magnets????

[ericko]

I have a curado 200 and a shimano citica that i just get frustrated with cause of the number of birds nest that i make ....Awhileback someone posted about magnets that helped reduce this problem...Can i get help with with this..

THANKS

[Grego]

Have you adjusted the cast control? that should prevent your birds nest but you won't be able to cast far, after you get use to it then you can release the cast a little at a time.

[Billy V]

Originally Posted by ericko

I have a curado 200 and a shimano citica that i just get frustrated with cause of the number of birds nest that i make ....Awhileback someone posted about magnets that helped reduce this problem...Can i get help with with this..

THANKS

Have you tried casting an Avet with Magic Cast?
It doesn't get any easier to cast long distance.

[ericko]

Grego yes i have and ya i dont cast very far

Billy V no i have not tried an Avet

[forefrazier]

Originally Posted by ericko

I have a curado 200 and a shimano citica that i just get frustrated with cause of the number of birds nest that i make ....Awhileback someone posted about magnets that helped reduce this problem...Can i get help with with this..

THANKS

Let's be honest. How much do you practice? If you simply go out and try and fish it and do not have a lot of experience actually casting, it will not be much fun. The Curado has to be one of the easiest reels to cast with as that is what it is made for. Forget about the magnet BS and just put on about a 1/2 ounce to 3/4 ounce weight on the end and get to one of your local parks or better yet lakes. A few things:

1. Too light a bait/lure for the line# and rod will make it more difficult to cast.

2. ALWAYS make sure your line is wet before trying to cast.

3. Don't try to be a distance hero. A smooth cast to where you want it to go is much better than shooting for the fences and ending up with the dreaded 'birds nest'.

Here is a good article from down under (NZ) on casting a conventional reel.

http://www.bishfish.co.nz/articles/s...atbacklash.htm

Good luck and PRACTICE more.

-Steve

[steveooo]

Originally Posted by forefrazier

Let's be honest. How much do you practice? If you simply go out and try and fish it and do not have a lot of experience actually casting, it will not be much fun. The Curado has to be one of the easiest reels to cast with as that is what it is made for. Forget about the magnet BS and just put on about a 1/2 ounce to 3/4 ounce weight on the end and get to one of your local parks or better yet lakes. A few things:

1. Too light a bait/lure for the line# and rod will make it more difficult to cast.

2. ALWAYS make sure your line is wet before trying to cast.

3. Don't try to be a distance hero. A smooth cast to where you want it to go is much better than shooting for the fences and ending up with the dreaded 'birds nest'.

Here is a good article from down under (NZ) on casting a conventional reel.

http://www.bishfish.co.nz/articles/s...atbacklash.htm

Good luck and PRACTICE more.

-Steve

[Grego]

wait a minute....you're from texas and you can't cast a big mouth bass reel? whodathunk?!

Here's a tip on how I learned to cast when I was a little kid. Tie a 1/4 - 1/2 ounce "something" on, heavier the easier....stick your rod out in front of you and parallel with the ground...then release the cast button and watch the weight drop to the ground...it should move down slowly and smoothly....if it just drops down fast then you need to tighten the cast control so it is slow and steady. Then just practice casting, and like the previous post the line should be wet so if you're not casting into water keep pouring water on the line.

Also, do those reels have the casting pins in them? they are little plastic adjusting pins inside the reel. You can adjust those also...I once had them come out of position unevenly and I was going crazy thinking I forgot how to cast. I think they are called Variable Breaks....adjust those correctly by the manual. ***VERY IMPORTANT***

On those reels you should be able to work your way down to a wooden clothespin. If it doesn't work out, then use spinning reels, no shame!!! they're just bass.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by ericko

I have a curado 200 and a shimano citica that i just get frustrated with cause of the number of birds nest that i make ....Awhileback someone posted about magnets that helped reduce this problem...Can i get help with with this..

First off the question I'd ask is: Are you casting mono or spectra?

The reason is that with Mono with those reels your not going to a get significant advantage by magging either of them.

So I'm going to assume your talking about casting spectra.

If you are casting spectra I'd just switch to an ABU Revo STX or if you want to go cheap a Revo SX. Their both magged and work perfect for spectra.

Most don't realise it unless they have played around with magged reels but a magged reel casting spectra will outcast the same size unmagged reel, even if you have spectra on both of them. The reason is you can cast harder without backlashing, and spectra with it's lack of stretch is more likely to backlash, especially if you try and cast hard, especially if your casting with a fast taper rod.

With spectra even if you only backlash once, even with a small backlash you have significantly weakened your line as when it snarls up the spectra pulling against spectra on the spool significantly wears the line, so when casting spectra I do not want any bird nests even minor ones.

Since I do not like having to cut off spectra having to re-do my topshots on the water, I just use magged reels for spectra.

That said there is no point in Magging small reels like yours as thre are plenty of reels around in that size range that can be purchased over the counter already magged and ready to go for spectra.

The only relatively inexpensive saltwater reel other then the Avet Magic cast (which in my book is expensive) you can buy is the Penn 525mag and it's excellent reel for casting 30 and 40 pound spectra with 20 to 30 topshots.

That Penn is a great reel because you can adjust your mag to fit your baits weight, and actually adjust the mag setting mid cast: starting heavy, slacking it off in the middle, then back on for the end, while your bait is in the air, for maximum distance.

You just can't do that with do it yourself magging.

That said the Penn 525mag is a little light on drag once you get past thirty pound. So I do my own reels as well and posted here about it in the past. I've magged several of my reels. Avet Sx's and Jx's, Daiwa Saltist 20's and 30's and it has it's merits.

Rather then dig up the posts.... you can just read up on how to do it on my stupid myspace fishing blog here:

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?f...ndId=451418044

Read it and figure if it's for you... Easy enough but the trick is in the fine tuning.

When you mag your own reel your setting up with only one mag adjustment for the reel. It's set so you got to figure out before hand exactly what you need or what you're going to use it for.

Some reels I intentionlally over mag for situations where I'm casting really heavy baits like live macks to billfish, where I want absolutely no chance of backlash. Other reels I slightly under mag for casting distance.

Here's a Daiwa Saltist 20 I magged light for distance with a tuna I caught with it recently.


It works great but that day out of maybe a hundred casts off the bow for boiling tuna I backlashed once. I was trying to get some extra distance to hit a huge tuna I saw, and I backlashed the cr@p out of it. Then I had to cut off about a hundred feet of forty pound spectra. Since the reel holds something like 400yds of forty it did not make a big difference for the trip but it was a pain, and a lost a lot of crucial fishing time doing it, where I could of been casting at other tuna.

Since I was not going to take a chance of a line flaw causing me to loose my next yellowfin I had to do it but it did not make me happy to say the least. I guess what I'm saying is that maggin works good but you still can't get away from the idiot factor.... On the other hand if not for the magged reel and spectra I'd of had to drop down to twenty to get the distance I needed for those fish, and since there was some sixty pound fish in the mix I'd of probably would of lost one and possibly the only jig I had they were biting that day. Pros and Cons as they say...


At any rate it's pretty easy stuff to do. For me it's a no brainer. Just one more thing I can easily do to make things work better on the water. It takes me about ten minutes mag a reel and sometimes I set them up for magging without even taking them off the rod.

Pretty simple stuff... If you can change a tire you can mag a reel.

Good luck, Jim

[ericko]

SO what your saying is practice and be patience......

EVERYONE THANK YOU FOR THE TIPS i will let you now how it goes

[ericko]

Grego i have never been to texas but if you set up a fishing trip let me no..

[Siebler]

Wrong Eric Grego

[TCS]

Thanks!

[Iceman]

be aware of the wind, much more likely to rat up into the wind.......educate your thumb!

[Grego]

Originally Posted by Siebler

Wrong Eric Grego

Ooohh....I thought this was Eric 'Hook'em Horns' with the "nice arse"!!!

Nonetheless....make sure your VBS system is in place...I looked it up, and I think you have them so put them in the right position!

[erinoo]

[QUOTE=Grego;47441]Ooohh....I thought this was Eric 'Hook'em Horns' with the "nice arse"!!!

Greg..You better get your chit together..I think JoyJiggin is right there may be some sugar in that tank of yours..Im just sayin.love ya man...

[-scallywag-]

Why would you use spectra for casting irons at tuna offshore? Does it increase casting range? it seems the cons outwieght the pros in a offshore environment where there is no kelp around.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by -scallywag-

Why would you use spectra for casting irons at tuna offshore? Does it increase casting range? it seems the cons outwieght the pros in a offshore environment where there is no kelp around.

You can cast further with it, but there are kelp issues offshore as well.

That day I was casting a Daiwa Saltist STT 20H the capacity on it is something like 400yds of 12 pound. I put around the same amount of forty spectra on it with a short topshot of thirty pound. The Daiwa SST20 is fairly comparable to a Daiwa SL20SH in casting ability, which means with 20 pound mono you can throw it further then just about anything, but the rub is then your just fishing with twenty pound.

In order to have the same capacity with the same line strength in straight mono I'd have to go up to a reel the size Daiwa SST 50 or more realistically a larger Torium 50, both good reels but neither can cast anywhere as near as far as SST20, nor can you cast them with the same pinpoint accuracy. With a magged SST20 and forty pound spectra I can throw just as far as I can with a SL20SH with 20 Mono with twice the line strength.

Hold that thought for a minute..

Now here's the deal with the fishing. We were offshore trolling that day for Marlin. So you have four large jigs out two set up on outriggers. Say you see a kelp paddy. The standard school of thought is you pull all the gear and then go bait the paddy. The issue is every time you pull the gear and then have to put it back out again you loose time, maybe twenty minutes every time you bait a paddy. Every three patty's you bait you loose an hour, bait a dozen and you loose half the day playing with gear.

I tend to fish offshore a lot. A few years ago I was fishing for Marlin outside the 9 mile bank trolling the standard four jig spread. The whole area was filled with nice juicy big kelp patties. I must of baited twenty of them: each time stopping and pulling my gear for each. Didn't hook a thing off them. About mid afternoon I had two jig strikes for Marlin one right after another, one never hooked up the other jumped off. I never got a fish on a patty all day that day so all that time I spent pulling my gear for them and then putting it out again for those 20+ patties was wasted.

Well that got me thinking, and what I was thinking was if I had just kept fishing Marlin I would of doubled my time with Jigs in the water and might of actually gotten a Billfish.

The rub there is I can't stand to pass patties offshore and not fish them.

Hold that thought....


Now with breaking tuna there has always been four basic schools of thought. One if you got tuna jigs out you can box the area keeping an eye on the fish and pick up stragglers with the jigs, or you can troll over them which puts them down but allows you to sometimes hook one.

You can stop and pull your jigs, try to get ahead of them, and actually soak live baits for them but that's a big time commitment and does not always work.

Or you can go up on the bow and throw light iron on them like a mega bait but you have to use light line 20 or even fifteen pound mono to get the distance and accuracy to land on boiling fish before they see the boat and sound.

Now of the three methods I've caught more fish casting on them then any other way, but there is a problem. If you hook a good yellowfin over say 20 pounds it takes so long to get them to the boat that you actually loose the school in the process. Worse if you hook a really big one or a bigeye you can't land them at all. I've lost at least a dozen huge tuna like this and it's frustrating as all hell.

Now when tuna fishing the whole point is to get the school to the boat get a bait bite going, so you want to get them to the boat quickly so casting off the bow with light line even thought it works does not get you the bait bites your after, and also can't land the bigger fish you really want to catch.

Now you may of noticed I do things a little differently on a lot of things like transducer installs etc...

That's not because I want to be different or "special" I just look at things and try to figure out the best way to do them and then come up with my own approach.

My buddy calls these methods stupid Jim Day tricks, but I've come up with a few ways to do things that at least work well for me.

At any rate here's my "stupid Jim Day" trick when it comes to casting Mega baits and small heavy iron offshore.

I put all the things above together and came up with a way of fishing forty spectra with thirty topshots for breaking tuna offshore and patties off shore when trolling that solves all the problems above.

First the obvious: When I'm casting Megabaits for boiling tuna offshore with a magged SST20 or a Penn 525Mag I can cast just as far as I can with a SL20SH with 20 mono but when I hook the fish I can get them to the boat fast enough to bring in the school and get a bait bite. If I hook a larger quality tuna I've got four hundred yards of forty with which to chase him down and beat them. Win Win.

Less obvious has to do with kelp patties. Instead of stopping the boat and pulling gear, what I now do is troll by the patty keeping the patty downwind on the left (port) side. I go up on the bow with my forty spectra rig and a four once mega bait (actually I like the P-line version). As soon as the patty is in casting distance I throw the mega bait so it lands next to the patty on it's left side. I then do not reel it in but let it sink with the reel in gear keeping the line just tight enough to feel if anything hits it on the sink. I then steer the boat so I can pass the patty on the right side about thirty to forty feet off the patty.

As you approach the patty the line makes a bow in the water, so when you get even with the patty the megabait is down a hundred feet on the other side of the patty, and the line has made a big c shape around the patty. Rather the reel it up I just let the forward speed of the Boat pull it up. So the jigs starts moving up rather slow, then speeds up as it makes a big arc behind the patty and then eventually screams up to the surface back in middle of your trolling spread.

In other words to the fish it looks like a frightened baitfish that's hauling butt trying to get away by joining a larger school of bait on the surface.

Now you could do the exact same thing with mono but there would be a few issues.

In order to get the casting distance you would need to use light mono like twenty pound, with mono the jig would not sink as fast or as deep, if you hook a yellowtail on lighter mono he's just going to swim you straight into the patty and cut you off, if you hook a tuna your not going to be able to get him to the boat fast enough to get a bait bite, and if you hook a big tuna your going to get your clock cleaned.

In contrast the forty spectra sinks faster, if you get a yellow you can keep him out, or cut him out of the kelp patty. If you hook a tuna you have enough muscle to get him to the boat quick enough to get the bait bite, and if you hook a big one you can land him. Win Win Win Win Win

One more thing. Like I said as the mega swings up using the forward motion of the boat it also swings back around the patty and ends up with with all your troll jigs or feathers in the pattern. Now this could be a tangle issue if you do not pay attention, but there is a benefit as well. Yellowfin are notorious for following deep drop jigs to the surface but not hitting them. When the mega swings up into your troll pattern it will bring the followers right into your jigs which can result in one or more jig strikes in the pattern. That's a big Win!

Oh and you don't have to stop for every patty and pull your gear, but you do get an idea if they are holding fish. Win Win

So that is how the system works.

We were trolling Marlin Jigs the day I got that YFT above but I got it fishing this exact method. It's a new thing, no-one else is doing it, I did not read it anywhere, this is the first time I have posted it online, and you're welcome to it.

If you tell anyone about it just tell them where you got it.

Jim

[-scallywag-]

interesting approach, and excellent description. Thanks for sharing with me (and everyone else). I think for the yak ill stick to 30 or 40lb mono on the jigstick and yoyo rods and #65spectra/30flouro on the livebait rods, although i would like to hear more opinions on casting spectra vs mono on jigsticks...pros cons, best reels?

Thanks again Jim!!!

[-scallywag-]

also another question....have you tried connecting the spectra strait to the iron since the fish really wont contact the line....i've had some luck doing this in the kelp with big leadheads and whole squid for c.bass but sometimes they gobble the whole thing too fast so i use a 6-12" flouro leader....my theory is the shorter the flouro the more spectra u have against the kelp to get that donkey out...on the iron i would think it could give a little more distance cause the topshot knot wouldent have to go thru the guides during the cast?

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by -scallywag-

also another question....have you tried connecting the spectra strait to the iron since the fish really wont contact the line....i've had some luck doing this in the kelp with big leadheads and whole squid for c.bass but sometimes they gobble the whole thing too fast so i use a 6-12" flouro leader....my theory is the shorter the flouro the more spectra u have against the kelp to get that donkey out...on the iron i would think it could give a little more distance cause the topshot knot wouldent have to go thru the guides during the cast?

The topshot is not that big of an issue in fact I like a topshot that allows a few turns on the reel but I use a Tony Pena knot which casts beautifully through the guides:

You can read about how to do one here:
http://www.frenzytackle.com/tips/pena.htm

Good luck!!


Jim