Fishing 2024
- Thread starter Tomeal
- Start date
On my yearly trip for PA trout season. I will admit that the camping and relaxing is equal to the fishing. I'm by myself this year cause my boy is working and didn't want to take off. Can't blame him, truck driving job in his first year. Told him I'll plan a weekend when his is off and we can have a father/son trip.
Anyways I'm camping and fishing for 10 days in beautiful north central pa. I have bad cell service so I'll post more photos once I'm home.
Anyways I'm camping and fishing for 10 days in beautiful north central pa. I have bad cell service so I'll post more photos once I'm home.
If you noticed I have been missing, it is because of this. I finally got the Whaler in the water even with my bum knee. This week I got out several times and the wind/tide cooperated so that I scored some very nice Summer Flounder [Fluke]. In fact, I caught more and better quality fish this week than all last season combined. I was cleaning this one and suddenly remembered to snap a pic. This guy is 21" and fat.
I actually took a pic before carving this time. I kept two fatties out of a dozen I boated today. This guy was almost 21". And THICK!
I took the grandson out for Bluefish. Two hours of dunking bunker chunks got nothing. But after I started casting a 2oz spoon, I got a tap. A few more casts and this guy jumped on. I am glad the grandson was there to net him, as this 21" Blue was giving me a hard time controlling. They are experts at using the tide to their advantage. 
The Grandson got Baptised yesterday. A big Blue grabbed the lure right at the boat. It ran him ragged but we got it netted. Thirty inches of dynamite!! 
We got up early today and caught the last two hours of incoming tide. It was raining, so we were all alone. Just us and the Blues!!!!
It took me a week to fix an oil leak on my Sunfire. I needed a very hard to find fitting. But today I went fishing. Cold, wet, rainy, snotty day. But the Blues were there. Here are the four big ones. The five others were small so I cleaned them first. I can never remember to snap a pic. The Fall run is ON! Get out there!
I could have put this under non-G-body projects. But the fisherman people would appreciate this more.
You may notice the Bluefish are a bit bigger than normal this season. When the Grandson caught that 30"er it bent the mainshaft on the PENN 250GR. That convinced me to upgrade my weaponry to my PENN 704Z reels and PowerGraph heavy action rods. My trusty old 704Z used to suffer from the bail closing at the worst time. My ancient 700 'greenie' did the same thing. That caused me to remove the bail and change to the manual bail kit. MUCH better- in the surf. When you are trying to toss it away far out there, the manual bail cannot close on you. In the surf it is easy to operate the manual bail, but on a small boat, not so easy. You are not casting as far, and have less room to operate. I decided to remove the manual bail and put the full bail back on.
I ordered some new bail springs just because. On the parts site the 704Z showed two springs, one on each side of the bail. When I removed the manual bail on my reel, there was only one spring. Hmmmm. Then I figured it out. The old 'greenie' 700 reels used only one spring and it was on the line roller side. The early 704 reels copied that and used the 700 bail. That is why the 700 and 704 bail kept closing when it should not. These early 704 reels used a black line spool. Later reels used a gold colored spool. They also added the second bail spring on the release side. That is the difference. So why can't I just add the second spring to my bail? Because they did not drill a hole in the 700/704 release where the second spring would attache. A new later model bail assembly would be needed to make the upgrade. Or would it?
I compared the early and late bails and saw that they were identical except for the spring hole. Why not just drill a new hole? Exactly. I found an 'N' drill bit fit the mounting holes perfectly. It miked up at .300". I clamped them both in a vise with the bit and aligned them. I miked the tag end of the spring and it miked up at .040". Then I found that a .046" drill bit fit the spring hole just right. I drilled through the new release using the hole as a guide and made a new hole in the old release. PERFECT!!!!
Then it was just a matter of adding the second spring on the release side just like the later models. As a result, the bail closes with much more authority. So far, it has not closed prematurely. Keeping fingers crossed.
You may notice the Bluefish are a bit bigger than normal this season. When the Grandson caught that 30"er it bent the mainshaft on the PENN 250GR. That convinced me to upgrade my weaponry to my PENN 704Z reels and PowerGraph heavy action rods. My trusty old 704Z used to suffer from the bail closing at the worst time. My ancient 700 'greenie' did the same thing. That caused me to remove the bail and change to the manual bail kit. MUCH better- in the surf. When you are trying to toss it away far out there, the manual bail cannot close on you. In the surf it is easy to operate the manual bail, but on a small boat, not so easy. You are not casting as far, and have less room to operate. I decided to remove the manual bail and put the full bail back on.
I ordered some new bail springs just because. On the parts site the 704Z showed two springs, one on each side of the bail. When I removed the manual bail on my reel, there was only one spring. Hmmmm. Then I figured it out. The old 'greenie' 700 reels used only one spring and it was on the line roller side. The early 704 reels copied that and used the 700 bail. That is why the 700 and 704 bail kept closing when it should not. These early 704 reels used a black line spool. Later reels used a gold colored spool. They also added the second bail spring on the release side. That is the difference. So why can't I just add the second spring to my bail? Because they did not drill a hole in the 700/704 release where the second spring would attache. A new later model bail assembly would be needed to make the upgrade. Or would it?
I compared the early and late bails and saw that they were identical except for the spring hole. Why not just drill a new hole? Exactly. I found an 'N' drill bit fit the mounting holes perfectly. It miked up at .300". I clamped them both in a vise with the bit and aligned them. I miked the tag end of the spring and it miked up at .040". Then I found that a .046" drill bit fit the spring hole just right. I drilled through the new release using the hole as a guide and made a new hole in the old release. PERFECT!!!!
Then it was just a matter of adding the second spring on the release side just like the later models. As a result, the bail closes with much more authority. So far, it has not closed prematurely. Keeping fingers crossed.
