SoFlaBassAddict

I could deal with the cold. The temps yesterday and today weren't all that bad. It's the stinkin wind thats killing me. It was blowing 30-40 down here yesterday and the day prior. It slowed down some today, hopefully more into the weekend. I just want to fish and not get my butt whipped doing it.

I grabbed one of the XPS Stalker Backpacks. I'm much happier with that. My only complaint is that the shoulder straps don't give for a lot of adjustment, and it's off center when using them as a handle. But thats just being trivial. Otherwise I couldn't be happier with it.

I'm currently in love with my carbonlite for worm fishing. 6'9" MH XF. I'm not sure if you can still get the introductory price of 79.99. But normally they're just at 100 bucks. I grabbed a carbonlite reel today to match it (on sale for 79.99), which seems like a fantastic fit to it. The rod is ultra light, and ridiculously sensitive. For the cash I don't think you can beat it.

Man I really wish I could go. But scheduling with my parents to watch my daughters is incredibly difficult at times. On that note, there needs to be a roadtrip down somewhere in Florida one of these days

So what are your store hours so I can come do some shopping? Looks like the wall in a darn tackle shop. I've really got to do that in my garage. Especially since I just finished up a job and have a bunch of that wall material in the shop....

If you don't wash them off, you might as well send them to me now... Like anything, if you take care of it you'll be fine. Generally hosing it down really thoroughly should do you. If you're worried about it, a mild soap should do just fine. Just make sure you rinse it completely off.

The best way to fix it is to not let it happen. When it does though, tighten down the drag, put your thumb on the spool while applying pressure with the thumb. Turn the handle. Make a few turns then pull out the line, works like 95% of the time.

Like SmokinShad said, KVD has a how to of it floating around somewhere. I found it online on accident one day. I've never caught a fish using it, but man it looks good in the water. I just never remember to actually use one. Or I'll think of it and decide that I'm really too lazy to tie one up.

I must be in the minority. I use a cheapo Daiwa rod I picked up broken at wally world. It's roughly 7'3" now. It "says" medium power on it, but I really don't believe that. Has a long handle on it that lets me monkey down on it for longer casts. Probably has a moderate tip on it, but has enough backbone to allow for solid hooksets. I use 10 lb mono on it and have no issues at all. All that being said, most of the areas I fish in don't have a ton of vegetation on the top. I also use the same rod for lipless cranks and soft plastic swim baits. I don't have the need for a single purpose frog rod and I do just fine with what I've got. I really believe sometimes people go overboard in bass fishing with line sizes and whatnot. I see people talking about using 50 pound braid or higher...I don't use stuff that large on most of my offshore trolling reels and I've boated fish that are several hundred pounds on lighter gear. Maybe thats just the saltwater angler in me speaking not being used to people using such massive line for bass. I can understand the need to pull out a whole bunch of weeds and junk, but man ultra heavy braid seems excessive to me at times.

I put floating or suspending on mine. But do you really need rattling? It's pretty self explanatory. You know, it's noisy or not.....

I know on my lake, I've killed fish previously on a ghost minnow and and ayu red eye. The citrus shad I've never had a strike on. I've never tossed the original sexy shad color. My lake has no shad. Just crawfish (which are rare), bluegill, shiners, minnows, and smaller bass.

I'll throw my two cents in, I've got the 6'9" MH XF and I love the way it feels. For the money it's a great rod.

I picked up one of the two Carbonlites at the Dania beach store. There was one more left at around 1:30 for anybody interested. I was questioning the foam grips on it, but I kind of like them. It is a very nice fit on the carbonlite rods. It's almost scary how light it is. Hopefully after this 30-40 mph wind dies down I'll actually get to use it some and provide a little feedback.

That is one sexy looking reel. Love the finish on it.

Yeesh, I'm glad neither of my BPS' are as bad as all of yours. I've got two of them in different directions from me, equal distance. Unfortunatley one of them is very close to where I work...yeah not god. I've never had a problem with either store, or the associates (shocker being that they're in Miami). That being said, I went to pick up a Carbonlite reel, sold out. The guy at the reel counter said the warehouse had 500 reels to go to 50 stores. He's hoping to get some more in any day now. Call ahead and if they don't have them, he'll do a raincheck for me.

The strike and the fight of a decent peacock is like nothing else. Give me that any day and I'm happy. Either that or a violent topwater strike on a frog.

Jigs. I've landed a couple of small fish swimming jigs around, but thats it. I keep trying to use them, but I lose a lot of them down deep. No confidence in a jig at all. It kills me because I know they're supposed to be great baits, etc etc. I just suck with a jig. This will probably be another year where I swear to try using them more and just eventually say screw it.

They work good as a topwater bait, you can t-rig them weighted or weightless, work it like almost any other work. Good bait.

You know, I'm not really sure what it is. I'm probably just nitpicking over the fact that I spent 30 bucks on it when I probably didn't really need to. At least it was on sale.

So as I've continued to buy more and more stuff (darn monkey), I'm starting to realize that space is at a premium. I'm looking for more of a co-angler type of bag, as I hope to back-seat in a few tournies this year. I picked up a BPS 360 backpack earlier today, but I'm really not that happy with it. That being said, I may have not given it a fair chance. Do you guys think it would be smarter to buy something like the BPS co-angler bag with the 3700 series boxes? Or stick to something that holds the 3600 series. I bought the backpack because I do a lot of bank beating, so I'm not really sure if I like or don't like it yet.

Yeah, I picked one up earlier today when I was wandering around through BPS. Decent articles in it. Makes for good toilet material

I'll gladly ride with somebody. It's a bit of a drive for me to drag my small boat up that far. I guess it could be done if need be though. I'd be more than happy to drive anybody up there that needs a lift though.

Three people, three similar answers....twitch and pause over pockets and holes. Sounds like a plan to me.

Don't know how old the episode is, but I just saw Glenn on City Limits Fishing rockin the Bass Resource gear.

Both. I've only been using them for a short time, but I wish I had been using them a lot longer. Whether or not they actually work, I definitely have been catching more fish since I've started using them. Confidence, or actual product working who cares. More fish = more fun.