J Francho

Snaps only! No snap swivels! And never for single hook baits.

I thought I only bought it once, too.....Once I saw this stuff, realized what it was, and that it was 1/2 way between me, my frog, and a likely bite, my stomach turned.

5" Senko: 3/0 Owner Wide Gap Plus or 2/0 Gam. Wide Gap Finesse for wacky 7" Power Worm: 4/0 Owner Offset Worm Hook 10" Power Worm: 5/0 Owner Offset Worm Hook

I was fishing the pond today, at lunch and... Wait, there's a back story. A couple of months ago, I picked up a Zillion burner, a lefty version. I use both right and left hand retrieve, each for difference things, as is my preference, and thought I needed another lefty. My buddy fishes almost exclusively with lefty reels, but for some reason, around the same time, picked up a righty Zillion burner, LOL. Well, neither one of us liked what we bought ourselves, and when I was about to ask if he wanted to trade, he asked if we could switch reels. BINGO! That was easy.... So, at the next club meeting, I brought my tools, so that I could switch out my Carbontex drag washers, and switch out the handles, since a mouse chewed off a chunk of his handle, and we made the trade. AWESOME! We both had what we should have bought in the first place. Only thing is, we couldn't trade spools, since they would have been spooled up backwards. He got my two day old 12# CXX, and I got a spool of 50# Power Pro, slightly used and faded. No biggie, as I intended for this to be for froggin. Fast forward to today's lunchtime diversion. 1st cast, I realize there little more than 1/2 a casts worth of braid, with the remainder being that awful 10# Fluoroclear that my buddy is so fond of. He's so fond of it, he continues to use it on just about every rod he owns! Every trip out, I see him feed the Lake Gods about $30 to $100 worth of assorted baits, only to have them break off on the hookset, the cast, when he looks at the rod, etc., LOL. It kills me to watch this absurd stubbornness to fish this crap line. But he just trucks on with it. So, I see this horrible stuff that isn't even fit for backer on my new reel, and immediately my mind races to thoughts of a fish breaking off. I was froggin' after all, and needed something much beefier. I decide that I'll just walk the frog in, and go to my car to change out the reel with another loaded with something more appropriate. You guessed it, SLURP-SPLASH!!!! I should have just let the fish run with it, and eventually spit the bait, as if I were prefishing a tournament. But no, I instinctively set the hook, and stuck her good. It felt like a decent fish, and as I tried to put some pressure on it, and gain some line, the darn Uni to Uni connecting the braid to the crap backer snapped. Great. As painful as it was to lose a fish and an $8 frog, what felt worse was watching this horse of a bass launch itself all over the area to try and shake the frog free, which was also connected to about 25 yards of braid. Fail! Fail! Fail! What a moron I am. Eventually the jumping and porpoising stopped, but not after I got a good look at the fish, and yeah, it looked about the size of a double digit trout. Knowing what I know about guessing, I'd put the fish at half that, probably around 3.5 to 4 lbs. A nice pond fish. Hopefully, it got the hooks free, and from what I saw, the frog was on the outside of the fish's mouth, so I am optimistic. Black frog, bye bye. You caught me many fish. I surrender, LOL.

Use a rod rated for 30#+ line....no issue turning a fishes head. The idea behind a slow taper is that all the stress is distributed across the blank. make no mistake, this type of rod is not a whippy crankbait chucker. ANd ditch the Revo. Go with something more robust. I'm using a Zillion and two TD-X103HSDL for this type of fishing.

If its heavy weeds that you are flipping, then yes.

In no particular order: 4" PowerWorm 7" PowerWorm 10" PowerWorm 10" Anaconda SpaceMonkey RI 4.20 Sweet beaver RI Skinny Dipper Ugly Otter 4" Roboworm 6" Berkley Hand Pour GYCB Shad Shape Worm GYBC Cut Tail Worm GYBC Senko GYBC Fat Ika Zoom Super Fluke

I can only recommend what I use, St. Croix Avid AVC62MXF. I'm 5-7, so a guy around 6' could probably go with the oft recommended 6-6 length. I like the XF taper due to the fast recovery after the snap. I generally throw POinter 100, XR-10, Flash Minnow 115, and similar. If I was throwing bigger, I'd definitely look at something in MHF, as the slower, stiffer tip action would suit bigger baits better.

XH power, moderate fast action. An X-fast, soft tip has no business here.

In a tournament, I try to bury the rod tip before it jumps. Some big fish are uncontrollable on light tackle, and will jump anyway. I try to take advantage of the fish by turning its head in mid air, and reeling him in fast to get control by the boat. Afterward, figure eighting the fish boatside, with most of the rod underwater, until its ready for the net is the best plan. If I'm just fishing for fun, I laugh, and let them jump, unless its a truly big fish. An example of regaining control of an out of control 5 lb. smallie. I just turned the head of the fish, while it was in midair on its 3rd jump, and its heading right at me, with me reeling in fast to keep pressure on the fish: Result, after what seemed like an eternity of figure eighting:

On my car:

Turn your ruler over next time. You were using the metric side, LOL.

Thanks for the grilling temp list. It states 145° F for grilling fresh fin fish. We're talking about frozen fish. "Sushi grade" fish is flash frozen as soon as it is processed, right on the boat. This kills most everything. Any chef worth his salt should be able to spot nematodes a mile away, and would never serve it to a customer. My family owns four restaurants; I know a bit about food safety. You cook a tuna steak to 165° and you'd get fired for ruining expensive meat. Anyway....I'd be curious about Walmart's response.

You can probably DIY. I recommend you go with the "dry"set up. Just a drop in replacement. No too difficult.

it has a clicker...... ;D

Mudman, you have to locate a D.A.M. Quick. Solid brass worm drive baby! Way beefier than a Mitchell

I'm having second thoughts about my usual Friday night haddock fish fry....

Appetizing....

Anisakis is a nematode but are harmful to humans and can make you sick. Flash freezing or heating to 140° kills them. Unless you are allergic to them...

If you cook my fish to 165°, I'm sending the chunk of cardboard you made back to the kitchen. 165° is for poultry and ground meats. Here's a nice chart for reference: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/MeatTemperatureChart.htm As far as the worms go, they are probably some kind of nematode, and harmless. They are probably just 1st ones you've seen after eating thousands of them, if you eat seafood.

LMAO, that's so wrong ;D

Curado. Zillion, by a lot. Curado. Keep in mind, the Zillion is available in four retrieve speeds and in both left and right hand models.

Do some damage guys!

Basically found the same thing to be true. Put a big old TD-X103HSDL Flipping reel on it, and was in love with it.

Use a Uni or a snell knot. Palomar is mot the best knot with braid in my experience.