Chris at Tech

You captured this in words better than I could have! Nice work! There really is no pattern fishing when you move at 4.2 MPH. If you find a promising point, you better work the heck out of it since there is no option to fire up the 200 and hit 20 more nearly identical points! That's also why it sucks to commit to make a time-consuming run only to find someone sitting on the spot you wanted to start on. Hehe...

Come on, Tigers! The guys from ATL who gave you your last loss are pulling for you!

Hey, no shame lost to me The guide I fish most with in Hilton Head keeps trying to get me to pick up a fly rod but I ain't touchin' one of those. The last thing I need is to have a new (and expensive) reason to buy even more tackle!

You can probably give them a quick and easy sharpening using a pen-style hook sharpener.

Fly or spin? I keep meaning to hit up a few spots on the Chattahoochee River just north of Atlanta to see if I can coax a few trout but for one reason or another I'm never able to.

It ain't just on the West Coast

Varner?

Yup, you're correct. About 7 of the houses in that 25 house subdivision were demolished. It's amazing to me that we were able to see that house (and we sold it in a day )...

Yeah...I got my up close and personal scare from floodwaters in 2009 when ATL flooded. This is a pic of my old subdivision, and my old house is the one circled in red. Not fun when you have no idea what you'll come back to.

Oooohhhh...nice score!

I have a few Extreme MH spinning rods from about 8 years ago. If they're anything like mine, they're definitely more powerful than the 1/4 - 5/8 lure rating would have you believe. Mine was paired with 2500-sizes spinning reels and I used it for t-rigs in grass and wood, as well as some hard jerkbait fishing. Eventually I repurposed the rod for inshore shark fishing -- yes, you read that correctly Not monsters but smaller bonnnethead sharks in the ~20 lb range. Talk about FUN!... Now they're loaner rods. For the record, the reel you have on there is pretty large so it may be worth considering a smaller reel to make the combo a bit more comfortable to fish.

I'm looking for a spinning rod to target reds, trout and flounder in the bays, creeks and flats of South Carolina and the Florida Panhandle. Most times it'll have DOA Paddletails/Jerkbaits or Gulp shrimp/swimming mullets on 1/8 - 3/8 oz jigheads. On occasion, will also throw Mirrodine topwaters or twitch baits, or perhaps a popping cork with one of the plastics mentioned above or a live shrimp. It'll likely be paired with a 2500 or 3000 sized Shimano spinning reel with 10 or 15 lb braid. Braid will have a mono or fluoro leader tied on, so no micro guides. I've already got 2 St Croix Tidemasters, the 7' M/F and the 7' ML/F. The M/F is a great rod for other techniques. The ML/F is what I currently use for the above, but it's a bit whippy for my tastes. Definitely does NOT feel like a fast action to me, so one of the main parameters of this rod is that it be crisper than the ML Tidemaster. Hoping to stay in the $200 area

Do any of you builders do a decent amount of building for inshore saltwater rigs? I'm sure the building process is largely the same as freshwater, but I'm considering a build and hoping to find someone with inshore saltwater experience for discussion of relevant components and design considerations. Thanks guys!

Hehe...In my opinion, this is pretty close to the best answer The Spring Classic is probably "the best", but even then the sales seem very narrow in scope. If you like BPS house brand baits, Zoom, Strike King (and perhaps a few others), then there are likely some deals to be found. But when you consider how many things are not on sale, and add to that BPS's higher prices to start with, the value of the sale diminishes pretty quickly. If you're comfortable shopping online, there are better options to save $$$.

Touche...

So do you think the guys at Huddleston googled a picture of a trout, made one mold based on that picture and instantly had a bait that did exactly what they wanted it to do from a profiles, swimming and neutral position perspective? You don't consider R&D to include what I'm sure were dozens of modifications to the early versions of the bait to get it to the point it is today? Just because Berkley is a huge company that can easily exploit economies of scale, you think all companies have to price their baits to align with that? That would kinda suck for all the basement and garage tinkerers who come up with great ideas, especially since they need to charge higher prices due to having very little chance of the same economies of scale. There's nothing wrong with Berkley baits so I'm glad they work for you. The big swimbaits (and the big prices that often come along with them) are not for everyone, but you're really comparing apples to oranges here. Just about the only similarity is that they're both swimbait style baits.

Good stuff so far guys, thanks! As far as depth and retrieve, are most of you guys keeping the baits close to the bottom or are you swimming them in the middle or upper depths of the water column?

How light? I find my 683c and 703c as great rods for weightless trickworms, 5" Senkos and Super Flukes, as well as 3/16 oz Texas rigs

Hey guys, I'm a late arrival to the Keitech Swing Impact Fat party so I need some of your expertise so I can make up for lost time. I've picked up a few packs of the 3.8s and the 4.8s over the last few weeks. For those of you who fish them, what hooks or rigging styles are you using for those bait sizes? Especially for the 3.8s, are you treating them as a light-line technique on spinning gear? Thanks all!

I believe your 745 is a fast action rod, and I think both the 5 and 6 power Dobyns are frequently with frog fishing among their recommended techniques. Keep fishing the frogs on that rod and I think you'll settle into the hook setting timing needed. It seems every year, I need to re-a cclimate myself to that style of fishing, and the timing. Not sure that's a good idea if you're pitching or froggin' in thick vegetation. For me, both of those are a quick way to have your heart broken!

I think you're overreacting just a touch Perhaps you can consider A-Jay's comment as a suggestion from another experienced fisherman that just maybe a knot that fails 25-33% of the time for you might not be ready for prime time. By all means, use whichever knot you want but if you knew today was the day you'd stick your biggest bass ever, would you trust your ability to tie the FG and land that fish? Just offering some friendly perspective here. Not being argumentative.

Fish-on Fabrications in Cartersville. http://www.fishonfabrications.com/ He did my rig and many others.

Geez...tough room, eh A-Jay?

I've got a recommendation if you're looking to have some mods done. Let me know if you're interested

Yeah, I've not fished any of their tourneys but I'm familiar with them. You got a custom jon? If so, let's see some pics Some of those boys fish with not one but two electric outboards, so it's kinda funny watching a few of those rigs getting up on plane!