J Francho

There is a special feeling you get when you stick a major upgrade fish in the last remaining minutes of a tournament. I don't go Ike, but I have been known to throw a high five and a Rick Flair "WOOOOOO!"

RichZ's article should help you out: http://www.richz.com/fishing/articles/dropshot.html Personally, I'd recommend smaller hooks (#1 or #2) and a heavier weight (1/2 oz.).

The issue of leaving the old crankcase oil in the LU is if water somehow mixes with the oil. This can happen if the seal on the impeller leaks. If that freezes, you have a cracked LU housing. A best practice many up here do is drain and fill the LU after each trip. I don't know about you guys, but when it's 22° outside, it's the same in my garage, so I don't think that's always a safe bet, unless your garage is heated. And yes, I have cracked a lower unit on one of my boats. Embarrassing, but true.

You can cut a Menace in half, lengthwise to get a really cool drop shot bait. Rig it cut side up.

https://www.amazon.com/Mike-Iaconelli-Advanced-Finesse-Strategies/dp/B003E6XORS

Exactly! It's content that matters, not who, or how they act. It's just a book and a DVD - and they happen to have some useful info.

Nice work!

They basically do the same thing here, just substitute The Great Lakes for the ocean.We get a few over 20, but not many. My personal best is 18 lbs. We also have kings, coho (silver salmon), Atlantics, and huge browns. So much fun in winter. Helps it go by.

Then the Premier series would fit your budget PS66MHF2.

Gotcha, then that would work great. I was thinking you were targeting trib based, migratory fish, like what we have here:

Navionics is great, but why wouldn't the native map app work to get you back to the ramp?

Saint Croix Avid AVS66MHF2 is about as nice as you'll get for a two piece.

I'm a kayak guy, all the way. I would recommend a 14' jon or semi-V aluminum boat. We had one growing up, and my dad with my sister and self fit fine. It had three bench seats. We would all straddle the seat, and cast out the same side.

The man is in Oregon, and I feel like he has trout that would destroy every one of those. The Calcutta BFS is a beautiful reel. Not sure it has the line capacity you may need. If money wasn't an object, Megabass Monoblock Speciale Grigio Stone would be my choice. Any of these reels can throw 1/4 spoons with the right rod.

Most are heavy enough to throw on casting gear, and generally you want to use 10-12# line with them. It's also more comfortable to me to hold a casting rod tip down. Smaller, lighter baits can be thrown on spinning tackle using 6-8# line.

The Craw is a versatile bait. Use it alone, T-rigged, on a bare football head, as a trailer, if it's too long, bite off the the first two segments and you have a chunk. Space Monkey is cool, too. Along with the standard presentations, I also rig it unweighted and fish it like a finesse toad. Especially deadly when the damsel/dragonfly mating game is going on.

Too true... even the translations they put on the packaging we get is often pretty funny. They can wax poetic about a plastic worm!

Stimulate.....that could mean a few things.

I like that breakdown, Tom. I've been saying for a while, wider, shallower spools will help mitigate the problem.

Tom, all he is asking is which rods will give him the best chance of detecting the strike. Can you answer the question, or not? Some ARE better than others. No need to get into some debate about semantics.

They're pretty tough, but that doesn't mean it's meant to be abused.

I go somewhere in the middle. It's rare that I would actually need a faster reel.

I'm using a Helix 5 and 7 for my kayaks. Both have SI/DI GPS and Lakemaster chips. I rely on all of it. I use a deployment arm. Be careful with the exposed TD.

It's just semantics.

Because on non SI units, it doesn't have to waste time with the SI pings. The width of the RTS window is a separate setting, independent of jigging mode.