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I only use wire-tied nowadays. I catch a lot of small to mid-sized northern pike on jigs, and their teeth cut through those rubber bands in no time.

They're one of my go-to lures in late fall when the water drops into the 50's. I like pearl-, chart/white-, and watermelon-colored 5" grubs on a 1/8 oz. jig mostly. Added bonus is that walleyes also bite them come this time of the year. I fish them pretty erratically for the most part, trying to hit weed tops and pop the lure off light snags. Other time a straight retrieve works better.

I haven't fished with the Savvy 735, but I purchased two Savvy 734 on sale for my dad this spring, sight-unseen. I'm quite happy with the quality of them. At $125, it's a very good buy. They're significantly better than a St Croix Avid, in my opinion, which is another rod in that class that I've used and owned for years. However, best bet would be to wait until a sale and get a Dobyns Champion 736 for $200. That's my favorite frog rod. I prefer it over the Champ 735 or 766, two other good frog rods.

Yep, those locals are excellent. I shop there or go online to TW.

There are a ton of bargain hunters on sites like these. Posts like this are right up our alley. Fishing can get expensive!

Buy both weights. 3/8 is a great all around weight. 1/2 falls faster and will get you some reaction bites. Don't forget 1/4 either. That slow fall will be the ticket in cold water.

That a fair price for it. I was happy with the one I used to own.

My local Walmarts have next-to-nothing useful for sale.

The fish don't seem to care, so why should I? Function over fashion.

Cut your losses. Respool the reel.

Spinnerbait, buzzbait, chatterbait should work equally well on the same rod. I like the Dobyns 734 for these.

Have you guys fished the Fury Series? How are they?

I've gone thru quite a few pairs of $40-50 felt-bottomed wading boots over the years. I'd only get a season or two before they're shredded. I guess I got what I paid for. If I were to get another pair, I'd invest a little more into them and get something more durable.

A five gallon bucket with warm water and dish soap. 400-600 grit sandpaper. Let em soak for a few minutes. A few LIGHT strokes is all you need. I do it every spring, and the handles look great and have that tackiness of new cork with minimal pitting.

Very true. Just two days ago, my dad and I were side-by-side fishing smallies on the Mississippi. We were both rigged up with 1/4 oz. swim jigs and 5" pearl grubs as trailers. Over the courses of a few hours and a mile of drifting, my chart/white jig caught nothing but pike, and his clear-strand/green-flake jig landed nothing but bass, including two four-pounders. Then I switched colors and it was all bass the rest of the way.

Go often, and pay attention to detail. Put in the hours and good experiences will come, often at unexpected times.

Biggest bass of the season was a one-eyed bass up around 7 lbs. It's a part of fishing, as they've said. Just do you best to treat the bass well in the ways you can control: getting the hook out gently but quickly (quicker than a minute), wet your hands prior to touching it, don't let it touch the carpet or the dirt, hang it off the boat and do a figure-8 so it can get some water through the gills, etc. Don't beat yourself up over it. Two-thirds of the knuckleheads on the lake would have fried that bass up, eye-hooked or not, so keep that in mind.

Coffee, and preparing the stuff a day prior.

Sometimes it'll rust them; other times it won't. It's usually pretty obvious which baits are super salty and which aren't. I've caught plenty of fish on mildly-to-moderately rusted hooks with sharpened hook-points. The fish don't seem to mind. I leave a lot of hooks inside plastic baits.

1/2 oz black/blue jig with paddle-tail trailer. 3/4 oz. fairly-natural-colored spinnerbait with double-willow blades.

I put JJ's Magic in bags of plastics using an eye dropper.

Believe it or not, the best fishing I've ever had with a dropshot was with a wacky-rigged mustard-colored tube, of all things. I had a torn up tube sitting on the carpet, so I decided to toss it on the dropshot to see what would happen. It worked great. Since then, I've tried numerous baits wacky-style, and I have better luck rigging them that way vs. standard.

As said before, keeping them in the original bags is the best way, in my opinion. Then organize them using gallon Ziplocks with the slider seal. I used to use Plano boxes, but it was a PITA.

It's not very good line. At all. I've had some really bad experiences when trying to bargain hunt on fluorocarbon lines. Lots of breakages and annoyances. I have half a Rubbermaid bin full of half-full spools of junk line where i was trying to experiment or save a buck. Keep in mind that some of the high-end flouro lines can be fished for more than one season. Sometimes more than two. I've even reversed them on the reel and then stretched them by tying them to a post and stretching the last 50 yards. We've all seen how these lines tend to behave better after being stretched by a fish or two. There are lots of things that one can skimp on; I do it all the time. Fluoro line is just not knot one of them, pun intended.

Heavy spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, frogs, lipless crank baits, 10" worms, and large jigs are my go-to fall lures. I generally fish large and fast, and try to take advantage of the sun's warming effect on the water, e.g., calm spots and wind-blown banks, which can be a degree or two warmer. As the water cools into the mid-50's, I fish a lot of shakyheads, tubes, darter head grubs, flukes, Senkos, in addition to slow-rolled lipless cranks and smaller spinnerbaits. Slower retrieves work best, and 5-20 second pauses in the retrieve can nab some extra fish at this time.