J Francho

Just wipe it off and store it somewhere warm and dry. It will be fine.

I don't think the comparison to pros compares. The club guy and the weekend angler are a different animal. It's tempting to go there, and I do it too. But it's not the same.

Harbor freight. Works great.

I had one that was painted by a well known painter. I wasn't too impressed with the durability, but it looked great.

I can't stand letting my neck and the corners of my mouth go unshaven. I've gone around six months with the rest. Do it.

I took my Xpress out on Erie and Oneida… And won. More than once, lol. What do you run, and what's your record?

^ding ding ding!!!!!

And when it broke, would probably post all about it here, lol.

Pros travel great distances, most weekend guys travel less than 5 miles. Don't get me wrong, I value speed - that is a Bullet with Merc racing motor in my avatar - but that isn't the great advantage you make it out to be. To be sure, I did much better in my Xpress than the Bullet. skill trumps speed almost every day of the week.

That clown is totally photoshop'd.

One of my Saint Croix rods has hand written specs from the factory, lol. Must be poor quality!

That would all depend on the lake, not the boat. The biggest advantage in a tournament is time in that lake and being dialed into the fish. The next biggest is knowing how to adjust. None of this involved the craft your fishing from or the gear you use. An old tournament fishing proverb: beware the man that shows up to open tourney with beat up old tiller.

What are the disadvantages?

With that rod, your going to limited to baits smaller than you've asked about. If your worried about losing a bait, I suggest an heavier combo. I use a 7' 9" Heavy/Fast with a round solid Al frame baitcaster loaded with 20# copolymer. I've NEVER cast a bait off. I've had a couple stolen by Northern Pike, but they weren't really expensive baits. Back to the gear you intend to use, that will work nicely for a 3-5" paddle tail swimbait on a 1/8 oz. jig head.

More correctly, saccharin in huge doses caused cancer in lab rats - a species with high probability of getting cancer without any special additives. I don't know if any rats that died drinking Cherry Coke Zero. That has sucrolose and Aspartame, which is probably worse. Anyone remember those pictures from the 90s with all the cancer we were gonna get from cell phones?

I usually only get the short term one, and I get a copy in the mail after the date has expired. Pretty funny.

I'm just poking fun. If it's legal, gave at it. I know my SC license was just an email, so I could make copies easy. NY is printed on special paper.

Probably less expensive to get a package of J-Will heads and some Fat Impacts.

How would having multiple copies fix the leaving it behind problem? Won't that just be more licenses to forget? Lol. In NY, you need your state issued license. A copy ain't gonna cut it. Econ officers here have a bedside manner that makes a state trooper seem like Santa.

They've been nothing short of "extremely fair" to me. They even rebuilt a grip on a 15 year old Avid prototype for a nominal fee - basically round trip shipping fees.

Beautiful!

I rarely think about what I throw as much as what got bit. It's why I throw a black senko to the fish that just missed my white popper. Whether the fish thinks it's the bait it injured or not matters little. I just culled into the money, while you're deciding whether to throw a trap or a chatterbait.

What something represents to me is irrelevant to whether a bass decides to strike a bait or not.

That would best be served by starting another thread. General bass fishing questions aren't relevant to this thread. That said, the bass I posted above, and a bunch of others were caught on a deep crank, digging in to bottom of a barren flat 8-12' deep. Why did I fish it? There was baitfish everywhere, and bass were eating them.

Lol, I'll take the hit on my credibility. Have at it.