NorCalFishinguru

I think rods don't make much a difference as long as they each play a role in a specific application. If you go from drop shotting to chucking a half pound swimbait or flipping the brand hardly matters. Thinking about it, i guess i own 7 different brands of operating rods; Lamiglas, G. loomis, St. Croix, Daiwa, Fenwick, Shakespeare, Shimano, and probably a couple more that im forgetting. Reels are a different story. You really develop a feel for the grip and your thumb really gets to know the feel of a certain spool and the brakes within a brand.

95% of my hooks are gamakatsu's but i think I may start switching over to owner. I'll try the cutting point models a little more and see how they perform. I think they're a lot harder to resharpen than gamakatsu's so im not completely set

They're super pricey because they are the world's sharpest. Im pretty sure it's all mechanical sharpening, no chemicals. They go through the same process that surgical needles do. In reality i think the price is because they're the only of their kind on the market, are expensive to make, and have flashy labeling/packaging. Not to mention sponsorships....

Looks like a nice prespawn searchbait. I like the orange belly bluegill. I'd probably throw it in the shallows where fish might be staging or weedlines where bluegill can be easily ambushed. Try to find cover and structure where bluegill might relate to, "bluegill highways" so to speak.

Yea, well it was buy two packs get a free t sirt at bass jam and the $200 in cash spending money went to my head a bit, haha. Luckyly i put $119 of it towards a lamiglas excel bass rod

I bought the flippin model and dropshot model a couple weeks ago and overall im not too impressed. Ive caught a few fish on both and can honestly say that they will stick more fish than gamakatsus and really dig into the fishes mouth due to the suuuuper sharp triangle point but for now there are other problems. On the flipping hook, which end up being $2.50 each, the shrink tube barb seems to be glued on and slipped on a few of my hooks. ill have to buy some quality shrinkwrap seperately now. The eyes arent welded so youll probably break off if you tie a snell knot for punch fishing with braid. The dropshot hooks feature an offset shank and, to my surprise, a dowturned eye. Any expert dropshotters have an explanation for this? it was difficult to make the hook ride straight up as proper so i took some pliers to bend the eye up and *snap*. Figured maybe too much carbon or something in the formula. tried the same thing with a new hook and this time was successful in bending the eye upwards and allowing it to ride straight up and hook em right in the top of the mouth this evening. Im kinda bummed about the inconsistency between the hooks of the same packs for the top $ price point. Another thing i was thinking of today was how all the hype of the points being crafted identical to surgical needles. As far as i know medical professionals do not re-use needles(granted mostly for hygienic reasons) and it seems that these hooks arent any different and are extremely difficult to resharpen. I thought the triangle design would make it easier but its veeery difficult to resharpen these guys once they loose their edge. I can get a dull gammi back to a razor point in a few strokes. Last note; theyre manufactured under eagle claw. Hopefully youve never had the misfortune of running out of decent hooks and resorting to wal mart eagle claw lazer sharp hooks and missing fish after fish. Honestly i think the $10 goes more towards the advertisement, flashy labeling, and big name sponsorships.What do you guys think?

Id bet the toad rods not too stif because your not really throwing toads in the same scum and heavy vegetation that you would a snagproof. Its probably a senko rod first, but the backbone and action allows for an effective hookset with a topwater toad bait.

As for the reel i went with a shimano curado e7 and couldnt be happier with it. Well worth it for the price

I settled on a g loomis DSR822C. I wanted a rod near 7' with a bit of backbone to use with texas riged worms. I paired it with a curado e7 and right now its spooled with 6 lb yo zuri hybrid. The rating says down to 6 lb test and 3/16 ounces but I can cast a small rapala countdown a ways with 10 lb test. Due to the quality of the rod and reputation of the company its a bit pricey. The shaky head rods they offer also look pretty good. Unfortunately my local shop didnt have any

I have a few certified pros and i prefer them over my g loomis. They're suuuper sensetive but a tad bit on the heavy side. Overall i dont see it as such an issue because my xc704 is 7' and has 13 guides which is more than rost rods of that size. a little weight sacraficed for more even line distribution. I like it best for jigs, its a bit stiff for lighter texas rigged worms in my opinion but thats just my personal preference. I got to take a look at the new certefied pro prototypes at bassjam and they're really nice. They have different guides, split grips, waaaay lighter, and modified actions. They said they were still working out some of the problems to get a perfect action so im not sure when they hit the market