68KingFisher

Hello All.....My name is Michael and i'm 51 years old....married 25 years and have 2 beautiful daughters and now a gorgous granddaughter. After surviving a massive heart attack at age 38 I decided i'd had enough of the fast paced big city lifestyle and all my wicked partying ways, and I moved my family from Tulsa, to a rural town in a very scenic area of southwest Arkansas. Now we are surrounded by the Ouachita national forest and everywhere I look is a postcard perfect picture.....I now know why they call Arkansas the "Natural state".....Moving here was the best thing I've ever done....wish i'd done it 20 years earlier. I was introduced to fishing by my grandfather who would take us boys down to the pond during our summer vacations with them.....been addicted ever since. Once I caught a largemouth bass from a local steam I became hooked on bass fishing, but I still fish for most anything thats biting at the time. A couple of my fishin buddies and I started pouring our own jigs and spinnerbaits back then, and I even tied my share of trout flies. Somewhere in my late 20's I got involved in sprintcar racing with my brother and ended up spending ALL my spare time at race tracks or working on the race cars and got completely away from fishing.....so much so that as time went on my wife would sell off my tackle alittle at a time during her yearly garage sales, eventually leaving me with no fishing equipment at all. With the help of a good friend that also moved here a few months back we got to talking about fishing we used to do, and we ended up purchasing an old 1968 KingFisher bassboat we happened across in the neighborhood which started our journey back into the world of angling.....Boy I tell ya what...I couldn't be happier....I had forgotten just how much I loved this sport, and I can't wait for our weekly fishin trips to nearby lakes. Although i've had to start over collecting tackle, and the much higher prices then I was used to,got me to thinking about making some of my own again....Mainly plastics for now...worms, saltcraws, swimbaits, etc....being a research fanatic I started by searching the internet for current tackle trends and supplies as well as "how to's", which led me to run across this website....it didn't take but just a few minutes to realize I needed to bookmark this place and start soakin up all the info and wisdom I could. I've been an artist all my life and i'm now a professional airbrusher with a small shop behind my home where I do high quality custom airbrushing for the biker community mainly....I paint alot of freehand murals, skulls, dragons, flames, etc, on all types of motorcycles and helmets as well as the occasional "Other" items....While I haven't painted painted any lures yet, i'm gettin ready to try and refinish a couple of cheapo store bought crankbaits that I can't seem to catch anything on....hopefully a different color paintjob will make the difference. I've been airbrushing since the mid 70's so i've got alot of knowledge about airbrushes and various paints that I'll gladly share with any of you that have questions....so feel free to ask or email your questions to me at Airbrusher@sbcglobal.net

When i'm not fishing, I'm a professional airbrush artist with over 30yrs experience.....I normally cater to the biker community doing custom airbrushing on motorcycles and helmets.....After visiting the company website and looking at their paintable version of the "Save Phace" mask, I think I could probably paint these without much trouble.....I'll just use automotive paints and treat them like I would a regular motorcycle helmet. Drop me an email at airbrusher@sbcglobal.net and we can talk more, and I can direct you to my website to view samples of my work.

After many years away from fishing I have started again.....I purchased a BPS spinning combo rig and a few lures to me going started, but a friend recently gave me a couple of old Abu's on rods that he never used.....an ambassadeur 5000 on a 7ft Berkley lightning rod IM6 series, and a 5500-C3 mounted on a 6.5ft All Star rod....WR1 model i'm assuming? I learned how to use a baitcast reel in the early 80's and spent many years using a low profile Shimano reel.....but I know nothing about these round types of baitcasters, and I was hoping someone could give me some more info on them....specificly, are they worth my time to use them fishing for bass? The ser# looks to be(89-0 89-90)on the 5000, and(990503)on the 5500-C3. They both cleaned up pretty nice and i relubed them, before stringin them up with some 15lb Berkly BigGame line. I gave both reels a try at a nearby lake last weekend. First off I wasn't crazy about the "Solar" BigGame line....it looked like a big honkin ski rope coming thru the water.....lol.....So i'll might use something different if I keep on using these.....In fact, Should I be using a braided line on these reels? The 5000 gave me the most trouble with backlashing and tryin to adjust that......I just couldn't seem to find a happy medium that worked for me.....I could make some short flippin style casts but any long cast resulted in a backlash.....I was tryin jig-n-pig...worms...and spinnerbaits. The 5500 did alot better and I was able to make some fairly long sidearm casts without much effort......the reel felt solid and smooth for the most part, although the round body felt fairly large, and for some reason, I kept wrapping a finger around the front and getting it pinched by the line guide as I held the reel with my left hand....lol....I guess time will break that habit.....I did have my share of backlashing with this reel also.... but not near as bad, and I blame much of that on my needing practice as I do on the older style of spool control system....and my not being used to it.....the Shimano I learned with had a magnetic spool control. Anyway, i'd love to hear what other bass fisherman think about using these.....Are they worth using, or should I bring them out for catfish night? PS.....I understand there are some upgradable features on one or both of these reels.....would adding the upgrades be worth my time or money, or should I use save that money for a newer reel? The rods seem nice enough to keep them no matter what reels I end up using.....in fact if any of you can give me more info the rods also i'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge.