catchnm

And you'll be getting more of these too. Wait till you fish them and find out they'll out produce any other plastic you've thrown in a while.

Academy Sports and Outdoors H2O Xpress Mettle Reel. Aluminum framed, 6.3:1 ratio, 10 bearings, six-pin centrifugal braking. Awesome reel! Mettle Reel Link

Pflueger Trion GX7. Hands down....no better spinning reel out there for under $40. The 35 size is like any others 25 size. I personally prefer the 30 sized one and have landed many fish from 1-5 lbs. on them.

Like them? Best time/techniques/gear to fish them .........or don't care for them?

In the past two days I've caught 5 pond fish from the bank that have weighed from 3-5 lbs.....ish. All on a 80's model 5 1/2' pistol grip Daiwa Powermesh rod, a Shakespeare TI-10 reel spooled with Yozuri Hybrid Ultra Soft 6 lb. Fun, fun, fun! Spincasters have their place in my arsenal. They don't get used much but they are beneficial in the right situations.

Wider bodied than a Rage or a Zoom. Bulky fat body so I can use it with a swimbait hook as to get a slowed horizontal fall.

Slug-gos and Flukes. Not the same though.....different actions and fall rates. Slug-gos are heavier and get down faster than a Fluke, but when jerked near the surface they jump out of the water more....sometimes a great strike triggering plus.

Looks like the Medium action rods are getting the most votes. I have several quality 7' M and 6'6" M rods. So.......would you go with a 7' M or 6'6" M for medium to large jerks and shallow diving cranks, 0'-6' depth range? 8-) Added the cranks to the mix.

How 'bout a 6'10" MH Browning Midas?

What length and power you guys use for Pointer 100 jerkbaits and other similar larger size jerks? X-Raps, Swimmin' Image, etc.?

12 lb. YoZuri Hybrid Ultra Soft, Shimano Citica 200E, 6'6" med. action or 7' med/hvy action rod. YO-yoing the grass beds and burning the rock banks.

Academy Sports and Outdoors sell their house brand H20 Xpress Mettle reels every day for $49.99. Best reel I have ever owned for under $60 and I have owned quite a few as I am a penny pincher choker. ;D I'm not sure who makes them but they have the six-pin internal braking system that looks similar to the old green Curado 200B series' brakes. Aluminum frame and ten bearings, 6:1 gears. I have three and I have tried hard to find something wrong with them and have compared them side by side on trips with my my Citicas and Curado 200B reels, not much difference I must say. They do come a little dry when new but I just oil the regular places, spool shaft, under the tension knob, all accesible bearings and the worm gear and they fly. Once a year they run a sale on these for half price.....good time to stock up on the best reel out there for under $60.

I posted a while back about using braid and leaders and the knots that are best. It was almost unanimously in favor of the alberto/albright knot. I put the slash because they are basically the same knot +/- some extra loops. I also found that many do not use leaders at all. I plan to try both tactics....leaders in heavy brush and rocks, but no leader in the grass and weeds. I fish grass and weeds a lot with tex rigs and shakey heads. I wonder.....is anyone using braid for lipless baits or topwaters?

Wow this thread really took off. Great stuff guys. Thanks.

Looking to ad a few colors and sizes that do not have the solid head for T-Rigging. Any suggestions would be appreciated from those in-the-know. Thanks.

X3 8-)

There ya go.

That would be super.

Looks like I'm gonna wind up with about 20 of these in my arsenal. Most are 1/2 oz. with about six 1/4 oz. Colors range from chart. belly craw to pearl, but most are shad imitations. My home lake is full of gizzard and threadfin shad. I fish waters where sunfish are forage for bass regularly also. I did get three bluegill type for that reason. Any tips, tactics, or plain old tricks anyone want to share.

Yep that's the one Lund Explorer....howbeit they do look a little more refined.

Buurrley.

The "jig wum" is not a lost art to the Lindners. Does remind me of something though. Anyone remember the the worms that came with a length of leader attached, a helicopter spinner blade, a couple red beads, and two exposed hooks? I think you can still purchase something like them still. I just use a shakey head now, but this jig worm technique is not be overlooked it was/is deadly.

Once Academy Sports gets their online shopping set up you should be able to get in their once year "rod blowout". I think $129-$159 rods go down to $119.....something like that. Great deals though. I'm gonna get in on it this year. Should be cominng up soon actually.

It would be great to have a link to this. I'd like to give it a shot.

I had one of the 6.3:1 models a couple of years ago. Great for a few months but then it got pretty noisy. I'm not real fond of mag brakes so I just sold it. I feel like it could have been cleaned and lubed and would have been a decent reel again. It did cast well with light stuff and I had very few backlashes without using a lot of thumb pressure. I was pretty impressed with it considering I got it for about $70.