Team9nine

Lots of variables, but most testing I've seen puts these two knots very close to each other, with the difference (variability) so small you might as well call them equals. What I have personally experienced though is that not every line brand likes a particular knot, so having the other as an alternative is a "nice to know" thing that has come in handy a time or two. Most days I'm strictly Palomar for every line type.

Slow day under blue skies, north winds and post frontal conditions. Water stained and just 40 degrees here. Nabbed a few, but had to go out to the base breakline in nearly 20' of water to do it. Probably change lakes up next trip.

No idea, but I'm sure I won't like it

Outside of small jigs like Bitsy Bugs, along with a few small cranks, I’ve never cared for throwing anything “finesse” with baitcasters. Everything just feels more comfortable and natural on spinning gear to me, and I can’t even imagine trying to toss Midwest Finesse stuff with them. I’ll take a pass on this one ?

Always been a fan of the oddball lengths, say 6’8” to 6’11”. Seems like once you get to 7 ft and slightly above, you don’t actually gain much usable rod length. Instead, I frequently see extended rod butts that just always get in my way or somewhat infringe upon my casting style.

That's where we were this time last week. All it took was a couple days over 50 degrees and 1.6 inches of rain to clear out the worst of it

Surface temps were 38.5-39.0 most everywhere I went on the lake. Ice still in the backs of coves, and some floating sheets on main lake. Fishing in a 35 ft. river channel that has some large washed in trees. Caught fish from as shallow as 7 feet to as deep as 22 feet using 3/32 oz. small crappie plastics fished very slow - more vertical than horizontal.

Boat trip got nixed today, so hit the local sub. pond with a micro lipless and managed to land half a dozen under blue skies and a decent north wind. Cold front lasts through Sunday before we warm again, but might try and get out one more time before then.

Ice came off the lakes late over the weekend, and I got the first trip out on the water to test everything out yesterday (Jan. 21 was last open water trip before evrything froze solid for 5 weeks). Dodged a couple ice sheets still randomly floating around the lake, but managed 68 crappie fishing stained, 39 degree water. Lots of places are muddy and flooded due to the 1.6" of rain we got over the weekend, but this lake only got about 3/4 inch, so it was still fishable compared to some others.

This ^^ Originally, the low frequencies were for things like Great Lakes “deep”, not bass fishing deep. As such, I never just go straight low frequency, but with most units, you can run split frequency and get some good benefits, especially with 2D. But in general, the higher the freq., the better the detail, which is why all the top end units are “Mega”-type frequencies.

Singular - “Sammy” for me, because I bought only one to try about 10 years ago, and yes, it has since been replaced - long ago. Didn’t live up to the hype for me. Spook Jr. is a “go to” in this regard, and original Vixens.

The sport is only going to get more boring to watch with forward facing sonar now quickly becoming the dominant way to fish...at least until they can tap into the pros sonar screen so you can see what’s going on. As such, I don’t watch any tournament coverage these days unless Wheeler or Clunn are in the mix...and then prefer the MLF format over the “big 5” format.

This ^^ though you could probably get by fine with 12# also in your case. The only other thing I’d recommend is once spooled, get in a lot of practice casting out in the yard to get comfortable with the line differences (vs mono). Depending upon your current level of casting ability, it may take some getting used to.

I've got SC Avids, Berkley Lightning rods and Daiwa L&T rods that all make the cut.

This about sums up the right attitude to have going into your first event. May or may not happen, but you won't know where you sit in regards to ability/competitiveness until you get that first one under your belt and see what happens and how you react to it. The other recommendation is in regards to your comment: "added pressure to try to win money back." Tournament fishing is a losing game most of the time, especially at the lower levels. Breakeven is a much more realistic goal, and a sign of having pretty good success. If you can't afford to lose all the money involved with fishing these events (entry fees, gas, time off work, hotels, food, etc.), then you might want to hold off until you have "free" money that isn't needed for anything to keep the household running. On the other hand, it's totally possible you might go in and crack everyone on your first go at it - you might be a closet VanDam - who knows. Good luck.

I bought a package of black trick worms once after reading some tourney results or something. Now, 15 years later, I still have over half the package left. Caught fish on them, but I much prefer the brighter colors for this. I've gone through lots and lots of packages of those

Not just beginners. A whole lot of people would probably do much better overall if they avoided the information overload that is today's fishing media. I see it all the time on these forums - like every person who starts a thread with the word **** in the title Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes on this subject: "You spend weeks in solitude, wondering what happened and how victory slipped from your hands. The only conclusion offered to you by the fishing “media” was that KVD “switched from regular sexy shad, to a 'gold' sexy shad the minute three extra cirrus clouds entered the atmosphere. You feel stupid because you were waiting on two cumulus clouds."

Nearly all baitcasters are fluoro, including the buzzbait setup. No problems here.

My favorite pond blade bait, the Johnson Thinfisher. Cold water killer, especially if there is a stain to your water. It accounts for a lot of my winter/ice out largemouth every year.

Yes - move it a few inches, then let it sit. Sometimes they’ll surprise you though and hit a more aggressive retrieve, so check it out. Every lake/pond is different.

Just cut a few feet off a spool of line and retie if available. Bout as fancy as I get

Ice just came off here yesterday. Caught them on small blade baits today, but Ned is always my most consistent cold water producer.

Ice off in my neck of the woods yesterday for most waters. Got the boat all cleaned and ready to go, along with my tackle this weekend. Hoping to get out later in the week. In the mean time, I had to make a quick pass on one of the sub ponds across the street today. Hooked up with 5 fish in about an hour, best fish 3+ lbs., so that has me ready to go. Been 5 weeks since the boat was last out, which seems like such a long time ago

I think I still have 2 or 3 bags of Sweet Beavers I bought 8 or 9 years ago, but they were a pretty tame color name as I recall. Never was overly fond of their soft plastics. Did like (and own) some of their top waters though like the Swamp Donkey and the Vixen.

Might be a small group, but you’re not alone. I own nothing “fireclaw” outside of a few old school red cranks, and have absolutely no intention of falling for the marketing hype anytime soon. Hell, as a matter of principal, it took me a good 10 years before I finally bought a lure with the color name “sexy shad.” ?