"stoplight" rigging

"stoplight" rigging

penn makes a beautiful reel calls a fathom 60 two speed lever drag. #joey went through it, did a full service and then i installed a 5/0 grip and spooled it up. #the customer wanted 450 yards of 100 pound JB hollow and an 80 pound mono topshot that was spliced in. #not a problem. #remember this old photo? #we have a winding station!

http://alantani.com/gallery/13/1_29_...136052199.jpeg

i still have the same set up, but i added a little more inventory.

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_...143752032.jpeg

been dialing things in for the last 6 months, and i think i'm pretty well set. #for this particular reel, i put a double layer of flex wrap around the arbor and smeared a light coat of yamaha grease on the sides of the spool. #then i took some red 100# JB hollow, mounted it to the line tensioner and set the tension to a smooth 15 pounds. #then i spooled up 100 yards.

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_...143661062.jpeg

next, i spliced in some 100# JB hollow in yellow, and spooled up another 100 yards. #

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_...143662410.jpeg

now 100 yards of 100# green JB hollow.

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_...143692369.jpeg

150 yards of 100# white JB hollow for a total of 450 yards.

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_...143662109.jpeg

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_...143712172.jpeg

and finally 50 yards of 80# berkely big game. #nice looking serve, huh!!! #i set the drag to 20 pounds at strike and now we're all set!

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_..._14373576.jpeg

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_...143721750.jpeg

http://alantani.com/gallery/14/1_29_..._14374954.jpeg

for lack of a better name, i'm going to call this "stoplight" rigging. #it's pretty simple. #it's a double layer of flex wrap with some yamaha grease on the sides of the spool. #the spectra is loaded under 50 to 75% of your anticipated drag setting. #any mono or fluoro is then loaded under 25% of the anticipated drag setting. #the idea here is that a guy can hit the green and know that he has 300 yards left. #when he hits the yellow, he has 200 yards left and needs to start paying attention. #if he hits the red, he's got 100 yards and is going to have to make some quick decisions. #i know guys have marked their lines before, but in the heat of the battle, i think these marks can be easy to miss. #this type of rigging is as obvious as it gets. #unless it's pitch dark, you can't miss green, yellow and red, and you can't NOT know what it means. #

it's VERY time consuming to do this. #the yellow and red are a little sticky and can be tedious to splice. #i use a 6 foot section of 27 pound stainless steel single strand leader material that is folded in half to do all my rigging. #i've chosen this because this is what the average guy will use. #most guys will not be able to afford a $100 needle kit. #as far as the serve goes, i have all the fancy stuff. #for most connections, i just use a modified tony pena with a four turn uni on the mono side and then 6 turns up and 10 turns down on the spectra side. #it cinches up beautifully! #

i would love to see this become the new standard!

alan