Good luck on the troling, I am sure you will do well...lots of fish out there right now...

Marty,
Glad that you did find a reel to match up with your new rod and as I said you will feel the fish breath on your line. Now about the 30# line, you might want to put 10 or 12 on that reel remember your not trolling with that rod. :D Glad you liked the rod and thanks for coming up and seeing my “Man Cave” and it did come out nice but I did not know your initials were WTF…

Steve, the rod is sweet:). The 30 lb braid sails off the reel. I just couldn't make the leap from 80 lb braid to 10 lb:eek:. 30 lb was as low as I could make myself go. Any lower, and I would need a new set of glasses to see and tie knots:D.
I'll leave the 30 lb on until after the rays leave in October:rolleyes:. I'll try 10 lb on the fall schoolies and be ready for the power plant next winter.
Thanks again, I have received several compliments already on the rod. Even the wife thinks it was well worth the money. I have it "displayed" in the living room when not on the boat.
Marty (5th)

Well I guess only being 1/16 jigging for now I'll let the 30# go for now. :D I know that after you get use to LTJ you'll get that 10 or 12 on that reel. Glad you got the approval from the wife and I bet that rod looks nice displayed in the living room. Hope to see some reports that you got into some nice fish and that the rod did what is was built to do.

Marty, I havent taken the time to figure out what part jigger I am but will say that dragging knuckles is still a lot of fun!

I will say that I use 15lb power pro on my light tackle stuff. 30lb mono on trolling stuff

Greg;
But my 30 lb came in a pretty yellow color:D.

Here's another question for you. When you troll 6 rods, how do you select which 6 to troll? I look at all 15 rods and hear them wispering "pick me, pick me". It's so stressful. They have all spent the winter loveingly placed butt to tip in the basement rafters. Spiders have been crawling over them for months. All of them want to be taken down and wiped off with corrossion x again and have their terminal tackle replaced or at least retied for the season. If any are missing their little red bead just prior to the snap swivel, they want a new shiny one.
It's hard not to be prejudice toward a rod that caught a lot of fish last year, but then I think, maybe it was just the placement in the spread that made that rod catch. Maybe I should let the rod that only held a single chute last year come on the boat with me during preseason.
See; jiggers think trolling is easy. What do they do, pick up the same three rods all year long? They just don't understand the intricate details associated with trolling.
I won't even get into our selecting which lures to use preseason. All the sparkley mylar chutes have a smug look on their face knowing they are better than the rest. But I dissapoint quite a few and select their older cousins in order to grind off the barb and remove the stinger. I wish there was some sort of anaesthetic I could use with them, the screams associated with grinding down their little barbs is enough to make a grown man cry.

Anyway; the season has started, the skunk is off the boat, and six of my rods are now happy.
Marty (5th)

Marty funny you should say that..last year when one of family members wanted some fillets in late april I figured the "easiest" (insert smile here) was to grab a few of those spider web covered trolling rods so..
walked over and looked behind the old spare tires and stuff and there they were...grabbbed the first four along w/ 2 green umbrellas and 2 white umbrellas...and had our 3 man limit in 50 minutes....:D

But it was stressful.......:mad:
How do you guys ride in circles and around and around...and eat...Jeeez

Now as far as my light tackle rods go...they are lined up on the wall in order...very neat clean and organized..I have a hard time picking which one to use each trip...see it's all the same.....:D

BTW that greg is such a nice guy, last time I saw him at the "not so secret spot-burner spot" he was tieing leaders for everyone on the boat....had to because every time I looked up he was re-tieing.. unless he kept breaking off..:D

Thanks for keeping an eye on me Jamie and caring so much. :) If you want me to help tie your leaders, I certainly would help. I dont remember breaking off a lot, though I am sure i did snag up once. I do remember retying several times (and having to take a few business calls) as I believe I started with a 1oz spro bucktail with bkd, then went to a 1.5 oz and then a 2oz to try to feel bottom better. Since you were there first and wanting to show some courtesy to the the first boat there, we fished the water a little more differently than i had on the previous trips and was trying figure out the feel when casting across the outflow. Besides, the guys that were with me were better light tackle guys than I am and I was trying to follow their lead more to learn other ways to fish the area. We were glad to see you guys land a nice-sized fish just as we got there as it was the only fish over 30" we saw caught all day. Unfortuantely our largest was a little short of 30" by dave. Though it wasnt my best trip to the "secret spot" , we caught fish and had good time.

Unfotunately I lost more tackle last thursday while we were dragging our knuckles trolling (which is still a lot of fun to me ;) ) when we snagged something in 70' of water. I think I lost close to $50 in lures between a nice AllTackle tandem rig and an umbrella. :mad: