Darren.

Down here Ice is in the freezer, not on the water. Well mostly. I just never could do ice fishing when I lived in the Rochester, NY area. More of a warm weather guy. Good luck, though!

I regret that there are no smallies down in my neck of the woods. Have to go north to the Richmond area. Loved catching them when visiting PA. Anyhow, welcome to BR!

Welcome aboard, Ryan!

Beautiful spot, would love to fish it.

Done...

x2 If you want to put fish in the boat, live bait always helps with the "smaller" species when the bass are more or less dormant. I had tons of success with Panfish Assassins + a 1/16oz jighead dipped in JJ's Magic when I used to fish the local docks during the winter. My boys caught plenty of crappie, yellow perch, not to mention a few nice pickerel on these. Ditto on Senko, or Zoom Finesse worms fished SLOWLY near structure. Fish slow. Yep.

1) You have options... If you want to pair the Saros with A $100 Compre, you'll have a great combo. The Compre has a lifetime over-the-counter warranty... I like the Compre with a extra fast tip, medium power. My Compres are both M-XF and used primarily for soft plastics. Pretty much do-it-all rods for me. You can go with a ML rod. Buddy of mine loves his Shimano paired with a St. Croix Premier and likes it better than his other paired with a Carbonlite rod. Says the Croix is a lot more sensitive. Got it at Dick's on clearance for well under $100... 2) 10lb braid will work just fine. PowerPro's is 2lb diameter equivalent and it's what I spool my Stradic 1000's with. I tie a leader on and the braid lasts a LONG time. 3) Personally, I think a MH is a bit stiff of a rod for a light reel like a 1000. But you can make it work if you want. Keep in mind that some rod manufacturers are conservative on their ratings. Case in point: St. Croix tends to be stiffer than their rating. You can search the forum on that and find plenty of reports. So a M Croix may tend toward MH... 4) Since I fish mainly soft plastics, I can't really answer that. I don't have a H setup for flipping/pitching, and I don't fish cranks much so don't have a softer action rod, etc. Well, I actually do have a H rod, was MH, broke tip, rod repairer said it was now more of a heavy rod. I use that for jigs and such.

Good gravy, that's a tall pup. George the Dane ruled for his season, now Zeus! Hail Zeus! Love dogs. My "dream dog" is an English Mastiff, but my wife says "no". Labradors and a mutt rule the roost instead. And they're awesome lads.

Thankfully, no. But when I read your title I was hoping for a monster fish spooling you, not a boat. Bummer, man.

Sorry, man. Such is life in the great northern states. Vacation awaits in the south, eh? Lakes open year around.... May your wait be short!

Excellent show.

This is one reel I've been anticipating for a while now. Eager to more details on usage.

Cool. Filed for future reference. Love Megastrike squeezed into a bag of worms...

Bingo. I read your question and thought you implied TWO reels for $150 and TWO rods for $150... If that's the case, I'm a Shimano guy and highly recommend the brand. Obviously there are plenty of Pflueger guys who love their reels, too. Will you be fresh-water only, or desire to do fresh and salt? I see you're a New Englander, so you've got both fresh and salt (presumably) near you. If so, Shimano or Daiwa. All Shimano reels are ready for both. As for rods, there are so many to choose from. I was gunning for a St. Croix Avid, but bought a Shimano Compre and love the rod(s) with lifetime over the counter warranty as opposed to sending in to St. Croix with shipping $ and all that. But St. Croix makes some incredible rods. Your $150 would barely land you an Avid, but could land you two Compre's, or a couple Veritas from Abu, etc.... And do you NEED to learn bait casting? No. Is it worth learning? Yeah, IMO. Doesn't mean you should go and dump a load of cash on a rig now. If spinning is your gig now, then rock n' roll with it. When you are ready to spend some cash on a quality baitcasting setup, then do so.

Fantastic! I probably need to try one of those Wallyworld spinnerbaits, too.

X2, and use a leader, then you'll have best of both worlds. Braid is FAR easier to manage on spinning gear.

I'll chime in with a different take, and not to diss St. Croix, because I'd own an Avid if I could. Before I'd look at a Mojo, I'd consider a Shimano Compre. And not just for the lifetime over-the-counter warranty. I've got the previous gen Compres and love them. I was amazed when I compared the Avid with the Compre at BPS up in Richmond. The price differential was big, and I've not been disappointed. However, if $160 were at my fingertips, I'd buy an Avid just to have one, but I love my Compre rods. And the new models are upgrades to IM9 over my model's IM8. And I do use my Compre's for "senko" fishing all the time. Just FWIW.

Welcome to the site, Cullen!

Hey, it's a fish! And a toothy one that puts up a decent fight. Congrats. When I don't target them, I don't like it when they steal a bait. But that said, I've caught two big picks at a couple of my favorite laydowns the last two times I've been there. Both times I thought they were bass at first, and each was hovering at the 3 lb mark, so nothing to sneeze at. I prefer to unhook 'em and let 'em go from the net if I can. Handled enough to hate the slime. Not as bad as the American Eel slime, tho.

Welcome aboard, Justin! Hey, an anchor is a start! :-) Maybe next time you can haul up a nice pair of Costas, or something like that!

Just to clarify, if you don't mind, Tom, YoZuri is a blend of FC and copoly, not a "pure" FC coating as it were, which P-Line Floroclear is. I agree that Floroclear is more manageable and I use it over YoZuri all the time. An excellent line by my experience. Nothing wrong with YoZuri, just P-Line gets my vote. And I use it for leader material, FWIW. It's a rare thing that I spool up with something other than braid now-a-days. Although based on Yo-Zuri's picture, it is blended, but technically each blend is a coating over copoly... Anyhow, pure FC, as stated by others, is prone to breakage if kinked. Personally, I haven't found pure FC to be anything to write home about over coated copolys. But don't base your opinion on our opinions. If you can afford a good brand of pure FC, try it for yourself. You may fall in love and become KVD. Or you may feel it isn't worth the money over other offerings. .02.

I will switch after a number of casts to a spot I know holds fish - if they don't take it. How many casts, how many minutes, depends on the circumstances. Hows that for a clear-as-mud answer?

Nice to have your experience added to the mix.

Waller Mill is a nice fishery. There are some big ladies up there. I believe the record was 12.4 or 12.6lbs. They also stock hybrids in some serious weights. There's great shoreline all around the reservoir, some with steep drop offs and lots of bushes/trees. Also some rocks where the "canal" is that runs under airport road. Have caught some nice bass there in the past, even while paddling through the canal. There are loads of excellent coves on both sides, I've caught fish on both, but I tend to fish the north side of the res, canal side. I've thrown wacky rigged worms into shad runs (awesome in the fall) and caught some ladies. And yes, a great baitfish population - and they don't have toothy critters like pike, pickerel, so the predators are the bass and hybrids.

I like to use natural colors like watermelons, green pumpkins, black, etc. I toss in other colors as well within those colors (laminates, etc). I also like a chartreuse tipped worm for wacky, Texas, and split shotting. While I'm not at Marty's level of experience, I'd agree we are hooked by the latest and greatest color, style, rattle to hit the market.... I am not at the point where I have experienced success with every color I've tried. Some days one color works better than others, in my experience. Everyone's experience is different. Experiment with light, dark, perhaps even glow-in-the-dark lures and see what tends to success for you.