smalljaw67

I'm sorry to tell you that the rod break is your fault, but at least you asked rather than go on to a web site and bash the company on how bad the rod was. Boat flipping or hoisting a fish up and out of the water is a no-no even though a lot of pros do it and I got that information right from a rod designed that worked for St. Croix. The neat thing is the more expensive the rod, the more apt you are to break it like that, a rod that is very sensitive and light is also brittle but the resins they use today along with the carbon threads and tapes they use make the rods incredibly strong so you may get away with it a few times but if you do it a lot it will break eventually. The two biggest user errors are boat flipping or hoisting, and high sticking, high sticking usually happens when trying to land a fish or when trying to get a snag loose, the rod it facing up and under load and as the line gets closer to the rod it pulls the rod tip at a steeper angle until it fails, and it is usually the tip section, the first 4" to 6" that tends to break off. Get yourself a new net to go along with another rod and it won't happen anymore.

ALFC has the TP for $139.99 right now, no better reel in the Lews line up for that price.

I haven't used the new GLX line but the older models couldn't be beat and I don't know if you could get any more sensitive. I think if you went to The Hooked Up Tackle shop and found a rep sample for $400+ then I'd get the NRX but if not, the GLX is just flat out great. I don't mean to start an argument but a DX is on the same level as an IMX, I've used the DX and it isn't in the same space as a GLX, I can't say anything about the Oorchi XX but from what I gather on TT, the GLX still has more sensitivity than those rods too but it depends on the person.

Fluorocarbon is notorious for having break offs because knots will sometimes cause a kink and when fluorocarbon gets a kink it is a weak spot. Now, most who have used it for any amount of time know which knot works best but I can't tell you how many videos I saw talking bout which knot to use with it or how to tie certain knots with it so you don't encounter a break off. The one that gets singled out the most is the palomar knot, if you are using that knot I'll bet you kinked the line as a lot of pros advise against that knot because it is so easy to kink the line while tying it.

I was told the same thing and that is where the problem comes from, only the newest weights will have that metal ring when hit on the ground, it is the ones with 14% to 20% zinc, they still cut, melt, and sound like lead but adding 1 lb of those to a pot of soft lead will ruin the lead and possibly the pot. I use to use them myself until I found the warning in the last pot I purchased, that is when I contacted LEE and told them the same thing, the Zinc wheel weights have a metal sound when you drop them on a hard surface like concrete and that is when I learned all about weights. I had already ruined 10lbs of lead with 2lbs of wheel weight lead making a hard alloy so I was pretty much done with it but curiosity got the best of me when I saw the warning and that is when I got the lesson. The person told that changing EPA laws is why there is such a vast amount of different wheel weights out there, but every time the laws would change, the manufacturers would add more and more different material, it use to be antimony so wheel weight lead was always a hard lead but over the last 15 years, they have decreased the antimony and lead and began using more and more zinc. Because of this and individual state laws that put limits on lead in addition to federal standards you have a wide variety of stuff floating around out there and that is why one guy in one state can use wheel weights and has no problem while a guy in a different state is buying a new pot after the wheel weights he used ruined his with high zinc content, there is no easy way to separate good from bad so LEE decided to tell customers not to use them at all. So if you are in a state that doesn't have any issues with lead, you may be getting good wheel weights, but the truth of the matter is you never know until you get bad ones, I've been melting them for over 17 years and all it took in that amount of time was 2.5lbs of bad wheel weights, so it isn't a matter of it possibly happening to you, but more of when it will happen, because it will and I thought I knew better too.

I'm hoping it is less than 8 ounces and less than $300, but Daiwa doesn't seem to want to make a light casting reel out of anything other than Zaion or magnesium.

To make it easier on you, think of cranking rods as the rod to use for treble hooks, casting rods are usually fast or extra fast action for single hook baits.

You don't need to use the Trokar hook in that mold, it will work with a Mustad 32786 or the Owner 5317, the Owner is a wicked hook but it is a little pricey but the Mustad is no slouch either. The only problem is that one has a flat spot but you can see it because that is where the lead enters the mold be as soon as you pour it and cut the sprue off you would be left with a flat spot. I make a fully round version but only up to 1/2oz and no recessed line tie, I hope this information helps you out but I know where you are coming from, Do-it began putting flat spots on the football molds because it seemed everyone but me wanted it, oh well, that is another discussion, good luck.

Power Team Lures makes an awesome ribbed grub, it is a little long at 4.5" but the guys around my area say it is one of the best grubs you will ever use. It moves a lot of water, a little too much profile for the smallmouth but great if you want to swim in and around vegetation. http://www.powerteamlures.com/4-5-grub/

The Croix Legend Elite has a reel seat that is very, very good, but with the reel seat and the Torzite guides, the price I was told is going to be between $475 - $525 depending on model.

