Todd2

My older brother taught me the Palomar sometime in the mid 80's. I don't think he ever told me the name, so I probably used it 10 years before I knew it. The Palomar will serve you well, I've heard people say it doesn't work well with fluoro but I only buy mono or braid...mostly mono where it works great. Having said that...do a little test. Take two identical jigs, about a two feet of mono. On one end tie your palomar, the other end tie a fish n fool (double uni). Pull till one breaks. Every time I've done this, the Palomar breaks first. I can even retie a fresh palomar against same FNF knot and the Palomar still breaks. After around 3 Times, the fresh palomar will finally beat the 3x FNF. This, along with Knot Wars testing is why I switched to the FNF knot after almost 30 years of using the palomar except for drop shoting.

Fish N Fool knot is the strongest I've used. Beat the Palomar in Knot Wars. It works great for mono or braid. I can't speak about it for fluorocarbon.

At least everyone agrees.

Stren for the win! 12lb would be good all purpose.

Wow...good stuff...So "Better than salt" just means no salt and "Original" refers to shape..not salt content. Thanks...

Ok, I've been fishing Zoom for years so I'm a little shamed that I don't know this..lol. I get Super Salty, easy enough, a bunch of salt. But what's the difference between Original and Better Than Salt? BTW, I'm trying to get the best Trick Worm for drop shot. Thanks...

For your situation..I'd go 12...it's strong, I used BG last year and liked it. If it came in clear blue fluorescent..I'd still be using it. I switched to Stren and like it a little better than BG.

Double Uni (AKA Fishin Fool) won knot wars a few years ago. Works for all line types. I switched to it back then from the Palomar which it beats.

The best advice I got early on was to put your hand on the bottom of the steering wheel then move it in the same direction you want the trailer to go while backing down.

I put it on a few reels last year and it's off now. Can't really put a finger on why. I think I'm just a mono guy. Heck..most of my fish this year have came swimming grubs with Original Stren. Going old school...lol

Shaking works more times than not.....and yes after the shake do nothing but line watch for a bit. If that doesn't free it..the old bow and arrow trick might work although it seems to work better with treble hooks for me. In either case, after it frees up..just stop and watch your line for ANYTHING..then feel down fast and swing for the fences.

Curly tail worm or grub.

Thanks again to all. I replaced both plugs, fuel filter, and the fuel line/bulb. Runs like new. Not sure which one was the culprit but I''ll just consider it maintenance for the other two.

Thanks to all...I'm not always able to buy ethanol free so I'm going to check/replace those lines/bulb too. No revving so I don't think its spun hub. Feels like a fuel issue. Thanks to everybody. I'll report back.

Took my boat out today. Everything was fine for a mile or two but then lost power. It's a Tracker 40 HP...nornally cruises around 25 to 30 full speed. After the power loss, I couldn't get it over about 5mph full throttle back to the dock. Im replacing the plugs and fuel filter tomorrow. Any other ideas? Thanks Todd

No leaders here but sometimes when I'm fishing somewhat clear water (which is rare) I do wonder if I'd get more bites with a leader. But if I'm not catching, I either move or change up something else (color, lure). Just curious, for you leader guys, how often are you retying a leader on the mainline?

Yellow braid with about a rod's length colored green with a permanent marker for me. No leader. When I lose sight of the green, I know its dropped about 7 feet....that comes in handy sometimes. I really think though that the green marker is more for me than the little green things I'm after.

I'm on a personal mission to see how many fish I can catch on a 5 inch grub on 1/4 oz flat eye ball head....wish me luck.

I was going to put this question in a different thread but this is a good structure "conversation" and it fits right in I think. When focusing on structure, what % of the time are you making contact with it opposed to fishing just above it? I'm not talking about a 18 inch drop shot, for example, to me that is basically bottom fishing especially with the angle when casting. But lets say you have a ditch, drop off, whatever, thats in 14 FOW, are most of your fish on it or up in the water column above it? I almost always seem to focus on the bottom unless I'm marking something but I wonder if I'm fishing below some fish and should be counting down at different depths swimming a grub or something through.

I went out on Jan 2....low 40 water temps and stained. My skunk killer ( late in the day) was a grub on a 1/4 jig head slow rolling those steep drops. Dip that tail in Chartreuse in off water.

The pool noodle trick worked for me for many years for the traditional setup until I switched to using Carolina Keepers. I haven't looked back since using them.

I took my son and we liked it. I was never a diehard Star Wars fan growing up so I don't really know where it falls compared with the others but I agree that it was very good.

There is a new Spiderwire Stealth Smooth coming out in early 2017 supposedly. 8 carrier with some coating. It's available now but only from the UK and gets good reviews. I'm gonna hold up on braid purchases until then.

Sounds like you might be casting too hard. When I switched to braid I had the same problem. Just a flick and it'll sail with the no memory braid. You could go up a little in line size to help with the digging and just be careful after big hooksets.

Wayne, can you explain unorganized vs organized.? I thought the shad tightened up when bass were feeding. Also, out of all of those images. This one is what I see the most as I pass main lake cuts...drains, whatever you call them. How would you fish that? I usually will try some cranks and then go to a jig if that doesn't work. Are those bass on the far right of the screen in the ditch? I say ditch because it doesn't look like a channel that extends to the left.