Bruiser Grouper, tasty grouper, and some clean up after.

We recently got news that there's a recent development of some pond operators opening up options for catch and release (instead of the usual baiting, catch and weight in to be paid by the kilo) with the promise of well stocked bigger barramundis and groupers in the range of 2kgs and above.

Great news and fun for us to fill in between bigger offshore trips. The day started early and gloomy but that didn't stop us from landing barramundis after barramundis. Sad thing about this pond is that the fish aren't in the best condition as there were very little aerial displays and the fights were rather weak for barramundis 2kgs and above. Nonetheless, it did scratch a bit of the itch for tight lines, twitchy loaded rod, and safe to say everyone had some fun in the sun later in the day.

My biggest barra of the day after several mishap and line cuts while retrieving the fish with a lip grip. Photo courtesy of Tackle Source.

Buddy of mine landed another barra using Zipbait's Tiny Khamsin SR.

And another using DUO's MOAB 85F.

Not long after, we got bored chasing after the elusive aerial displays from these shy & weak barramundis and a friend spotted something which he suspects to be the not so humble abode of a grouper. Within minutes, a few of us were huddled around the area tossing in jigs, soft plastics, bait, and on several occasions instantaneously taken on the drop. Premature excitement ensues with opened hooks, lost jigs, lure, and snapped lines egged us further as I decide to use a madai jig with assist hooks instead.

Upon several jig drops sweeping the area gave me a shock as it was taken on the drop and actually felt like a snag. I immediately gave it a second tug and to my surprise, I was given a firm response tug. Then comes the frantic tug of war trying to lift the grouper out of its hole. It was a bruiser grouper but was no match for my Majorcraft Skyroad spinning rod.

Bruiser Grouper tips the scale at 3.8kg, I decide to pay for this bruiser for dinner. Photo courtesy of Tackle Source.

Bruiser grouper turns tasty grouper. Half the fish here takes up half the lazy susan.

Complete catch report can be found here courtesy of Tackle Source.

Fun for a day also meant that it's time for my reel's regular checks and service prior to my off shore trip 2 weeks after.

Bruiser grouper was no match for these tough gears still in excellent condition.

Same goes to the worm gear and floating shaft without signs of wear. Just the usual grease coat top up is enough.

Make sure to apply generous amount of grease on these bruiser beaters.

These are just the few critical ceramic bearings that takes most of the bruising. Seals removed, grease flushed, soaked in cleaning solvents, and elevated with wire mesh to keep it away from dirty sediments in a glass jar.

In goes the jar into an ultrasonic cleaner to thoroughly clean these ceramic bearings.

Oiled balls and grease rubbed body back into the reel.

These babies just need some tender loving speedy oil.

Speed oil for this fella too before plugging it back into the reel.

A well kept and also the proud feeling of a nicely pimped up reel gives me confidence in the field that I've eliminated another factor for failure to land fish. Till next time, Jarak, here I come!

More speed for the Shimano Speedmaster

It's been quite a hectic month lately with very little time in between to scratch the itch of bent rods, tight lines, screaming drags, fighting fish, any fish. Nevertheless, a friend was kind enough to help me fill the little emptiness by handing me his seasoned Shimano Speedmaster (Curado for some) for a little bit of pimpin in search for more SPEED!

This calls for some quality hybrid ceramic bearings and some tuning.

The Shimano Speedmaster patiently waiting in the operation theater.

First to go in, brakes side spool support bearing, oiled with high speed bearing oil.

These hybrid ceramic bearings are of ABEC 7s and have very little tolerances for play. Notice that they are opened bearings with less friction. Perfect for a speedier spool tune up.

They usually come lightly lubed with their shields in. These came opened and already lubed with high speed bearing oil. If you are anal like me, you'll clean the bearings and lube them with your preferred oil/grease. Cleaning can be effectively done several ways either using grease solvent or contact cleaners and compressed air dried. I prefer to use an ultrasonic cleaner while soaking it in grease solvent for a thorough job, then add a few drops of high speed bearing oil in after drying.

Just a quick check on the handle crank shaft reveals plenty of gunk and dirt trapped. Just needs some basic cleaning and grease rub down to get it back to battle ready condition.

With the spool tensioner knob removed followed by the pentagon shaped retainer wire, out comes the standard bearings to be replaced by the speed tuned hybrid ceramic bearings.

If you notice that the crank shaft collected quite a bit of dirt over time, the original bearings were in excellent condition due to the fact that they are quite shielded from water exposure. The spool tensioner knob has and o-ring while on the brakes side, it's located quite deep into the casing and therefore running opened bearings are ok as long as you regularly oil it for longer life as much as retaining it's high speed spool characteristics.

The spool spins up to speed quite quickly and free spin noticeably longer than regular bearings. I will wait for a full catch report later then the owner has an opportunity to try out its new found speed.

Cheers for now and I'll see if there are any opportunities to go fish during this holiday.

