Bob’s Tips for Anglers #2 If Something Doesn’t Seem Right CHECK IT

If your casting doesn’t feel right, sounds odd, or distance comes up short check your rig. I’ve quite often had a wrap where the line is around the rod behind the tip top. It really kills your casting distance.

If you keep breaking off… you could have bad line, but you might not. I was wailing them on a Curly Buzz Frog (version 2) one morning. Had the line break swinging a fish into the boat 3 times. All decent fish. I had not used the rod in a while so I assumed it was some old rotten braid. I stripped back 30 feet of line, cut off, and retied. Next fish broke off as I swung it in the boat and landed on the sole. I got to looking it over. The tip top had a crack that was cutting the line. As I swung the fish in the line would slide over across that crack and the edge of the ceramic would slice right through it. Now for the fun part. All those fish that broke off as I swung them in… landed in the boat.

No matter what it is don’t just keep flailing away hoping it will get better. Check your rig and find the problem. Maybe you can fix it. Maybe you can’t, but knowing the problem will reduce anxiety and improve your fishing. You can either fix it or deal with it once you know what it is.

At one point the little MLXF spinning rig I like for the Curly Buzz Frog Mini just wasn’t casting right. I glanced down the rod, but it was fine. Guides were good. No wraps. Line was falling into the roller on the reel. At a glance it looked ok. On one longer cast it really didn’t feel right, and periodically the reel felt like it was binding. Finally I’d had enough. A careful inspection show the line down deep in the spool had at some point looped in under the spool. I removed the spool, fixed the problem, and it was like new after that.

If it doesn’t feel right check it.