…cork handles on your ice rods. This is the time of the year to put those ice reels back onto the ice rods. That’s if you take them off in the first place. I do, and those I don’t use for spring panfishing or fishing for perch out on the lake, get stored away in their little purple Crown Royal sacks for storage each spring.
For years and years, I would take the black electric tape off my reels and rods each spring. The bad thing is when you do, you tend to see little chunks of the cork handle come off stuck to the tape. Not a good thing with years of use planned down the road.
Wish I could take credit for this, and in fact I am not entirely sure where I heard this from in the first place. The trick is to put a single wrap of masking tape over the cork where you place your reel. Not over the whole handle, but just where you place your reel.
Its an easy thing to do, before applying the masking tape put the reel in your hand and grip the handle where it is most comfortable for you. Take a mental picture, and then put the wrap of making tape on and then using electric tape, attach the reel to the rod. The masking tape becomes a permanent fixture and you only remove the black tape at the end of the year. Any electric tape wil work, but over the years I have found that it is worth the extra buck or so to use 3M electric tape. It seems to adhere the best to the handles without coming loose.
The pics are of my sight fishing rods, which the first two tournaments on the schedule this year are on very clear lakes. I spooled them up with Power Pro 5 lb Moss Wednesday night, then attached my Cardinals and Daiwa’s to yesterday. No fuss, no mess with using the braid while sight fishing.
