Leaderboard

Have done the same mate, fall in to the routine and just go "it'll all be fine, no worries" and then it costs you. Always worth spending 5 mins checking everything

I’ve had sonik rods 12ft admittedly and I had the butt eye inserts drop out on 2, I’m using fox torque 12ft rods now and they are bulletproof, can’t fault the build quality at all. I did turn a 12ft into a 10ft by accident… I stood on the tip!

On my last trip, I lost a good fish and when I reeled it, I found that the trace had snapped at the knot after the swivel. The lake I fished isn't easy and one chance in 24 hours is a result and then to lose it was a kick in the nuts. I tested all the rigs in my wallet and one failed quite easily but the others survived a good yanking with a couple of puller tools. I have been using olivettes to pin down my main line but since buying the bait boat, it does cause the line to sink a bit too much. I went back to using a 30 foot fluoro leader on the mono so everything near the hook should be pinned down without the drama's of using fluoro all the way through. As fluoro can be a bit temperamental, I put the hook through the gridding on my barrow and gave the line a good pull to try to iron out the inherent coiling the flouro likes to do. On one rod, the line snapped without too much pressure. I was convinced it would be the back to back grinner but when I checked, it had gone a foot above on the mono. I must have nicked it putting it in the holdall and created the weakness. I used to check every rod before casting it out but fell out of the habit. Today's thought is to check everything is sound before you lose that fish.

I've still got Solar Lockey Stainless rests. Refoamed a few times! Think I could sell them and my Quiverlocs for more than I paid for them! My Century NG's actually had a 'ball' on the butt section behind the reel seat, to stop the rod being pulled forward off the rest. I discovered it meant that I didn't actually need to use a rear rest.