McAlpine

Time. Temp just puts them where you can see them spawn. They haven't made it several million years by not procreating just because the water is off a few degrees.

Red Lake Ontario. Just about my favorite place on earth.

I gave up on tackle boxes. The front half of the boat holds 3700's. If your still weighing a single tackle box your just warming up. ;-)

Heck, I'm gonna stop fishing for bass and start fishing for giant river prawn's. mmmmm. with garlicy-butter. mmmmm

I went to all Plano waterproof 3700's this year. Strong box, nice seal, heavy latches on three sides.

I've owned alot of different reels over the years and I have yet to run into one I thought was better for the money than a Lew's Tournament Pro.

Please take this the right way because it's just advice. I had a silver max myself and honestly it was a very good reel for 2 seasons. However; the black max and silver max reels as well as most reels in their price range are designed to run a season or two then be disposable. I think you may find that if you pay to buy a part, ship it and install it something else is going to break or something else will go wrong, etc. There is not alot of return for repair on one of these unless it's sentimental. You can buy a brand new one on Amazon right now for $32.

Have another tip for you. Clean your sonar unit screens with the KVD L&L. Works great. I bet it's good on egg's too but haven't tried it yet. Awesome stuff.

One of the primary baits I fish from spawn till winter is a spinnerbait. So, I have alot and they are different sizes. I also like buzzbaits, same thing range of sizes, etc. The box appears to be made to hold your "average" 3/8oz to 1/2oz spinner bait with an average size arm. Anything with a longer arm, or smaller baits just dont fit right nor stay pinned down. Very few buzzbaits fit. What you end up with, unless all your spinnerbaits are nearly identical, is a mess of stuff that lays on it's side. Also, the storage density just isn't there for the space the box takes up. So, if your like me and you carry 70-80 spinnerbait's and buzzbaits in the boat, it's not a good solution. If you have 10-15 spinnerbaits and buzzbaits and they are all the "average" size it will probably work fine. For me, this is perfect: http://www.basspro.com/Plano-HydroFlo-Spinnerbait-StowAway/product/1308150929/

Xcalibur makes a heck of a squarebill. If they were $10 ea I would still buy them. Great purchase!

I'll probably be the stand out here but I have one and hate it. Went back to BPS and bought a standard hanging spinnerbait box in a huge size that holds like 80 baits. Put all the spinnerbaits and buzzbaits in it.

Couple of good opinions here. I would be interested in the input of one of the big bass chasers out there though. Honestly; at the end of the day I live in Indiana/Kentucky so I'm certainly not chasing any world records and this has little to do with me. However; what does Mike Long or some of the other guys that specialize in big fish have to say about someone growing a bass to sell someone else a shot at putting their name on a record that these guys have been fair-chasing and working hard at it for so long? Be interesting.

Any fish that comes from a private fishery should be exempt from record status. Otherwise, all you have done is set the bar for entry into record status for your catch at the size of your wallet. Raising bass in what amounts to an aquarium and hand feeding them super proteins is fine for a science project but selling off access to engineered record book trophies to the highest bidder from private water (which is exactly what will happen) is disgusting to me. You want to catch huge fish in a pay lake? Fine, I have no problem with that. However; don't expect the rest of the world to acknowledge your "accomplishment".

Keep the carbonlite. It's 10x the rod of the other one. Also, the CL will only break if YOU break it.

Squarebill: KVD 1.5 and Xcalibur 100 Lipless: none. Hate them Jerkbait: just don't really have a favorite. Takes a village and all. Topwater: Booyah frog, cavitron buzzbait.

If you looked at the giant mess of hard baits stored in my boat you would see 1 commonality across every brand, style and type: 1.) white or bone 2.) black, blue, brown or darkish 3.) baitfish, sunfish, bluegill, shad fishy pattern 4.) loud colors- chartreuse, day glo orange, pink etc That covers different water clarities. Doesn't have to be complicated, they just need to see it. Something in each style that falls into each of those categories will have you ready to go.

Yeah, don't let my wife see this, I'll hear about how I'm a dork for days. She does proudly wear her "I (heart) my geek" tee at times though.

Also, I personally prefer a 6.4:1

Oh also, I'm done. Sorry guys. Obviously obssessed on this too much. It just drives me nuts. I'll try to let it go now so we can have fun again.

