J Francho

Spinning, I top out at 8#, casting is usually 12#.

Unless you're fishing for dinner, don't fish that deep. 60-80' seems unusually deep for bass. It's shallow for salmon and trout, but bass? I don't think most bass anglers even consider that depth, even Great Lakes smallmouth anglers.

They work fine. It's a dual brake system. I must have have set them at one point, but I really don't remember. All I know, it's easy to cast.

Yuck. Another 6" and 10° this morning.

Yep, mine is still kicking butt.

I don't remember what my dad got, but it was in the late 70s early 80s. $200 isn't enough to raise a family in the 90s. Anyway, I digress. Still like the sausages. Beef jerky is a good, stable on the water snack.

I didn't realize it, being at work, but there's like 6" snow on my truck!

Yeah, that's how I feel about zucchini. Some nights, it was the "meat part" of the meal when I was younger. I remember my dad going on strike way back, working for Xerox.

You can't lip a trout, salmon, northern pike, musky, pickerel, bowfin, or walleye.

We are stewards to the water, and representatives of our hobby to anyone watching.

Agreed, it should be a last resort, but it's not done blindly, and the hole from needle does seal up immediately, just like when you get a shot. I actually use leftover needles from when I injected insulin into my self. If the hole doesn't seal up, where would all the insulin go? Here's how: https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/how-to-fizz-a-bass.html

Well, if it was just me, some coffee and a can of Vienna Sausage would have been fine...

It is. My 22 lb. brown was caught on 4# leader. Amazing fish!

I eat like a king. The Hobie fish bag keeps everything cold and fresh.

I've never found the added length took away from a sensitive blank. Some of my float rods are over 12' long, and I can still feel the roe bag ticking rocks.

I use light power, moderate action rods for trout. Works fine for me. I sometimes even use Powerbait.

@Glaucus Have you considered seeing a therapist to address your PTSD? Seems like this is something you could work through in that setting, to prepare you for something as simple as answering a few questions truthfully.

I have two of them. Those along with 2x AVS63MXF are my primary dropshot rods. You're fine tossing tiny grubs on 16th oz. ballheads. Anything lighter, and I'd be using an ultra light.

Looks like you figured it out. They're a pain. I had two on my first kayak.

All of Saint Croix's MXF and MLXF tapers are special rods. I must have at least 7 or 8 of them in the Avid line. Some are even duplicates!

Mods are a sadistic lot...

If you can't see my 14' bright orange kayak in time to react, then you can't see a regular bass boat and you're going too fast.

Rod storage is what throws me off the bay boat trail. They are almost all lacking in that department. Otherwise, I dig the layout.

I take mine bank fishing, too. It even throws square bills, traps and smaller shallow divers well.

Why can't a monofilament line be made from a copolymer? The first means single filament, the second refers to the formulation of the single filament. Not everything is marketing. Sometimes companies actually tell you what their products are and do. Believe it or not, some genuinely want to create a better product. That's how profitable companies are run. Not by making things up. By the way, most nylon monofilaments these days are copolymers.