Micro

Chucky! Nice fish. 42 is cold.

I think you be letter off using a thin wire leader. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Berkley174-Steel-On-Leaders-150-30-Lb/739109.uts?Ntk=AllProducts&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch.cmd%3Fform_state%3DsearchForm%26N%3D0%26fsch%3Dtrue%26Ntk%3DAllProducts%26Ntt%3Dwire%2Bleader&Ntt=wire+leader

What's wrong with what he said? Fluorocarbon is a crystal and different blends create different characterisitcs.

ON HIS FAMILY'S EARLY POVERTY 'Four of us slept in the one bed. When it got cold, mother threw on another brother.' I laughed out loud at this. ;D

Me, too. But I do use it on some rods. I don't like Power Pro, mainly because it bleeds colors. When I first tried it, it actually bled color all over the reel. Of the braids I've tried, I like Stren and Suffix braids the best. Haven't tried Samurai.

The problem is that it starts getting expensive. And finding a woman that will tolerate it gets harder.

Yo-Zuri Hybrid.

Why don't you take out Penn and make it Pflueger. I can't imagine Penn has much of a LMB following.

I was just there on Friday and saw some stuff I hadn't seen before and wondered if there was some other stuff, thoo, that they didn't have. I picked up some weighted weedless wacky hooks. Built on Gamakatsu hooks they seem as nice as Zappus and Jackalls at a much more reasonable price.

A somewhat similar bait is the Yo-Zuri Hardcore Shad HS60 suspending. It dives to 6 feet. I catch a ton of fish on these little baits. http://www.yo-zuri.com/

It would be a more compact list if you listed Abu, Pflueger, BPS, Penn, Wright McGill, and Pinnacle as a single choice. As for me, my favorite reel is the Daiwa Zillion so I chose Daiwa. The Core MgFV is right up there with it. As far as spinning goes, all my reels are Shimano. I am currently off the Abu Garcia wagon. I own no Abus. In fact, Roadwarrior owns more Abus than I do.

RIP BASSMAN. He probably had a license plate that said BASSMAN.

Maker's Mark

Agree, not the best for slow moving baits. However, very good for small crankbaits, spinner baits and inline spinners.

I know this is an old thread. But I'm reviving it. Daves has quie a bit of stuff out that isn't on their website linked above. For instance, their wacky jigs. Does anyone know if they have a new website. 'Cuz, I'm not finding it. Just the old one dated 2006.

Most of my rods are HMGs. I have one Elite Tech - a 7'2" Crankshaft cranking rod. As far as modulus, I have no idea. But I've had the opportunity to fish a HMG 6'6" MH/F and a HMG 7' M/F next to a St. Croix Avid 6'6" MH/F and an Avid 7' M/F and can say as far as weight and sensitivity, I could not really tell them apart. At the time, the Avid had better guides (alconite on the Avid versus Hardloy on the HMG) but new HMGs now have alconite guides as well.

I have a Spirex 2500FG that is on an Allstar American Classic 6'6" medium/fast rod (feels more like a medium fast or medium). It's sort of a grab and go combo I use for panfish and pickerel and for throwing small crank baits and inline spinners. The reel is inexpensive but is very smooth. I actually like the handle. I think that adds to the feeling of smoothness and balance. The drag is perfectly adequate for bass fishing. The trigger is a non issue for me since I don't use it. Otherwise, there isn't much to say about it except that it's a very good reel in its price range. I went with the front drag model because I don't care for rear drag spinning reels.

Here's a blue cat I caught on a deep diving Rapala a few weeks ago...

I agree. The bow in the line has more to do with drag than the density of the line. A round profile is a very poor aero (or hydro) dynamic shape. But with line, the round profile is unavoidable. The way to reduce drag is to reduce the profile size. That means reducing the diameter of the line. It does not mean changing the material the line is made of. It matters not whether the round profile line is mono, fluoro or some other material, round profiles of identical size will have the same drag coefficient regardless of their material composition. The simple fact is that fluoro sinks faster than mono, but it doesn't drop to the bottom like a rock. It sinks slow enough that the lure pulls it down. The biggest force acting against that is drag, not the weight of the line. The weight of line may help - but truth be known, probably only a tiny bit. Also remember, that the faster something goes, the more drag is produced. Drag is not a constant force. There is no drag when something is at rest. Drag increases as speed increases. So, as I see it, the best way to get a moving lure deeper is to reduce the drag it has to work against. That means reducing line diameter.

