gulfcaptain

oh, and TW also sells them. And Keitech's Live Impact floats if you want another dropshot idea. They look awesome in the water and are my new go to dropshot bait.

Zman's Elaztech floats well, Used their finesse worms and work well on the dropshot. And now Strike King's super fiesse worm that is made from the same stuff, Elaztech also floats. Just don't store any of those baits with regular worms, they melt and make a mess.

Try and give it a good soaking of KVD line conditioner as well. I do that with every reel just to condition it before I take it out for the first time. I know PowerPro does have a little break in period before it looses its stiffness.

you can get one you hold that has the groove with 2 angled steel sharpeners and it will do you fine. And it's got the plastic where it lines up to protect your hand and fingers. May be able to find them at Wally World or any grocery store if you look.

I remember those days, it was called being single without children. I altered my feeding habits depending on how much money I had left after bills and of course the going out fund.

They won't stop eating, but they will change their feeding habits. Here in crowded S. Cal, the city park fish get too much pressure they simply shut off during the day and change their feeding habits to nights since we aren't technically supposed to fish those places at night after they close the parks.

Yep, pretty much says it all.

Yes, most carry a 8" and a 10". And the #1 rule on those boats, don't use another persons knife....#2 rule, see first rule. Those knives have to stand up to the abuse we put them through each day and cheap or poorly made knives don't stand up to the daily abuse we put them through. And if you ever have a wooden handled Forschner make sure you wrap the handle with some seine twine, it keeps it from wanting to split as well as gives you a better grip on the handle. I have seen a knife catch an edge on the way in and stop....unfortunately the persons hand holding the knife didn't. New deckhands have a steep learning curve that can hurt if you don't pay attention to what others say while learning.

My intentions and reason for posting was I wanted honest answers of why some choose to use such heavy line. Not to bash one another nor to call me out, which I have defended myself very respectfully. If Catt wanted to fish sometime and see if I could fish my way in his area, I'm only down the river in Cameron where I work and would be excited to. I would just need some heads up to bring some gear with me when I went to work and. Snookalot, your opinion is valued as well but I wanted individual reasons and they did give them. Now with that said, carlm01, does your reel stop in the same place each time? How heavy of a lure to break/spool tension do you have your reel set at? Is this the first time using braid on one of your reels? Just trying to get some helpful info as to possibly be able to solve the problem your having.

Irvine Loop Lake has bass, I keep most of my fishing ventures in the Northern Orange County/LA County parks. You can always check out Google Earth and look around where you are for any small ponds/lakes that you can scout and check out.

Okay, how come no one as asked if you want a flexible blade or a somewhat stiffer blade. Working and making money filleting fish on the way home from fishing trips where it wasn't uncommon to fillet over 300 fish in a 5hr run in. If you want a flexible knife, look into a Dexter, they have a good blade, hold an edge well and I would suggest atleast an 8" blade. My personal preference would be a Forschner 8" curved breaking knife. Get a double sided stone and sharpen the blade only one direction with only water on the stone. I used a med course/fine stone, think it cost me $15. But I've had my fillet knives over 10yrs and one of them I have worn almost the whole blade down but it still holds an edge. Use it to fillet any and everything. Has a stiff enough blade to be able to push through the thicker bones. Look them up on Google and check them out. May run you between $30-50 but worth it and it will last you a life time as its Stainless blade. I used to leave mine in saltwater all the time. If it started to look rusty, a scotchbrite pad was all it took to bring it back with not much effort.

And just realized Mattlures posted on this topic as well. Have to give him props on his baits as well, Realism is unreal and I have no problem spending my money on quality baits backed by quality people.

If I could get Triple Trout that cheap I'd have a bunch. Try $70-90 each, and we aren't even gonna get into the Baitsmith glide baits or Roman Made. Bottom line, if you want to fish a cheap swimbait, go for it. But don't complain if it doesn't work. If you don't want to fish a "big" swimbait, don't. I fish everything, it's a tool. If you limit yourself in what you choose to learn then you will put yourself at a disadvantage one day. Over the last year, fish over 5lb on regular bass lures.....2. Fish over 5lbs on swimbaits.....6 Yes I could have better numbers, but fishing city park lakes for 5hrs while my son is in school is about my only free time. Bottom line, just beware of what you buy. If you spend $50 on cheap swimbaits and they don't work or do not preform the way you like, then you turn around and spend $50 on a quality swimbait and catch a fish, well you could of bought 2 quality baits and had a spare.

I thank you all for the replies. If some of you have not figured out my screen name I do work in the South. I know what lakes in Tx and La look like. I work there, so yes I know about the stumps, the trees, the timber. You run a bass boat down there, I run a crewboat down some bayous and river channels that I really don't believe a 170ft boat belongs in and would rather have a bass boat on the back deck to take off into some of the cuts and creeks. Lived in Okla and fished there before moving back out to S.Cal so I have fished timber and mainly everything back then was 15-20lb mono. Now would I fish 20lb in the stumps you showed, yep. Would I use it for flipping, nope. I would up grade to 30lb. If I new there were big fish, I'd throw a 10" swimbait at them and hope for the best. Yes, I would do that in the south without blinking. I'm glad I have gotten many responses. And I do enjoy full contact fishing where you go into the worse looking cover you can. Now would I flip 30lb into flooded timber at Choke Canyon or Falcon when they are at full pool and full of flooded brush, probably not. I would go up to 50lb. I do see a case for the heavy line, and like I said before, it looks as most choose to fish heavier braid for the simple reasons that they like the handling of the thicker line as well as have more confidence in it.

Okay, for those who gave me an honest answer without trying to call me out thank you. I've seen the pattern in the responses that heavier is easier for most to handle, gives them the assurance that they have the gear in case they need it, and some believe the smaller line sizes will cause problems. Great reasons and I thank you. For those who wish to try and tell me to try using 20lb or how they have broke 30lb punching. I do punch and frog fish with 30lb, use smaller frogs with 20lb, and pulled fish out of trees and bushes as well as a few yellowtail, white seabass, and countless calico's out of S. Cal coastal kelp beds, so been there done that. And I haven't broke any of my rods from user error or overloading my equipment. My swimbait rods that I fish heavy on, well they are designed for musky fishing. If I'm gonna throw a 4-6oz bait, I'm gonna fish the tackle to handle it but again even though it's 40 and 65lb braid, I fish 25lb mono and flouro. Your equipment is only as good as its weakest part....rod, reel, line, hook, and knot. The weakest point will fail whatever it is. I do believe using the lighter braid does make me have to check for frays, weak and worn points in my line, and my knots more often then if it were 50-65lb. But that's a choice I have to be willing to make to continue to be successful. So thank you all for answering and giving me your reasons on why fish so heavy.

sounds like you have a good starting point. I might upgrade to the Extreme reel instead of the Bionic.

I agree with Tom. Fishing a worm or a jig, I line watch just as much as I fish by feel. Many times with a jig it's just heavy, no bite to detect, other times punching thru grass you get a tick with a line pop. Having finger contact on the line gives you more sense of what is going on as opposed to completely relying on the rod in your hand.

okay, let me be the first to say, I started fishing 15lb braid on baitcasters, just moved up to 20 because of my topshots. I have never had braid dig in. Used 10lb by accident(thought I picked up a heavier spool) and it didn't dig in just was too light. As long as it's put on tight, has some sort of backing to grip(I would suggest some mono) then it won't dig in. It will become a mess if one of your friends that's not used to fishing braid tries and backlashes if they don't understand how to pick it out and go to cutting. But never had a problem with lighter braid digging in.

Did you use a topshot or fill the reel full of flouro?

Okay, I'm sure I'm gonna get lots of different opinions about this topic. I've been fishing braid for the last 8yrs. It started out with fishing just saltwater off of the S.Cal coast and then just progressed to all my rods which now have some form of braid although most are fished with topshots of either mono or flouro. Now over the years I have used everything from 10lb to 100lb braid and on all my bass rods with the exceptions of my 2 swimbait rods, one which has 40lb braid and 25 mono and the other has 65lb braid with 25 flouro I can't see a reason to fish anything more then 30lb. Mainly fish 20 with the exception of my flipping/punching set ups, 1 hvy which doubles as a frog/pitching rod, and my umbrella rig which all have 30lb. I can not see any reason for 50 or 65lb braid to fish bass with. Sorry, I've played tug a war with 50+ pound amberjacks, horsed in 25+ pound jack crevelles, and winched a few 30-50lb groupers off the bottom and away from oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. If I can do that with 65lb braid to those fish there is no reason other then overkill to fish bass with it. So my question to those who do is why? The picture attached is of a 100+ pound amber jack that I managed on 80lb. So again why other then you can.

You can try it, but I would just use the KVD line conditioner. For some reason even if boiling did work, I would question the strength factor after subjecting it to high heat. Both flouro and mono. The heat could change the dia of the line as well as make weak spots in it for it possibly being stretched and no longer being uniform after winding it on. I would hate to try something like this and loose a fish of a lifetime due to the line failing from something I did to it. But odds are if it broke first thing to blame will be the line and not the fact that it was boiled prior to spooling. Just my opinion and hope that I'm wrong, I just wouldn't take that risk.

Just because the river is clear, stained and muddy water warm faster then clean water....so odds are even though that creek is cold, it's probably just guessing about 10 degrees warmer which may only be in the upper 40's but it's still warmer then the river and lake. Being it's muddy and shallow they will get really shallow in the afternoons to sun and feel comfortable because the water is dirty. They may be up in less then a foot of water.

Used 10lb pp for about a week, took it off and put 20lb on it. Works much better. 10lb is great for spinning reels. I choose to put just about a 100yrd on my reels, and use 20lb mono for backing with either an albright or uni knot. You may want to leave a little more gap like you have though if you are going to use mono/flouro topshots. I use anywhere from a 10 to 20ft topshot. But 10lb braid will be a challenge if this is your first baitcaster and may lead to bad experiences not to mention if you throw a bit of a heavier lure and it does it might part and cause you to loose some equipment.

All around crankbait rod....I would pick the 755CB.

Think we are talking about the good old common carp.