Chris at Tech

STX.

First off -- yes, mono is the ticket. I'd recommend something like 12-15lb Trilene XT. It's a good line that won't break the bank, even if you need to respool a little more often in the beginning.

Rutgers University grease trucks. Fat Cat. Nothing else needs to be said

I use Pline CX in 8lb test on 2000 sized Daiwas and 2500 sized Shimanos. I love it -- no issues that I've had with it.

Depends how much motor power and batteries you can carry

I got a Daiwa Tierra 2500 for the trade in. I was quite shocked to see the number of people NOT taking advantage of this. The guy in front of me at the checkout bought 2 high-end Quantum at the tune of $200+ each and didn't use a trade in. These reels had rebates available from Quantum, but he could have saved more. I thought it was especially funny since BPS was selling $5 spincasting reels out of a bin. Come in, buy a cheap baitcaster, leave, get the certificate and get yourself a new toy

I use clips for all treble hook plugs -- crank, jerks, lipless cranks, topwaters. Makes my life easier, and I still catch fish. And most importantly, no lost lures or broken clips. I think the line will break well before the clip would.

The last one I caught a good fish on

It's times like this that I feel REALLY good about fishing the electric only lakes. My cost? $25 season pass for my favorite lake (and anywhere from $3-10 to launch on any of a few other lakes in the area) and whatever it costs me to recharge my trolling motor batteries.

Don't make me hurt you...

What he said I have an Avid AS69MLXF that I really like. I landed my 2 biggest fish ever on this thing. As a matter of fact, I'm considering selling it simply because I have a few too many rods. PM me if you're interested.

Have you thrown a jerkbait on baitcasting gear for a long period of time before? Reason I ask that is because jerkbaits always SEEMED OK for me on baitcasters. Then again, I only threw them over short periods, 15-30 minutes. After a full day of this earlier this year, I realized that spinning gear was much more comfortable for me for hard jerkbaits. Just thought I'd throw that out there for consideration.

In some posts on here, I occassionally see people mentioning some tricks they use to spool their reels. Since I'm lazy, I wanted to try to get all these tricks in 1 place So with that said, how do you spool your reel? What tips and tricks do you have? Do you do things differently for spinning vs. baitcasting? Any different techniques for mono vs. fluoro vs. braid? Do you use line conditioner? Do you soak the line in warm water before spooling? etc...

How heavy a line are you hoping to throw? First thing's first. 'Heavier line' can easily be thrown on spinning reels in the form of braid. 6 lb diameter/20lb test is on every spinning reel I own. I used to throw a Stradic 2500 with BPS Extreme MH combo a lot (since moved to baitcasting for those applications) Secondly, you don't need to double the weight of the reel. Braid is an option, as I said above. But you can also get a 3000 or 3500 sized spinning reel. These guys can hold ~200 yds of 12lb line, so you can upsize the line size to 15 or even 17 and stil have plenty of line capacity. You just need to be careful which line you choose to use, since line memory could be an issue (and would be trickier to deal with on a spinning reel). Finally, as far as learning baitcasting. In this day and age, there is ZERO reason to get a right-handed retrieve if you're more comfortable reeling lefty. Not all baitcasters have LH retrieves, but probably 80% do. Just get one of those and don't look back

This needs to be studied on a rod-by-rod basis. In addition, split grips by themselves accomplish none of that, in my opinion. However, the split grip + the actual design of the rod are what results in all those features.

A few points... 1) Well, I graduated in 2001, so getting an 'A' no longer motivates me. 2) Retire at 25? Missed again as I'm turning 30 in 2 months. 3) Why would I buy Lanier? There's barely enough water in there 4) the Dawgs figure something out? Ha! They're still working on tying their shoes. That's a graduate level course in Athens

Normally I'd 100% agree about 20lb being overkill. However, I've been flipping jigs up around docks so that's the reason I went with the big line. With that said, I'll drop to 15 and see what happens. Thanks all!

As a result of many online recommendations, I'm trying 20lb CXX on my jig rod, and I'm <this> close to getting rid of the stuff. It's like a freakin' telephone cord, even after several applications of line conditioner and some decent hours being fished. For those of you that love the stuff -- is there a trick to deal with the obscene memory, or do you simply deal with it because of the line's superior abrasion resistance?

Those are the very ones that caught my eye The sales pitch I got was lacking. 52 million modulus, picked up an boat anchor with the rod, etc. Doesn't really mean much until someone who is not sponsored by these guys tells me how it fishes OK, my attending the tradeshow...I'll go from memory. Who was there? Well, I've never attended one of these before so me saying 'the usual suspects' doesn't mean anything. But the folks who I expected to see were there. Roland Martin, Jimmy Houston, Bill Dance, Hank Parker, many others I recognized but didn't know by name. Ran into a nice crew of BR folks. fivebasslimit, Glenn, Triton Mike... For whatever reason, I was 100% on 'turbo browse' mode at the show, so I didn't really pick up any tips or watch any demos. Heck, I didn't even buy anything (my wife asked me if I felt alright ). So with that said, I'd think someone else would be better off with the details of the new stuff coming out. But if you have specific questions, I'll answer as best as I can. Bottom line...I was on the prowl for deals, and I didn't find any Just about the best things I saw was the Dick's booth selling old model Avids for $99, and they had the new Strike King Rage Tail plastics for $4 a pack.

Anyone own or have any experience with American Rodsmiths rods? I was at the Classic expo yesterday and the only booth that even tempted me to pull out the credit card was American Rodsmiths. They had a few interesting offerings. They looked and felt great, but I wanted to do a little more research before pulling the trigger.

Gear ratio too high

Come on down to the Atlanta area...and bring my some freakin' pizza and bagels!!!

If your buddies made a freakin' left-hand reel in low profile that wasn't gigantic with low ratio gears, I wouldn't be having this problem.

A few weeks ago, someone on here mentioned they were swapping out their stock Revo gears for some 5:1 gears. fivebasslimit, was it you? Anyway, who was it, and what were the results? Inquiring minds wanna know!

Hey all, My wife is getting me a guided trip to Lake Fork for my 30th birthday Unfortunately, our resident Lake Fork guru, Mr. Redington, was not available. My wife is currently in discussions with Doug Shampine of http://lakeforktrophybass.com/ Anyone have any experience with Doug? Thanks! Chris