Stasher1

I'm all in favor of giving your honest opinions of a product that you've actually used, however there are many here who insist on talking trash about gear they have NO experience with and belittling new forum users when they ask for opinions. That's what I have a problem with. To tell a new forum user that his question regarding his new gear is "absurd" is downright rude and in extremely poor form, especially when it comes from site staff.

x2 OD on the AD and you'll need an episiotomy of the booty when it finally wears off. That stuff is dangerous.

Way to make a new guy feel welcome. It's always nice to see the forum mods setting a good example. Good job, RW.

Well, the Capt. called a little while ago and I have to run out there tomorrow morning to pick up my packet.

Much of what has been written in the past regarding spinnerbait vibration has stated that it's a combination of blade configuration and wire diameter that determines a spinnerbait's vibration. If that is true, it would seem to me that crimping/forming the wire like the Death Shimmer spinnerbaits would actually increase the rigidity of the spinnerbait's arm, thus decreasing the vibration. Just my $.02

The rod is the more important of the two when it comes to contact baits, imho. We can rattle off rod/reel suggestions all day, but without knowing your budget you'll get suggestions from $50 to $500+

Hooligan had a good suggestion with the Pro Qualifier. They're built with quality components, surprisingly sensitive, and their current price is about $30 cheaper than they were a couple years ago. The Veritas and Vendetta have a pretty good following, but the build quality is hit-or-miss. Some of the Veritas I've handled have had excessive epoxy which, in a couple cases, made the hook holder almost useless. In the ~$100 price range I also like the BPS Carbonlite and Browning HiPower. They're light, sensitive, and have a great feel in the hand. I'm not crazy about the guides, but they haven't been a problem on the ones I own (5 Carbonlites and 1 HiPower). I find their sensitivity to be comparable to the St. Croix Avid and previous generation Shimano Crucial, but at roughly 2/3 the price. If you're really trying to keep it around $50, though, there's nothing wrong with the Lightning Rod.

This^^^ Unfortunately, it doesn't work like a "normal" job application process. I have to go through the same application process as the new recruits, but the intern program(s) also require a formal request letter from the school. I can't just take it upon myself to go looking for another department or agency to apply to without my involving my advisor. If I was just looking for a job in LE it would be so much easier. Atlanta PD has been having a hard time finding qualified applicants, and has had to resort to recruiting at job fairs in neighboring states. If I don't hear anything from the Capt. by tomorrow morning, I'll contact him again.

I've actually been trying to get the ball rolling on this internship since May. My advisor is the one with the contacts in the various agencies around here, and when I asked him if I should look into doing my internship at a different agency he said (and this is copied/pasted directly from his email) - "My advice is cool your jets. Relax and sit back- this is a part time student internship, not a race to cure cancer." The semester starts 8/24 and I haven't even seen an application packet yet, much less taken the psych, poly, PSU interview, background check, etc. If my advisor's not concerned, though, I guess I shouldn't be either.

I got a response to my email on Thurs. saying he was sorry for missing our appointment and he'd call me on Fri. to set up another one. Never heard from him. Unfortunately there's no way around this individual. He's the one who handles this agency's internship program.

I was thinking turtle, but could've been a big cat/carp.

Mine actually came from the local BPS.

I had actually sent a very similar email already.

Unfortunately ( or perhaps fortunately? ), I don't have a lot of choice in this matter. I can be a touch irritated by an apparent lack of professionalism but, in the end, I need this internship to complete the CJ program and build a network of contacts within the agency. This is pretty much what I was thinking. These things happen, that I understand, but prior notice or even an email after the fact would've been a much more professional way of handling the situation. I have to do what I have to do, but I don't have to like it.

It wasn't anything as serious as that. It was an administrative thing, not a crisis situation.

