Fishing Michigan

Yesterday morning was the perfect time to take a drive and see what I could see.  I had been south the previous weekend, thought about going west, and decided to head north in the end.  I really didnt need much, the only item on the shopping list was some 10 lb Trilene Big Game in the 1/4 pound spool.

Big Game seems to be just as good as XT for trolling, and I had the new pair of linecounters to spool up.  The only difference is the price, comepare 1,500 yds of BG for 8 bucks, vs 1,000 yds of XT for 22 dollars.  I asked an employee at one store if they had anymore in the back,  and he said, “ no”.  He then asked how much line I needed, and I told him the name and make of the reels I had to spool up,  and that each would require about 600yds of 10 lb mono.  Now this wasnt a young person, so I cannot blame the new math being taught in the schools today, where students can  seem disfunctional without a calculater in hand.  He said we can spool that up for you, at 4 cents a yard.

I asked this person, why would I want you to spool my reels at four cents a yard when I can buy the line for 8 dollars?  He returned a somewhat puzzled look.  So I told him,  why would I want to pay you $48.00.  The little light bulp went off finally, and the discussion faded fast.  The kicker is that customers do this all the time,  people  bring in their trolling reels, anywhere from 4 to 12 of them,  have their reels spooled, and just about faint when they saw the bill.  I can use that extra $40 for more fishing stuff!

As it turns out,  when my order arrives with the spools of Power Pro,  150 yds of that mono is going to be stripped off those reels anyway, and replaced with the braid.  When using the braid, you need to build up the linecounters with mono, and then top it off with new line.  It helps to avoid slipping, and when the reel is full, you get an accurrate  read on the counter. 

Why 150 yards, becuase that is 450 ft of braid.  Example would be using that ol’ reliable Hot n Tot,  and I am fishing in 25 ft of water.  The walleye are holding to the bottom, so according to the charts (example) I need to let out 230 ft of line to get down there.  For the example, I am running boards that day,  2 on each side of the boat.  I spread the outer boards about 110 ft from the boat, which comes to 340 ft of line let out.  If I had run only 100 yds of Power Pro, which would be 300 foot,  I would have gotten into the mono backing.  150 yds allows you to fish any circumstance,  without running into that problem.  With the line on the reels, I won’t have to run into my math challenged friend every year when I would have replaced the monofilament.  The line doesn’t stretch,  and I get better hooksets.