The Loomis "fiber blend" isn't your basic composite rod, they just have more fiberglass in the scrim but it is still a graphite rod. Composites are better but unless you get a really good one you'll still have poor sensitivity for the most part. Check out the Shimano Compre crankbait rods, they are reasonably priced and the TC4 blanks are one of the better composites I've held.

The warning isn't on the pot, and if you have your LEE for more than 2 years then you wouldn't know about it. I have 2 older Lee pots and when I bought my new one 2 years ago it had a paper in the box that you could not miss, it had a warning and said not to melt wheel weights in the pot and it specified wheel weights, and the reason is probably so many getting returned because of people using wheel weights with high zinc content so instead of trying to explain it they warn against their use entirely and I agree with it unless you can tell which ones have zinc and which ones don't.

For everything you listed I'd have to say Berkley Big Game is about as good as it gets, it does have a fair amount of stretch in the 8lb and 10lb but is quite reasonable in larger sizes. As for other lines, this season I've been using Spider wire Ultimate Mono in 6lb, 8lb, 10lb, and 14lb, and it is super thin and wicked strong with very little stretch but it has more memory than a lot of mono but with the very little stretch you get it is understandable. It still handles better than fluorocarbon and if you like fluorocarbon but wanted something a little more manageable I'd suggest this line.

Well Jakob 1010 answered the question on the gear ratio perfectly, for shallow cranks and topwaters I'll use a faster reel, the topwater it picks up the slack and the shallow cranks don't have the resistance of a deep diver so torque isn't an issue. Now, Deep uses a BPS medium cranking stick that is a foot longer for buzzers and it is perfectly fine, completely different rod, the extra foot in length it going to help a bit with driving the hook simply because of the amount of line it moves on the swing, not to mention it is a medium power. The rod you have is a medium light, it weighs almost a full 3 ounces less than the BPS stick and it softer with less backbone, it would be the same difference as comparing a 6'6" medium power rod to a 7'6" MH power rod, apples and oranges. I have that rod and know its capabilities well, I got it with the intention of it being a finesse cranking rod with no thoughts on if it could handle anything else and it has been an awesome rod, it has a good deal of power for the kind of rod it is and that power translates into handling the larger 3/8and 7/16oz lure fine, some rods rated to 1/2oz start topping out at 3/8oz but the action is still very soft as it is designed to keep small size 8 and 6 trebles pinned, not drive home heavy diameter single hooks. I believe a pond magic spinnerbait and buzzbait would be the largest that this rod will be able to fish and drive the hooks in consistently, anything larger and the hook diameter becomes and issue.

I purchase lead with antimony in it which is considered hard lead and I use it to make my own hard alloy for certain types of jigs like football jigs. That said, wheel weights use to be fine, you have to worry about water as Cadman has told you already but the other problem is the zinc content, new wheel weights have a high percentage of zinc and it will ruin the lead and the pot, all the new LEE furnaces come with a warning and if you ruin your pot with zinc wheel weights guess what, they will not repair you pot under warranty and they can tell. I learned about this when I was melting down scrap in my "break down pot", it is a pot I use to melt scrap lead and then pour in my ingot molds, well I added 2.5lbs of wheel weights and as I was pouring the ingots I noticed the lead consistency was thick and it got worse to the point that when I used the ingots in my pouring pot, an entire 10lbs of lead was ruined but 2 1lb ingots of this high zinc content lead. That was it, no more wheel weights but there are some that will melt them down in a turkey cooker and use them for large downrigger weights but on jigs and small stuff it isn't worth ruining your equipment to save a few bucks.

Bluebasser86 nailed it, the hooks aren't the problem. I'm seeing a lot of this, guys bending out shaky hooks because they are using line and rods that are too heavy for the type of presentation, guys using heavy line and casting gear and braid for Ned rigs, help me understand why. If you are worried about losing fish, you will be amazed at how well and how big of a fish you can land with balanced tackle. I don't mean to criticize but the hooks on that bait are fine, if you go to a 2X strong, which you will have to to get a stronger hook that what they use, it won't matter which brand, it will be too heavy and the lure action will suffer because of it. What you will have is a lure with strong hooks that gets maybe half the strikes it normally would get, and that is depending on how much action it loses and being a Yamamoto bait I'll bet it is balanced well with that hook. Lures are designed and then hokks are hung and tested and while value priced lures may use a less expensive hook, it doesn't mean the size is wrong, it means that size hook is what the lure works best with. On crankbaits there is a lot of tolerance, you can go up to a larger size or a heavier model and not affect it too much, but jerkbaits and topwaters are extremely sensitive to hook changes, I found out the hard way before the internet, Xcalibur had the rotating treble hooks on a Jim Bitter signature model rogue, those hooks were so good I decided to buy a bunch and replace all my rogue hooks, well it turns out the signature Jim Bitter model weighed a little bit more than the regular rogue and the result was unspectacular, I had a trip in which my rogue were useless because they didn't work right at all so I had to go back and redo all my rogues and use the rotating trebles on cankbaits I had that used the same hook size. Adjust your drag and use the right rod and bending perfectly fine hooks won't be a problem.

In the waters I fish, the Easy Shiner is a better bait than the Swing Impact and I believe it is because of what you noticed. For fishing them on a jig head or weighted hook, the body roll on the Easy Shiner seemed to draw more strikes that the faster tail kick of the swing impact but as a swim jig trailer it doesn't seem to matter as both work very well.

I have a Lews Tournament Pro 6.4:1 on mine, I'm not sure about using the spinnerbait or buzzbait because the hooks are too heavy in diameter, even on smaller baits. If you fish small cranks then you owe it to yourself to at least try it, I have a hard time putting it down and it has more power than what you would think but it comes in small increments until you get to the backbone and I don't think it will consistently drive home a single hook. A Booyah pond magic buzzbait or spinnerbait may be able to be used and I know that with the right reel you should have no problem casting one of those little spinnerbaits. It is a fun rod to fish and I use it for largemouth too, I got a 5lb 1oz bruiser with it last season fishing a rip rap bank early in the morning by banging a Bagley Balsa B off the rocks in 2.5' of water and the rod handled the fish like a champ.

Weightless Senko worms, 5"? 8ln hybrid ok, if you are using large enough braid for a 10lb fluoro leader then you need a MH rod. I have no problem with a medium power spinning rod but I use it like a spinning rod and that is for finesse techniques and Senko's but I'm not in heavy cover, sparse cover with 8lb line. The rod you got will work but you aren't going to rip the fish away from cover but it will have enough backbone to work a good size fish.

I have this rod, it is a specifically made shallow cranking rod. I use mine for jerkbaits as well, I really like a medium power, fast action rod for jerkbaits but in cold water with suspending jerkbaits, a moderate action rod works quite well, and this rod handles X-Rap-10s as well as it does the X-Rap-8s. You aren't going to use this rod for anything other than treble hook lures, it is simply too soft for anything else, it probably isn't what you want to hear but it is the truth. I really love mine because there isn't a better rod to fish the smaller 1/4oz and 3/8oz shallow cranks, this rod will handle 1/2oz as well but it has to be a shallow diver. I really like throwing a DT-4 , Baby 1 minus, and a KVD 1.5 with mine for river smallmouth and it is absolutely a killer popper rod, the Yo-Zuri 3DS 1/4oz popper is awesome to use on that rod.

Is this a jig made specifically for swimming? I'm asking because you can swim any jig but that very reason is why I started using jigs made specifically for swimming. I make my own now but what it sounds like is the head is off balance, it may have an air pocket or abnormality affecting one side. Tell me what jig it is and I may be able to help you out.

You are using a spinning rod, what baits are you throwing? You have me confused as you worry you won't get fish out of cover with the medium and you also worry the MH will be too stiff and won't flex for runs on light line? So you're skipping docks and fishing cover with a spinning rod with light line? Is that correct? If is going to be hard to help if you don't give the lure weights or at least what you are throwing on what kind of line and what strength. If I was going to do that with a spinning set up, I'd use the Aetos 6'8" MH-XF or the 6'7" MH-F, the extra fast makes for easy skipping with a spinning rod however it may be overpowering with a medium heavy depending on what you're throwing so the 6'7" MH-F would be an easy substitute, either way you need a longer rod.

Very nice!!!

There isn't any problem using braid without a leader, just remember you are using a finesse technique and if you bend the hook it isn't the hook that is the problem.

There are a lot of guys still using that hook, if there wasn't it would have been discontinued by now. I use to use them until the Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp Tube hook came out, now I use that instead, and before people complain about the Eagle Claw hooks, remember, there are a few different lines. The black nickel lazer sharp models are really good hooks, the only difference between the Trokar model tube hook and the laser sharp is the point, the Trokar has a cutting point, the Lazer sharp has a needle point, if you want a good tube hook the Lazer sharp is the way to go and it needs no sharpening.