Loosing heavy lures to bird's nests

[MuskieBait]

BTW...just want to say...and I'm sure OT will agree with this...

If you can cast a Penn Jigmaster, you can cast anything in the world. The Jigmaster has no fancy centrifugal control, and the spool tension knob on the side is somewhat helpful at best of time. I think you just need to practice more with your SX and know when to allow you spool to spin and when to slow it down.

I find that personally the two key times to slow the spool down is immediately after the release and just before the lure starts to descend. You shouldn't need to feather the spool throughout the entire cast since doing so will cut your distance a lot. However, if you wait until the lure just about to hit water to stop the spool, it may be a bit too late to slow the spool down at that point. The sudden deceleration simply put too much stress on the line at that time, especially with a high arc cast. I think you simply need more dry land practice to learn when and how much to feather your SX.

Every reel is different and it'll take some time to learn. When I first use the Komodo, it was birdnest almost every other cast even with the spool tension set and the centrifugal pins adjusted. But now I can basically reduce much of that built in control and simply use my thumb on the cast...and I rarely get a birdnest unless my line doesn't pack tight enough on the retrieve.

Oh...that reminds me...are you certain that your line packs tight and neat on every retrieve? If you have line that is not pack tightly, they will unravel unpredictably on the cast contributing to the birdnest.