Aardvarking

Geez, now I feel bad for complaining about a hook through the finger and flathead spines to the hand! I have always been pretty nonchalant with stingrays, but maybe I should be more careful...

Top one is definitely a crimson banded wrasse, not sure about the other 2. Middle one is some sort of goatfish, but I don't know exactly which one.

Very true. I caught my first and only hartail in the middle of summer in the middle of the day in a spot known for kingfish not hairtails. A year earlier we went on a week long trip to catch hairtail, and ended up with a kingfish by-catch in the middle of the night in the middle of winter, in a spot known for hairtail.

For number 2, acetone is a good way to get rid of old grease, because it is very strong and doesn't leave a residue. Keep in mind it is a pretty dangerous chemical, wear gloves and avoid breathing in the fumes. It will also destroy anything painted surface or plastic, so only use it to clean purely metal parts. If you have one, an ultrasonic cleaner is a great way to clean bearings and parts very easily and quickly. Fill a little glass jar with the acetone and put it in the cleaner, but don't put the acetone straight in because it will destroy the plastic. If you don't have one I would recommend buying a cheap one off ebay for 10 bucks or so, because without one it is really hard to get all the grease out of bearings, and it takes ages.

Funnily enough the line roller is the only bearing on the reel that is working properly. I'll just order one of each of the bearings, and leave the current line roller bearing as a spare. What do you mean by a spool bushing? I know what a bushing is, but I'm not sure which exact part I'd replace

It's funny, this time of year you tend to catch bigger fish, but lethargic fighters and less of them. You were catching heaps of small good fighters, the exact opposite of what you'd expect. Guess that's fishing

I'm going to order a set of new bearings from that certain P ebay seller. Seems like their products are pretty good quality. I've also seen some people talking about replacing the nylon worm gear bushing with bearings. Has anyone tried doing that, is it worth it?

Bottom one is 100% an eastern kelpfish. Not sure about the top one

Love the colours on that fish, really nice looking king. Great catch

Sorry for making heaps of new threads recently, but I've just had some trouble servicing my reel for the first time. Despite having gained a decent grasp on what I'm doing from extensive research, it still hasn't gone right. After hours of cleaning, servicing, oiling, greasing and trying to decipher reel schematics I had my stradic back together, before realising that it was even worse than when I started with. At first I was really confused why, but I've figured out that it's the bearings at fault. I didn't think they were too much of an issue because they felt smooth enough when spinning them with my finger. But then I realised that most good bearings can spin for about 10-20 seconds at least when spun on a pencil, and the longest any of my 4 internal bearings would spin by itself was 0.2 seconds, with the others not being able to continue spinning once I had stopped spinning them manually. I was thinking that if I'm going to replace them why not upgrade them. I was looking at Boca Bearings, but gee are they expensive. I bought the reel for 60 bucks used, so it seems a bit counterintuitive to me to spend double what I payed for on upgrading the reel. I'm also itching to get my reel back in commission and don't want to wait ages for shipping from America, so it would be nice to find an Australian seller. Can anyone recommend a good place to get some new bearings, and is it worth shelling out extra for ceramic bearings?

I use grease on my larger reel bearings, but like you I prefer oil on the smaller ones. And this is a stradic 1000 spooled with 2lb fireline, so it doesn't get much lighter than that.

Eggbeater

I was using pure acetone form bunnings, so it wouldn't be that. I took off the seals of my bearings, but they had metal seals anyway. I was doing it to wash out the old grease in my bearings so I could replace it with oil.

Thanks for the suggestions. I took the evaporating approach, and left it in a shallow glass dish overnight, it's all gone now. One thing which I can't really explain is that after a 12 hour sit in the acetone everything has a thin white gunky film over it, have no idea where it came from. Any ideas what that could be? Other than that it cleaned everything well

For bream I would say 1-3kg or even 1-2kg. Go as light as humanly possible, not only is it way more fun, but you get better sensitivity and it is more comfortable and easy to throw all day. I have a 0.5-2kg bream rod, and have even caught big trevally and 80cm+ flathead on it with no problems whatsoever.

I have just cleaned my bearings using acetone for the first time, and am amazed how much crud came of them in a very short amount of time. However, my issue now is that I have no idea what to do with it. I have about 150mL of acetone in a glass jar, how do I get rid of it?

I have recently learned about the importance of reel service, and based off my research this is what I can tell you. Pull your reel entirely apart, and clean everything first with a cloth to get rid of grease and oils. Soak your bearings and any moving metal parts in pure acetone to give them a good deep clean, you'll have to do some research on what can and can't go in it. Then you'll need some reel grease for the gears, drag grease for the drag bearings and reel oil for the bearings. What you get is up to personal preference, but I am using cal's grease for the gears and drag, and inox mx3 oil for the bearings, but that might be a bit light for your reel. Never ever ever ever use WD-40 on your reel again, and stick to the oils and greases specially designed for it. I learned my lesson using skate oil on the bearings and gears of one of my reels, and nearly ruining it permanently.

Great flathead, must have been a lot of fun landing that from a kayak

Thanks for the info. Do you use the food grade mx3 or the regular kind? Also, where do you buy it?

No, it doesn't, you can catch fish of any size. It really depends on where you are fishing, but in most scenarios you could land a monster with that much drag. If you are fishing reefs, rocks and other areas with plentiful cover for fish and are targeting real monsters like GTs, spanish mackrell, bluefin tuna etc you would probably need more, but in more open water you wouldn't have any problem.

Line strength and drag capacity have little to do with the size of fish you can catch with an outfit. You can catch 1m+ jewfish on 6lb braid with 2lb of drag and you can catch leatherjacket on 100lb braid with 40lb of drag if you wanted. The difference is how you can play the fish. When you are fishing light line and drag you can't just pull the fish towards you, because the line will snap or the drag will stop you from getting any ground. You will have to use your rod to lead the fish to swim towards you, and slowly tire the fish out until it's safe to bring it to you. When you are fishing heavy line and drag you can just crank the fish up no worries, but I would say it's just not as fun. The 2 problems with light line fishing is that it's easy to get spooled, and it's easy for fish to wrap you around something and snap you off. If you really think about it, if you are fishing in a perfect infinite sand flat with nothing sharp or pointy and have unlimited line, you could catch a marlin on 10lb line, because there'd be nowhere for it to go. But unfortunately such a perfect marlin filled sand flat doesn't exist, so you need to adapt your gear to your situation. The general rule with drag is to set it to about 1/3rd of your line breaking strain, so you could go up to 50-60lb with that reel, though I wouldn't recommend it because that's not what a 4000 size reel is designed to hold. With 50lb braid there are very few species you couldn't catch with a bit of patience, so you don't have to worry about catching too big of a fish. The only issue would be cooking your drag washers, which is extremely rare, and getting spooled, which is also uncommon if you know what you are doing and haven't hooked the Queen Mary 2.

After fishing for quite a long time without knowing about the importance of reel maintenance, and wondering why all my reels won't stay smooth even though I'm rinsing them with fresh water and everything, I have stumbled upon a thread about oiling and greasing reels, and realised it is my fault my reels keep going cactus. I have done a bit of research and am about to buy some Cal's purple grease for the gears on my Stradic 1000 and some tan grease for the drag, and from what I have seen Reel-x or Corrosion-x seems like a great product for oiling my bearings. Problem is I can't seem to find any for sale in Australia, and don't really want to pay extortionate rates to get it shipped from the US. Does anyone know where I can grab some? Or, failing that, does anyone know another product that will do the trick?

I'm looking to find one of those little caps for the reel handle for a Stradic 1000FJ. I bought the reel without the cap and have been using duct tape to seal it, but I think it's time I get around to actually buying a replacement. Anyone know where to get a hold of one? Doesn't have to be an offical Shimano one, just something to keep water out of my reel.

You get more accuracy in my experience having a shorter length of line between the rod tip and the lure, especially when side arming, but the trade off is a little less distance.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. I'll pretty much only fish dusk or dawn when possible, and although I prefer fishing early from late autumn to early spring you're really much better off going for a dusk session, because in the morning it's a bit too cold and the fish haven't woken up yet. Usually in winter when I'm lure fishing I'll also move around a lot more, instead of spending more time focusing on single areas like I would in summer. That's because fish aren't on the prowl as much and it's harder to make them come to the lure, so by covering more area there is more chance of stumbling upon a fish. I'll also fish shallower areas where the water is warmer rather than deeper holes.