New Cheap Gear to Play With

Fin-Nor Megalite 60 spinning reels qualify as cheap gear if you spend some time shopping.  These averaged $37 each including Florida sales tax.

I have had the Sojourn rods for a couple years and they were $30 each.  So for less than $70 a set these cheap combos are a little cheaper than the combos I tested a couple years ago.

Zebco appears to own the Fin-Nor name and the reels are made in China to Zebco's "standards."  They look well built with stainless, aluminum and carbon fiber construction.  In fact, they are much higher quality than the Aeries combos that lasted pretty well.

With no maintenance at all both Aeries reels lasted 2 seasons.  One is still going strong with just a little TLC.

I have the Megalites spoiled with approximately 220 yards of 20# clear mono and they can hold about 300 yards of 15# mono.

This time instead of zero maintenance, these will see some soap and lubrication once in a while.  

Bay Side and Shark Week

 This time of year most folks come down to chase Dolphin or hit the reef and wrecks for snapper and grouper.  The bay side can be a lot of fun though and still produce a pretty good mess of Mangrove Snapper with the occasion Cero Mackerel and a few other species. 

Just about any place you set up for fishing on the bay side is likely to be visited by a pretty large number of sharks.  Today I fished on the Little Lady Catherine and we had a tiger shark playing around the chum slick plus a few sharp nose.  Sometimes its Lemons, Black Tips, Bulls, Hammerheads or just Nurse sharks, but if seeing sharks is pretty rare where you fish, you might find yourself enjoying the show.

The Mangroves we caught were a little smaller on average because so many have moved out to the reef for spawn, but we still had a decent catch with a few in the 16 inch range.  The bigger ones tend to prefer fresh Pinfish or ballyhoo chunks and you will probably need to break out the 12 pound fluorocarbon leader, but they will bite.  Bigger chunks also help cut down on the number of undersized fish, but there are so many some will be unavoidable.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Decisions Decisions

Decisions on what manufacturer for my new fishing gear. I have had custom made rods with Daiwa spinning reels and Shimano trolling reels for the past 12 years. With just the general maintenance, both have served me quite well over that time, both have little issues which I would expect every manufacturer would. I am not desperately loyal to either since neither sponsor me or offer a direct discount of any kind. I do get a pretty solid discount on the Daiwa products, since I am a nice guy I guess.

The most major issue with Diawa spinning reels is the bail roller tends to lock up. That is not a major issue if you know ahead of time because you can take the reel apart and lube it with some of that expensive PTFE or some alphabet lubricant to keep it right, but you have to use the not so tight Loctite(R)on the threads to be able to maintain it down the road. None of the manufacturers seem to have a handle on that, use of alphabet lubricant stuff to make maintenance easier. Since they don't work for me, I can fire them, but I can mention that they might be able to make an improvement of two.

I was thinking US manufacturers this time around, but it is hard to tell if the US manufacturer manufactures in the US or not. I do know that our stimulus money has stimulated US manufacturers that manufacture most of their stuff outside of the US. So I would not like to be dumber than a politician and let anyone think that I have a clue where any of the stuff is actually made. If anyone does know of a real made in the good old US of A reel manufacturer that some one could afford their product, let me know.

The kids at the dock have fallen in love with the Penn products that were formally made in the USA which are now made in Asia mainly and only marked up about 8 times instead of the normal 10 times. I guess that is a step in the right direction. The Penn Battle reels seem to be preferred by the kids and cost about 30% more than the Daiwa with just about the same issues, a little more drag issue than roller, but close.

Since I am a little anal about having my stuff match, I would consider a matching rod if the same company can provide both with about the same level of quality. I am not particularly a fan of lifetime warrantees where you spend a good portion of your lifetime taking advantage of them. I prefer stuff that tends to not break very often to stuff that does break pretty regularly on a charter boat.

So the basic requirements are reliability, durability, kick butt looking and cost, pretty much in that order. If anyone knows some industry rep that thinks he or she has such a product have them shoot me an email or leave a comment.

Flatlines, the 30 foot Proline of Doc and Jerry, is scheduled to go on the hill this week for some badly needed dusting and cleaning. Doc wants me to work this boat into the charter mix somehow. That may be a bit of a challenge since its biggest selling point and clean head or potty, has a bad macerator pump that is a challenge to get to. So I could use some ideas for family friendly, once the toilet is fixed, adventures aboard the Flatlines. Flatlines, like Gale, Trainwreck or Bad Luck, is not one of my personal choices for a charter boat name, since flat lining is not just a fishing technique.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

What's Happening and New Plans

This cold is really becoming a pain in the butt.  It is cramping my style big time and I am starting to get cabin fever.  It the picture above, Captain Jeff Knapp is showing off his second Cobia in two trips to the bridge tarpon fishing.   As I reported before the bridge action is pretty hot.  Many visitors to the Keys tend to focus too much on one type of fish or fishing and neglect to take advantage of the variety we have in the Keys.  I am an opportunistic angler and like to try to catch what is biting instead of forcing what is not biting to bite.  This attitude may go against what you may read in the glossy magazines, but it works very well for me.  In fact, I haven't found too many types of fishing I don't like to try from time to time.

Several of the newer guides working in the Keys can't seem to understand my style of fishing.  What ever floats your boat I guess, but living on an island a good guide should be able to find some kind of fishing action in just about any conditions.  There are times that it just doesn't make much sense to brave the weather, of course, but knowing all the options tends limit those times to really nasty stuff.  Many of my customers have had great fishing trips at or near the bridge when the winds were howling.  As long as the fish are biting, the winds tend to get ignored.

Thanks to my cold I have been stuck at the computer much more than normal.  I tend to enjoy some subjects that bore the hell out of most folks, so I don't want to contaminate this primarily fishing blog with silly stuff like alternate energy, climate change, Bayesian statistics and rocket candy.  That means I am going to take most of that stuff to my other blog Our Energy Future: Hydrogen.  I haven't written on that blog for a while mainly because things really don't change that fast.  There has been enough stuff in the past couple years to write about and the State of the Union Address include a plan for the next couple of decades than blends with the reading I have done in the past.  So I you get really bored you can stop by there as I add a few of my observations.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Dolphin Tourney and Boat Races

Saturday I guided a crew from Miami for a small corporate dolphin tourney out of Hawks Cay. The weather reminded me why I don't fish many tourneys. With the winds over 20 the seas were pretty sporty. We and every other boat fishing took quite a few waves over the bow. We found fish everywhere, but the biggest we got in the boat was a 15 pound bull. The other boats had trouble finding the bigger fish due to the conditions. The winning fish was 34 pounds with second a 28 pound cow. Our 15 pounder was the third or forth largest brought to the dock.

Fishing in 5 to 7 foot seas was very wet which my cellphone couldn't handle. It was a good phone. The crew I had had very little fishing experience so I will call the trip a tourney fishing 101. They did well and learned a good deal.

After Saturday's soaking, I enjoyed a relaxing day waiting out the rain to watch the boat races. The 7th annual Marathon Superboat Race was today and very enjoyable with a few rum and cokes. The start was delayed an hour and half to let the rain which we sorely needed, to pass. My thanks to the crews of the Blue Magic and Celia Pearl for great drinks, snacks, music and company.

Tommorow is supposed to be another dolphin trip if the weather cooperates. A lot of rain is in the forecast so we will play it by ear.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas