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I just picked up one of these. 7' M/MF Kistler MgAJCBSGGM70 Alton Jones Crank Bait Special graphite/glass composite. Haven't used it yet but it feels great.

I pitch much more often than I flip. The water is usually too clear on my local lakes in MN to do much flipping IMO, with the exception of flipping in heavy milfoil and coontail mats. I use a pair of G. Loomis flipping sticks for my pitching/flipping. One is a 7' 11" heavy power and one is 7' 5" med power. The heavier one is used for frogging and for punching slop mats with Texas Rigs and has #50 braid on it. The lighter one is used for general jig fishing and pitching and is spooled with #15 fluorocarbon line.

I was on both knees on the front casting deck, pushing off the dock. A little too hard, I guess, and the boat swung unexpectedly because of the wind blowing hard into shore, and I tumbled head first into the 44 degree water at 4:30am last October. I lost both shoes in the muck, smashed my shin on the lip of the boat, and ruined my cell phone. I had muck in my ear, too, because it's only 2 feet deep there. Luckily I had plenty of dry clothes and a Thermos of coffee so I was fishing 10 minutes later with no shoes on.

I lip them with a glove on, just like in the pic. It's a welding glove too, very similar. I do this sometimes with larger Northerns as well.

It's a little stiff, but you'll do fine. You'll miss a few more strike than you would with a softer tip though.

I'm curious enough to try this stuff out. I use the Gulp! Alive Garlic spray and haven't tried any others.

Watermelon, red flake 7" GYCB Senko or White/Chartreuse 5" Senko. Gamakatsu finesse widegap weedless 2/0 hook rigged thru an o-ring.

I like to flair the weedguard, remove a few fibers, and trim the weedguard similar to the pic in DWG1984's post. I think making the weedguard a little smaller helps the jig snake thru the weeds a little more easily and with less drag. It helps when punching thru slop or swim-jigging heavy milfoil. Otherwise, I don't modify the jig other than sometimes opening the hook bend a few degrees.

There are a ton of little, overlooked natural lakes with almost untouched LMB populations in MN. Quite a few people dedicate themselves to walleye fishing and ignore the bass. I'm about 2 hours South of Leech Lake, but I go up there sometimes and fish for LMB, crappies, walleyes or pike depending on the season. That lake is so good you may not even want to search for another.

Sounds good. I'm curious about find a local club like this. I have a boat and I usually fish solo.

LOL! Thats the Banjo Minnow of frogs. Overpriced, over-hyped, great action, realistic look, epically poor hookset ratio. I'm going to stick with Spros, Ragetails, and Zoom Frogs. If they don't hit one of those, they're simply not present or not eating frogs that day. Go try someting else...

A heavy spinnerbait would work as well, but I'm thinking Carolina Rig. You can cover some water with that and find some fish. Then stop trolling and cast.

Yeah, it happens. I've done it 3 times. All 3x on a hookset that sent a lure flying back at me. Hand, forearm, and ear. After you hook yourself, the longer you wait the more tender it gets. Rip it out ASAP and put some isopropyl alc on it. I used a similar method, put instead of a string I used my needlenose.

Yeah you're right. It is a "pitching switch." Even though I'm right handed I use a lefty reel for pitching and I rarely flip. The water is just too clear on most lakes around here to flip without spooking some fish. I tried pitching with my left hand but I'm more comfortable keeping my right hand on the rod. Many right-handed people switch the rod from right hand to left hand during the pitch, but since many strikes come on the initial fall, some of those strikes are not felt while switching hands I noticed.

I've had a good year so far. I fish in Wright County mostly.

It's surprisingly easy. I did it a few weeks ago. My rod was discontinued so they gave my a similar replacement that retails for $50 more and I like even better. I had a telescopic 7' 6" GL3 MH flipping stick that I used for pitching and jig fishing and they replaced it with a 1 piece Mossyback 7' 5" Medium action stick. It has great backbone like a MH but a nice soft tip. Much better for pitching light lures. I was so impressed that I bought a new GLX rod yesterday.

I'm a big fan of Power Pro if it's used properly. I used to have that happen often when I was using Power Pro #20/6 and under on casting reels and casting hard with heavy lures(3/8 oz +). It is due to the line diameter being too thin for the reel and it's cutting into itself because it's not wrapping around the spool properly. I switched to 30# and it never happened again. If you saw 20 and 30 side by side on casting reels it would be easy to see how the line is cutting into the spool on the 20#. Too bad I tossed so many nice lures into the water before figuring this out. :-/

I've owned 2 for the last month and a half. So far I think the STX is a very nice reel. I like the comfortable, low profile and they're very smooth. My favorite feature is the spool tension function. It has a knob thats clicks in tiny increments, which makes it easy to dial in your reel so that backlashes are very, very uncommon. I tend to leave my magnetics at about 60-75% on all my reels and then just adjust the spool tension, usually on the loose side. I think it would be good for a first baitcaster, although a little on the expensive side for a beginner IMO. Not to highjack this thread, but if I were recommending a rod/reel to someone new to casting reels, I personally would recommend Shimano Citicas on St. Croix Premier rods rather than spending $200 on a reel alone. You won't find a better rod/reel combo under $225 than the Citica/Premier. It's a good place to start, and they won't break the bank so you can get a few that are suited to specific techniques.

All in all I've owned 6 Premiers and 3 Avids and I'm a big fan of both. They are the best value I've owned and I think they are the best in their price class, especially the Premiers. However, aside from St. Croix, the only other nice setups I have are Loomis GL3, which are very nice but I'd rather have an Avid because I despise that plastic cap on the Loomis handles. I didn't feel the need to upgrade to the Avid on setups where sensitivity wasn't important and just mono/floro was used, such as for buzzers, topwater, and slip bobber walleye setups, so I kept my Premiers for those. I especially like the Avid 70MHF casting rod for spinnerbaits. Its very crisp and I can feel em ticking the weedtops alot better than with the GL3 76MHF I previously used.

$4000 will get you a pretty decent aluminum boat, but you'd be better off trying to step up to the $6000-8000 range and getting a smaller, 2000-2005 fiberglass bass boat. I was in a similar position as you earlier this Summer, looking for a Bass Tracker in the $5000 range. But when I test drove one, I hated it. I ended up finding a '04 Stratos 275 ProXL and Johnson 90HP for $8000 and its in great shape. I'm glad I passed on all those Trackers I looked at. Craigs List and Ebay are the way to go for shopping boats. If you find a boat on Ebay from a dealership, call them and shoot em an offer. They can end the auction any time they want. Keep in mind, that you may pay a little more from a dealer than a private party, but I've found the boats from dealer are in better shape. They may very well be a repo like mine was, and the dealer didn't pay very much at all to get it from the bank, so they'll have some flex. This is a great time of the year to boat shop. Good luck.