TorqueConverter

The line you're looking for is called "braid".

The glorified ball jig head the baits use doesn't play nice with weeds but that shouldn't be a problem for OP. Just sayin.

Get yourself some epoxy and use that in place of the hot glue stick that comes with the kit. That d**n hot glue glue never holds.

Hook Line and Sinker (HLS) if I'm not mistaken.

A junk reel or a ACE hardware store's bolt bin area. Bring your old ones with you.

Every shade of red that exists on earth and then one that matches the body of water's common forage item.

B-but Japan?!

Bitsy bugs are great pond baits but the weed guard and the head design leave a lot to be desired. The BOOYAH Baby Boo is a better jig IMO. A 3.5'' beaver type bait makes for a great trailer.

I'd try out the new strike king bait out the two, but why not both and also BPS Static Shad? I crank in 40-50 degree range and the scatter rap baits fished real slow, as in so slow they don't scatter, are killer. There's something about that slow tight wiggle they have that cold water bass love. Traditional square bills fished slow also produce well as do the DT-4 and 6. Don't be afraid to think outside the Shad Rap clone box for cold water bass.

Bluegill, yellow perch, and brown/rusty crawfish are common crank colors that match the hatch.

Hey, they called it "vanish" for a reason, right? On nanofill there are 2 schools of thought: believers and haters. The only way to pick your camp is to buy the stuff and make up your mind about it. I'm of the believer variety. PPS8 or 832 as well as quite few other 8 carrier braids should work well for you, although I would go with a #20 or #30. Fireline is actually rated at 50% of what it should be making #14 Fireline a #28ish braided product. I'm guessing this is where the #10 and #15 rating you're looking are coming from (Fireline)

Just about anything is going to be better than Fireline Crystal. Regular Fireline and perhaps even dental floss is better than Crystal. I prefer Suffix 832 over Power Pro Super 8 Slick for reasons I don't think matter much on spinning tackle, so PPS8 should be an excellent line for your application and worlds better than Fireline Crystal. Might want to take a look at Nanofill too.

Not to hijack the thread but has anyone gone the Reaction Strike Revolution shad route? Are they junk too?

Jigs, weedless wacky rigged soft stick bait, shaky head and a texas rigged soft plastic of your choice. I'm partial to rubber skirt arkey head jigs and shaky heads with a jiggly creature like a Flappin Hogg II sloooow dragged and dead stick'd on the bottom in cold water. In warm water I like texas rigged plastics with some type of built in flapping or twisting motion like a Pit Boss or Rage Tail product.

This pic best illustrates the uniformity of the mag braking in relation to spool speed.

BPS or a matzuo or something along those lines. Most likely not worth anything,

Are you speaking about regular mag brakes or that digital shimano brake? Traditional mag brakes, if anything, seem to apply more breaking at the end of the cast. The braking is actually uniform throughout the cast with conventional mag brakes but it is that the braking is more noticeable at slow spool speeds (like you encounter towards the end of the cast as the bait is sailing towards the target). Conventional mag brakes are well suited to shortening casting distance so you don't overshoot your target while centrifugal are well suited to controlling spool acceleration mitigating the risk of the spool paying out line faster than the bait traveling in the air can take (backlash). Dual braking is where it's at. Even daiwa knows this and their magforce Z braking uses a centrifugal forces to extend the inductor closer to the mags.

What's a catalog?

I've used the red cast, which is the "castable" cajin line instead of the marine grade trolling line stuff and it's still an uncastable, high memory nightmare. I use #50 vermilion red Power Pro on my jig stick and love the stuff for line watching. I wish could get Super 8 slick or 832 in that color.

BPS Sassy sally swimbait and rage tail space monkey paired to a KVD swim jig has been good ot me ths year. I never had a soft swimbait with an action I liked until the Sassy Sally and that's thanks to it being a Skinny Dipper knock off. The rage tail products are made from too soft a plastic given their high action design IMO, but the Space Monkey is a tank that lasts for fish after fish after fish. The KVD swim jig likes to "ride up" a weed stalk rather than trying to plow through it, making it highly weedless and the inverted wire bait keeper that stabs into the bait rather than poking out through it, is genius.

Your Lews aren't actually "Lews" they are Doyos branded as Lews. Doyo sells their reels to a number of companies including BPS and pure fishing who in turn, brand the Doyo as their own product. Doyo does make solid reels though although parts can be difficult to get a hold of years down the line if the reel is no longer in production.

A guy could fish for just about any predator species that swims using nothing but rapalas, but that's no fun.

Ready for a shocker OP? Abu reels aren't actually Abu reels and neither are the Quantums. Abu vs quantum is really a which badge engineered Koren OEM reels is best argument. Abus are Doyos and Doyo makes some good stuff (lews, BPS, PureFishing ect). so, "Abu" gets my vote.

I have a Bagley DB3 that rattles but is marked Bagley DB-3 on the bottom instead of the "heart" symbol that it should have being a rattling model. Somebody done goofed.

Design obsolencense. These companies are in it to make money as they rightfully should but sometimes the bounderies are pushed as to what we the consumer will put up with. Look as the GYCB soft plastics. I understand that the baits are soft and have a lot of salt content but they also have zero elasticity meaning that when pulled on they instantly tear. The lack of stretch dosen't put more fish in the boat but it does get anglers buying more of their product and lots and lots of anglers (including me) buy their products. Either give in and accept it or fight back with your wallet.