Falling in love with the Long Fall + Jigger combo

The promise of an epic spanish mack haul from my recent trip to the south china sea was met with horrible weather where the trip wasn't just cut short but brought me down to my knees barfing and hanging on to dear life.

Nevertheless, I've acquired myself this sweet gear combo of a Shimano Ocea Jigger + MajorCraft Long Fall rod and was eager to get it pimped and ready for battle. So here's the low down.

Virgin reel, strapped tight and ready.

First yummy bits that goes in, new silvery bling hot off the oven from Japan. Out goes the ARC bearings and in goes Hybrid Ceramic bearings. Lubed them balls with light oil and externally rubbed down with some teflon grease for protection.

Main crank shaft and pinion gear support ARC bearings swapped out with Hybrid Ceramic bearings. Oiled balls and grease rubbed exterior.

Second crank shaft ARC bearings replaced too.

Second pinion gear support ARC bearing up next.

Spool support ARC bearing our and Hybrid Ceramic already snugly fit in the body. This is usually the spot to fiddle with when tuning free spool performance. For this instance, due to higher possibility of salt water intrusion, I opted to lightly grease the balls with salt-water "spec'ed" grease and externally rubbed down as well. Free spool speed isn't the priority as I'll be using jigs of 80g-160g and not about casting ultra light lures.

Another spool support ARC bearing but with a solid king pin in place that needs to be removed using a specialist pin remover tool. Any forcing here will definitely result in unwanted damages.

I've only managed to drop the jigs a couple of times before the weather got worse with cooler boxes propelling about on the boat like demolition balls. Not much impression to be had but I'll have to wait for my next trip back to Pulau Jarak in late August in order to be properly introduced and hopefully 'fall in love' with the sweet combo of the jigger and much hyped MajorCraft long fall rod.

Gettin Jiggin with it at Pulau Jarak

Pulau Jarak, located close to the center of the Straits of Malacca, famous for its deep waters and strong currents inhabited by hard charging pelagics and notoriously brash demersals. This challenging combo requires you to arm yourself with jigging gear of at least PE2-3 and sometimes up to PE4-5. Jigs ranging from 100g-200g depending on the current and depths.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ is ideal for the job as it is reasonably priced/built, spool ready for 300m of PE3 lines, and packed with sprinkles of hand me down tech from the Stellas. We live on board the 'GT Chaser' for 3 days and 2 nights of intense jigging and possibly popping around the island depending on the current.

Ready but not quite. Needs some pimpin before it even catches a glimpse of sunlight.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ doesn't have seals to stop corrosive salt water intrusion. Therefore, some pimpin is needed to beef up it's internals for durability and also performance tuning with a combination of full ceramics as well as hybrid ceramic bearings.

The first set of bearings to be swapped to full ceramics, main gear supports. Shim fitted for proper gear mesh gap. Coated the body housing with teflon grease for that extra bit of protection.

Another view revealing all its balls in full glory!

Next up would be to pimp the pinion gear bearings (x-ship) and also the worm gear shaft's teflon bushings starting with the front bushing after removing the anti-reverse bearing assembly from the body.

Full ceramics for the pinion gear support, both x-ship bearings replaced, only one shown here. Note the worm gear teflon bushing on the right, it's about to get chopped!

Slides out smoothly.

It takes a bit of patience to trim the bushing as it is very tough. Best is to make the primary cut lesser than the desired removal length (similar thickness to the hybrid ceramic bearings) and fine tune it further by trimming off or filing it away bit by bit. Any accidental excess removal can easily be tuned using micro shims.

Here's a view of the hybrid ceramic bearings supporting the worm gear shaft in its housing before sliding the trimmed teflon bushing back into place.

Moving over to the rear worm gear shaft support bushing, it's a straight forward swap with additional micro shims to reduce free play and sliding for a more consistent line lay over the spool.

Rear teflon bushing for the worm gear is out, hybrid ceramic bearings in. Micro shims go between the bearings and worm gear shaft.

Onwards to the next bit, pawl bushing swapped out with a hybrid ceramic bearings and some modified Stella parts ordered from Japan. This modification is to predominantly increase durability of the reel but after the modification, there was a surprising improved smoothness to the worm gear to a point where I can pull the floating shaft forward/outward, the pawl is able to drive and rotate the worm gear! Previously not possible with the original teflon bushing.

Original teflon bushing shown below the pimped bits. Hybrid ceramic bearings sandwiched between the pawl and trimmed pawl bushing from the Stella. Micro shims sit between the hybrid ceramic bearings and the trimmed bushing for a glove like fit into the housing.

The pimped up Shimano Stradic 6000FJ's ready for battle with it's new innards and new found smoothness. The smoothness and low cranking resistance will help me quite a bit as I'll be jiggin for almost 3 days with little resting periods in between jiggin spots.

Jigs ranging from 100g to 200g, jerk baits, stick baits and poppers ready for battle.

Barracuda bites, but I-eat-choo! Tasty turmeric ginger paste over pan fried barracuda blocks!

