fishwizzard

I say yes, as small cranks are very effective at catching panfish!

My personal definition of "finesse bass fishing" is more or less "Fishing for bass with tackle, line, and lures that I could also have reasonable success fishing for panfish with". There is a lot of wiggle room in there, but I feel it is more about lure size then weight.

I feel like the SJR6400 is way underrated and the SJR720 isnt much better. I use 10lb braid to 7-12lb floro leaders (my normal MWF line choice) with them both. The lures I use start at 3/16oz (1/2 Zlinker on a 1/16 head) up to almost 1/2oz when I drop shot with a 3/16oz weight and a thin 4" plastic. The SJR720 has a softer tip and does better with lighter lures, but I can still throw my "standard" DS rig of 3/16oz weight and a 6" Robo on it without it feeling very overloaded. What I love about these rods is that they are the only that I have found that I like for both MWF/small jighead+plastic and drop shotting. They are a magic combo of fast enough to get great hooksets but somehow soft enough to protect thin-wire hooks, light enough to make 10" smallies a blast to catch but powerful enough to get a 3lb largemouth out of 10' of water. It's because I feel that the rating is so far off that I have had a hard time trying to find another series of rods or a blank that is close to it. I also have a mbr782 GLX and while the MagL/XF rods are for sure less powerful than it, I think they are a lot closer than the respective rod ratings would indicate. The MagL/XFast rods have just the perfect blend of power and action for a lot of the fishing I do but I would love if were possible to recreate it in a longer rod that was built with a seat and grip that I like.

There is an old "King of the Hill" episode about this very condition. I have had a harder time getting bibs/speedsuits to fit well due to having a short torso and legs relative to my waist and chest diameter. I don't wear bibs when fishing but love them for winter hiking as I can just wear a thin base layer and stay warm and more mobile then with a normal base-mid-outer layering system. I have never found a pair of bibs that was designed to be hemmed so the pair I have drags the ground when I am hiking in them which is annoying. They make $240k shotguns and $5k golf clubs, is there anyone out there making bespoke rainwear?

Man, you could fit a lot of beer and ice in an 80g tank.

I start slow for a few casts, and if nothing’s biting I speeded up for a few, but if that doesn’t work I slow it down again, etc. etc. until I get a hit. I then can start trying to figure out what’s going to work that day. I’m slowly becoming of the opinion that a high enough percentage of hits happen on the fall or immediately after that it might not be, statistically speaking, worth my time to work the jig all the way back to myself in a slow and deliberate manner. I keep meaning to carry a little notebook with me and try to actually gather some data but I’ve never actually done it. I do usualy speed it up as I get closer to the bank/boat to try and force a reaction out of any bass that might be following it. It works just often enough But I feel like I need to keep doing it.

Spending other peoples money is almost as much fun as spending mine! ? I’ve heard that about the conquest before as well, that it’s a pretty small improvement over the NRX/GLX. For me the ergonomic difference is enough to make me want one, but be willing to wait for the right deal.

Yea, I want to try a Conquest quite badly after handling one in a store, but I can wait 1-2 more years for more used ones to start showing up. It was like holding a rigid feather, crazy light in hand. But, like, it was not a $250 difference for me over the same rod with a GLX blank. I have five MBR rods, three of them being 3 Powers, a cr723 IMX, cr723 GLX, and a new model mbr783 GLX. I use them for almost any presentation that weights between 1/4oz and 3/4-7/8oz, except for more "specialized" ones, like a dropshot. They are a great jack of all trades rod, sensitive enough for bottom contact, a soft enough tip to cast great and protect thin hooks but enough butt to fish 80% of the cover I encounter up here. I think in your case, a 3 power MBR, along with your other two rods, will cover a huge range of applications and complement each other very well.

Ah, got you. There is surprisingly little kayak or boat pressure on a lot of the smaller lakes around here and there are some real jems among them. I have yet to get a snakehead out of my yak but I have been way too lazy about getting it back into difficult places.

It is very surprising how good the deals on last gen Loomis IMX and GLX rods can be. You have to look around and be ready to pounce, but I managed to put together a nice little kayak lineup of them for a lot less then I thought it would take. Take a look at one of the Loomis MBR rods, either the GLX or the Conquest. They are really really nice and a joy to fish most any presentation with. I think a 3 power MBR would complement your other two rods very nicely.

I fish flukes on the same rod that I fish open-water topwaters and jerkbaits on; Avid 6'2" M/XF Aldebaran 50 11lb Amrilo Defier mono Zoom Supers, Pearl, Black w/ chart flakes, and Hodini. Sometimes Bubblegum but I am not impressed with it over Pearl. I have never settled on a hook, there are like a half dozen in rotation. I sometimes want a heavier or lighter hook to mess with the fall rate. I have messed around with nose-hooking w/ a CPS pin a little bit but I don't like how often it snaggs on debris in the water, I fish flukes on the edges of cover or over grass most of the time and I like to be able to have a little leeway in how close to both of them I can get. I have a custom spinning rod I had made up for flukes a few years ago but I rarely use it any more, I find a casting combo so much more comfortable for all jerking, popping, and twitching lures.

What lakes in MD are you going to be fishing? I fish out of a yak (but not as often as I want to) in central MD. My kayak casting line up is a pair of 6' MH rods, a 6'6' ML rod (I went crazy, it's so long!), and a 6' 2" M rod. I generally round it out with a 6' ML spinning rod, but sometimes a 6' L casting rod comes along. I went for short rods for east of handling, more leverage, and I feel like I high-stick a lot less with very short rods. That being said, I do at times bring longer and heavier rods along, but the bread and butter is short rods with short butts.

I caught my first bass of size on a Crawler harness rigged up with a gulp worm. I was casting and retieving it as I didnt know any better.

This is what I am working with at the moment; This is my current third option, but I don't know if it is different enough from the GP ones to matter much;

Turned it on for a second but all I could do was stare transfixed at Ike's mustache.

You guys are not helping with my “only green pumpkin and blue/black” jig color system. I do have a few brown/orange jigs left that I was not going to restock, maybe I should though!

Agreed. That part of MLF is the only “useful” part for me, the rest is just entertainment. The main thing that I want to see in an expanded MFL is a renewd commitment to fish-care. All their handling rules and penalties set a great example, especially for people who don’t obsessively read fourms and don’t really get that info anyother way.

This was my “year of the jig” and what got me really into them was catching a lot of bass in spots where my ususal soft plastics never did. I started using very small jigs just to get bites and after I got more confident with the tiny jigs I started moving up in size. When I hit a new spot or visit a place for the first time in months, throwing a jig at all the high probability spots is my first move these days.

Same issue with goose down/feathers as well.

A common complaint about MLF is that it’s a “dink fest”, but has anyone ever done the math to see if the average tourny win generaly comes from catching piles of smaller bass? I tried to google around for data like this but the curret drama is all thats showing up.

That is amazing. About how much does work like that run?

The only purple plastic I use is a 6' Robo in MM3, but I am starting to think it is the only DS plastic I really need to carry. I'm sure it's confirmation bias at this point, but I swear it catches them at least 3:1 vs every other color I have tried.

Give the new E6X rod a look, I like it far more than any of the other Loomis spinning rods I have handled.

I have the same rod, bought after reading you rave about it. It’s great for jerkbaits but maybe even better for popper and walking baits. I think I could walk a wet sock with it. It’s also a very nice rod for small tubes and worms and the compact legnth makes it great for hike-in fishing.

It does look like the Walleye GLX rods do have a different seat/grip then the bass ones do, I never even though to look at walleye rods until recently.