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St Croix SCIII blanks, so Avid or the new Mojo Bass.

d**n, looks like they stealth upgraded the Mojo, and I just bought one. http://stcroixrods.com/products/freshwater/mojo-bass

I just picked up a Citica I. Seemed like the best reel for around $150. I got a couple ceramic spool bearings just to enhance it a bit so total of about $160. I'll use it tomorrow but tossing it around in the yard it's excellent and a huge improvement over my Calcutta 200 for a bass reel. Calcutta can just stick to salt now.

30lb flouro leader material is more than enough for chain pickerel.

Sounds like semi clear water. I would go to a 20-30lb flouro leader way before putting wire on, we're not talking about muskies here.

I'd buy a couple 3/8

Never fished one, but they look awesome. Like someone mentioned that green pumpkin blue fleck is perfect.

Yeah sorry it was for the OP who is in Cochise county, should have been a PM.

Off topic, but I used to do a lot of consulting at Huachuca, I wish I knew there was fishing to be done near there. Spent a lot of weekends in the hotel.

Free spin is just fun to show off. I guess if a person is capable of casting with no spool control or brakes it might add to your distance. I can throw with just thumb control, but it honestly doesn't end up being a longer cast than with the spool cap and brakes.

Oil your AR bearing, don't grease the inside of it. Oil won't cause it to slip, grease can interfere with it though. I use corrosion block grease and corrosion x oils on my reels that are heavily used in salt, but most tests I've seen show they really don't prevent rust corrosion. They are designed to prevent corrosion on electronics for the most part. I think the idea is to put a barrier between the metal and the salt water, vaseline would probably work just as well as a "corrosion prevention" grease. I'm a big fan of the corrosion x oils though, I make sure my bearings are filled with it on spinners, and I fill then blow out the spool bearing on my calcuttas for casting performance.

Does this involve taking off the twist lock and using it in a jig mold? They are excellent hooks by the way.

Seriously folks, the oval sinker/bobber stops are excellent and if you can find them locally for $2-3 there is not a better option. They don't interfere with the sinker (I hated the rubber t stops as they push the weight off center) and like others mentioned you can just leave them on the line and slide them down to your jig etc when not using a weight.

Looks like my boxes, more stuff than I could ever use Replace all that lead with tungsten and your in business.

This is one of those things like scent usage that no one has really done a good experiment on (that I'm aware of), it's all useless anecdotal information. In some of our minds, especially those of us who fish clear water or sight fish, the less visible the line to our eyes the better. Of course this might not matter one bit, as most fish depend on their detection of vibrations and displacement of water over their sense of sight. I think it's safe to say what we see is not what a fish can see, they have those additional senses to accompany sight and there is no telling how their brain interprets that data. With that said; I'm always going to use the smallest diameter FC leader I can, while I have no evidence to support it helping get more bites, in my mind it is the best option available. I spend 80% of my fishing time doing so by sight for redfish. While this is not the best data that could be available to us, fishing the same lure or fly with 20lb FC leader and 12lb FC leader doesn't seem to make a difference. There are countless days where the fish were spooky and changing from 20 to 12 didn't make a bit of difference. 20 is typically my standard for reds, and my buddy uses 15, and we don't have disproportionate bite numbers. I've never tested with braid straight to the lure or fly, but I will honestly never even try that, the advantages to FC as a leader outweigh braid (abrasion resistance, sink rate etc). Most of my bassing is in gin clear water so the same thing applies when I'm fishing them. Now those are two completely different fish species, the bass being more of an ambush predator and the red being more of a hunter, but they both rely heavily on their sense of vibration and water displacement. I always feel like if those fish are down to eat the line isn't going to stop them, but when they are being difficult I want the best option in my mind, even if it's only for a bit of confidence.

It's their lower grade graphite (SC2?) and the guides make the rod feel heavy to me, but they are super nice rods.

Two points of failure as opposed to one with a single knot. You can always use a loop knot for action if needed.

If you can see the fish they can more likely than not see you.

It's obvious looking at the body structure that fish is not anywhere near 11lbs, I would say half of that.

I've had issues getting hook sets with those types of hooks for some reason.

Yep. 10lb braid to flouro leader, uni to uni. This has been a standard in salt fishing for a long time for me and works great for bass in clear water as well. Seems to be catching on for bass recently. The only negative aspect is your introducing a point of failure in your line with the braid to leader knot, but if tied correctly the break strength will be pretty high. My 10 braid to 15 flouro knot breaks at 14lbs.

I've settled on 15 flouro for my baitcaster. In my area in NW FL most of my bass fishing is done in crystal clear water with lots of structure. My baitcaster also has primary duty dealing with big redfish in salt so 15 is a minimum for it. The 15 flouro averages the same diameter as 12/14 mono in most brands, and feels a bit more sensitive to me. Flouro is also said to be less visible in the water, but all human eye tests I've seen make this debatable. I only use braid on my spinners, but again I'm a primarily salt guy.

Never had good luck with spinnerbaits, so I use bladed swim jigs, a lot more weedless for me.

$250 worth of hooks and gear... So 1 - 2 hooks.

No experience with those, but the floating worms I've used from various companies seem to just have some micro bubbles injected in the plastic. Durability suffers but they do float. If you can work with the elaztech stuff all of that line from Zman or Strike King floats. I'm not a big fan of elaztech when rigging weedless so it might not work for your situation. The other issue with elaztech is using it with a screwlock of any sort, it simply won't go on there. You can use a lighter to heat up the screw but that's just a lot of work.