Bluebasser86

In my boat right now I have rods and/or reels from; Shimano, Daiwa, KastKing, Quantum, Okuma, Pflueger, H2O, Fenwick, Hammer, St. Croix, and Abu Garcia. Nobody is making you stick to one brand but you.

My son has been using a spinning rod since he was 2 (dock demon combo), graduated to using my light spinning combo when he was 4, so this year I decided buy him his own nice combo. I went with a Daiwa Aird 6' M/F and a Daiwa Revros 2000 spooled with 6lb test. It's a really nice little combo that he really enjoys using. It's small enough to fit his hands and light enough for him to use without wearing out (for all the longer that a 5 year old is going to go between snack breaks anyways). I made the mistake of trying to go cheap buying my wife's first combo and it was always tangling and taking the fun out of it for her. I learned from that mistake and got him something nicer so he won't be having equipment issues all the time so it will hopefully keep him more interested in it.

Tie a good knot a palomar works just fine with fluoro. I use it along with a SDJ as the only 2 knots I tie with fluoro. Fluoro has it's drawbacks, but what it does well, it does really well and I can't go away from it for that reason. I use a lot of mono and braid too. All of them have their benefits and drawbacks.

Get your Rage stuff from Siebert's. He even has the Menace on sale for $4.50 right now.

I like the spinnerbait more in dirtier water and around wood cover, the swim jig more around weeds (no blades to foul). When I say swimbait, I'm talking about a large bait, typically 6-7 or more inches and 2 or more ounces. I'm not sure if that's the type of swimbait you're comparing or if you mean something like a Keitech/hollow belly swimbait.

Congrats! My first muskie was similar sized but it might as well have been 60" I was so pumped up to catch it. They're super addictive to chase, at least they are for me.

To be clear, you're asking spinnerbait vs swim jig, or spinnerbait vs swim bait like the title says?

Welcome!

Welcome!

Chiefs scared me in the first quarter, then Mahomes did what he does, 4 TDs and 400+ yards later and they're 2-0. Defense isn't great but looks much better than last year. Oakland never scored again after the first quarter.

Regular size works great as a jig trailer.

I have this one, I paid have price for it brand new. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ozark-Trail-52-Quart-High-Performance-Cooler/49229404?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wl13=5307&adid=22222222228039166247&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=92176420097&wl4=aud-566049426705:pla-183840542657&wl5=9023835&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=49229404&veh=sem&gclid=Cj0KCQjwn_LrBRD4ARIsAFEQFKtNDHtSqa6dLWNadI4icPQhg_zZbsy8U8mvYb3K0itVLOkgGu-dFAEaAhGREALw_wcB

I've got a large Ozark Trail cooler I found on sale for $60. Keeps ice for days too. Nicest cooler I've ever owned by far.

Gardner was a grind yesterday morning. I should have just put it on the trailer after my first bite, but man did she destroy my frog!

Doubled up on the fishing trips today . Went for 1.5 hours this morning by myself and it was a grind. My frog must have called this one's mom a bad name or something because it sounded like it was going to weigh 10 pounds the way it destroyed my frog through the thick grass. My first bite of the day 20 minutes in, I should have put it back on the trailer and gone home after that. Found a spot on a creek that I liked the looks of, and Lake loves playing in creeks just like I did when I was his age, so after I picked him up from school it didn't take any convincing to get him to want to go check it out. First spot was pretty nice. All really shallow, but we caught some little channel cats, a bass, several sunfish, and most surprising was several little wipers and white bass including 1 bigger white. I also almost sight fished a pretty big longnose gar with my Mepps. Lake desperately wants to catch a gar for some reason, he was pretty disappointed when it didn't hook up but really excited to see one up close, and I mean up close because we were wading and the sucker swam right next to us before I popped him. With our time running short, we walked back towards the truck but I wanted to poke around under the bridge and see if there was anything going on in the pool below it. There was a few big logs in the water, and I immediately lost a little largemouth, then had a small school of very aggressive longnose gar swim through, swatting at everything that moved, one even took a swipe at a floating leaf and Lake's bobber when he moved it. I got one to eat a piece of cutbait, but even after waiting at least 5 minutes to set the hook, it still didn't hook up. Lake was pretty devastated that we didn't catch the gar, but very next cast with the Mepps and a big fish was screaming drag and he was about in the creek. It was a tedious fight around and through the laydowns, but we finally got it landed. We'll be going back to check that spot out more for sure! And I swear he's wearing shorts, he just hiked them up for wading the creek for some reason. I didn't realize he looked like he wasn't wearing pants until after I got home and looked at the pictures ?

LiveTarget is great at catching fishermen, not so great at catching fish IMO.

Welcome!

Good to hear kids are being taught about it. I talked to my wife tonight, who went to a different school than I did, she also said she wasn't taught much American history after WWII. I vaguely remember some of it being glossed over, but it was always the last month or so of the school year when nobody was focused on learning anything, just ready to get to summer vacation. Ironically enough, I was sitting in American History class when 9/11 happened.

I used it a fair amount and it was very stiff starting out and then softened up a bit with use. Like has been mentioned, Fireline has always been a pretty stiff line though.

I like round bends for topwater walkers, mainly the ST36 Owners.

Every year you bring this up, I convince myself I'm going to figure these baits out. Maybe some day that last part will actually happen ? I think I did catch about a half dozen bass on one last year, so that about doubled my previous total with them, so that's something I guess.

This depends on where they're located. One of the lakes I fish often was stocked with Florida strain bass. They're some of the shortest, fattest fish I've ever seen. It's not unusual for a 18" fish to be over 4 pounds. They also pull extremely hard. This one was from this past winter, 18" and almost 4.5 pounds.

https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/176285-night-bassing-~-a-jays-version/

I use a 3/8oz 95% of the time, regardless of water depth.

A swim bait is going to create drag, which is going to lift the bait upwards. The bait may seem to run deeper with a swimbait than it does with other trailers, but adding any trailer is going to create water resistance, which is going to create lift. I fish a 3/8oz almost exclusively. You can easily control depth by reeling slower or faster.