Team9nine

We had a “big bass” thread a couple weeks back discussing important aspects of finding and catching the biggest bass. I mentioned Livescope as being one of the keys now days to making it happen, and I got several “laughing” emojis because I think people thought I was being sarcastic - but I wasn’t. It’s a huge part of all these giant bass catches. JJ alone has two Sharelunkers in a week, and now well over 50 bass over 8 pounds, and more than 2 dozen over 10 in just the first two months of the year.

Nice! We opened up over here, too, but I’m not in quite the rush to get out this year as I got to make 5 open water January trips for crappie, so I’m just 5 weeks out since last trip. Haven’t even made a bass trip yet this year, but might try and hit the ponds tomorrow or Tuesday.

I agree with this ^^ I just use the exact same rod I use for Neds for my small swim baits without issue - 6’6” ML Shimano Clarus

As a side note, sadly, Mr. Pat Cullen passed away back in 2014 at the age of 70. Not certain what his final bass count total was, but I've seen 1300 and change mentioned a time or two.

Don’t really care. I can pretty much recall where most every big bass I’ve ever caught over the last 30 years came from, but I don’t track or record anything specific in that regard. Odds of me ever breaking my PB these days is slim to none, so I don’t give it much thought or effort. I just go fishing and catch what I can.

Lol - It’s probably only because I throw the smallest size more than the others ?

Very high hookup ratio for me. So many times they have the entire bait just completely in their mouth. I was really impressed by that the first time I threw it, and it has been the case more times than not.

You’ll probably be glad you did. Much more positive results than negative for me this past year on them. I’m on my third “order” of them

I believe most mentions of adjusting during mid-fight based on previous threads were guys adjusting the drag on the fly as needed, most often lighter when they realize they might be set too tight. Those aren’t the backreelers, though, which are “set it and forget it.”

Yeah, you tighten the drag down much more than a typical person does when backreeling, which is kind of the point to it.

This ^^ and line conditioner is optional. I never use it myself.

Good old plastic chunk (pork frogs in the good old days) for me. Maybe step it up a size depending, but otherwise, nothing fancier until waters warm regardless of clarity.

For your setup and intended application, I would suggest you don’t - and this coming from a big fluoro fan. However, I’d go braid or mono in your case. Either of the other two will handle better, and allow you to bump up in line size a bit, which would be a good thing IMO. Part of the deal with fluoro is knowing when it makes sense to use it. That is a majority of the baitcast applications you could imagine, along with a few light line spinning applications. Just my .02 - but if you move forward with it anyway, go InvizX or Tatsu for their better handling characteristics.

Fluoro

It’s an interesting deal. Your point about red flake contrasting with green is a good one most people overlook, and I’m half convinced it’s why red baits work so well in the spring on grass lakes. However, the science side of me has read enough papers to discount the importance of small color highlights on a bait in regard to bass feeding...so I err on the side of science and don’t sweat the small stuff, so to speak - right or wrong.

I've tried watermelon red flake on my waters many times and never had it perform as well as my best colors for some reason, veggies or no. I can catch fish with it, but never good enough to make me want to go out and buy that color again - which is a shame, because it does look good on some baits ?

Anything that shows up well enough to easily see - white, bubblegum and merthiolate

Rootbeer pepper green - one of my top 2 or 3 jig trailer colors. Zoom makes a nice version of it in many of their plastics

Green pumpkin - hands down. Won't even buy watermelon anymore...but most all of my waters are stained to some degree, and it just seems like GP does better. I've got a couple watermelon colored baits, and I'll toss them from time to time, but I really think they do better in more transparent (clear) environments. Might just be in my head - who knows. Whatever gives you confidence...and that isn't watermelon for me

Should be no issue unless it got blisteringly hot in there...I store all mine in the garage and have for years - no problems after many, many years.

You looked up the wrong term - look up "backreel" I'll stop there...for now

Believe the last above comments are correct based on this TT explanation I saw on the Aldebaran. I assume the Metanium format is probably similar. "...but the true meaning behind those number changes from 200 to 100 to 70 to 50, etc, is to delineate spool capacity. Therefore, if the change in capacity is small enough (e.g. from 100 to 70 or 50 to 30), all Shimano is really doing is changing the depth of that spool." So as has been stated above, if only spool depth has changed and not spool diameter or width, then IPT will be nearly identical between the two in your scenario.

Me too, then

The circumference of any given sized circle/cyclinder is a constant for a set diameter regardless of what size the axle is. Simple physics. It's a whole different argument if you want to start creating theoretical IPTs based on making some long cast of distance 'X' and only having 'Y' line left on the spool, but he didn't specifically allude to that in his post/question. Agreed - but he didn't specifcally refer to that aspect in his question, though it may or may not have been what he was getting at. See my above comment/reply. Exactly, which was my point and what I thought he was asking Discussed above - maybe the OP should clarify exactly what he is trying to figure out for all our sakes...

The actual size of the spool is largely irrelevant. What ultimately matters is the final outside diameter of the line when fully filled. If that doesn’t change, then neither does IPT. Shallower spools have less overall line mass due to decreased line capacity, so casting might be affected, but not IPT.