runt4561

nothing wrong with the 12 lb big game. every fisherman around used mono for jerkbaits and crankbaits before flouro came out. it will still catch fish. fluoro is just better suited for cranking and jerkbaiting. it is more sensitive and you get better action with it.

one of the few rods I have never broken. overall hard to beat for the pricepoint

here is the deal with vanish.... its actually a pretty good line, if you change your line about every 2 weeks. it is very supple and handles pretty well but if it gets water on it or in the spool, it will start to break prematurely after about 2 weeks. the more expensive vanish 100% flouro is stronger but it handles like crap. I am a fan of seagar red label. it is cheap and handles very well. other good ones that I have used are seagar invizx, vicsious pro elite and regular viscious. of all of those the regular viscious is my least favorite because it is stiff but they are all adequate for strength.

the key to fishing with braid in my opinion is finding a knot that will work. I tried braid off and on for 10 years before I finally found a knot that would hold up. now, I use it on at least 50% of my rods. the knot that I found was the Berkley braid knot. google it. I know many people swear by the palomar or double palomar but I would always break it. the Berkley braid knot is stout. good luck.

absolutely. when I have a boat I always take people fishing. a few years ago I sold my boat and went about 5 yrs without. for the first year I routinely got asked to go fishing and then it stopped. nobody asked anymore. now that I have a boat again, I have a lot more friends. another funny thing.... everyone is always asking to go fishing but when you have a spot open up on the boat then all of those people are busy. priorities man!!!!

the rod is more important. the reel is a tool to recover line. yes some cast further and have better drags but at the end of the day you get more bang for your buck when you spend money on the rod.

both the LFS and MB are great reels. I would give the nod to the MB because it has harder side plates. this will translate into a more sensitive reel. but once again, nothing wrong with the LFS. great performing reel at a great price. as far as the okuma. Never used one. played around with a helios a few weeks back and I was not impressed.

your fine. the boat is made to accommodate the weight of the motor. the added weight from the talon is not that much. matter of fact, I would put another talon on it and not lose sleep over it.

I have been tournament fishing for many years and my goal when I am preparing for a tournament is to narrow my rod or technique selected to just a few. although I have fished many tournaments where I only caught fish on one specific bait, I have never been able to narrow my selection down to less than six rods. The reason is, as tournament fishermen, if we are going to be successful, we have to prepare for several scenarios or changing conditions. If I went to fish a tournament with 2 fishing rods, regardless at how good those choices were and I was presented with a situation where I needed a certain rod or bait to fish a situation that presented itself to me, my whole day would be haunted by the what if's. so, that is why we carry so many rods. we never know for certain what situations we will be facing. now these fellas you referenced having 20 or so rods.... I have never had that many on the deck of the boat. the most I have ever had is around 10 and truth be told, probably only caught fish on 2 or 3 of them.

i have used both and both are good reels. I would give the advantage to the lews. the lews casts further and stays smooth longer than the tatula. I do really like the handle on the tatula better though.

here is the deal. it IS happening more and more these days because if it would have happened 20 years ago and the victim jumped in their boat and beat their eyes shut, it ended right there and the offenders learned a lesson. now, if that were to happen, you would be arrested or the offenders would catch up to you and shoot you. I had the same thing happen to me on mothers day a few years ago. I took my mother out fishing and had to be subjected to that. made me so mad that I had to leave. totally ruined my whole day. but, by me or you in your incident leaving, we allowed these turds to win and they benifited from their actions. now guess what, these turds will continue to do it. I don't like confrontation and treat everyone with respect. if they make the choice not to do the same that is on them. you and I are better for taking the high road. I can almost guarantee that the people in your story and mine have bigger problems in their life because they choose to act this way.

I don't fish a senko weightless. if that is the only thing the fish will bite, I just wont catch any fish. I don't throw a spinnerbait very much. maybe once or twice a year. I don't throw topwater plugs very much either. again maybe once or twice a year. I throw a texas rig on mono.

