Darren.

Great looking jigs! Did you catch your PB on one of them?

Beast of a bass! Nice catch.

Touché!

I can sympathize. I just bought some needed stuff for the house, but the CFO was reticent to let me do it. If she was reticent on that stuff, how can I justify going to the Spring Classic! She caught me! I'm officially between a rock and a hard place.

But a man's wife can determine if said man will sleep in dog house (or shed) with all his rods! LOL

Have often wondered that myself about UltraSoft given the lack of mention by the makers.

Personally, I think a M power is fine for this. It's what I use, and I use Shimano Compre rods. However, the Crucial is a fantastic rod as well. And $112 is a great price. So is $75 for a Compre! Either way, I don't think you'd be disappointed.

Totally agree here. Lifetime warranty -- over the counter! -- is second to none for a quality rod. Although I'm now "falling in love" with St. Croix too........

I like to throw weightless, wacky lizards! And Senkos. I thought to throw lizards last spawn and man did the bass react!

Though I haven't fished a Sellus, I've held and compared them a number of times to the Clarus, other rods. I have found them a tad on the heavy side. That's purely my opinion. It is a fine rod for the money. But for less $, I would think the Berkely Lightning Shock is a lighter rod.

LgMouthGambler must be gettin' spittin' mad about now. I'm ducking for cover!

x2

I'd hang out at the clearance section of Dick's Sporting Goods, or BPS. They'll often have some over $100 rods for well under. E.g., I picked up a St. Croix Premier casting rod at DSG for $50. Retail $110. The flea market here also has great deals from time to time. Brand new, it is hard to beat the Shimano Compre if warranty is a big deal to you.

I have tried down to 4lb Hybrid, and 6 lb UltraSoft on spinning gear. Don't like spooling spinning gear with anything but braid now. That said, I prefer Hybrid to UltraSoft. Don't like the milky appearance of the latter. Is a decent line though, just my pref.

Agreed. I mean they can hook up a bunch of GoPro cameras with live-feeds on each fisherman's hat! Of course we'd all go bat crazy watching, probably get sick, too. In this day and age, unless the previous time(s) it was "live" was a failure behind-the-scenes, it would seem feasible to continue the trend. Unless there's just too many variables with people all over the water.

Yeah, they've gotta edit out all of those snags, foul language rants, and such! Can't have us blokes believing these guys are anything less than supermen. Joking aside, it's always a week two following.

Maybe we should say welcome back seeing you joined a year ago!

Cool stuff. Like their testing, and they've got awesome tools.

Prefer swept handles over straight. My Quantums have straight, my Daiwa swept. Both work, just prefer swept.

Agree with papajoe. There's that "sense" that your bait is being taken in, killed, spit out, taken in again...the old TAP TAP and then you set the hook. Sometimes I'll feel the first hit, count "One ... two ... THREE/set hook"

I do not, but I have used shrink wrap tubing. Mostly I just use the "naked" worm.

I used the Yum Dinger, had some success, but actually have had more with Bass Pro Stik-o knock-offs. Dingers are great, though, this has just been my experience. On a vacation up north, smallies we caught were in a stocked pond and pretty favorable to any Senko-style worm, but mostly loved the Zoom Finesse worms.

Someone get that cold fusion reactor working...post haste.

Some impressive hogs there Dinky!

Welcome to the forums, Rob! So many answers to your questions. On the rod and reel, I'll suggest a spinning combo around 6'6" from Shimano, Daiwa, Pfleuger, at your lock sporting goods store, or if you're near a Bass Pro Shops. Worms? Me? I'd choose natural colors like green pumpkin with black flakes, watermelon with black flakes, black, etc.