Jrob78

David Johnson is a stud!

My team is terrible this year. It's still been fun though.

I have a couple of Curado 100 B's that I still use on occasion.

It only gets harder as you go bigger. Play with them and pull on them as much as you can. You should be able to go up yourself until you get to like a 2 or a 0, then you might have to get them stretched in the shop. Just don't over do it and tear them and you won't have any trouble down the road.

He actually looks like he can see past his first option and throws a pretty good ball.

That's about what I paid for mine too. Walmart marked them way down a year or so ago.

I have the rod too. I've used it for small cranks like RC 0.5's, KVD 1.0's, small jerkbaits like the Pointer 78 and small 1/4 oz poppers. I agree that it is more like a ML MF. For me, it's under powered for sq bills, or at least my preference for sq bill rods. I would check out the Tatula or even Tatula XT cranking rods. I think you can find them for around $100 and they are really nice rods.

Even if it isn't cheaper, you will have 2 rods instead of 1. Or, you could even sell the original to fund the build.

You would be better off buying the blank you want and having a builder build you a custom. Since you can buy St. Croix blanks, this wouldn't be hard at all.

I don't see the SV103 on any of the Japanese sites. Odd that it would get released here first.

Those look great! H20 Xpress makes a nice, inexpensive hard bluegill swimbait for Academy also. If you want something cheap that can be fished on regular gear, that's the way I would go for a smaller hardbait. I'm personally fond of Matt's Hardgill.

I ended up getting the 7' Heavy Deep Strike. I will post my impression when I get it next week.

The cranking rods are glass, so I'm sure they are heavy....but $50?!?

I think I'm going to have to pick up one of the 7' MH BDS rods.

Yes they are, by a pretty large amount.

Sounds like you guys are going to have a lot of fun.

I did, I don't know why you can't ever take these important threads seriously.

There are 3 kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can't.

Nice! Setting the bar high!

1/4 oz here too, 95% of the time.

I agree, still want to see it though.

I would like to see Gronk and Watt bare knuckle fight.

You will open up your options a lot more if you include baitcasting gear. Most bass spinning rods are geared more toward finesse techniques.

Looks good to me!

I picked these up to fish with small grubs, Swing Impacts and small Spark Shad. I couldn't find them anywhere in the states but I just noticed that Greenfish Tackle makes a similar bait with a different blade placement.