Captain Phil

I am sure you are right. By the 80s, 5/1 reels were standard.

If you were a serious bass fisherman fifty years ago, you most likely used an Ambassador round reel. The standard reel ratio at that time was 3.8/1. In the seventies, you could buy "speed gears" to make them faster. When the silver 5500C came out, they were 5.3/1 and labeled as "High Speed". About twenty years ago, I switched most of my casting reels to Shimano Bantam Chronarch 100s, a 7/1 reel. I still have four of them that I still use. My new reels are Shimano Chronarch 7/1 MGLs. These new reels are amazing. They cost 20-25 times more than the Pflueger Akron reel I bought as a kid, but they are worth every penny.

I own two Shimano Zodias rods, one 6' 10 MH and one 7' 2" MH. The price was slightly higher than your budget, but not as much as some. They are the lightest most sensitive rods I have used and the quality is outstanding. The carbon grip is smaller than a traditional cork handle, which I like as it's easier to palm.

If you don't fish spinnberbaits close to cover, it doesn't matter what blades you use. Hard to do when canal fishing.

Our home faces west on a hill overlooking the lake. It's an A-Frame style home with large glass windows from roof to foundation. Birds are always flying into our windows. They seem to be chasing insects when this happens. About half the time they are killed outright. Often they lay there a while and fly off when they revive. It's sad when they die.

Some years back, a big tournament was coming up on the Harris Chain and it seemed every pro in the world was fishing in my back yard. To escape the crowd, I rode over to the gator hole in Lake Eustis. When I arrived, there were three wrapped bass boats fishing the hole. The gator hole is about 20 feet deep and 100 yards across with tree stumps and assorted junk on the bottom. I parked my boat on the shoreline and cast a spinnerbait out as far as I could and let it fall to the bottom. After it hit bottom I slow rolled it along the bottom back to the boat. Halfway back I felt my spinnerbait bump into a stump. I jerked the spinnerbait off the stump and was immediately hit by a large fish. I was by myself and it was quite struggle. In plain view of the other anglers, I fought the fish to the boat and lifted a 9-10 pound bass out of the water. I held it up for a while and slowly released it overboard so it could swim back to it's home in the hole. I fired the big motor and rode back to my house. ?

When you have success with a certain lure, you throw it more. In time, you find yourself reaching for that lure all the time. This is where tournament anglers have an edge. When you get your butt kicked by someone fishing something you have never tried, you try it out for yourself. In addition, you gain local knowledge on what may be working at that time. It may not work right away, but losing is a big motivator. I can think of dozens of lures and methods that I would have never tried that worked for me. Bright pink floating worms, Mojo rigs and swim baits are among them. Don't get yourself in a rut and start thinking your old way is the only way.

The majority of the time, I use a 5/0 Shimano Calcutta reel for my spinnerbaits. In the dead of winter, I use a 3.8/1 Bantam Curado.

Any spinnerbait will catch bass at one time or another. There is a big difference in productivity between a cheap spinnerbait and a quality spinnerbait. The most significant difference is in the blades. Quality blades give off more flash. This is due to the plating and the material they are made of. The highest quality blades are Hildebrandt. I want my spinnerbaits to have ball bearing swivels. This allows the blades to turn freely at the slightest speed and movement. Next is the wire. A great spinnerbait has light wire with an open bend. This wire gives off more vibration than thick twisted wire. I like the body to be plated not painted. The plating reflects the surroundings and disguises the fact that it's not real. Less significant is the skirt. Colors vary, but white and chartreuse seem to be the best all around color. I will throw all white if there are a lot of shad where I am fishing. I like Zoom split tail trailers because they are thin, natural and they work. I started using trailer hooks years ago when I felt fish hold onto my lure as I cranked it to the boat. I didn't recognize this at first. You will catch bass with a trailer hook that you will never know are there without one. Some anglers won't use a trailer hook because they get more hangups. Others won't buy quality baits because of the cost or because they feel like light wire distorts easily. Why spend good money on a boat, tackle and everything else involved and pass on a $10 bait? I want every advantage I can get and the cost of buying quality is insignificant if it puts more fish in my boat.

You may be surprised to learn how many Florida bass are caught on light tackle. My spinning outfit is loaded with 8 pound Maxima mono. There are days when power fishing just won't work. There are hardly any bass that can resist a weightless Trick worm fished on light line. Fighting a big fish on light line takes skill. Obviously, you can't pull a ten pound bass out of the pads with 8 pound test. If you hook it out in the open next to the pads, it can be done.

When fishing a spinnerbait along a straight bank or weed line, most anglers fish at an angle with the edge as they cast to the shoreline. This means your bait is only in the strike zone for a short period of time with much of the retrieve wasted. It is much more productive to place your boat next to the edge and cast down it making your retrieve as close to the edge as possible. This is a great way to cover water while you "search" for fish. If you have a co-angler in the back of the boat, have him/her stand next to you in the front. Obviously, this can be difficult when bank fishing.

I would buy a nice spinning rod and reel to go with your current setup. There are things you can do with a spinning rod you can't with a casting outfit.

I throw a spinnerbait about 70% of the time. It is by far my most effective bass bait. There are many variables to spinnerbait fishing. You can't just chunk it out and reel it back up if you want to catch fish consistently. With spinnerbaits, cadence is significant. Every spinnerbait has a specific cadense where it pulls bass to it. Most anglers fish a spinnerbait too fast. I find a 5/1 casting reel to be my most effective spinnerbait reel. Here in Florida, I like gold tandem blades. My favorite bait is the 3/8 oz. Hildebrandt Okeechobee Special in chartreuse and white. I fish it on 20 pound mono and I always use a trailer hook. The majority of the bass I catch on a spinnerbait are over 3 pounds. A spinnerbait must be pulled close to cover. 2-3 feet is not close enough. I love to throw these baits back into pads and bring it out. Big bass will hit these baits in the middle of the day. Like everything else, you must build confidence in a bait or you won't fish it. If you want to learn spinnerbaits, leave all your other rods home and fish them all day. They are deadly bass catchers.

I used the Trilene knot for years with mono and had no issues. When I first used it with braid, I started losing fish when the knot slipped. I switched to the Jimmy Houston Three Leg knot and had no more problems. There are many good knots. Braid requires knots with extra hold or it tends to slip.

Tides on the St. Johns River run as far south as Lake George. They do not affect Rodman. My son, who lives in Weston, tells me the Everglades is low right now. Currently, the water levels are high in the Harris Chain about 45 minutes south of Rodman. The last draw down in Rodman was 2019-20.

I have owned every type of boat imaginable. A great number of them were bass boats. Fishing as a non boater is good advice. The best boats are "OPBs" (other people's boats). The problem with boats is they are always a compromise. If you are going to fish bass tournaments, you will want a different boat that you can take your family out in. Given the price of gas and the uncertainty of future fuel costs, you should seriously consider an aluminum boat as your first. My RT178 with a 75 Merc 4 stroke hardly uses any fuel and there is no oil to burn. I bought it totally rigged with a 24 volt Minn Kota, trailer, inboard charger and two Lowrance combo GPS/sonar units for $28K out the door. The dealer threw in an 8 year warranty on the motor. That is substantially over your budget, but there are no issues to deal with and I suspect the resale value will be decent. You can buy a similar Tracker for $5K less. I have owned a few Trackers and they are a good boat for the money. What you are looking for is a boat like mine owned by someone like me. Older guys buy boats all the time and never use them. My boat is a year old and I doubt it has 30 hours on it because I fish near the ramp. What you don't want is a big motored gas hog owned by an active tournament fisherman. It may look cool, until for find out the owner beat the crap out of it.

Professional guides prefer shiner fishing over artificials because they are normally being paid to catch fish. If you want to learn to fish, you should let the guide know this in advance. A fishing trip is a lot different than a teaching trip. Hopefully, he can deliver both. Back when I was guiding, I enjoyed teaching trips much more than catching trips. Most of my customers were tournament anglers looking for local knowledge or anglers who wanted to learn from my experience. If someone wanted to fish with shiners, I would recommend another guide. Shiner fishing does two things, it removes the angler's skill from the equation and you can target big fish by the size of your bait. Rodman is a great shiner fishery. The water is clear and full off cover, making artificial lure fishing more difficult. Whatever you do, make sure you and your guide are on the same page. Before you book, tell him/her what you expect and you will get along much better.

