Nick Moore | Wednesday, 16 March 2022
I have started prepping my competition gear, which took a surprising amount of time, considering the number of lines i am going to take. The blanks and the guides of the rods need cleaning as well to make them nice and slick (Paul just washes them off on top of the boat when it rains). A light clean and line slick will soon sort that out for me, as i use them for fishing, and are quite muddy at the moment! A fellow caster recommended using tennis racket overgrip, which i believe is a game changer. It's a far better grip than cork, which means you can use an even looser grip (well, a hold really) than possible. This has really allowed me to rotate much later and faster, especially on the back cast which is pretty important for distance!
So, what lines am i going to use?
1. Ballistic Pro Performance #5 with a short back taper
2. Ballistic Pro Performance #5 with a longer back taper
3. Ballisitc Pro Performance #7 with a long back taper
4. atomsix 55' ST27 Shooting Head
5. atomsix 60' ST27 Shooting head
How about the rods?
1. Sage Igniter 690-4 for the #5 event
2. Sage Igniter 990-4 for the #7 and ST27
3. SL HT690-4 for the accuracy
You may be wondering why i have doubled up on some lines, well, It depends on the conditions. More specifically, wind strength. The lines that are shorter, or have a shorter back taper will be used if it's anything like what we had this week. But if it's flat calm, then the longer lines will be used to compensate.
I use quite a thorough cleaning routine for the lines, as they are very expensive and i want them to last as long as possible. You want to clean lines with hand soap and warm water through a clean cloth, and avoid detergents and solvents. Detergents and solvents dissolve the plasticizers in PVC lines, so they will end up brittle and eventually crack. This is fact by the way, and straight from the line designers at SA and Rio. The cleaning routine consists of 3 washing-up bowls, the first one will house the dirty line, and this is then fed through the clean cloth (loaded with warm soap and water) into another bowl full of clean water to rinse off the soap. I let it sit for a bit, and then i use SA's line cleaning pad to finish off the cleaning process, and this goes into the next clean empty bowl. I then apply a small amount of SA's line dressing and let it dry, and then buff it off. All of the leaders were replaced and needle knotted to the lines with brand new Rio Powerflex Trout, 9' 2x, and extended to just under 11' 10" on the #5 and #7 lines. The other #5 was not extended, and was cut to 2.5m for the accuracy event. The ST27 lines were extended to 9' 10", and they were all done with Rios Powerflex 2x. Orange egg yarn was also tied on as the fly.
For the rods, i use a damp cloth. This cleans off all of the mud, but to make it slick, I use a pad with line dressing on it to go in between the guides and on the blank. I also take off the overgrip after an outing, as i don't want moisture to be trapped under it. I'll apply a new overgrip when it's dry and i can put them away.
I've been practicing a lot, working on single handed carry and accuracy, and even changed some of the kit to something better when i realised it wasn't working as well as it should. I now have some thin amnesia mono which i use at the back of the full lines, and as the shooting line for the ST27's. The backing is needle knotted to them all, and provides a very smooth connection when it flies through the guides.
tight lines all!