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Winter’s waning. Spring is just around the lilacs. It’s the ideal time to tune-up your tackle.
Equipment failure lurks in the darkened rod lockers of unprepared anglers who haven’t properly primed their line, hooks and lures. Without these core components in perfect working order, fish will be lost, and failure pinned on you. Your fishing partner will grumble. The family will be ordering Dominoes® for dinner. Not a grand way to kickoff the season...
So to be the hero, not the zero, we’re offering up a few simple suggestions before your boat breaks its first wave.
Striptease
Off with the old, on with the new... Line, that is. It’s the lifeline between angler and fish. Now is your chance to sample one of the newfangled lines you’ve read about but never spooled, like the game changing Sufix 832 Advanced Superline®. A Gore® performance fiber spun with multiple, micro-diameter fibers make Sufix 832 the strongest, longest casting and toughest hombre to meet a reel.
Replace monofilament and fluorocarbon at the first sign of wear, no matter what time of year. Detect nicks too small for the naked eye by wetting your lips and pulling the line between them. A sandpaper-like feel is telltale to remove and replace the weak link. Use a battery-operated Rapala Line Remover to quickly strip worn line. Next, tie on a fresh spool of Sufix with an arbor knot, and start reeling. Stop when it gets 1/8 inch from the outer edge of the reel-spool. (Resist the urge to over-spool, and we know that ain’t easy.)
All seven Sufix monofilament formulas, as well as the Castable Invisible 100% Fluorocarbon, are wound to their 330-yard filler spools with G2 Precision Winding (no overlapping). This makes Sufix less likely to uncoil when flipping the bail, as there’s nary any recollection of its birth on the spool. Loss of short term memory has its perks...
Spooling Sufix 832 Advanced Superline® does take an elementary extra step. 832’s tightly woven fibers – 32 weaves per square inch – deliberately maintain their roundness and rater resistance throughout the season. The only sacrifice being its initial grip to the reel. A line ‘backing’ of monofilament is recommended to first strangle the spool. Snug it by tying Sufix mono to the spool with the abovementioned arbor knot, wind it several times, and then use a uni-to-uni knot to bond with the magnificent Sufix 832.
How much mono backing to use depends on what fish species you’re stalking. For fish that make long runs like salmon and pike, or, when spooling trolling reels, wind just enough mono to cover the spool with one layer and fill the remainder with 832. Anglers casting jigs and plastics with Sufix 832 can get away with backing half the spool with monofilament, leaving enough superline for a second reel. (See, we’re here to save you money as well.)
Point Made
Hooks should be honed “sticky sharp”. (That’s when touching the point to your thumbnail causes it to stick rather than slide.) If a hook’s damaged to the point of no return, it should be replaced with a super-sharp and durable VMC hook, straight from the package. Dull hooks spell disaster.
Turn rounded points back to needle-sharp with Rapala’s 2-Sided Hook File. The course round file swiftly reshapes points dulled by rocks, docks, wood and fish jaws. The tool’s fine flat edge files burs off with ease, too. If your crankbait hooks require replacing, do so with a VMC model that replicates the size and thickness of the original so as not to adversely alter the action of the lure.
Get Crankin’
By far, the most overlooked tackle maintenance task is making sure baits still run true after hard use. Rapalas are individually tuned to run perfect right from the box. However, even the toughest of crankbaits can be knocked off kilter after whacking structure or repeated throttling by beastly fish.
Test your lure’s action by ripping it through the water alongside the boat. Or, when casting, retrieve it straight back, and fast. If the bait veers to one side or the other instead of true – full speed ahead – it needs tuning. Rapala’s Fisherman’s Pliers have a built-in “Tuning Tool”, where you simply nab the lure’s eyelet and tweak it, ever so slightly, the opposite way the lure veered. (Sounds counterintuitive, but it’s a physics thing.) If you feel the eyelet move, you may actually have turned it too far. Keep testing until the lure retrieves straight back like a trained birddog bringing back a pheasant.
Oh, and lose the dehydrated minnows in the baitwell and peanut shells lodged in the carpeting while you’re at it.
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