In Florida, from mid June until October it rains. The mornings are hot with thunderstorms rolling in around 3 PM. Some are nasty. If you have never seen a Florida downpour, you have no idea what I am talking about. We call them "frog stranglers". Some of the best bass fishing I have seen was in the calm after one of these storms. If there's lightning, you are asking for trouble. Years ago, our bass club had two anglers knocked out of their boat by lightning while fishing a tournament in Okeechobee. Thankfully they survived, but it wasn't pleasant. I once saw a bass boat in a Santee Cooper marina that looked like a piece of burned toast after lighting hit the front bass seat. Fishing tournaments as long as I have, I have fished many a rainy day. Like others have stated, light rain is good. Heavy rain is bad. A couple of things I have noticed over the years. Flipping does not work well for me in the rain. I do much better flipping when the sun is bright. Bright sun positions the fish in and under cover, so that may explain it. I have my best luck fishing in the rain with a spinnerbait. I once won a rainy day tournament in Kissimmee fishing a chartreuse spinnerbait with a "fire tiger" orange colored grub trailer. When the sky is dark like that, bright colors work better for me. I'm too old to fish in the rain these days, but I can remember many dark rainy mornings sitting in a marina full of bass boats wait for first light. I can also remember asking myself why I wasn't home in bed. ?

Try a black and Chartreuse spinnerbait.

I have been fortunate enough to experience most of my fishing dreams. The best Tarpon Fishing is in Florida. Just outside the Miami shipping channel is a fantastic nighttime Tarpon fishery. If you slow troll a live mullet, 100-200 pound Tarpon will eat your bait right off the back of the boat. It's awesome! You can catch Tarpon in Florida on both coasts all the way to Key West. Big Snook are common as well. Live bait is the easiest way to go. Sail fishing offshore is good if you fish with a kite. Most experienced Florida anglers consider Barracuda a trash fish as they are almost too easy to catch. The best small mouth bass fishing I have ever done was in Lake Erie around Pele Island. We fished every 4th of July for a couple years there and caught SM bass up to 6 pounds regularly. We often caught large Walleye even though that wasn't in our game plan. The best place in the world to consistently catch Marlin is Cabo San Lucas. A small dolphin (Mahi Mahi) in Cabo weights 20 pounds. I fished Blue Fin offshore in North Carolina in the dead of winter. Not for wimps. A great place to fish in Northern Canada is Lac Seul. It's a 100 mile long lake near the City of Dryden in Northern Ontario. That lake is eaten up with big pike.

To this day locals still call this bait "Charlie Bait".

So you know, Charlie did not have a fancy tricked out boat. As I remember he towed his boat with an old 70s Corvette. He didn't have 360 degree imaging, a deck full of TV screens or power poles. His rods and reels were adequate. The whole time I fished with him, he only threw one lure. That lure was the Devil's Horse and his deck was littered with them. He didn't like to use beat up lures and was quick to tie on a new one. He always changed the hooks before he used them. He sought out places to fish that others ignored. He often fished residential canals. He was a master at sensing the mood of the fish and knowing when a fish was behind his bait. He also fished faster than most. He wasn't a big believer in wasting time waiting for ripples to disperse. He would cast into places that you would think are impossible even if he had to dig a bass out of a truck load of junk. The funniest thing I remember was the time he went to the scales with two bags because his fish wouldn't fit in one. One of the bags burst and two giants fell out onto the dock. I helped him to the scales and didn't even bother to weigh my fish.

No discussion of the Devil's Horse would be complete without Top Water Charlie. I fished against him for years and it was a humbling experience. Charlie worked for Florida Fish and Game. A major fishing magazine once took him out to verify his claims. After fishing with him for a day, they stated his claims were true. Charlie was a great example of what it takes to win constantly. Get good at one thing and stick to it. His techniques were especially suited to the Florida waters he fished. When you are standing in line at the weigh-in with 24 pounds of bass and Charlie walks up with a bag of 8 pounders, you become a believer. Rest in Peace Charlie. ☺️

While we are on the subject, here is a photo of the elusive "Spotted Ape" Devil's horse which has been out of production for some time. I once found a former tackle shop owner that had a box of them still in the package. I bought them all. I sold some and still have a couple left that I use. If you find one of these keep it. It's a big fish magnet.