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I find it's hard to beat a tube. But Beavers, Otters, Chigger Craws, paddletail worms, 10" Powerworms, and Senkos have their place, too.

I prefer the 50# over the 65# overall, but there isn't going to be much of a noticeable difference with slop fishing. Unless you're breaking off the 50#, there's no need to upgrade. 50# is about perfect, IMO. I have it on MH, H, and Mag Heavy rods. I use about 60% mono backing and only put on 50-60 yds of braid at a time, and I switch it out once a year usually, or whenever it starts to get fuzzy. I have reversed the line onto other reels in the past when I would fill the entire spool with braid. It worked well, but I prefer the backing/masking tape/braid combo.

10-12 all together, with 5 or 6 on the deck.

IMO, if you're fishing reaction baits and covering a lot of water, there is no doubt that it's an advantage to be the first to present your lure to an active fish. With bottom contact baits and less active fish, it's a more ever playing field, but probably still a slight advantage to be in the front because of the better choices of casts.

An 1/8 oz buzzbait is my favorite river smallie lure.

Finesse tubes, 1/4 oz spinnerbaits, 1/8 oz buzzbaits, suspending jerkbaits, jig/grub, flukes, Senkos. Natural colors, white, and black. Keep it simple.

A popper fished on fluorocarbon line will give you a loud "bloop." The fluoro sinks and the popper dives a bit when twitched, tossing a lot of water and making a different noise than if it were fished on a floating line, like mono.

What's the best naptha product? Lighter fluid?

That makes sense. Hot Rod's system will be perfect for that.

Why? Read what Raul said , that's why. Bingo. You want to stay away from reels w/o infinite anti-reverse.

Good ones. The first two really annoy me. I have another, but it's minor. The long tag-ends on people's knots. I have seen a few fish pics online where they have 2-3" of line hanging from the knot. There's no need for a tag-end of longer than 1/8 or 1/4".

I just had a pair of 735C delivered yesterday and I'll be using them today for the first time. One will be for pitching and casting medium sized T rigs, Senkos and jigs around moderate cover. The other will be for most frogging, with a 766C being used to backup both 735Cs in heavy cover for jigs, T rigs, pitching, flipping, and frogs. I'm very happy with the 735C. It appears to be an extremely versatile rod. The tip is much faster and more suitable for worming than the 734 that I picked up for pitching. The 734C is now my spinnerbait rod, and it has performed extremely well. PM sent, Craiger.

I'd give it a shot, with a short leash. If you can, drag it behind the boat for 5-10 minutes in deep water at about 5-10 mph, letting about 50-75 yds out. It will uncoil it pretty well, and remove any twist.

I haven't had the best of luck with Quantum, but Shimano and AG have very solid performers in all of the price classes. I would recommend selecting the one you like best in your local store and then going online to find the cheapest price on a new reel, and if you don't like it, you can sell it on the Flea Market forum on this site for a loss of just 15-25% if it's in good to excellent condition. I personally like the Shimano Curado E and Abu Garcia Revo STXs. I own 9 of them. These will run you about $150, and are very popular and easy to sell if you don't like them.

I've had really good luck so far with Trilene 100%, but I have switched to Seaguar Invisx on two setups to give it a shot, side by side, with the Trilene 100%. Depending on water color, I still use straight braid or braid with a 15-20# fluoro leader to do most of my pitching around weed cover. Braid slices thru weeds much better than any other line. This is one of braid's biggest advantages. I do pitch to very light cover and docks with straight 15# fluoro, though. If you're set on straight fluorocarbon, I would recommend 15-17# test if you're focusing on the edges, and 17-20# if you're gonna get into some thicker stuff. Putting your location in your profile will better allow people to give you advice on line test and tackle choices, because the types and thickness of cover and size of bass vary greatly in different parts of the country.

Should be fine. I think that suspending jerks have a little better action with fluoro because on the pause, the front of the bait doesn't rise slightly like it would with mono.

Some reels will benefit from them and others won't. Curado and Revo handles are good they way they are, but the Daiwa handles feel better with Reel Grips, IMO. It just comes down to personal preference I guess. I like the look of them, but not the feel. I only use them on Daiwa reels because the handles feel a little slick to me.

I can't think of a better situation for a natural colored, suspending jerkbait.

Maybe I missed it, but not keeping your hooks sharp is one issue, especially after snagging or catching numerous fish on light hooks. Another would be learning how to fish at a computer screen instead of learning from trial and error on the water. One I feel is very important, even though it has been mentioned a few times, is starting with good line and maintaining it strength by respooling often and tying strong knots. "Fishing too fast" is a tricky one because it is a little vague. It can mean a few things, trolling too fast and missing spots, over-anxiousness, not saturating the entire structure or cover with casts from different angles, not letting lures pause for very long, or simply too fast of a retrieve. Although fishing fast can be a problem for some, fishing slow can be just as big a problem for others, when they sit too long and soak unproductive water with 9 lures because of what it once produced. I am guilty of this more often than not. I feel sometimes I fish too slowly and too patiently, and that I need to pick up the pace and give up on a spot that isn't producing and try another.

I love fishing in the rain, as long as there's no lightning of course. I usually have two setups on the deck if I know they're going to be getting soaked. One is a black buzzbait and the other is a large profile white frog, and I go straight to the lily pads with them.

You really don't need to buy any fishing books. A Bassmaster or In-Fisherman subscription wouldn't hurt, but the best info you're going to find is online, and there's a lot of this site. Check out the Fishing Article in the upper left. I would recommend you look for irregularities in the cover. Something out of the ordinary that will concentrate the fish; one type of weeds meeting another, a depth change or hole, a weed edge, docks, rocks, wood, a hiding place, an ambush point, a clump of cattails in the middle of a lily pad patch. Stuff like that. Lure choices could be just about anything, depending on the thickness of the weeds. But since it's shallow and sounds weedy, I would say spinnerbaits and buzzbaits on the edges and in the more sparse cover, and frogs, toads, and Texas rigged Senkos in the thicker stuff. Learning to pitch jigs and Texas rigged soft plastics might be the trick in the heavier stuff. Good luck.

Lefty reels are not cheaper, they cost the same as right reels. Ive noticed on ebay and in the flea market, as weel as other sites the used leftys are cheaper than the right hand reels. Agreed, although like Raul said, they are priced the same, at first. But the lefties have a tendency to end up in closeout sales more often than their righty counterparts, like the Revo Premiers at TW. I wish I were ambidextrous. It would be a huge advantage. I'm really working on casting left handed by practicing in my yard. Along with punching, it's my #1 goal to improve on this year. I can cast over the top just fine, but I would like to cast sidearm and do it quietly. I use LH and RH reels, about 50/50, and I cast right handed. But when there's an angler to my right, I have to cast over the top to avoid snagging them, instead of using the quiet little sidearm, right-handed roll-cast I'm used to. I can see that I'm spooking fish with the splashdown.

I couldn't agree more Same here, and crimp that rivet! I swear, my buzzbait improved drastically when I started crimping an bending the rivets to increase squeak. I think the squeak is more important than the clack, but that's just been the case for me. I also think that adding a small willow blade on a swivel behind the rivet is more effective than the clacker, but I fish clear water (4-12') so that likely explains it.

Frogs over the slop, and buzzbaits and toads on the edges, if there are edges and it's not completely choked.

I like a longer, 7'+ rod and a tip-up retrieve for walking. Otherwise, I use shorter rods and tip-down retrieves for other topwater plugs like chuggers and poppers. It's not nearly as easy to walk with the shorter rods.