Chris at Tech

Boo. That is all.

You're begging for heartbreak... Spend $5 and at least get a Krocodile spoon so you'll have something which can withstand more than one angry saltwater fish.

Yup, I was there

Those lures are not at all likely to hold up to bluefish or jack crevalle. I recommend you pick up a few saltwater lures that are designed to take the abuse. You're definitely correct that you'd get bites but the hardware won't hold up The reel seems ok. The rod sounds short for what you're trying to do and it probably wouldn't load too well casting the lures in your pic.

Kinda hard to advise if your rod and reel will be sufficient without more details on their specs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... The bad years make the good years that much sweeter!

Hey guys, The family and I got to spend a week relaxing in Panama City Beach back in Sept, and of course I'm not going to miss my opportunity to let a few saltwater fish stretch my line! To start the week, my wife and I got out with Captain Justin Leake for the second year in a row. If anyone finds themselves in PCB looking for a guide, look no further! Inshore, offshore, nearshore -- this dude has it all covered, and he's a pleasure to spend time in the boat with. In our 6-hr trip we were able to catch mangrove snapper, mahi, BIG spanish mackeral, king mackeral, amber jack and a few others. We saw a nice sailfish come up and frollic in front of the boat, just to taunt us! I'd never caught any mahi before and while they were only the smaller "chicken" variety, they were still a boatload of fun to catch on small pompano jigs and ML inshore tackle. We even caught a mahi that had been tagged, and I got a nifty t-shirt for my efforts to call in the fish data Mr. Amberjack may not look like much but MAN do they pull! The few that made the ultimate sacrifice to feed the family. We gave them a proper burial in breading, oil and cocktail sauce. My biggest kingfish to date, ~22 lbs. Those suckers are fun to fish for! The tagged mahi A few days after the charter trip, I spent a few hours wading the grass flats in St. Andrews State Park. Dare I say it on a bass site, but I'm starting to come to the conclusion that I may enjoy inshore salwater fishing more than bass fishing. Then again since I live in Atlanta, bass will suite me just fine most of the time There's something very appealing to me about the simplicity of inshore fishing. 2-3 rods, one small Plano box of tackle, and a few bags of soft plastics. As long as I have a few topwaters, a few twitch baits, a few spoons, some jigheads and a few packs of Bass Assassin Sea Shads, I'm going to catch fish. And I'm happy to say that after doing quite a bit of inshore fishing the last few years, I finally recorded my first inshore grand slam (a trout, redfish and flouder on the same day). The trout was too wily to pose for a picture, but I promise that I caught one Notice the tackle box in the pic. That's ALL I bring. Quite the contrast to a day our on the local pond chasing largemouth! I know this is a site full of bass fishermen, but I really would encourage all of you to do some salwater fishing if the opportunity presents itself. Perhaps the coolest part is that the bass tackle you already own is just fine for chasing most of these fish, but in my opinion the salwater fish do a lot better job of stressing that equipment than the green freshwater guys.

I'm not sure if it's the same in the middle Keys as it is in Key West, but it seems my research for guides in Key West was dominated by a few guide "agencies". Basically they act for frontmen for a whole bunch of guides. If you see a particular guide you like on that agency's webpage, search for that guide individually and book directly through him. The agencies take a %, so end up being a little more expensive than booking the guide directly. Take it for what it's worth

Sending some positive juju your way!

Redfish. That is all.

x2

My salvage diver recommendation is sounding better and better as this post goes on...

You should ship all your rods with a courtesy salvage diver.

Hey Dwight -- let's not drop this in the drink, mmmkay?

No doubt there are some phenomenal bass fisheries and guides in FL but if it was me, I'd book an inshore saltwater charter. You can't catch redfish, snook, seatrout, cobia, etc. in Minnesota But the reality is either freshwater or saltwater will be a great choice.

It's certainly not like Boca Grande or the Keys, but HHI gets a decent number that come through during summer and early fall.

That would be Hilton Head Island, SC. That bad boy was NOT caught on a 2500 sized reel, that's for sure But I just did get back from Panama City Beach where I recorded my first-ever inshore grand slam from the bank of St Andrews State Park. My light inshore rigs did all the work there, and it sure was fun!

Fair enough, but what benefit do you get from putting that heavy a line on such a small reel? You'll probably get around 10 lbs of drag and your 80 yards of 50 lb braid will disappear pretty quickly if a larger fish picks up your bait. And you'd also come close to spooling your reel on the cast if you're tossing a spoon or similar. So while you can do 50 lb braid, I believe lighter braid is a better choice here.

50 lb braid? Definitely not the direction I'd go, especially on a 2500 or 3000 sized reel since you'd reduce line capacity a lot. 15 lb braid on 2500 reels and 20 lb on 4000 reels has served me well fishing inshore in GA, SC and FL.

Take a look at St Croix Tidemaster and Star Seagis rods too.

My prep work this time of year is to ensure I have enough beer and snacks on hand for college football.

Nothin' -- the joys of fishing electric only reservoirs

Yes, research. The reality is that people can very easily get overwhelmed with plastics with all the different sizes, colors, styles... You absolutely do not need every style, size and color. My recommendation would be to narrow it down to a plastic or two per style, and then concentrate on selecting a few good colors for your water conditions. Just as an example, I stick to watermelon, green pumpkin, junebug and some variation of black for just about all my plastics. I do have a few exceptions to this rule but it holds well the majority of the time.

Yeah, I gotta get out and mark that one off my list From what I've seen, shoalies are supposed to be lots of fun.

My MHX three-piece travel blanks suited me just fine for my trip to Baccarac last spring. I was very pleased in general with them.