News Snippets
Lots of things have been happening lately and I haven't really had the time to share them - so now seems a good time to let you know what has been happening.
The first thing you will have noticed is a link to Fish-Factor via their Logo which you can find on the right of the Blog. If you are viewing this on a mobile device then it is at the bottom of the page (Blogger has its own ways of displaying the mobile version which limits me as to how things will be displayed).
The reason I added the link to Fish-Factor is because I believe that they are a good place to buy from - offering us lure guys access to good tackle at reasonable prices and not having to wait for up to a month to receive stuff ordered from abroad. Sure they don't have everything but their stock is growing and the more of us that buy from them will mean that they will be encouraged to stock more diverse stuff.
Their website is only in Hebrew but for those of you reading this who live in Israel I'm sure that you can all manage Hebrew well enough to navigate their website.
At the beginning of the year I bought myself a Penn Clash 2500 and some Daiwa J-Braid in 10lb to go with it.
I've only used the Clash a couple of times but both it and the J-Braid feel very nice together. The reel is smooth and the braid knots very well, feels not too limp, casts great and doesn't seem to lose its color (yet).
More to come when I have used them both for a couple of months or so.
After writing a little opinion piece about Fish-Factor last time, I took the plunge and ordered (at a very good discount after 'sharing') a Shimano Rarenium 1000s.
They shipped it the same day and it arrived in the mail very well packaged. It took me a while cutting through all the bubble wrap :-)
The only problem I have is that a couple of weeks before ordering the Rarenium, I had ordered some YGK G-soul X3 in PE 4 from an eBay seller in Japan hoping it would arrive about the same time as the Rarenium (Fish-Factor doesn't have any ultra light lines at the moment). The seller wrote and said that he didn't have it in stock but not to worry as he would get some from the supplier in a couple of days and then he would ship it to me. I'm still waiting for him to receive it! So in desperation I ordered from another eBay seller (this time in the USA) some of the relatively new Sufix Nanobraid (not to be confused with Berkley's Nanofil) in 4lb test, which the seller shipped the same day. Both the X3 and the Nanobraid are 3 carrier braids with the Nanobraid having a very tight weave. We will see how they perform when they eventually arrive....
It is interesting to note that the main Sufix website seems to be for international customers and doesn't list the lower breaking strain lines whilst the parent company's (Rapala) USA website lists breaking strains from 2lb. Strange but there is a marketing issue between the American market and the European one. Have a look at the Rapala link above and this one which is the Sufix International website. Have a close look at the image of the spool of Nanobraid on both sites and compare the printed info about breaking strains and diameters. Did you notice that both sites show a spool with a diameter of 0.04mm? But you will also notice that the American (Rapala) site has the breaking strain marked at 2lb test whilst the Sufix site has the same diameter line marked at 2.8kg/6lb test!!
From postings on the WSF forum it is clear that the American breaking strains are more accurate (PowerPro is used as an example) than the artificially inflated European ones - go figure!
The fishing has been a bit slow the last few months but last week a couple of buddies, Omer and Eran, and I got up for an early morning session on one of the breakwaters in North Tel Aviv.
The fishing was quite intense for about an hour with fish hooked and fish lost. I had 2 spit the hook, one of which was a small blue fish that broke the surface quite close to me. The other I'm not sure but it put a good bend in my X-Ride and took line from a quite tight drag on the Clash 2500. Perhaps the drag was too tight and the hooked pulled on that initial run - who knows? Both Omer and Eran had fish spit hooks but Omer also lost 3 20g casting jigs to fish with sharp teeth - he now uses a wire leader!
There were some other lure guys about 40 meters from us and they too were losing fish to hooks coming free, but one guy did manage a blue fish of about a kilo and a small Spanish mackerel. Omer only managed to land a small grouper and Eran a blue fish and a whopper of a puffer fish - all 3 of which were released.
Omer went out this morning and had this nice looking Spanish mackerel:
Omer's Spanish Mackerel
My birthday is coming up in April so perhaps I can treat myself to a new rod - a Palms Pinwheel PMGS-73 need to be nice to my wife first... :-)
Tight lines!
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