J Francho

You know, I'll do that once in a while. Especially, if I feel the reel isn't fast enough for what I'm doing. Sometimes on a windy day, the boat is moving fast along the shoreline, and a faster reel helps you keep up up with the boat and retrieve the bait at the right speed. Especially true if you're in a kayak or a tin boat.

"Fishing slow" doesn't always mean reeling slow.

When I turn the drag off my reels and pull line, just the spool moves. That's how drag works. Or am I missing something?

Forgot about this list, grampa1114: http://www.nybass.com/nysrecords.htm#anchor%20CT

Any ML/XF rod, 2500 or comparable spinning reel spooled with 6-8# InvisX will do. I currently use three Saint Croix AVS63MLXF, and a AVS63MXF with Shimano CI4 reels, which is way over your budget, but before that I used an old Berkley Series One and a Daiwa SS reel for years. My son has a SC Eyecon 63MLXF, and even though it's a couple levels below the Avid, and marketed for "walleye" it fishes almost the same as the Avids, at a lot less cash. The handle is actually nicer, too. If you like a little longer rod, they are all made in 6-8 and 7-0 lengths, too. I prefer the shorter length since I'm generally just dropping the bait straight down, "in the sonor cone."

It really is. It's about the only thing as close to the strikes you get from striper or salmonoids. I think it's the stiff rods, heavy no stretch braid, combined with a moving bait. We're so used to lighter power rods, or slower actions with moving baits. Even when when using heavy gear, it's us swing on the fish. With an umbrella rig, it's them swinging on us.

No Ranger goes that fast, lol.

I'm just poking... I think a big multi-species boat is probably the best compromise here - especially if you can find one with a dual console, instead of a walk through windshield. I've seen Rangers like this. Even a bay boat might work, and some of those are fast too.

Looks like speed was higher up on the list than room for the family.

Those boats are slow, too.

It's not whippy at all. only that last 6' or so bend, unless there's a fish on. There's a lot of power in that blank.

Coffee mugs at 30' are my cup of tea.

That's actually a REALLY important message, and where having some bit of accuracy pays off! Good point, Catt. I often fish behind others, and they catch a fish off something, and move on. I'll fish right behind and sometimes catch several more, often bigger. I doubt I made the exact same cast as they did, though. Or the times that you pitch at a target 10+ times, and on the umpteenth cast you get her. I always wonder if I did something different, or just annoyed her into the bite. But this still is a very small portion of fishing. At least it is where I fish, or maybe it's the way I fish? My buddy Jim is an remarkable target caster, better than me, and I'm pretty good after I knock the rust off at ice out, lol. I catch as many as he does, and accuracy wasn't the formula. I guess I'm struggling with the notion that if you have to put a bait within inches of a fish's face, that somehow accuracy plays a part. What if the fish is six feet to the left? Right? How do you know? You don't. And you don't know they aren't there if you always putting the bait on visible targets. I think it's our internal ego and our tendency to hang an explanation on it, and call it fact. Don't get me wrong, there are days where you feel like you have to get to the shady side of an odd numbered dock piling made of wood, but I think more often it's less defined, and that's just our way of applying a pattern that isn't really there. I don't think I've ever come to the ramp at the weigh in, and all the leaders were doing the same thing to catch their fish. I know that goes a little beyond the "accuracy" subject, but it should tell a beginner a ton about this sport.

I get bass rash on my hand, not my thumb.

Waterfowl are notorious for carrying all sorts of bad germs.

For every perfect pitch that I made between two tree branches to catch a fish, hundreds more fish were caught at some point between where the bait landed, and I pulled it out of the water. Accuracy is nice, and something I strive for, but it's wildly overrated as far as catching fish. Not to mention really discouraging to a beginner. I do not see any correlation between accuracy and a fish's strike zone, either, unless you are sight fishing, which arguably is what a minority of our focus is on in bass fishing. I think the idea that you have to cast to a visible target limiting, and lacks imagination. We have all the tools at our disposal - maps, GPS, side imaging, down scan, chirp, phone apps, etc. - that building an image of what is under the water, and casting to invisible targets, or combing a high percentage area are more worthwhile pursuits. Fish enough, and accuracy just comes natural. I like to play practice games, pitching jigs into random coffee mugs in the yard, and I certainly value the ability to be able to drop a bait on a dime, or skip one to the back pylon of a dock, but to assume it's the most important thing is a little silly, if you ask me. Just my opinion, thrash away.

Take trailers off your hooks, and use a vented storage bin. I perforated all my plano boxes with little holes. A soldering iron works best for making clean holes. I've also been picking up a few Hydro Flo boxes to replace the old boxes. It sounds counter-intuitive, but air flow is the key to eliminating rusty hooks.

Accuracy only counts if you know exactly where the fish you want to hook is. Otherwise, it's better to lucky than to be accurate. I'm accurate enough to stay out of the trees. Anything better than that just comes with repetition.

I can't fit my hand around the fish I catch this way. Actually, I grab dinks this way, too.

With lipped cranks, I watch the tip of the rod. A certain bend with a certain wobble means it's doing something right. Then once it's in contact, I go be feel. To tell you the truth, I can't tell how fast the spool is moving. I can pretty much guarantee you I fish "slower" than most, too. That may not mean the bait is moving slowly, though. There are times to slow down, and even dead stick, but the chief trigger to get bass to bite: movement.

I don't know if it's "power loading," but both my boats are "drive on" trailers, and that's what I do. I will say that I'm careful on gravel ramps not to over-rev, but even if I do rev, the motor is all the way past trim and into the tilt. It just lifts the bow gently, and moves the boat forward to the seat the bow tie.

Jumping fish don't bite.

Sounds correct to me. Pretty similar to how I've filled reels for decades. As far as trouble with mono, practice is the answer.

Don't know why you guys are looking at your spools....I look at the bait in the water, and how it acts, and get a feel for what that means in my hands. Repeat. As far as ratios/IPT, I have reels that run the gamut.

Those "ski and fish" models do not have a front deck I could be happy with. Many boat makers made hybrids that were more like "fish and ski" - see the difference. They're far and few between, nowadays. I will say this... six people on ANY boat is two or three too many, even if they are kids. If it were me, I'd just get the fast bass boat I wanted, and let the chips fall...oh wait. I have a 22' Bullet, and I'm divorced, lol.