if I am by myself I use two or three different methods depending on what kind of ramp it is. the prep I do before backing down is the same. I have a 19 foot bass boat with a single axle drive on trailer. when I pull up to the ramp, I get out and remove my straps and motor toter from the rear of the boat. I then hook up my gps/depth finder to the console. now I am ready to back down the ramp and one of the 3 methods come into play. if I have a dock that is close to the ramp, I will leave the cable attached to the bow and back down very close to the dock. when the boat is deep enough to be backed off of the trailer with the outboard, I engage the parking brake before I place the transmission in park. this will not put such a bind on your transmission. if you put in park and then apply the parking brake, there is more pressure on the transmission because, the weight of the boat has pulled the trailer backwards a bit before the parking brake was applied. at this point, I get out and walk down the dock and just step in the boat, no wet feet. back the boat off and tie up to the dock. get back in truck. the first thing I do is put it in drive with my foot on the break. once it is in drive, I remove my foot from the brake and give a little gas. I then release the parking break. the little bit of accelerator will prevent the truck and trailer from rolling back when the parking brake is released. if I don't have a dock, I usually back down until I see the boat float up a little. I then get out and release the bow strap, and climb in the boat from the front deck, if you have to back way off in the water, sometimes I have to do a tight rope walk out onto the tongue of the boat to release the strap and get in. I then back the boat off and beach it. if the ramp does not have anywhere to beach the boat or the ramp is extremely shallow, I will undo the bow strap prior to backing down and attach a rope to the bow eye and then tie the other end to the trailer. I then back down til the boat floats off. when the boat is clear of the trailer, I then slowly ease up the ramp. the rope will catch and then slowly tow the boat to shore. with the right timing, you can get the boat moving toward the shore and then get the trailer out of the water and jump out to catch the boat before it slams into the ramp. hope this helps

judging by your situation, I think an aluminum bass tracker style boat would suit you well. the aluminum is way more forgiving if you bump into anything and based off your 20k buget, you can by a very nice aluminum rig. if you are going to fish this small lake solely, there is no need to purchase a big fiberglass rig with a lot of horsepower. not a lot of room to travel 50-60 mph on that lake. I would think an 18 or 19 foot aluminum with a 115 hp motor would be plenty and would get you close to the 50 mph mark if speed is your thing. it is exactly the boat I would be looking for in that situation. aluminum hulls don't require the care that a fiberglass boat does.

I understand what you are saying. just offering up another perspective. good luck with whatever you choose.

I know a large number of you have experience with sunline. I have never tried it, mainly due to the fact that I don't quite grasp how or why they name their lines (shooter, sniper etc). Seagar is easy for me invizx for finesse or clear water and abrazx for heavier cover. what sunlines would I use for flipping/pitching, cranking and finesse like shakey head or drop shot?

welcome to the past 30 years of my life. here is the deal.... there are people that like to fish and then there are fishermen. being a fisherman is like someone being 6 foot tall. its not a choice, it is just who they are. I can choose to have cheese on my burger I can not choose not to be a fisherman. it is what I am.

I would stay with the 7'3" length and just go up in power like they said. if you are looking at a dobyns get a 735 or a 736 if available.

personally, I don't see the benefit of spending an astronomical amount on rods and reels. you can still get a great performing shimano citica that will last for many years if taken care of and as far as rods are concerned.... there are more options than a loomis glx. I owned one and it was a great rod but, I could have got an equally nice rod for $200 as opposed to $300. Like somebody else said, I would get 2 rod and reel setups for the same amount of money.

i don't care for the veritas myself. kinda thought they were a little dead (low sensitivity). the ghost is the best feeling rod but I have heard of a lot of breakages. my choice would be the falcon.

i was always a uni to uni knot fan.... until I found the FG knot. The FG knot is stronger and the knot itself is more streamlined. it will not hang up in the rod guides as much, when you cast. with a very small amount of practice, you will be able to tie this knot very easily.

this is a tricky question because I have two different opinions.. my favorite reels are lews... hands down but if I could only choose one for the rest of my life it would be shimano and here is why: Shimano makes great reels and I believe they will continue to do so for a very long time. Lews makes great reels and made very good reels years ago and then vanished. I really hope lews is around for the rest of my life but I see some stuff with that company that I am concerned about. I think they are getting too watered down. they offer so many different models now that I think their quality will begin to fade. I really don't think there is a need for them to produce 20 different models of baitcasters. if they produce 10 really good models, they have more value to me than a company that produces 8 good ones a 12 crappy ones. just my two cents.

retying is key especially for light line around rocks. if you can rule out the damaged line or knot issue, I would say the most likely cause is the type of knots you are using. IMO knots like the palomar and others are good strong knots but my issue with the palomar is that is it is not substantial in size. to me, if there is a likelihood that part of the knot may become damaged, you want a large knot to spread all of that load. if the knot is dimunitive, like the palomar. it will not take much to damage that strong knot. however, if you tie a larger knot, that damage will be spread out over a larger area and will not weaken the knot as much overall. I like tying the "shark knot". I don't know if you can find it on the internet or not. mark zona was talking about it one time in a video.

Just ordered a carbonlite 2.0. Just wandering if anyone has experiences with them or the older version?

the last model of chronarch, the previous model citica or the lews bb1. they are all very very close in my opinion.