islandbass

Well done. My son just turned 13 and doesn't want to fish as much with me anymore. I knew this day might come so cherish every opportunity to take your boy lest you have to resort to using tactics to get him to go fishing fishing. Two of his buddies that love to fish were over and because I knew he was going to say no, a light bulb ? came on. I said to his friends, "Hey boys, isn't it a great day to go fishing?" Their faces lit up (meaning yes) and my son gave me the "are you kidding me ?" Look. My my son managed to catch his personal best largemouth that day so he was a happy camper. Just sharing this with you as a card to have up your sleeve in case a similar scenario should arise in the years to come. ?

Sorry you lost that battle. I felt your loss. On the bright side, you know where to go for a rematch. Did you look at the end of the broken line? Sometimes there are clues as to the cause of the break. I know now that I will personally examine the last 50-70' of line with my hand twice for line wear and ensure my knots are good. That would be the parallel equivalent of suiting up with your battle armor for combat. Good luck, and go get her. ?

Get the best reel of your choice from Shimano, Daiwa, Okuma, Pfleuger or whichever at the price point you're most comfortable with. Unlike baitcast reels $100 buys you a whole lot of bang for the buck for spinning reels. If have to also consider the weight of the reels at this price point be sure to keep that in mind. For reel size, if it has to be dual purpose for bass and inshore, I would not consider a 2000 sized reel. Maybe a 3000 sized one. Sometimes 3000 reels have the same body as their 2500 counterparts but have the extra line capacity to go with it. The daiwa bg has recently piqued my curiosity but that thing of beauty has a beastly weight in the size I was looking at. Other than bling, and coolness or "status" factor I can't see myself buying a spinning reel over $130. Reels at that price point meet my needs. Don't get me wrong. I like looking at them as much as any of us here, but the difference between need and want are crystal clear to me. Down, boy! Get back in your cage, you mangy monkey! Okay, put the wallet down... Put the wallet down. ?

Best guess, the no stretch factor of braid, even more so with anglers who have quicker reflexes. I think we wind up yanking it away quicker than with mono. I was fishing with braid for the first time on the water. I had a rattle trap on and as I was working on a pause a nice size bass approached it and open its jaws preparing to take it. I saw my lure getting sucked into its mouth. It was incredible to watch. My lure was clearly in its mouth and the bass began to close its jaws. I got so excited and pulled back to set the hook. Well, I managed to yank the lure completely out of its mouth before its jaw fully closed. I even felt the bait hit is mouth on the way out. The lure came back flying at me and I instinctively employed a Neo evasion move from the Matrix to avoid it. I immediately realized the near 0 stretch of braid that day. The bass actually looked up at me nonchalantly and then swam away. I could have sworn I heard it say, "better luck next time, pal".

I love invizx at the same test as J Francho and to hear Tatsu is just as good I might give it a shot the next time I need to get new line. With regard to the topic, I completely love the use of straight flourocarbon. No knot issues with the guides. However, if I have pure flouro and my reel spool is low, I will take off the remaining fc line put a mono or whatever backing. I will put at least a 2-3 times my max cast on top of the backing to delay the knot being an issue through the guides. The conditions I face are the major influence. I face rip rap from the shore. At times, I can be forced to break off and retie multiple times in a 10 minute time span. If I used a dink 4-5' leader, I'd be forced to retie the joining knot as well and I'd be wasting my time on that instead of fishing. Hence, the need for super long "leader" if you can call it that. I have personally noticed and experienced more bites with fc vs. mono or braid and with very clear water. 6# mono wasn't too far behind so I won't hesitate to use it if I don't have fc. I do appreciate braid's ability to provide excellent feed back, but sometimes it's information overload, lol. My hands are pretty sensitive so even an ugly stik is sensitive in my hands, lol.

Lol. I haven't done such math in a VERY long time, but I had math teachers that drilled concepts in my head that have been burned into memory but I can easily forget my cell phone or wallet at home on the way to work, lol. With ounces and grams we are dealing with US and Metric units. Unfortunately, sometimes conversions are "icky" because and this is the case here. This is the deal - 1 lb = 16 oz = 453.6 grams for the sake of simplicity, we will round that to 454 gr. If the Rapala lure weighs 3/16 oz with the trebles and the two trebles weight about 2 grams, most engineers and physicists will tell you that that is such a small amount of weight is practically negligible to warrant the trouble to calculate. However, the mathematician would disagree and actually salivate at the prospect of proceed with such a fun exercise of the brain. First things first. The easiest way to proceed is to get/convert the values at hand into the same units. Since we Americans are not accustomed to using metric units as the rest of the world, let's stick with ounces. A simple ratio and basic algebra will get us there. Let w be the weight in ounces of 2 grams 16 oz = 454 gr Now that we have set up the appropriate ratio, we can solve for w. w 2 gr We do this by isolating the variable w from the other terms. Remember cross multiplication, lol? 16 oz (2 gr) = 454 gr (w) We can now solve for w by dividing both sides of the equation by 454 gr The equation will now look like this 16 oz (2 gr) = w The "gr" terms in the numerator and denominator of the term on the left cancel each other 454 gr 32 oz = w This leaves us with simple division for which the quotient is 0.07048 oz 454 Therefore, 2 grams is 0.07048 oz. 3/16 oz in decimal form = 0.1875 as every 4th grader should have ingrained in their minds, lol. 0.1875 - 0.07048 = 0.11702 oz This is the true weight. That is going to make for an ugly calculation to convert back into a fraction. The engineer and physicist are laughing because they already knew the difference was negligible. 0.07 (yes, I truncated last three digits, lol) is 7/100 and this is a small figure. If you did want to convert that into a fraction, you'd have to start with 0.11702/1 and multiply the numerator and denominator by 100,000 to get rid of the decimal. The rest as they say, is elementary, lol.