I'd like to get the collective opinion of the group on a situation I was involved in earlier this week. First off, I'm a criminal justice major getting ready to start my final semester. As part of the course requirements, I have to successfully complete an internship with an agency/business that is somehow related to my CJ major. I scheduled an meeting with a representative from a local law enforcement agency as a sort of preliminary interview and to pick up the required paperwork. I show up on the day of the meeting, but the representative with whom I had an appointment is nowhere to be found. After waiting an hour, I was informed that he had been called away to fill in for another officer. I was taken to speak with his superior who quickly touched on the basics of the internship and basically said there was nothing else he could do for me. He apologized for wasting my time, and walked me back to the lobby. Now, I understand that meetings with [potential] interns are far less important than the multitudes of things that go on at a busy station/department, but am I being ridiculous for being a bit put off for not receiving an email/call cancelling our meeting? This is the agancy I would like to work for after I graduate, so I don't want to make any waves...but I'm not a teenager out goofing around on summer break. I'm a married man in my mid/late 30's with three kids who had to shuffle my schedule around a bit and find short-term daycare in order to make this meeting. I sent an email to my advisor explaining the situation and asking if I should wait to hear from the representative or pursue other options. In his opinion, I am out of line and stated "[t]he fact that you are "put off" speaks volumes....". So, am I out of line in expecting a call/email cancelling a meeting?

While it doea make more sense to drop the majority of your rod/reel budget on the rod, I think just about everybody here needs to reread the OP's first post. I may be reading it wrong, but the impressin I get is that the OP already owns the Patriarch. He's not looking to build a combo with a new rod and reel, so the cost of one compared to the other doesn't matter. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the rods he listed in his first post, he's looking for rod suggestions in the ~$100 range.

It's not a question of whether or not they'll still catch fish. It's about paying full price for a defective/blemished product. They're mass-produced soft plastics, and I have no problem with a defective/mis-shapen bait every now and then but over 50% of this particular pack were as shown above. That wouldn't be acceptable in any other product, why should my soft plastics be any different?

Zoom stuff is okay, but definitely not in my top 5...probably not even in my top 10. The quality (or lack thereof) of some of my past Zoom purchases has really turned me off. One or two mis-shapen baits per pack I can live with. When over 50% of the pack looks like this, I start looking for new supplier. I emailed Zoom about the "quality" of this pack and never received a response. I've bought the "Dents & Dings" from a former site supporter, and all of them have been better than what Zoom is trying to pass off as top quality.

You can put any diameter line you want on any size reel, but too thick of a line will generally cause manageability problems with smaller diameter spools. I tend to buy my reels based on the line capacity for the weight of line I'm planning on using, the weight of the reel, and overall balance of the rod/reel combo.

I own both, and am proficient with both, but prefer spinning for most techniques. I don't find baitcasters to be any more accurate than a spinning rig, either. The only time(s) I reach for a casting setup over spinning is lipless cranks and spinner/chatterbaits, but I do have a spinning setup for them as well. For contact baits I stick to spinning gear. So no, you don't need baitcasting gear at all.

You don't have to open a new account. Go to the top of this page, and look for the little box containing your user name. Click it, then click "My Settings" on the drop-down menu. That will take you to a page where you can change your email address.

I think this is a big part of the problem with Pinnacle's products. Most of us are familiar with their lower-end offerings, but very few of us have had an opportunity to handle their new higher-end gear. I think it's great that they gave away a bunch of rods so more people would be able to experience them, but word of mouth only gets you so far. There's no substitue for handling a product in person, and unfortunately that's not an option for the majority of us. I had no problem at all with the Platinum Plus I owned, and would LOVE an opportunity to see how their higher-end reels compare to some of the similarly-priced offerings from the "big three" (Shim, Daiwa, & Abu). The Optimus XT and XLT look positively badass and the Performa XT spinning reels bears a striking resemblance to my beloved Ryobi Zauber.

This happened to me quite a while ago. I've managed to satisfy my tackle urges (for the most part) by buying lures from smaller companies that the larger chains like BPS don't stock. If you check your local mom & pop tackle shop you may be able to find something cool/different that was made by a local manufacturer. While I was on Lake Gaston last week I picked up a couple jigs from a small local manufactuer in tequila sunrise which is a color that I'd never seen before on a jig.

I've actually heard the same thing from some other folks on this forum and a couple others. I have no experience with GLX's,IMX's, and Cumaras so I can't make any comparisons, but I know the ones I own are just as sensitive (if not more so) than the Crucial and Avids I used to own...at less than 2/3 the price. I didn't want to like them (cheap guides and a foam split-grip), but the performance for the price just can't be denied. I now own five of them along with a Browning HiPower which appears to be the same rod with slightly different trim.