Thanks for the write up. I'm interested in a new frog rod and they sound promising.

Cool, thanks.

I got to handle, but not fish, a 7" medium heavy/fast rod last night. It was very light and seemed well made. Looks like they run about $150 at Tackle Warehouse. Any reviews?

Yo-Zuri does not float. It sinks. So does mono. Try a simple experiment like I have. Take big glass and put 8 inches of water in it. Take a 6" piece of 12lb Trilen XL, 6" piece of 12lb YZ Hybrid and a 6" piece of 12lb Trilene Fluoro. Put them in end first so they break the water tension and let them go. It takes about 7.5 second for mono to reach the bottom, 5 for Yo-Zuri Hybrid and 2.5 for Fluoro. Hardly scientific, but it does go to show YZ is denser than XL and sinks faster, but not as fast as fluoro. That stands to reason, Hybrid is a a combination of mono and fluoro.

I have 24 rod and reel combos that I use regularly and have Hybrid on all but a few of them. I have braid on three, fluoro on one, and PLine CXX on two. Hybrid to me is more sensitive than Trilene XL, XT or Stren Original. It is also a bit stiffer. But far from unmanageable. Hybrid is, IMO, very similar to PLine CXX. But I think it has better knot strength. In the short time I've been using PLine, I've had a few breakoffs at the knot. I've only had one breakoff on Hybrid - when I tried to lift a very heavy blue catfish over the side of my boat. Hybrid is more abrasion resistant than Trilene XT. I fish around old duck blinds and some barges and they can really chew up a line. Trilene XT is pretty good around stuff like this, but does get roughed up. Hybrid is noticably more resistant to the extent of abrasions I get with Trilene. Braid, IMO, is horrible around these structures. Anyplace that braid touches on a barge it raises fuzz. Hybrid has much better abrasion resistance than braid. Like RW (and because of RW) Hybrid is my standard line. If I were limited to one line, Hybrid would be it.

The North Koreans are vicious. When I was in college, I worked with a man, Mr. Ramirez, who had been a Prisoner Of War in WWII as well as the Korean War. (How's that for luck.) He told me the Germans treated him exceptionally well compared to the North Koreans. The Germans at least fed him and treated him in a somewhat civilized manner. The North Koreans beat him repeatedly and refused to feed him. He ate whatever he could catch including bugs. He stated the conditions got a little better when the Chinese took over the prison camp. I think North Korea will eventually collapse, unless they come around. And I think they are either too stupid or too proud to do that. They have only China to support their regime. And China, IMO, has no use for them anymore. They are ONLY a liability to China. As far as the South Koreans, they can be vicious fighters, as well. My father was an Operations Officer for an Army artillery battery which was attached to and under the control of the US Marines in northern South Vietnam. His battery not only fired in support of the US Marines, they fired in support of one of two South Korean divisions that had been deployed to Vietnam during the war. Not many people know that the South Koreans had the second largest contingency of combat troops in Vietnam after the United States, and were among the last to pull out after the war. Here are few things he knows of, or actually witnessed: South Koreans interrogated a NVA soldier then executed him in a ditch. Asked why he did it, the Korean officer in charge stated that "you can't reform a communist." South Koreans threw a NVA soldier out of a helicopter after interrogating him. (Actually witnessed) South Koreans caught a boy stealing from them. They cut the hands off the Vietnamese boy, put tourniquets on his arms, then a sign around his neck that said "This is what happens when you steal from the ROK" and sent him home. A South Korean company obliterated a much larger NVA unit in an ambush. The NVA march into a "U" shaped position and when inside the South Koreans closed the U and killed most of the NVA. The North Vietnamese ordered their troops not to engage South Korean forces after that. The South Koreans had their own light artillery - 105mm howitzers. NVA troops attempted to overrun the base. The South Koreans set the fuses on their rounds to explodes only yards outside the muzzles of their guns. They repulsed the attack killing many NVAs in the process. My dad met many times with South Korean commanders in Vietnam since his battery fired heavy artillery in support of South Korean forces. He has the highest regard for them as fighters, but that they had no regard for the lives of the enemy. But they weren't without humanity. Here is a ROK soldier rescuing Vietnamese children during a village fight.