Micro

Still finding these at the north end of my house. This is about the 12th one I've found this summer. My wife nearly sat on one last wekend when she was refinishing a coffee table on the driveway and sat on a stack of wood planks left over from our recently installed privacy fence. She sprayed the one she nearly sat on with Raid. It sat out in the hot sun all day until I got home. Looked dead to me. I then put it in an envelope to take to work the next day and show some friends. When I tore open the envelope and dumped it on my desk, it had recovered enough to crawl around. The one in this picture I sprayed with Ortho, then later some Raid. This evening it was still alive and kicking. Hard to kill, these Black Widows. It did not, however, survive my shoe.

You can use a Palomar knot, but any knot that cinches down on the eye is going to make it harder to impart action. I use a Palomar knot when I fish horny toads and the like. But if I am fishing a spro or a basirisky, or any other topwater that walks, waddles or has side-to-side action then I use a Rapala knot. You get better action with a loop knot. And the Rapala knot will retain about 90+% of line strength. If you are fishing 50-65 lb braid, there is no problem with that kind of line strength retention.

I've never seen a really good review on this reel. I've never fished one but have cast a friend's. The thing that bugs me the most is that the front is too high off the rod. If you like to wrap your index finger around the front of the reel, the pawl rubs back and forth against your finger. I'm sure I'd find more to hate about it if I owned one, after seeing TT's photos. The reel is bizarrely designed.

Curious about the micro guides. How do they keep the line from rubbing the rod? Seems like with even a slight bend the line would come into contact with the blank. BTW, I've never fished a rod with mico guides. Just curious if this is an issue.

Fished it a bit yesterday. Really, no real discernible difference between the modded and unmodded bait. The modded one does seem to swim a little wider path, bit if you jerk it doesn't seem to act quite right and seemed to get its hook hung up on the line a bit more. Final impression: not worth messing up a nice bait for this.

The Sol will hand handle that just fine. The Sol excels with lighter baits, but handles heavier bait well, too.

Rented it twice. I HATE SNOWBALLS!

Looks like a Daiwa.

Anyone that has fished the Jackall Giron understands it lacks a wide swimming action. It's a good bait, but the bait has a very narrow swim path. I took an old Giron of mine and filed down the edges of the forward body segment. I found these are excessively long and restrict the range of motion of the tail. Filing them down allows the tail to swing a bit more. And I've still got some room to knock the sides down a bit more. Preliminary tests in the neighborhood pond a little while ago are promising. The bait does swim with a noticably wider path. It has a better action with a slow retrieve, too. The horizontal sinking attribute is unaffected. Gonna try it for real soon.

It just feels very stiff and IMO doesnt cast as far as others can. I just picked up some CXX tonight and could not be happier 1000x better then ultrasoft Why would you use 12# Yo-Zuri on a crankbait rod? The benefit of Yo-Zuri is that you can move down in test and still have the breaking strength of a higher test mono. 12# Yo-Zuri breaks at something like 19 pounds. I use 10# Yo-Zuri (breaks at 16#) on my heaviest cranking rod, and 8# (breaks at 12#) on my medium cranking outfits. Move down in test. 12# YZ is overkill on a cranking rod.

I have a Cardinal 500ALB. It's a rock solid, no frills reel. Mine has performed great. Holding up well, too.

The crawfish cranks are great when you need a very wide wobbling, well, crawfish crank. The hooks are excellent and the paint on my shallow diving red/brown is holding up nicely. I have a few of the surface ones, too, and they make a nice little wake bait reeld slowly, or they retrieve just under the surface a little faster. I bought some of the pumpkinseed in metallic, mainly because they were pretty, but they seem to have a very nice action and I anticipate they will be decent producers. Nothing, yet, though. But haven't fished it a lot. I just got a a slow sinking 4.5 inch Blueback Herring. I posted something on that a few days agoo. http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1279587666

I'd pass on the Ugly Stick, too. That new Berkley, the Lightning Shock, is a really nice low-priced rod. I've looked at those and they feel real nice and look fantastic. I'd pair that up with a Shimano Sedona or Daiwa Regal. I think you could get the rod and reel for about $100 total. You'll have a good rod and reel that will serve you well for many years and give you lots of pride of ownership.

