blckshirt98

Grats, nice haul!

12lb fluoro is WAY too thick for a spinning reel, it'll shoot off like a spring. 7-8lb fluoro at most is where you wanna cap the lb test on a spinning reel.

NetBait Paca for sure! Those flappers have amazing action on the water!

I have straight fluoro on a casting reel I use for crankbaits/chatterbaits. If the lure I'm throwing doesn't have enough weight to it the reel is very prone to backlashes. Just the way I have the brakes dialed in, doesn't work well for throwing either lighter lures or into the wind. Do you have the same issues if you use a heavier lure or add some extra to your brake settings?

Call the St. Croix Factory and see if you can still get 2 Rage rods for like $80.

The "curling" means you've just stretched/burned your line and created a weak spot. Use saliva for lube, and be cautious about which end to pull first to cinch the knot down before tightening it.

I used to use a uni-to-uni know but had breakage issues no matter how carefully I tied. I now use a small Spro Power Swivel and have zero issues. Don't be afraid/ashamed to use a swivel if you have failures at the knot.

Does anyone else that fishes from the shore have a weird habit of picking up lead weights they find along the shoreline? I guess it gives me something to do if the fishing is slow, and also I like to think I'm helping the environment by getting rid of the lead. I have a bucketful of lead at home and now wondering what to do with it. Some of the lead weights can be re-used but others have had the tie loop rot away/detach and are no longer usable. Can people that make their own weights at home use the scrap lead or is it too "dirty" and should I just toss it into the trash?

I like braid will all of my spinning reels. I do have one spooled with 8lb Nanofill and one thing I have noticed is that I get a lot of wind drag with the Nanofil that keeps me from getting good distance on casts compared to other reels where I have straight 2 or 4 lb mono (and I'm sure fluoro would have the same characteristics as the mono). I also get some wind drag with the basic PowerPro or Sufix 832 I prefer, but definitely notice more wind drag with PowerPro Slick 8. Seems like the "softer" the line, the more wind drag you'll get that will cut into your casting distance.

I like spinning gear with light/finesse stuff, especially when throwing light lures because I always bird nest like crazy trying to cast light lures on casting gear. I tried heavier lures with spinning gear and it just didn't feel right to me. I tried on both a Shimano Clarus Heavy and a Mojo Bass Med Heavy and it just felt like too much work/strain on the 2500 size reels I was using. I've heard that among East Coast surf striper fisherman that spinning gear is the norm, while it's the opposite out here on the West Coast. There was a guy featured in a magazine recently fishing I believe some of the FLW events who uses nothing but spinning gear, and makes the payouts. I was pier fishing once and some old Asian lady had a spinning rod attached to a casting rod that she had flipped upside down and was catching more fish than anyone else on the pier Bottom line is that there are no hard and fast rules - give it a try and if it works for you, go for it.

As in you hooked a 16" snake onto a hook and used it as bait?! For me it was having a dropshot rig break off at the braid/fluoro join, then re-casting to the same spot after re-tying, and catch that exact same fish, complete with my dropshot rig hooked in it's mouth.

I have some Simms sun gloves with the open palm and finger loops () and to be honest they feel weird and I don't like them. I got some of the basic Phenix open finger gloves instead () and I MUCH prefer these.

I always fish it on a straight retreive, just vary the retreival speed. Some chatterbaits burn well, some do very well fished really slow. The Picasso Shock Blade is one that seemed to work the best when you're trying to use the slowest retreive possible, and, it even has a nice flutter on the drop if you want to kill it and let it fall (i don't fish my chatterbaits like this but I always check my baits in the water in front of me to see how they move in the water based on retrieve, drop, jerking, sweeping, etc).

I hope KVD signed those 98-99 extra squarebills before he sold them for extra jack.

I have a tendancy to always need to "collect" something, and right now it's fishing tackle. However I'll always hit a tipping point where the tradeoff between space/time to keep things in order turns into actual work that takes over the enjoyment of owning it. I think i've hit that point with my fishing stuff because now when I go through a pack of plastics I feel a sense of relief thinking "whew, one more pack of plastics done with" instead of "one pack of plastics done with, now I need to buy more to replace it".

Has anyone had any luck with a red/bright orange/crawfish chatterbait color? I have one I tried throwing for a bit last year but that thing just did not draw any strikes!

Sexy Shad is my top choice, then something like baby bass where there's green mixed with some lighter highlights, and then black/blue.

If the combo gives you zero problems and you love fishing with it, why get rid of it? Fish it until you can't fish it no more, no matter how many more rod/reel combos you buy.

I'm assuming this is for some kind of finesse presentation using a spinning outfit, and I'll go up to 24-30" for a leader.

Use a swivel and attach both ends via Palomar. No shame in using a swivel, though some people see it as using mudflaps on a bike. Might not be the cool thing to do, but it works.

For an actual rod the M1s are fantastic!

It's popular out here on the west coast. Really easy to use topwater lure, just cast and retrieve, and you can cast it a mile. Worth adding especially if you feel lazy and don't feel like actively working a topwater.

The Dream Shot is nice but I get a lot of strikes where fish just bite off the tail end and you end up with half a Dream Shot. I've used the Warning Shot a few times and it's caught fish for me, but it also has a much much larger profile than the Dream Shot. Since I like to use size 4 hooks on a dropshot, I prefer the Dream Shot because of the smaller profile, even though I go through a lot more baits. PS The Sharpshooter is an awesome bait, I like it better than the Warning Shot or Kill Shot.

I've heard from a couple of other people on a different forum that the Elite Tech Smallmouth rods were hands down their favorite rod for sensitivity and just being flat out fun to fish with.

If I were catching for food/survival I'd use live bait in a heartbeat, but I'm just looking at it from the "sport" perspective which I can agree can get condescending at times. I'm looking at from the point of view as what is/isn't allowed in tournament fishing. Live bait isn't allowed in pretty much every bass tournament I've ever heard of, so I look at it similar to say if someone were to use a seine net or bowfish for bedding bass or use a longline rig with 10 hooks danging from the surface.