I’ve had my Kistler Z Bones built with the Fuji Tangle Free Micro K Guides and they’re the best on the market. As advertised, they truly are tangle free and keeps that annoying braid wrap around the guides and tip.
They’re the ideal guide for a frog rod or flippin stick but suitable for any rod where you do not want the line to wrap around the guides.
I’ve had this dilemma with every type of line out there so it’s a better product no matter what line you use.
I envision a day where all my rods have these guides and the days of line wrap being over.
Here’s a little demonstration of how these guides work. They show a full size version on the vid but I like them in the Micro version.
If you fish any tournaments, eventually you’ll run into a time where you have to break down and fish for keepers and numbers. At some point, you have to hit the panic button and fish baits that you know are not likely to produce that 5 or 8 pounder that could win it for you.
In case of emergencies, I have some baits that I know will catch fish.
The first bait in my panic box is the trick worm. This thing on a 1/4 oz weight, 20 lb Seaguar, and 7′ Heavy Kistler LTX in kissimmee grass, an 1/8 weight, 15 lb Seaguar, and 7′ medium heavy Kistler Magnesium TS in shallow water, and 1/8 oz shaky head or 1/32 wacky jig head on 8 lb Seaguar around docks will catch fish all day every day. The colors I gravitate to the most are junebug blue tail, bama bug, and watermelon red. These 3 colors work in just about every water clarity in Florida but if I believe there’s spawners around, I’ll go with watermelon red with a red bullet weight.
The Super Fluke catches fish all year long, but it can be deadly around the spawn. If the water’s clear, I’ll go with watermelon red. If it’s more stained, then I’ll go with Okeechobee Craw. I’ll fish it weightless most of the time on my 6’9″ medium heavy Kistler Helium LTA with 15. lb Seaguar, but sometimes you can get away with a 1/32 screw in weight or a small split shot a foot up from the bait. Any time there’s eel grass or hydrilla, this thing will catch fish all day every day.
Another bait that I know catches fish all the time is a weightless senko in watermelon red or junebug. It really excels in shallow clear water texas rigged or wacky rigged, but can be fished deeper with a screw in bullet weight or nail weight and can be flipped in grass or timber.
Now I’ve caught plenty of big fish with all these baits, but they catch numbers more than anything else. When I have to hit the panic button and fill out a limit, I’ll be throwing one of these baits if I’m fishing in Florida.
I’ve had my share of good flippin sticks, but my 7’6″ Heavy Kistler Z Bone LE with Fuji Micro K Guides is the best one I’ve ever had.
The blank is built by the legendary Gary Loomis at his newly formed North Fork Composites in Woodland, Washington. I hate to break it to G. Loomis fans out there, but Gary Loomis hasn’t been involved with the company for years and the latest G. Loomis rods are just fancy Shimano’s.
That being said, the first thing I noticed about my Z Bone is the parabolic bend. It’s got plenty of backbone, but still has uniform bend throughout the rod. Those of of us who like to flip with 65 braid know that you’ll end up losing a lot of fish with too stiff a rod and I believe this Z Bone blank is the answer. The tip is light enough to provide some forgiveness to braid which has no stretch and the parabolic bend actually fights the fish for you.
The sensitivity is ridiculous with the high modulus graphite blank created by none other than the legend himself, Gary Loomis, and the micro guides take up less area on the blank making it even more sensitive. It’s hard to put into words a how much more sensitive this rod is.
I’m not sure if it’s due to the micro guides or the blank itself, but the Z Bone is more versatile. The typical lure rating on a heavy action rod is 3/8 to 1 ounce but my Z Bone is rated for 1/4 to 1.5 ounces meaning it can be used for more applications.
Another cool feature for flippin with braid is the Micro K Guide which virtually eliminates the line wrapping around the guides. I was a little skeptical at first, but they really work. I had a buddy of mine wrap braid around a guide 5 times on my Micro K Guides trying to prove me wrong but it came unwrapped with ease.
I love this thing paired with a Shimano Chronarch D7 and 65 braid. It’s always sitting on my deck and have an extra heavy on order which is rated for 1/2 oz to 6 oz. No, it’s not a typo…. 6 oz and probably lighter than most of the rods in your collection.
If you read my last post, you’d know I was pretty excited about the Xtreme Tournament on the Harris Chain yesterday. I had numerous 8 pounders locked on bed and an area where I caught 20+ pounds on Friday shaking most of the fish off. I mean the ones I hooked were huge with the smallest being 3 pounds.
I was so excited, I had to get a few drinks in me so I could fall asleep with delusions of grandeur.
Saturday rolled around and everything changed.
I went to my bedding area first and the bedding fish were in a different mood. What was once a lock turned into a struggle of wills. They would pick up my worm and take it out of the bed on Friday, but on Saturday they’d spook off as soon as I clicked my reel.
After about an hour of this, my partner and I went to Griffin where we caught all those fish the day before and there were 3 foot rollers on top of a spot that only had 2 feet of water. The fish were still biting although you could barely stand in the boat and we had about 9 pounds before we decided to head back and if it wasn’t for my Kistler rods, I would’ve never known I had a fish.
We decide to go to the bedding fish again but they were still spooky and never caught any of the big ones we were looking at. It’s one of those cases where the fish won, but they better watch out. I only wonder what could’ve been if there wasn’t 40 mph winds and a drop in water temperature by 2 degrees. I guess that’s why they call it fishing.
Once again, a perfect practice turned into a meager day of fishing come tournament time. I can’t think of any adjustments that I could’ve made to salvage the day so I’m dumbfounded at the moment.
Everyone that did well in the tournament focused on bedding fish and it took over 25 pounds to win. I guess I should’ve gone to some other bedding areas to see if those fish would bite. The only problem was there were 6 foot rollers I’d have to battle to get there and that didn’t seem like a good idea at the time.
Oh yeah, did I mention a boat capsized during the tournament? I don’t know if I would’ve capsized but it would’ve been a bumpy ride.
The name Gary Loomis is synonymous with the finest graphite blanks for fishing rods and he’s finally back at the factory churning out the most innovative, sensitive, and lightest blanks in the world under the name North Fork Composites. He’s been out of the rod business since he sold G Loomis to Shimano in 1997.
Shimano announced it would no longer sell G Loomis blanks earlier this year, so I’m sure it was an impetus for Gary to get back in the game.
There’s a rumor going around that Kistler Rods is going totally custom in 2010 and you’ll be able to build a rod around the North Fork Composites blank at Kistler. Whoa, I can’t wait to try one out.
