Dave P

Have both. Don't care one way or the other.

MF/F I like 6'6" for general use. I have a 5'6" that I use for springtime when I'm picking the bank structure apart from close range. Depending on the reel you have, I have used 1/4 ouncers successfully on a 7' medium.

Any place there's 3-6 feet of water. Especially with weed or wood or rock or better yet, all three.

This year I sure have.

PQ all the way.

Indiana, Illinios and Kentucky.

No, but we caught one last weekend on a crankbait. UL spinning outfit.

I still have a few. We used to catch the hell out of the bass around here on those things.

Bob Avallini..."Run under it Walter!" heave!!!!

They will be where they want to be and they will eat what they want to eat! Having said that, you can try a lighter weight so it doesn't penetrate so far down into the weeds. I have good luck using a dropshot rig on clear strip pits. Cranks and spinner baits will work as well. Watermelon usually works well, but don't be afraid to try purple.

Powell Diesel

7.5 red shad. Probably my favorite.

As has been stated, when you are cruising a bank and pitching to specific targets and getting under trees, IMO there's nothing better. I use mine mostly for small spinnerbaits.

square bill

Water temps still in the 70s but the shad are starting to move. The bass are still mostly still on the summer pattern around here.

Here's a dirty little secret from back in the day. Before they were jerkbaits, there were called "Rapalas" (at least around here). Back then the term "Rapala" covered any minnow type bait there was because there weren't hundreds of different ones like there are today. The greatest of them all was not the true Rapala. No, it ran straight and floated properly. The king of the cheap baits was the house brand plastic knock off Rapala in chrome silver and black sold by K-Mart. Why? Because it wouldn't run straight. The slightest twitch would make it dunk under and roll onto it's side giving off a nice chrome silver flash. It would wallow it's way back up to the surface and then right itself. Utterly lethal. I remember one day of over 100 fish between two lakes. Sadly, the last one I had has been gone for 20 years.

Between those two, BPS. Older cherrywood rods were pretty good rods. The new ones, not so much.

I would bypass the cherrywood and go up to the Amp or Lightning rods. The new cherrywood rods were not very good at all, IMO.

We had an identical issue when we installed an 898 on a TX175. Ours was wired to the starter battery and running it all day and the livewell pumps would kill the battery by mid day. We replaced the starter battery and upgraded to one with more capacity and that solved the problem.

Crazy how well it works, isn't it?

I drop shot the hell out of some crappies and bluegill.

I like a M graphite for squarebills and mediums and I prefer a glass rod for deeper divers. Pick one and give it a shot. I'd go graphite unless you plan on going deep.

Nope. $10 is about it.

Twice on the TM and once it was braid. That was our fault because we ran over my line while it was over the side. Once on the outboard. Seems to have just picked it up somewhere. Didn't get the seals in any case, thank goodness. I've lost count of the yards of line that I've "caught" this year. Gotta be close to a hundred yards and recovered a shakey head with worm, a spoon, a spinnerbait, two hooks, three swivels, and a bobber.

Look, if it's what you've got, use it and don't worry about it. Is it the best rod in the world? No, but it's the best rod (IMO) in that price range. There are three in my rack right now that get used for dropshotting for panfish and the occasional bass that doesn't know the difference...