Hooligan

/agree Love the pit boss. Caught a 5 limit that weighed 24-12 on them two weeks ago. As far as color, it depends on your lake. I fish them in Okee, GP, Black Blue, and Lime Purple Passion. Love, love, love em.

Every Shimano ever made, other than the Calais and GTB, is butt ugly. I didn't know we judged reels based on looks. What does happen, however, to interest me is the spinning reel in the background. It doesn't appear to be a CI4 or Sustain.

I'm fishing Tatsu on 12 rods, two rods with Toray, two with CXX, and one with braid. I avoid braid whenever possible. I just don't like it.

A shiner, a night crawler, and a live bluegill. I may or may not be ruffling feathers. You didn't say lures.

First off, who says "whippy" rods don't have backbone? If the rod has power in the butt section, it's going to drive the hooks home no matter what. It doesn't boil down to rods in terms of hookset as much as it boils down to having decent hooks. If you fish a bait with crap hooks, you're going to have a harder time pinning fish, and keeping them pinned, regardless of the rod you use. Lastly, Rick uses a Heavy power with a moderate fast action. Unless he's done a complete 180° turn, he's always said that he prefers the rod to have some protection for the hooks, his only variance from that is in a square bill rod, he prefers a fast. But like someone else said, that's why we have this thing called choice.

I'm in love with Northstar's Hidden Weight baits. I love burning a 3/4 ounce Willow/willow, bulging it just under the surface in the morning. That said, in clear water, I'll back off to a 1/2 ounce Willow/willow with chartreuse and white painted blades. (Body being Chartreuse and white...) One of the lakes that we fish a lot has gin clear water and any flash from blades is off-putting to the fish. If fish are really wanting a "thump" I'll switch to a Stanley Wedge. It's got more vibration than a Colorado blade and pulls through the water easier.

Football head hopping main lake points early in the year. I may flip them on some lakes, too.

Kent, how close would you say the Avid and the Loomis are in terms of action? I've never actually been able to get an AVC70MM in my hands. That's the primary reason I just went ahead and got the Loomis.

I've caught some of my largest "pond fish" on muck bottoms. Fish don't read books, they don't know that they're supposed to be on bottoms other than muddy or mucky types. One of my favorite ways to fish them is drag a half ounce or heavier jig kicking up a silt cloud like a crayfish would. There are times that you can observe large fish hunting crayfish in those areas and you'll see a large mud boil when they find one. The best is when they're covered with filamentous algae and have a few interspersed weeds and rocks. Don't overlook them by any means.

I've had better luck with heavy fluoro leader, actually. When smallies are in pike water we will go up to 25lb fluoro and a perfection loop with cranks or jerkbaits and haven't had a bite off in a while. I did donate a Vision 110 to the fishing gods this year from a muskie bite off fishing for smallies. I had the fish hooked for two minutes, though, and she made multiple long runs. Had her at the boat once and saw her enough to judge size and she was in the mid 50" range....but I digress... Go to heavier fluorocarbon and give it a shot as leader material.

My favorite square bill rod is the CBR843C Loomis. I have a great feel with that rod, most of what I was looking for in a square bill rod. I'd been fishing a Powell glass rod, but was missing fish, a hit felt too similar to banging off hard cover. I just prefer the sensitivity of graphite for it. Just a preference thing.

They're really stiff. I bought two of them and it's like you had to burn them or rip them to get any movement. Not the greatest hard bait in the box. I know there are guys that love 'em and swear by them, I'm just not one of them.

I know I posted this in one of the other threads, but I'll post it here, too. After a month fishing it the line just goes to pot in a hurry. I couldn't have been more long about the qualities of the line than I was. It's up there with the worst of the worst. The initial quality of the line is very high, but degrades very quickly.

I have both right and left retrieve and will use both dependent upon technique.

I've actually found that most of the graphite designations are relatively similar. They tend to stay within a very distinct modulus for a given grade of graphite. One of the most important things to take into account when looking at rods is what components are on the rods, too.

