gravestone

For me it's a plain vanilla St. Croix Premier 7' med. action fast taper. Works just fine and also double duties as a crankbait rod.

Certain states banned the use of lead under a certain size. When I lived in NY I wasn't able to buy or mail order lead worm weights , so I had to use tungsten. Now that I live in TN i'm back to lead. To answer your question I don't think it's worth the extra expense.

#7 shadrap

Been my best worm for years. I like the paddletail in brush,it doesn't hang up as much as the ribbontail.

^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^

I use mono or copoly as a leader. For top water if you want to use a leader i'd use mono or copoly cause it floats. For crankbaits you can use mono,copoly or flouro.

If Bill is happy with the reel that's all that counts. My own personal experience with Chinese reels are less than satisfactory. I bought 2 high end surf reels about 5 yrs. apart , Van Staal is the name of the reel. First one was made in CT. when VS was an independent co. Then WC Bradley {the people that own Zebco} bought them. Zebco moved operations to China ,raised the price on the reel and produced a lesser quality product. The VS rep claims that they shipped the same machinery to China that they used in CT to manufacture. That very well maybe but you still the machinist to operate that machinery ! Long story short the quality of the "made in China" reel was not even close to the first reel I owned.

Big difference in Chinese made reels and Japanese made reels. Chinese don't have the same tooling to make the same exact reel that was made in japan prior to made in china. It's been my experience that the Chinese reels are inferior. I personally boycott ANYTHING made in china ,I would rather do without than by Chinese.

Chinese reels make good sinkers.

Having used baitcasters for most of my bass fishing I went back to spinning when braid came out. I'm using Diawa Tournament SS 1300 and 1600 size reels. On the 1300's I use #15-20 Powerpro with #10-15 test P-line CXX leader 3'-10' in length depending what i'm throughing. On the 1600 size i'll use #30-40 powerpro and tie direct because I only use that combo for frogging or thick grass.

My own "rule of thumb" 3/8 oz and less MED. 1/2 oz and heavier MH.

If you're fishing frogs I would use either braid or mono {braid preferred} Because both braid and mono both float, floro sinks. I use spinning tackle and the fluorocarbon lines I've used I wasn't happy with at all.

Terminator

I was in a club that fished lakes where gas motors were not permitted. Most of the "bassboats" were homemade from jonboats that were powered by electric motors

In all honesty i'm as accurate casting with spinning gear as I was with conventional. I hold the spinning reel between my middle and ring finger and feather or stop the line with my index finger.

Hello all, I'm new to the forum seems like a knowledgeable place! The age old question...Spinning vs Conventional,well in my 44 year of bass fishing I've gone from spinning to convench and back to spinning. When braid entered the picture it was spinning all the way! For me personally whatever I did with a baitcaster I was able to just as well or better with spinning tackle. If you do a lot of flipping conventional tackle IMO is better.