MassYak85

I ordered a couple hair jigs and stuff from the TW black friday sale but it's not supposed to get here until next week sometime so I probably won't be fishing this weekend, but we'll see.

Yea I had the same thing happen. Ordered 16 bags of power worms when they had the rebate and sale going on, they came in 6-7 packages.

It depends mostly on my rod/reel/line and the cover. If I hook a good one on a small crankbait and lighter line I play them a bit to avoid bending out a hook or breaking off. If I hookup on a jig or t-rig they're coming to me ASAP because I know I can horse them. It also depends on fish species. I've always said that largemouth fight like you just annoyed them, and smallies fight like their life is literally on the line. I've lost many smallies on their 4th or 5th jump very close to the boat so I get them in fast and with the rod tip low to minimize that.

Cabelas has St. Croix Premier Split Grip rods on sale for 25-30% off, I am in the market for a new spinning rod but I think I'm going to hold off

I need to get down to the cape more for sure! I'll take you up on that sometime, probably won't be for a while though, I'll actually be back down in Virginia January until late June. But after that I've got 2 months before my last year of school starts so I plan on doing some serious fishing lol. I am looking forward to being around some double digits when the spawn rolls around though this spring

Yea I liked them on Facebook and see them post slammer pics sometimes. It's a bit of a haul from where I am but someday I'd definitely like to go there. Are there any good tackle shops in Central mass? I've got a few local to me that I go to every once in a while mostly for bait during ice fishing but none of them have great stock and rarely do I see swimbait stuff other than like s wavers.

I second that sentiment about the Cardiff. It's a good reel but I feel the same way about the drag. But your the price I don't think it can be beat for tossing the highest baits. I use mine with a heavy okuma guide select for treble hook baits and twenty pound CXX. I also have a Lexa and it is also a good reel. Definitely more refined but it also has it flaws. If I were you unless you got an insane deal on the Lexa I'd stick with getting the Cardiff.

When ordering directly from Mike is he pretty quick (let's say less than a month)?

What did you have in mind for a 400 dollar spinning combo? I'm all for buying what you can afford, but it seems like you can't really afford that right now lol. If I were you, I'd go on TW and get whichever 75 - 100 dollar (ish) rod you like, grab a pflueger president, you'll have yourself a nice combo for around 100 - 120 bucks, use the rest for your most anticipated baits. Then see if you can get the baitcasters as gifts, and like @Spy said, just grab the rest of your baits (and line for rods) as you can afford it piece by piece.

They had it described on their website as "Medium Fast Action", but I have also heard that Dobyns tend to run lighter. One thing I did find kind of weird is their Fury spinning lineup seems pretty sparse. The 703SF is the heaviest and longest they go. I'm surprised there is no 7'3" or MH rods like in the Champion lineup. Seems like a missed opportunity.

That's actually where I got mine from! I just was sick of waiting for TW to get them in. Only reason I ordered it on backorder was it was during a sale but it wasn't worth the 10 bucks to me to wait months and months to finally get it.

Yea KVD for me as well. Mostly to tame CXX on my swimbait rod.

I am looking to change up my spinning "arsenal" (a whole 2 rods), or perhaps even simplify it down to one. Here's where I am. I don't use either of mine a whole lot anymore other than fishing weightless stick worms, but currently I have a 6'10" ML XF spinning rod that I use mainly for dropshotting as I don't feel like it has enough power to set the hook for stuff like shakeyheads, and a 7'0" MH F that I use for senkos, flukes, light jigs, shakeyheads, light t-rigs etc. Basically my question is do you feel the 703SF is versatile enough to cover all these techniques? And how does it compare to other "Medium" rods of other brands, does it still have good backbone to get fish out of cover or is it on the softer side?

Wow this thread has slowed down especially considering all the black friday deals. I had to put together a small TW order. Got some hair jigs and Iovino jig trailers (it's cold up here lol), a couple stanley spinnerbaits to try, replaced some of the tungsten weights I lost this year, and got some yamamoto grubs and a couple swimjigs. I also hopped on Ebay and picked up some Winter reading material. In-Fisherman's Critical Concepts 1, 2 and 3, In Pursuit of Giant Bass by Bill Murphy, and the classic Spoonplugging by Buck Perry.