Agreed, can't say enough good stuff about the sponsors here. I will, however, pass on a recent occurrence that showcases the kind of folks we're dealing with in the sponsors. I'd ordered some spinnerbaits from Northstar some time ago. I got two on the first round, loved them, ordered eight more. I got them, and when I had the chance to fish them I noticed that the blades were hitting and collapsing on themselves. I could have gotten all uptight and my panties in a wad but I knew that Chris would take care of the baits with no questions asked. I sent him an email, he called me, I told him what was going on with the baits. He wanted me to send them back up, which I did. The blade manufacturer's spacing was incorrect, could have happened to anyone. Chris fixed the issue, sent the blades back down with an additional bunch of spinnerbaits; something that was completely unnecessary. He went well above and beyond, almost ridiculously so, what would be expected. It's the second time I've received far greater than expected from him. His jigs and spinnerbaits just flat catch fish, which is the best part about it.

Go to a Moaner 6/0 just like Big-O said. I'd bet that I have 40% less damage to baits from the use of Owner and Moaner hooks. Of the two, I'd take Moaner on everything except finesse hooks.

I have fished braid on mine a couple times, once earlier this year when we were fishing a lake with a lot of thick, thick vegetation. I wanted to try braid versus fluoro to see how much difference in made in popping jigs through the thick of it. In those instances that I have fished braid on it, I had a 200 GTB on the rod, which is what... 9 almost 10 ounces? It wasn't the best reel to balance it, but it also wasn't terrible. The reel that usually sits on it is a Calais 201, it's perfect IMO. A Curado or Core sit on it just as well.

I'm with the Orangutan above. The 854 is my primary jig rod. They're going to pry that rod out of my cold dead hands some day.

Crazy isn't it? I love them so much that I found a store here was discontinuing them and I bought everything they had in the colors I use. I just don't ever want to be out of that series of baits. I might literally cry if that ever happened.

Terrible hook. Traps are #1 on my list of "must change hooks."

They're not too bad. The Signature II is a better rod than the Carbon Black. Better guides, different scrim, and better tapers. I picked up two of the Sig II three weeks ago, on a bit of a whim. I wanted a 7-2 Medium and a 7-6 H XF, those happened to be the two that were available locally. The 7-2 M is a decent plastics rod, great for throwing a Senko or lighter TX Rigs. It's actually a decent rod to throw 3/16-5/16 ounce jigs on, too. The HXF is one heck of a stick for not a lot of bank. It's easily as sensitive as rods costing considerably more. If I were to put my beloved Cumara up against the Sig II, except for 2-3 rods, I'd be just as happy with the Sig II, but would own a couple more Calais reels.

What Johnny said is more along my intent. The Rapala VMC hooks aren't the basis of comparison. Even the 9650 and 9651 are better than they are. I used to be that way about pike in waters, but got tired of getting smoked from the back of the boat. I've donated one Megabass to the fishing gods in the past five years from a bite off, and I fish waters with a lot of pike and muskies. (I caught a 44" fish this spring on a Pointer 128, my partner boated a slob of a pike that was easily 15lbs on a Vision110) I replace hooks, too, but not on everything. I don't worry about any of the JDM baits, and I don't typically worry about Rapala baits with the exception of the sure set. I've been using Owner ST36, the KVD Elite TG, Gamakatsu 2x Black Nickle, VMC 9650 and 9651, and Daiichi Death Traps. Thus far, the Daiichi is what I like the most. I can go up to a size two from a size four with no adverse effects. I'll use any of the hooks I listed in a pinch, they're all better than most stock hooks on common baits.

Think about it, guys. You're telling someone to build a rod with a blank that is most likely in the $50-$60 range at most. You're talking a St. Croix SC2 or IM6 blank. The equivalents to those would be a St. Croix Premier, for instance. You're telling someone to pay $160 to build a rod that you can otherwise buy for $110. Even Batson Rainshadows are in the $90 range for a casting rod. So, in essence, what you're suggesting he does is spend $160 on building a rod that is going to have less sensitivity and quality than he would get if he bought a new rod at the counter. Even better, he could buy one of the several used sticks that show up on a regular basis from the Flea Market. Don't get me wrong, DVT is a great guy. I'll be sending reels to him after this season for some mechanic love. Yet, the advice you're giving the guy, in all honesty, is terrible. You are thinking of the cost alone, you're not thinking of the quality.

I have to agree with the majority, that's an awfully low budget for a hand built rod. You can find really, really good rods for that price in the flea market. There have been numerous Loomis and Dobyns listed in that range.