I'm telling you, that's what they say when I tie on a jig with traditional trailer. Only they say, "Looks like islandbass is back again. Remember, if he throws a jig, don't bite it. We have a rep to protect."

Get all of them. The have different popping sounds and one of them might be more receptive to the fish on any given day.

As someone who is about as tall as you, I feel obligated to dispel that false notion from your mind as soon as possible because you are severely limiting your possibilities and your self. Your height is irrelevant to how long a rod you can use. Generally speaking, longer rods will cast farther with less effort and offer the angler more line control. This is why steelhead and salmon rods used in rivers are at least 8'6" - 11' + and surf casters use 10'+ rods. They benefit from the ability to make farther casts when necessary and to control their line. If I followed the belief in only using shorter rods because I am short, I'd have a miserable time not fishing with rod the appropriate length for the task at hand. You too would benefit from from stepping up to longer bass rods. This isnt to say shorter rods suck. They still have their place, like perhaps fishing in tight quarters. If you're daring, try 7' rods with the same action and power as your 6' rods. ?

@Catt: Thanks!

What size for the 5" senko? Maybe 2/0 or 3/0? I was thinking about trying this type of hook soon with senkos so this subject couldn't have come at a better time.

How about a secureable shed like they sell at Home Depot in the backyard? Kind of like a man-shed, lol. It would keep you garage tackle-clutter free.

I've done this too. Great minds think alike. My "measure" was a Max cast plus about twice that. Another thing I have done is choose a mono backing with a diameter about the same as the braid and look at what the spool will hold for that diameter. Let's say the spool holds 150 yds of 8# mono. I'll fill spool with 100 yds of mono and the rest with 50 yds braid. I will also know I have 100 yds of braid left on my filler spool and can do this two more times. Or, I might do 75/75. No, it's not an exact science but like in real life there usually isn't aren't ideal cases but engineers like to when applicable, apply "close enough" is good enough. Lol

I think I usually set the hook to the side (since this is an instinctive vs. a pondered action) myself with decent success, but I'll need to try to be more aware on my next few hook sets to confirm one way or the other. I can relate to the "straight up" misses and in my nerdy way, I've tried to figure out why. However, if all things are equal in the hook set, then in my own mind, theoretically, it shouldn't matter (from the hook-setting force perspective solely) if we set the hook to one side or the other or pull straight back. We are applying the same amount of hook setting force. When we lose those fish on the hook sets when we go "straight up", that is not the same hook set as pulling back with the rod up, facing the sky or setting the hook from the side. That straight up hook set should be weaker and less effective from all accounts. Think about it. When we set the hook straight up (you know, elbows up, straight in front of us with little or no pulling back - this is how I'm defining straight up), the rod is upright and bent probably nearly 90 degrees, but because we didn't pull back, we didn't make full use of the rod's hook setting power. I think pulling back is essential to give us the best chance of setting the hook, and attaining that at a relative 45 degree angle on the hook set. I apologize if what I hoped to describe isn't as clear as I wished. I've lost a lot of blue gill going straight up, lol. Other factors can be the culprit too. Sometimes the fish only have part of the bait without the hook so when we yank, we honestly had no chance to set the hook. And sometimes, we just plain miss.

I don't have one but that seems like a very strange move to have to do. I have older curados and so your situation is interesting and baffling to me. Looking forward to having curado I users chime in.

The epoxy used in guides is not the kind you'd find in a hardware store. I love learning things and am very hands on, but for something that precious, I think I'd defer such tasks to someone experienced and capable, preferably locally too. I realize the process is simple but might not be easy without experience. I second rws recommendation

Shimano makes a couple of 2-piece rods. To me limited lifetime warranty is okay for this situation because the rods are relatively affordable. I have an older 2-piece compre spinning and had a 2-piece casting clarus. Very good in my humble opinion. More than adequately sensitive, they'll fit in the trunk and they'll get the job done. I just wish I wasn't forced to leave my casting rod in Mexico. I had to leave it with family and never saw the rod again. @NYWayfarer - sounds very decently priced. I'm going to check it out. Thanks.

I just saw that on the news earlier this morning. Hurricane season is living up to its name this year. Hope it changes course and misses.

As Raul said, and other treble hook lures, eg, spooks, poppers, inline spinners, spoons, etc. This would definitely add to your arsenal.

Go get 'em and Good luck! And take a pic if you can. ?

They might be primarily vegetarian, but fish are opportunists. Here's a real life example. I was in Mexico a few years back and my wife's nephew took me fishing on a river that had tilapia. Tilapia are also a "vegetarian" species. Well, our bait was shrimp. Yup, shrimp from the ocean to target tilapia in a fresh water river miles from the sea. And it you're curious, we killed them. We probably caught about 40 a piece. Catching a vegetarian fish with flesh. That was an interesting disconnect for me to ponder. We also fried them up on the shore. I'm not too much of a tilapia fan, but they were so fresh and tasted really good. Not a hint of a fishy smell too. Carp can get big and you can easily see their scales, hence my guess.

Taking a guess, maybe a carp?

Congrats. There is that good feeling when you get an addition to your arsenal. Another way to look at it was the first person to check was incorrect. ?

Thanks, Glen. This forum was already awesome ?

Both. I don't like the label of being a one trick pony. What I find interesting and intriguing is most of us try just about every technique, and maybe *** of them tend to be more productive than all the others combined it seems. Or, if these "comfort" techniques are a strength founded in skill gained or more productive because we use it more. Example - The drop shot is perhaps my most productive technique. Is it productive because of my skills or because I use it far more than any other technique? Danget, I think too much. ?