Fish photos courtesy of Darren from Tackle Source.

The pimped up gear took on the bashing without breaking a sweat and it's well worth the pimpin as I'll be coming back to Pulau Jarak again soon. Upon quick inspection after the trip, there were no signs of any salt water intrusion or premature wear on any part of the reel. Just needed some fresh coat of teflon grease around it's gears and metal to metal contact bits.

Next test would be off shore Kuching in 2 weeks time, slightly shallower waters and I'll be testing a sweet new combo with pimped up bits as well. Stay tuned!

Balls buster GTs

Previously, 2 of the bearing sizes were slightly off the dimension I ordered, 0.5mm thinner, numbnut who took my order discovered that they didn't have stocks for the exact ones I wanted and decided to just dump in the closest one found and shipped it to me without notifying me. Just great!

 

Exotic pimping stuff. Full ceramic ZrO2 bearings.

Beyond the thickness issue which can easily be shimmed up to reach my desired thickness, the bearings weren't of any ABEC standards and the radial and axial free play was rather alarming and you can visibly see and feel it's wobble as I rotate them using my fingers.

I needed 2.5mm and 3mm thick bearings and this is what the numbnut sent me.

I know for sure with such ill fitting specifications, I'm threading dangerous waters field testing them on the main gears as it is the point where there will be heavy torque loading and twisting from the handles. Theory won't mean anything unless I try them out and push it beyond it's limit to develop products that suits angler's needs and application.

Hybrid Ceramic Bearings for the pinion shaft and more.

For this particular Shimano 4000 sized reel, due to the 'wrong' sized bearing sent to me, I've decided to test the slightly thinner bearings on isolation to see if it still works with the use of shim fitment. Only 2 full ceramics were used on the main gear support (handle crank shaft) and I didn't have sufficient shims to tune it like a glove fit, hence a bit more than usual free play. The remainder bearings were hybrid ceramics (pictured), which was previously pimped out, field tested and abused hauling giant cats & gars in Thailand (up coming posts to show case some of the giants).

There was wobble and free play while cranking, slightly more than the original condition, yet I've decided to give it a go even with an inkling that something might go wrong. The only way to find out is to field test it and give it the abuse it deserves.

We rented a GT pond for 3 hours, shared among 4 anglers, and all 4 of us started with top water lures. Weird thing is that the locals insists that all of us must cast at the same time as the GTs were very picky to take lures only at the beginning of any session. They insist that we get everything ready so much so that we have to cast upon stepping into the pond. We thought they were just kidding, we entered the pond and took our time to tie the lures while standing next to the pond. The locals waited and hurried us, some GTs were already doing a double take, flashing their colour at us while swimming past.

All 4 of us casted, popped and reeled without a hint of bite. After 2-3 tries, the locals figured they weren't getting any hook-ups and quickly switched to bait instead. My buddy and I stuck to lure, tried a variety of lures. Hours went by, not a single bite no matter how we work the lures, not that we are experts, but enough to get some desired action out of them. The baiters hook up one after another, told us to just switch to bait as the fish in the pond's too smart and seasoned. We caved in and became master baiters ourselves as we were running out of time.

Only after 2-3 casts, it was fish-on. A big fat juicy grouper made sure to give my pimped reel a few good power spurts to break in the ceramic bearings. Power cranks and moderate pace lifting landed this grouper without breaking a sweat. Tasty grouper goes back into the pond, catch and release.

On my next few casts, a juvenile GT snapped up my bait and made a run for it. The GT made my reel scream and was determined not to be landed without giving it all. Midway through several minutes of fight, high speed cranks and hard lifts, my reel started to scream to a different tune as I could feel there was more and more free play as I crank. It started to scream louder and I heard popping, crushing noise and felt it through the handles. The locals looked perplexed, what's with the alien noise that's coming out of my reel? Told them, testing new products and that's the not so sweet sound of busted bearings & exploded balls!

The GT was still out partying hard as I cranked slowly, nursing the reel as to not damage anything else. The only option I have left is to let the GT tire itself out. Damn GT was only half the size my buddy hooked up earlier and it busted my balls, metaphorically and literally for the ceramics.

Exploded outer races, crushed ceramic balls, crumpled shims!

The cause of this? Simple, wrong sized bearings loosely fit in with excessive radial and axial play that resulted in premature bearing failure. It was torque loaded from the handle to the gear at various cranking angles beyond it's operating parameters. Therefore the spectacular screaming explosion and crushed balls.

Tiny balls, busted tiny balls.

Crushed balls. Don't let this be yours!

Good thing is that this happened as I partly expected it to and not during a long off shore excursion. More tests needed to ensure that these bearings are spec'ed to be battle ready. I've completed several good field testing sessions of hybrid ceramics on this 4000 and 2500 sized reel. Next up would be to test using properly sized and fitment of ABEC 7 hybrid ceramics on a 6000 sized reel, watch this space!

It's time for me to bust some balls off the numbnut who sent me these wrong bearings!