Hammer 4

^^^^^ This.

Ahh, been there done that..If there's any vegetation within casting distance, that would be a good choice to start with, shade and good oxygen will hold bass. Good luck.

As a retired Contractor/carpenter, I'd say your doing very well from what I can see. Tables look great. When I retired over 10 years ago, I had a Ton of tools, ect..Went in the garage last week, and was surprised at the number of clamps I still have, from tiny to 36" pipe clamps. Maybe it's time for a garage sale..lol Anyway, nice work..You learn with every build..

Do you have any large worms, say 8" or bigger..? If so, try tossing those either on a t rig, or Carolina rig..This would hopefully get you bigger fish. Then there's always the jig with a good sized craw trailer.

Dang those look good. Bet they even taste better..

Not a fan of black cars or trucks, but that's' Nice rig, plus it's a Chevy..Proud owner of a 600 hp 2003 Duramax here.

I mainly choose a spinning reel for the speed, i.e. I'll take a 6 speed over a 5 speed. This would be in a 2500/3000 sized reel.

I've fished spinning reels for a very long time. I've used just about every decent mono and fluro out there with out any issues. I've never had the need to use braid on a spinning reel.

Be 72 next month, I play golf, and or hit a couple hundred balls every day without any arm/elbow pain. There is a flaw in your golf swing, just as there is with the OP's casting technique. Just for reference, on a launch monitor, I hit my 23* rescue with a carry of 200 yds, swing speed is 110 mph.

Yeah, shimano is funny like that.

Hopefully someone here can help. Strange that shimano doesn't have it.

I could be wrong,but I think you have to order it from Shimano. I didn't research it, so I'm just guessing.

All of my Tatula's are 2019 models. All were, and still are smooth as butter from the factory.

6:3 to 1.

I've bought 2 reels from them, pretty fast shipping, and they came from sportsmanoutfitters.

Just be careful with the UL stuff. Prolonged fighting a bass places undo stress on the fish, to the point where it can actually kill them, so try and get them landed asap..Using 6 to 8 lb line shouldn't be a problem, although 4 lb on a good sized bass could be iffy. Maybe move up to a ML/F rod, still a lot of fun, but a bit safer imho. BTW, welcome to the forums..

This may be of interest to you.

Geez, that takes me back about 63 years ago..Great pic..

I've fished both a bunch, and were it me, I'd choose Castaic. DVL can be tough this time of year, it's a great place, the size can be a little intimidating to some, and it's takes a few trips there to get dialed in. Been skunked more than once there. Castaic has been pretty good to me, caught some nice fish there. The only problem is the weekend skiers, ect. But you can escape them by going into the coves/points unless the fish have moved to deep water, still there should be some shallow. Tom / WRB can give you more info, as he's caught some giants out of Castaic. Good luck on your trip.

What is your budget for a rod..? I have a couple in mind.

The Fuego is a great reel I use mine mainly for frogging. I do have a few *cough* CT's the 100, 150, and 200..Casting distance is solid, I don't have a Curado K to compare it to. I have owned older Curado's that were made in Japan, and loved em, a wild guess would be that they are pretty close. I bought the Diawa's for a reason, great value reels for the $$$, as you can find below what the big online stores ask for them. I also fish mainly from shore.

China does a pretty good job of imitating the looks of reels, so even if you saw one, it would be very hard to tell if it was fake. Example, golf clubs...I guy bought a set of Titlest irons from China, he was suspicious and contacted the maker, he took the clubs to their San Diego headquarters, turns out they had to cut the club head open to verify that they were indeed fake, so that tells how good these guys are at crating fake merchandise.

5" green pumpkin Senco..

Long time ago, there weren't high speed reels. We had the 5 speed and we caught fish with them. So generally speaking you could use it for most applications, but it shines for deep cranking and big swimbaits.

Since I first began fishing, I've always closed the bail manually.