped out

With the new bearings back in place all the 'gears and cogs' get the treatment with grease (in this case Shimano Permalub but I've since switched to using Evinrude outboard grease... Alan Tani uses Yamaha grease... but he has Yammies on his boat )

The clutch assembly can get a light coat of grease using a small brush (here I've been using Another nifty product called Rocket Fuel Liquid Grease)... this is mainly a 'protection coat'. Even small springs get a coating, which can be easily done by rolling them in grease smeared fingers.

Here you can see the reassembled clutch with a light coating of Liquid Grease

Finally, the mounting points for the worm shaft and the shaft itself, got a coating of oil.

After everything is cleaned, lubed and back in place, the right side plate can be replaced and then the drag star and handle assembly put back together. Remember that comment about getting the washers in order? Here you can see the belleville washers in a () configuration.

Before replacing the handle, give it a light smear of grease for corrosion protection.

And essentially you're done.

A final note on the ceramic bearings... before swapping bearings this reel had recently serviced stainless bearings lubed with TGs Rocket Fuel. With the cast control and centrifugal brakes backed right off, I got 20 second of run time when spinning the spool in free-spool.

With the ceramic hybrids installed out of the box, I'm now getting 35 seconds of free spool. That means more casting distance and an ability to cast lighter weights... as well as reduced casting effort reducing the likelihood of backlashes.

Cheers, Slinky

im about to do mine,how much drag u gettin.cheers

[Knots For Connecting Braid To Heavy Mono.]

I do a bit of Barra fishing using a baitcasting outfit. (Carbon fibre rod and low profile reel)my choice of leader is usually of the Wind on type of leader that I have made up by a contact in Darwin, (I am in Victoria).Is there a suitable knot I could use to make a braid to heavy leader connection that would do the job?

there is alternatives to leaders.dont use them at all!just double your braid tie direct to a swivel,i use centauri knot,18 inches of fluro straght to hook or lure.minium backlashes as you have no knots to hit rod guides or braid to catch on leader knots in flight.bottom bashing,brass ring on top of your rig to snap swivel.etc;etc;also i use the largest swivel that goes thru the guides.end of the day disconnect you rig wind swivel up to reel your ready for tomorrow.not all situations of course.if i have to use leader,12 turn bimini/albright,5 twists up 10 back.hope this helps gd luck.

[Cork Washers]

G'day wallacewt,

Is that the lever drag model? Are you sure it's a cork drag washer as I've not seen an ABU with one before. Saying that though I've not pulled down a 6600C3.

Are you able to take a pic?

Cheers, Slinky

hi slinky,yeah they r cork alright.alan tani had to chisel his out.took all day he said.selleys cant give me a solvent unless they know the glue.sent an email to abu,no reply yet.ican take a photo but dont know how to post it.cork is meant to be dry ,not very good.tried graphite powder,u bewdy,about 6 pulls at 7lb drag,s--t itself.cals same result.its got to come out.to my knowledge they were the ist b/c with lever drag' i,ll take aphoto to morrow and get someone to help me.kind regards wallace

[Cork Washers]

need help! how do i get the cork washers out of this reel so i can replace them.they are glued in,dont know what sort of glue was used.its a abu 6600c3 ld.thks in advance,kind regards wallacewt glue used is swedish called 555.abu recommends acetone as the solvent painted the cork washer today with the wifes nail polish remover, glue went to jelly in a couple of mins;lifted off undamaged. slapped some cals both sides till the carbon washers arrive.its terrific at present but wont last! hope this helps other raiders. cheers

[Still On Top]

Sounds like a nice little fish mate

Forster Bream are something i've yet have much luck on ): But i guess i'll have a better chance now with these new blades

Long tom ? i thought i'd finally hooked a nice bream when this came up still was different .. I yet it go to swim another day

at low tide,lay an onion bag full of berly on top of the rack,tide comes in plenty of big bream underneath.seen 1kg/2kg bream laying on their sides in 3 inches water at the onion bag.big lizards also. may help you.cheers