BrackishBassin

I’m right hand dominant, so I choose to fish with my dominant hand (right) and reel with my nondominant hand (left). The only benefit I can see, personally, to using your nondominant hand to fish would be that it might give you better control of fish that you’re lipping and/or cradling next to the boat. Being a bank beater, it’s not an issue that I face often. So, I’ve stuck with what makes sense for me.

Thanks @Chance_Taker4! Must've seen my thread about the local crawfish population. Can't wait to rig these up and start tossing them! Jigs and craws are my goal for 2018. Couldn't have put together a better starter pack for me!

I included it the in package. When you’ve got a tournament grade rig kit, the branding needs to be on point. It’s a tough market out there.

Didn’t know if we were supposed to put our forum names on the gifts, so I didn’t. Hope that new rig kit treats you well! Feel free to post pictures of all the massive bass it catches.

This even better than waiting for my LTB every month.

Sent mine today! Didn’t mark who it was from, but I hope they enjoy it.

I don’t do jigs, but I’ve been playing with a lathe to make poppers. If it were open to other types of baits, I may be game.

That’s interesting. Doesn’t seem to line up with Maryland DNR’s map of species and their ranges.

Having issues as well. Slow to load on PC and phone.

A good way to tell if a spinning rod and reel are matched well is to look at the line between the reel and the first guide. Ideally, you want the line to go straight from the reel through the first guide without a severe bend in the line. Meaning the line isn’t touching that first guide. Any angle means your line is constantly under tension and rubbing against that guide, which will damage the line over time. It’s hard to explain verbally, but I can throw up a picture later, if you’d like.

Anyone tried it with rubber bands instead of bobber stops? That’s all I use to peg t-rigs and they work great.

True enough. Rule thumb for saltwater is 10lbs per ounce of lead/bait. Fishing the surf, I’ve always got a shock leader tied on that’s significantly stronger than the main line.

I don’t know how I’d do it with the situation you’re describing. However, I do use braid with mono backing. So, I buy 150 yard spools of braid and spoil up 75 yards. I go to a park, put the line around a tree limb, and walk it out while holding both ends of the line. Then I cut the line, spool the reel, and re-roll the remaining 75 yards back onto the factory spool. Next 75 yards is ready to go when I need to re-spool the reel. Only ever had one issue - some genius walking his dog that didn’t listen when I told him I had 75 yards of braid out. Asked him to walk around twice. He told me he would be fine and then promptly closelined himself. Ended up in a tangle of 50lb braid and his dog’s leash.

True enough! Although, I’ve lost my fair share of fish to dock pilings covered in barnacles.

Just yanking you freshwater guys' collective chain. It's been hard for me to adjust to the bass fishing frame of mind having spent 99% of my time fishing saltwater. Just this past summer I landed a ray that had a 4ft 'wingspan' on 30lb braid with a 25lb mono leader. Fought him through, around, and under dock pilings and then across an oyster bar. So, being told that I should be using 65lb braid to catch fish that weigh in the neighborhood of 3-5lbs (Not holding my breath to see something like an 8lb bass locally.) just blows my mind.

Thanks! However, it's not a 'lake'. It's a pond. No boat launches, and I've only ever seen one other person fish it. He told me that he'd fished it 10 or 15 times and never caught a fish out of it. I didn't mention to him that I fished it at least 4 times a month and had caught everything from crappie to my PB. Just thanked him and moved along.

I’m a bank beater, so I stick with just 3. I’ve got a MH Fast casting with 50lb braid on it. Use it for frogs, worms, jigs, some topwaters. But I consider it the ‘sitting still’ setup. Next is the M Fast casting with 12lb mono. Use it for cranks, jerkbaits, bladed jigs, etc. It’s the ‘moving’ setup. Last is a ML spinning with 15lb braid and various leader strengths based on what I’m doing but almost always between 6 and 12lb test. Use it for some weightless plastics, smaller cranks and jerkbaits, drop shots, etc. It’s the finesse or too fricken’ windy setup.

It’s a guideline. Meant more to avoid snapping your line on a hookset. You crazy bass fisherman insist on bringing a nuke to a knife fight (65lb braid for bass). That’s why he was saying he’d like to set it and forget it, but can’t. To save his drag washers. Wasn’t because he was switching lines.

I’ve traditionally set my drag to 1/3 the breaking strength of the line (using a pull scale) that I’m using. But it ends up all over the place by the end of the day. When I’m actually fishing and not planning on pulling out a scale and looking like I have OCD, I’ll adjust the drag so that it takes a sharp tug to pull line free. That gets me pretty close to where I want to be and then fine tuning can be done as I fish. Just be aware that you don’t need to snap a hookset with braid. Just reel down and ‘lean’ on the fish.

I’m a bank beater, so I’m wearing long pants and either my hiking shoes or my waterproof boots (Ariat Workhogs). I also picked up a pair of the Columbia PFG wading shoes (forget the exact name) for bank fishing in saltwater. They work great for wading. They drain/dry quickly and are extremely lightweight.

I try to do that, when I can. Inevitably end up twisting around trying to get the hook out and run my thumb over their teeth. It’s alright though. That’s how you know you had a good day.

Interesting point. Wouldn’t be any way for me to determine that particular detail. In NY, I used to spend my summers digging them out from under rocks in the creeks to sell as bait, or use as bait. Unfortunately, there aren’t any rocks in this pond (that I have found) for me to go roll over.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve avoided trying to mimic crawfish in this particular pond. Every fish I’ve caught there (PB included) had mouths so rough that I ended up bleeding if I was catching them really well, or they were decent sized. By the time I got my PB back in the water, I had blood dripping down my hand. My thumb was destroyed from one little shake he/she did when I was gettin the hook out. I figured they must be feeding almost exclusively on fish. But that can’t be true with the numbers of chimneys I’m seeing. The bank is literally littered with them.

Awesome resource! Thanks! Looks like the ones in my area would range from light tan to brown with blue and orange mixed in.

Would love a few pointers for catching a big one locally. I’m a bank beater though, so anything deep is out of the question. My PB was caught in July last year. Bluegill were spawning and I tossed a pumpkin chartreuse lizard at the edge of a grass line near their beds. Barely had a chance to start to sink and it was gone. Thanks! That’s exactly the retrieve I was thinking of using since things are cooling down around here.