@Mr. Aquarium Sounds like you're having better luck than me! Thanks for that Hudd picture. It almost seems like you could take out the harness and use the cavity left behind as a space to compress if you somehow rigged it weedless. I'm not sure I want to try it with mine but maybe. Do you use custom hair jigs or is there a brand you'd recommend? I want to try a few but not sure what to get.

I think the double whammy for us Northern folks is a lot of times you've got to fish super slow sometimes to get bit, like 5-10 minute casts slow, or just straight deadsticking. Now if you're fishing that slow and don't have electronics, or aren't very familiar with the lake, finding fish is going to be VERY difficult, and if you aren't getting bit...it's difficult to understand why. Were you in the wrong spot, fishing too fast, wrong bait, were the fish just turned off from the weather, from turnover, did you simply not make enough casts in that area to come across sluggish fish? The issue is you could fish an hour in one area, doing everything right, and not get bit....and you would never know it and likely move on to a new strategy. It's a grind for sure, and electronics IMO are going to help you out now more than ever because you simply don't have enough time to eliminate unproductive water by purely fishing. It's a high percentage game and I feel like you really need to commit to an area that you have confidence holds fish, and just grind it out. Now is the time to fish the lake you know like the back of your hand. I've had very little luck so far this November, some decent action in earlier in the month but the last few weeks it's been nearly dead. I've fished Hudds, jigs, slow hopping lipless cranks, and deadsticking large swimbaits. I fish mainly from a kayak with no electronics. If I go out again I will probably try dropshotting deep areas on the lakes I know well. Also I feel you on the whole "6 casts per hour". I've slowly forced myself to fish that slow and it's tedious. I fish for fun too but I also am okay with going fishing and not catching fish, I still find it enjoyable, a little less so than if I was loading the boat sure but I;m content to grind it out while being the only soul on a lake.

1a. Wacky Rigged Stick-O 1b. Lethal Weapon SwimJig + Keitech Fat Impact 2. Wiggle Wart 3. Small Football Jig 4. Spro Rat 40 size

The best part is swinging on a fish, breaking the line (d**n pike), and then just standing there for a few seconds trying to decide which is worse, losing a large fish or the $25 hookset you just did.

I hope you had a better day in Plymouth than I did at Quabog @DogBone_384. Water temps were 37-39, that baby is ready to freeze! Not a sniff from any fish, tried fishing hudds super slow most of the time, also tried a jig with no luck. I did manage to find a little bit of rock cover in what I thought was a complete mud bowl, so at least I have that information for future use.

As far as the TW sale goes the only things they truly exclude are low margin items. Stuff like expensive sonars, trolling motors, and certain high end lure brands like Megabass, and I would assume some of the custom swimbaits like Roman Made. But for stuff like Diawa or Shimano I have always had my discount applied once I got my confirmation email, not in cart. If in doubt just call them.

Like iabass said, they inly say that because they are not allowed to advertise the sale for those brands. I've bought stuff from Diawa and other "excluded" brands before and they always apply the discount anyways.

For any swimbait guys Shellback customs is offering 20% off any orders tomorrow and Friday. http://www.shellbackcustoms.com/

I'll be down there January through June and I was down there last summer. It was tough going for me. I ended up going to Western Branch and Smith a lot in my kayak and never had great luck. If you do some good searching on Google maps though there are surprising amounts of tiny little neighborhood ponds and drainage areas, some are accessible, many aren't, you have to look. But I had better luck in those than from my kayak at the major reservoirs. I'm sure it was mostly me not knowing where the fish were, and that was middle of summer too so I'm not sure how winter fishing is down there.

I have that rod and moderate fast is right on point. I use mine mostly for topwaters, spinnerbaits, smaller swimbaits.

I wouldn't say there's ever a magic bullet, just that once you find fish (location is definitely going to trump lure choice) subtle differences can increase your success, it could be color change, size change, etc. I'd rather be prepared to make the change is all I'm saying. I can't imagine anyone would disagree that at certain times a pink jerkbait and the same ghost minnow jerkbait would yield different results, obviously that's a little extreme but you get my point.