What was his real name?

That's a hunk of fish. Don't rule out Virginia's James River. It is producing 100+ lb fish with bigger ones caught in nets. Only a matter of time.

I once started a thread entitled, "The Politics of Religion: Doug Hannon's Snake and Babe Pictures." Didn't go over well.

I've caught bass on both sizes of Anaconda. I've caught them on the craw, and on the frog. But, by far, the most productive Rage Tail I've used is the Space Monkey. Not only has it out fished the other Rage Tails I've used, it has accounted for the majority of bass I've caught on any bait since Big-O sent me some when the line was introduced. I rig the Space Monkey on an Owner 4/0 Twist Lock 1/8 oz weighted hook. Rigged this way, the bait can be buzzed on the surface, or retrieved slowly about a foot under the surface. It will sink horizontally. The Space Monkey's legs kick up and down, and the hips sway slightly from side to side. It looks alive. Setting the hook is a breeze. Much like a spinner bait, the fish pretty much hooks itself. The weight is just there. In fact, I fish them on All Star American Classic 6'8" medium heavy/fast rods (model ACSBR2 spinner bait rod).

What was your question about the North American Fishing Club? Can you ask it again? Only kidding.

No. It's the April 1966 issue of Argosy Magazine. Argosy was a men's magazine. No, not girlie pictures. It covered men's interests. Had sports articles, hunting and fishing articles, and lots of fiction stories - mainly pulp-fiction type stories. This issue happened to have an a letter my dad sent in and he kept the magazine and gave it to me a few days ago. His letter was cool, but the real treasure were all the fishing ads.

I picked up this Koppers Blueback Herring. Very nice looking and feeling lure (hope fish think so, too). This is the 4.5" slow sinker. Not only is it good looking, but it has some seriously sharp, beefy Daiichi hooks. I think it will be killer on fall school stripers. Here it is over a Sebile Magic Swimmer. One think I noticed is that the body swings side to side as much as the Sebile, but the bait segments don't swing up and down like the Sebile. The tail on the Sebile can swing in a circle whereas the Koppers only swings back and forth. The Sebile sinks almost horizontally, whereas the nose on the Koppers sinks faster than the tail and in a foot or two it's sinking nose first.

My preference is for a 7' rod, heavy, with a fast tip, but one that is a little softer than, say, a flipping stick. You can pitch with any rod, but one with a little more give that loads up will give you better performance. I have two heavy All Star American Classic rods, a pitching rod, a flipping rod. They are rated the same. The flipping and pitching are both heavy, extra fast rods. Even so, the pitching rod has a bit more give than the similarly rated flipping rod, which is extremely stiff to the tip. It's much easier to pitch with the pitching rod since pitching will put some load on your rod and the give helps with bait delivery.

If it is a separate switch than the clutch bar, how do you operate it? Do you have to keep it down during the cast and then it pops up when you take your thumb off? If so, how do you thumb the spool, too? I really like Daiwa clutch bars and the type on the Shimano Castiac, which act as normal clutch bars but you can simply pop them back up from their depressed position. Can't do that on Abu Revos.

The simple fact is either the Mossberg or Remington are fine choices. The one advantage the Remington has over the Mossberg is when it comes to long magazines. In the Remington, the barrel support slips over the magazine. If you want to extend the magaine, you just buy and extension and new spring. On the Mossberg 500, the barrel support screws into the end of the magazine. That means if you want to extend the magazine, you need a new magazine AND barrel. If you buy a Mossberg that already has a long magazine, you will need to replace the magazine if you want to put, say, a vent-rib barrel on it for bird hunting. Personally, my choice is a Benelli Super Nova. It's a really nice gun. But be warned, the barrels cost nearly as much as a new gun.

No sir the SOL is no longer being made.... Could be, but it's still on their website and it's still available.

Fish those fat Red Eyes. See how they do. That may become the next lure-mod fad.