Turkey sandwich

I take a soft cooler and fill it with Gatorade sport bottles filled with water. I'll usually freeze them at least partially overnight.

Yeah, it'll work, but it's stupid expensive to not be used for it's intended purpose. I'll even use spools of Maxima to build my own leaders down to about 3x equivalent for the fly rod, and generally use 12lb - 0X for streamer fishing. That 30yd spool will last forever as fly tippet. It would last me a few months as leader material for spinning gear.

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

Are you planning on spooling that spinning reel with mono or braid?

To add to this... an alternative is to know the best ambush spots on that point. Larger fish may not necessarily be deeper, but possibly dominating the better ambush points. To further borrow from the restaurant analogy, celebrities often get the best seats and preferred service in restaurants. Think of the dominant predators as celebrities. Whatever the dominant predators are in a body of water, be it bass, pike, musky, large trout, walleye, etc, they're going to dominate the best feeding positions based on their feeding style. In your case, WRB's suggestion could be spot on, or they may be sitting behind the boulder on the edge of the weed line 20 feet away at the same depth.

Make it a specific dark alley, explain that you won't be wearing pants, and that if they want the price they need to refer to you as "The Alley Cat" followed with a pronounced purring sound. From that point on, speak of yourself only as the third person as "The Alley Cat". Actual conversation about seriously selling stuff aside, you can run with this as far as you want to make things awkward. Explain that you'll only accept exchange of obscure foreign currency like Icelandic Krona or Chik-fil-et sauce packets. Require they wear bathing caps. Refer to them as "The Rooster". If you're going to make it weird, go hard.

I fish jerk baits on a number of different rods, depending upon wind, what kind of presentation is getting hit (slower walking versus fast and erratic), and how accurate I need to be with my casting. I also fish braid to leader for both, crankbaits and jerk baits, and would only consider spooling to straight mono/FC/Copoly if I committed to an exclusive F or XF jerkbait rod. In which case, I would seek out something seriously stretchy because SOMETHING has to give to keep treble hooks pinned/under consistent pressure.

I've worked in sales most of my professional career. I have stories. Lots of them. Many that are best left off of a public forum. Generally, lots of people suck. But beyond that, step 1 from above holds up.

I was thinking the same thing. I don't know if I've ever been on a river flowing 70,000cfs+ that isn't the St. Lawrence.

Welcome to the forum! The E6x series is a popular line of rods, and most folks here like them. However, you're asking a lot out of one rod. Can you cast all of those things with the rods you've mentioned? Yes. Will that rod allow you to present Texas Rigs, spinnerbaits, and crankbaits equally well? No. There is no perfect "do everything" rod. But if you needed to choose only one rod and need something versatile, I'd advise you to start with a 7' Med Fast or 7' MH Fast. For $200, lots of manufacturers have great rods. Personally, at that price point, I really like the St. Croix Avid X and Fenwick Aetos lines.

I don't like throwing treble hooked baits on anything with an XF tip. The benefit of the slower action is keeping the fish pinned when they jump/headshake/change direction/etc - essentially all things that create slack. I don't use moderate action rods because I fear fish ripping the hooks out or to allow fish to "engulf" a lure. I use it because the deeper bend allows it to keep pressure on the fish while compensating for the leverage/movement the treble hooks give the fish. The way I see it, something has to give, be it the action of the rod, or some seriously stretchy line, and I (personally) do not like stretchy line. I can see some reason for using a MF or even F (if the rod manufacturer has a fairly "soft" fast action) for certain presentations, but I only see an XF creating many more problems than benefits. I have no trouble moving bass, often in current, with moderate action rods.

Bingo.

Without demonstrating value the system falls apart.

I don't know Kentucky Lake (other than some of the same basic stuff WTB posted above), so I don't really know much about the scale of the map, bottom composition, weeds, etc, etc. Kentucky Lake has good populations of both smallmouth and largemouth, I believe. Which species are you targeting? While largemouth and smallmouth like similar things, they do have some different preferences come the spawn. On the first screen shots there are small areas where I would expect to see some spawning bass, but none that are going to be the main spawning sites on that reservoir. There are some saddles near the road beds, what looks like a hump, maybe some stretches along one or two of the island, etc that if they are protected from current, have decent bottom composition, etc will likely hold some spawning bass. But there isn't likely going to be enough to make it worth fishing any sort of "spawn" pattern in those areas. These aren't big flats, nor are they large, shallow stretches along those great big creek arms. Those are going to likely be the prime spawning areas on that lake. For a post spawn pattern, find those areas and move into adjacent deeper water in the channels, or back out of the channels toward the main lake.

I know nothing of the science, and can only speculate, but I can say that coffee tubes do work.

St. Croix is phenomenal on the customer service end. Feelfree just kept responding to emails telling me how good their customer service was, while absolutely sucking at actually solving problems. As for getting good stuff on the cheap, I've heard that they sometimes have great deals at their factory, but if you check out their bargain bin, sometimes you'll find some pretty killer gear discounted like crazy.

someone brought this rod up on the LTB thread floating around and I was super stoked when I saw the Legend X on Tackle Direct. It's an SCV/SCVI blank with all of the bells and whistles of the Legend Elite or Legend Extreme series, just with a cork split grip handle. I own the current generation of Legend Elite in a 7' MH F jig rod. I haven't fished a GLX, NRX, or Megabass, so I can't compare them. I can tell you that the current Legend Elite is the best stick I've ever fished and that I am incredibly happy with it. However, for most presentations I prefer split cork, and if it were available last year, I would likely own the Legend X instead. St. Croix's new Legend Elite/Extreme/X lines really are built to compete with the best rods made.

7' MH F casting. It is one fantastic jig rod. They hooked me up after I snapped a tip on a Rage (my fault) for something like $150. I wanted a LTB, but they didn't have it in stock, and they substituted it and discounted it for me. Their customer service is absolutely second to none. In comparison - I own a Feelfree Lure. They sent me a rudder kit that was missing half of the hardware, and had TONS of hardware that wasn't even intended for my kayak (it's a secondary manufacturer that makes their rudder kits and they have no direct oversight). It took 4-5 months of going back and forth between me asking them to send me a hardware kit because I couldn't tell them exactly which pieces were missing (because the kit didn't come with so much as an inventory list). Well, it took posting a complaint on the Feelfree owner's Facebook group for them to eventually say "send us the whole kit and we'll send you a new one". They bashed me on the page, despite being respectful, and banned me from the group for complaining about their customer service. While I generally like my Lure, I will never buy another boat from Feelfree, but I will buy rods from St. Croix for as long as I'm able to get on the water.

This is how I end up spending money... I love my Legend Elite and they seem like they're essentially a split grip version of the same rod. Now I want to buy stuff that I don't need.

When I think of topwater, I think pretty similar to the guys above. Action and profile come first. After that, I match conditions by keeping it simple. I generally have white, black, and a color to match whatever the natural forage is in most of my topwater baits.

Great fish!

@Gundog covered the bases. @smalljaw67 also fishes the Susquehanna a lot. I grew up on the North Branch, and I still fish it a lot. @J Francho was also spot on about following Jeff Little. I haven't used him as a guide, but his instructionals on river smallmouth fishing are probably the best out there. April into May is generally your pre-spawn into the spawn, and can be awesome for both numbers and size. In the spring, water temperature, river clarity, and flow determine pretty much everything and will determine whether you're throwing big spinnerbaits, a drop shot, or a grub on an 1/8oz head. I don't know the gauge around Duncannon well enough to be familiar with the levels, so reaching out to a tackle shop, guide, or someone who fishes from a local launch to get familiar with the levels would be a good start. Also, because you'll see a wide variety of water with fish holding likely in different places, prepare to do some junk fishing or jumping between patterns. Smallmouth, in general, can move a lot, and that time of year water temperature and flow rate are especially huge. If the river is up and cloudy, you'll be finding fish off of points, on the tails of islands, and holding close to shoreline structure. Fish can be caught flipping jigs along submerged vegetation (not unlike fishing in the south for largemouth), or working the current seams along large current breaks with whatever the water clarity dictates. Fishing for smallmouth in chocolate milk-is water is very, very difficult even slow rolling a double Colorado, Rattle Trap, or a jig with 300 rattles on it. If you find dark water, look for creek mouths likely bringing in clearer water and fish the seams around them. If you're going to find active fish, that's your best bet. If the water is lower/warmer, smallies will put on their feedbags and sit close to fast water along wing dams, boulder fields, tailouts, ledges, etc. These will be active fish and can be caught with 3/4 of your tackle box. Along faster, shallower water in the spring, it's hard to beat a good shallow/squarebill crank, tubes (I generally rig them on tube jig hooks ranging from 1/8-3/8 oz depending upon current and water level), 4" grubs (1/8-1/4oz), soft plastic swimbaits and soft plastic jerkbaits, finesse jig/craw, and even football jig/craw along gravel/weed edges. As for presentation, I can make a bunch of suggestions. How familiar are you with river/stream fishing versus lakes? Are you familiar with presenting in current? If you catch some rough weather, or have a tough time with reading a river/boat positioning/presenting in current it can be a frustrating place. If you just cover your basics, on the Susquehanna leading into the spawn, you could be in for world class smallmouth fishing.

Welcome to the forum! Some forum members might be able to make some helpful suggestions. What are you planning on using it for throwing that much weight? Are you looking for something for bass or for fishing inshore? Are you set on cork handles? Can you give a little more info? I purchased a 7' MH Fast for my dad a few years ago built on the same blank as the Premier, and it has a ton of backbone, and he's enjoyed it. For the $100 range, they're good quality rods still. I can't say that I've ever really had a need to throw anything that heavy, and I generally use casting gear for most stuff over 1/2 oz.

The LTB series is a very popular series of rods, and if given long enough, you'll likely hear a ton of personal reasons why half this forum either loves them or dislikes them. Again, many of those are going to be 100% personal taste. If I could make a suggestion, I'd reconsider your approach. I think that instead of asking the question, "which is the best rod in the line up?", you're much, much better off asking, "What types of lures am I planning on presenting, and which rod(s) would serve that purpose best?" It's not uncommon to be overwhelmed or to not know where to start, but you're going to be much better off by changing your approach a bit and asking the right questions.

You likely have some really cool multi species options along the coast. North Carolina will still get striper runs in the spring and redfish pretty much year round.