But not all of them have the same amount of line on that spool or a deep spool vs. shallow spool for total volume of line which will radicaly change the diamater of the spool at the point which the line is revolving. Nor do all reels have identical handle radi. So, in actuality a 9:1 gear ratio reel can provide a slower speed of bait retreival than a 5:1 gear ratio reel based upon the above variables. So, why care if a reel is rated for 9:1? My example above of the 7.9:1 MGX I have is that it's relative gear ratio is more in line with your common 7:1 reel because of it's smaller size and smaller line capacity. As well it behaves more like a 6:1 with the line volume low. Gear ratio is relative. Why sweat it if you don't know the other variables? It's marketing hype that the bass fishing community has bought into as gear ratio being the only thing to take into consideration about how "fast" a reel is. Things are getting better with IPT numbers being advertised, but this is still not a real answer. And yes, the delta in bait speed can be quite radical across platforms with similar gear ratios. Or, quite similar across platforms with greatly differential gear ratios. The value that should be discussed when selecting a reel as "fast" or "slow" should be inches per second of bait movement as an integral of spool diameter at the radius of the line on the spool to it's center based upon a common velocity of the handle at it's end. THAT would differentiate one reel from another and this test could be completed very easily and used for maketing. Reel manufacturing companies however will never be this honest with the consumer. Honesty about your product is not sexy. This reminds me of a Dilbert strip that I always loved. Dilbert is trying to explain to a sales person all the technical qualities of a new product. This occurs for several frames and in the frame afterwards the person just stares at him. In the next frame Dilbert says, "Let me rephrase that in a language I like to call Liberal Arts Major". In the next frame he says "It's Blue". In the last frame if I remember correctly, the sales person loves it and determines that its going to make them rich.

Sorry bro, your right but your wrong. Yes, you are correct that handle length has nothing to do with gear ratio. However; why would anyone care in the conversation of the speed of a bait or why you would need a specific gear ratio? Gear ratio is not the only deciding factor in how "FAST" your bait moves, nor is the length of handle solely....but.... The point is that handle length has everything to do with the speed of your bait. The argument I was trying to make is that it pains me to constantly hear about everyone that gets hung up on gear ratio when IPT is way more important. Still, why get hung up on IPT when it is a varaible that changes throughout your retreive based upon spool size with a bait caster. In addition to that, the length of the radius of your handle will absolutly modify the SPEED at which your bait moves. In a nutshell, bad math drives me absolutly nuts. Yeah, I'm that geek. Given a smaller or larger radius of the handle, your hand must move a certain number of inches in a circle to complete X revolutions of the spool. The spool will take up a certain number of inches of line which is actually an integral because the diamater changes with time, ie..the plot of the IPT is a curve which never reaches absolute value. Based upon that same time delta, your hand revolving in a circle to complete that revolution of the handle will take less time if the total distance traveled is less due to a smaller handle radius. In the universe that we live in, your hand cannot spin a larger radius handle and a smaller radius handle at the same speed and take up the same amount of line due to the 1:1 nature of the gear ratio to the handle travel. The larger radius handle will always be behind for distance traveled near the radius edge of the main gear as compared to distance traveled at the edge of the arc of the handle. So...point being.....see my first post above for what variables to change if you want to move your bait really fast, and which variables to change if you want to move your bait really slow. It's all about how fast the bait moves, not Gear Ratio, IPT, or Handle Length individually but about all of them together. So really, why have the conversation about "why do you need a 9.0:1 gear ratio"? We have many answers here to what was posed. The problem however; is that the original poster asked the wrong question. Know what I mean?

Gear ratio is not necessarily the telling factor. IPT is what is more of intrest in combination with the radius of the handle arc to really detail how "fast" you can pull in line....or maybe want to. ie..One of my favorite reels is a 7.9:1 MGX. Normally I would scoff at something so fast but it's a small reel with a small spool. Dependent upon how much line is on the spool at the time of the retreive IPT will vary but they list at a full spool 31" per turn. The full turn of the handle can be modified with a longer handle. It will simply take longer to complete a full revolution on a longer handle but you will be pulling in the same amount of line. Keeping all of this in mind though, the diamater of the spool with less line is smaller initially after the cast than at the end. So in reality, the same speed of retreive at the handle of the reel escalates the speed of the bait the closer it gets to you. More IPT due to larger diameter of spool as it fills with line. You want to go really, really fast? Get a high gear ratio reel, with a large spool, keep it chock full of line, make short casts and have a very short handle radius. You want to go really, really slow? Get a low gear ratio reel, with a small spool, keep it low on line, make long casts and have a very long handle radius. So, no real point here other than being tired of complaints or inconsistant fact stating about gear ratio when it is only one variable in the "speed" of your bait equation.

I can't imagine what they are going through. My families thoughts are with the Menendez family. Godspeed Mark.

Hey, I never win anything. Something's wrong with the universe. ;-) Thanks for the giveaway!

Flippin and jerkbaits. I will absolutely work on both!