Kerr Lake, July 10-12 '26

 Deb and I have been running hard in the heat, and headed to the Houseboat a few days to play. I reloaded a few fishing reels, caught a bunch of fish, and played on the beaches with a friend. I'm getting closer to having a working ham radio station up and running on the boat.

Here's a pic of the High Sierra motorized antenna on the houseboat. It allows operation on ham bands 80 through 6 meters by adjusting resonance via motorized drive to change physical length and inductance of the loading coil.

Working on repairing baits, new batteries in the fish scale, and new line on a few of the reels...

It started getting a little nasty on Friday evening.

I caught the 4 fish above on this deep dive bait, standing on the dock. This bait works about 17' to 20' down. It cranks down fast, rises slow...

The next group above were caught on Saturday morning, about 7am to 9:30 am. The last bait consistently picked up blue cats...we switched back to the deep diver previously shown.

Next, Laura came up and we headed to the beach to play for the day.

Afterwards, we headed back to the houseboat...

Debbie picked up a nice bass as we rolled back into the marina cove ..

Next, we got up on Sunday morning to do a bit of fishing...

Debbie's catch on Sunday was the best of the weekend, at 2lb 10oz. 

Sunday eve, we cleaned up the boat and closed it up, took showers, and headed to George's in Henderson for a nice dinner. 

Zebco Bullet Push Button Cover, pt1

 We've had Zebco Bullit Reels since 2016, 10 years as of now. We LOVE these reels! Crazy retrieve ratio, flawless non-blowup casts, and virtually no maintenence. 9 ball bearings make these reels amazingly smooth and beasts when used with braid.

The only issue, for the most part, is the flexible neoprene rubber covers over the thumb release. After years, they'll dry rot and crack. I'm about to replace the covers on 4 of our bullets, and just got these in the mail. I'll post more on the process, later. Here's the parts I got from a supplier.

New Bullet!

 We love our Zebco Bullet reels. I hear folks say, all the time, "pushbutton reels are for beginners and kids". Not so, and they've never tried one of these. It has 9 sealed ball bearing assemblies, and even uses them in the line pickups for the oscillating spool. It casts a mile like a bait cast reel, has a tremendous retrieve rate of almost 30" per revolution of the handle (similar to about a 7.5:1 bait cast retrieve rate), and the ball bearing pickups allow the use of braid with no problems. We fish all day, not a single blow-up. I can't say enough good stuff about them. 

Anyway, we recently picked up one of the new Bullet  MG reels....same reel but with a lighter magnesium construction. After one day of use, I can say that there will be more of these in our lineup!

Replacing Zebco Bullet Handle

We have several of the Zebco Bullit reels. Debbie and I use them a lot, and really love the cast distance, retrieve rate, and overall handling. Recently, I was about to swap one of the quick change spools in one, and broke the handle in the process... it would just spin freely afterwards. 

When I got back home I realized there was lots of free play in the handle. I contacted Zebco, and the sent out a replacement (once again, they have awesome customer service!!). I think I had not paid close attention that the handle was getting lose, and when I applied force on the spinner head to unscrew it, the handle had slipped slightly outwards and broke the little drive splines. I've checked our other Bullets and tightened the handles to hopefully not have that issue again. Here are a few pics. 

Remove the silver cap, and then loosen the brass cap, just as when swapping sides with the handle. This was already loose inside, likely why I broke the drive splines.

Remove the brass cap that secures the handle...

This is the handle with the broken drive spline...

Bad handle on top, new handle on the bottom. You can see the part that is broken off...

 I replace the old handle, and all is well. Thanks again to Zebco for the parts and support needed to keep my gear running great!

 

Zebco Bullet Casting Problem Repair

We have several of the Zebco Bullet reels. I LOVE these reels for zero backlash long distance casting and high retrieve speed. One of our Bullets would occasionally hang the line internally, immediately upon casting, and slam the lures down right in front of us (and sometimes break  monofilament line). After searching the web and finding several other people posting about this issue but no fix found, I decided to investigate the issue with my own reel. 

Every time this would happen, I'd remove the spool cover to look and see what the problem was. By the time I'd pull the cover, it would unhang and I could find no issue. Finally, on a recent fishing outing, I removed the cap and found the problem...the line was snagged around the mushroom head stud (looks almost like a tiny brad) that secures the bearing on the retracting line pickup arm. 

When the cast button was depressed and the pickup pins were retracted, it would leave the head of the stud exposed just enough to occasionally snag the line on cast...seen in the photo below...

I removed the spool cover (hold the handle to resist turning, and turn the spool cover counter clockwise), removed the bearing / stud assembly from the retracting pickup arm, pressed the stud to firmly seat it into the bearing with the head flush, and reinstalled it. We've cast a few hundred times since with not a single hangup. Problem solved! Below is a photo of one of my Zebco Bullets with Proline braid installed, and you can see the pin pressed all the way in against the bearing's inner race.

I hope this helps someone else with the same problem!

****NOTE**** Since the original posting of this message, I contacted Zebco and learned they have an updated / improved spool cover / spin head for this reel. I sent them the serial # of my reel, and they sent me a new cover. It looks as if the bearings are now retained with an improved fastener, and they look to retract a bit more when in the cast position. Thanks to Zebso for AWESOME customer service!