WIGuide

The BPS Tourney Special is a decent rod in that price range.

I put my hook on the keeper and then use a BPS Drop Shot keeper to hold the weight. Then put the whole thing in a Rod Glove and Reel Glove and into the locker it goes.Your other option would be to put the weight in the holder you have and buy a Fuji EZ holder and hook the hook onto that.

Males will usually be smaller and skinnier overall. Also there lower jaw will be more pointed like a v shape where a females will be more round. Even with both of those it's not 100% sure fire on which is which. The only sure fire way I've found is to give'em a kiss and put them back in the water. If they swim off really quick trying to get away you know it was a male. If it jumps back up in excitement or slowly swims away you know it was a female lol.

The 3rd tap is your buddy tapping you on the shoulder saying "you should have set the hook!".

Call up Ron at Valley Sports and see what kind of a deal he can get you on a St. Croix Mojo 6'9" ML/XF and a Abu Garcia Revo S in the 20 or 30 size (leaning towards the 20 for ds). I'm guessing you'll be right on budget with that.

I'd probably go with the HDS because you can expand on it with more options. Although the elite is a decent unit with more features right off the bat, that's about where it's going to stay. With the HDS you can expand and add way more in the way of accessories to it. That's just what I would do though, if the Elite has everything you want then no reason to go for the HDS.

You'd be fine to just tape them up, just don't tape the ends together.

I second the "nope", just hook them up one at a time and you'll be good to go. No blow up's!

Something else to try would be a brightly colored spinnerbait with painted blades. Either chartreuse or chartreuse and white on the blades. Smallies are notorious for hitting going for gaudy colored lures. The other thing to are crawfish colors. Smallies tend to go crazy for either.

Unless the grass is all the way up to the surface, you can usually fish a square bill through it. Keep your rod tip higher and reel slower, or reel it down until you feel it ticking the top of the grass and then kill it and let it float up a bit before you resume your retrieve. A swimbait around, through, and over would work as well.

Depending on how bad the clear coat is, you can wet sand it and then follow that up with rubbing compound and then polishing compound and finally a few layers of wax. I'll bring it back to close to new looking as long as it's not too far gone. Total cost of that project is about $30-50 and an investment of your time. Otherwise a fiberglass place can do the same with a much higher price. I'm not 100% sure on the price of a wrap anymore since I looked into it a while ago, but I believe it was somewhere in the range of $3K. If you do get a wrap though, you may be able to offset the cost with sponsorships.

A lot of times being a foot or two off is the difference between a fish or no fish. It all has to do with their strike zone. If you want a great example of accuracy at the highest level I'll give you two examples both of which involve Jimmy Houston. Both happened at seminars that he was giving. At one there was a question on setting the hook, so Mr. Houston told my dad to lift his toes up and then from approximately 50' or so proceeded to make a cast and put his bait right under my dad's foot so he could step on the bait. The other occasion he had told my dad to hold still and placed his bait on the few inches on the seat of the chair that was in between my dad's legs. Accurate is just that...dead on accurate putting the bait exactly where you want it. As far as how accuracy relates to fishing in the real world, I'll give you another example. This past summer I had the opportunity to be a boat captain/guide for a youth tournament. Being that we were taking young anglers some of which had very little angling experience, we were allowed to make casts for them if needed. We pulled up to a stump on the end of a point and both boys in my boat tried casting to it. They were landing within a few feet of it but couldn't quite get it right on. One asked if I would make a cast for him. I put it right next to the stump and handed him the rod back and when he engaged the reel the fish was already on.

Upgraded to a 97 Ranger Sport R70 mid summer. Got a great deal on it and after I sold my 86 Ranger 320V I ended up making $200 after tax.

What kind of boat are you doing this with?

I pretty much only cast a drop shot and as long as there's water there it'll work.

Yes, because nothing says football more than a man who wears Ugg Boots...

Congrats and enjoy! It'll open up a whole new aspect of fishing for you.

If you have a cable drive tm it's pretty easy to get it on the trailer. Back the trailer in a little deeper than you would if you were going to drive it on with the outboard. Drive up to the trailer with the tm and begin to lift it some when you get by the back bunks but keep the prop in the water and keep it going until you get closer. Pick the tm out of the water and let it coast the rest of the way up. Depending on the landing, you might be able to make it right up to the winch stand, but regardless you should be very close. Clip it and winch it up the last few inches and you're good to go.

St. Croix Legend Xtreme & Quantum Exo retail $650

The SCIII offers a very noticeable step up in sensitivity over the SCII. For that price you got an absolute steal!

If you don't put railing on it it wouldn't make for a bad fishing boat. They handle water well and are very stable, however once you add railing they become kites in the wind.

Best bass fishing day is every time I go out!

Clearly slonezp is showing off his angling skills...anyone can hook into a monster, but it takes true talent to catch something that small. First you've got to coax it to actually hit which in perspective would be like convincing a human to try to attack a 4' hamburger. Then you've got the challenge of getting the hook to actually fit in it's mouth which isn't easy. Finally, you've got to be able to realize you've hooked into such a monster which depending on the technique can be pretty darn difficult. Congrats on being such a master angler lol

Although it's not perfect for the situation it'll get you by. As stated before, you might want to look into a brake upgrade, but other than that you'll be fine. Don't expect great gas mileage, but don't be worried about engineers comments about it dropping. That's normal for any gas engine when pulling any weight.

In between trips everything of mine stays in the boat. Storing it for winter though is when it all gets pulled out.