Boomstick

Typically anywhere between 6' - 7'2" depending how high off the water you are. 6'8" works very well for me in most situations.

The SV won't win any distance competitions, it's made for control. I use a SV too but I would ideally go with a Tatula 100 or a Tatula Elite depending how much I'm looking to spend.

I have a friend who almost always fishes powertail worms. In the lake that he fishes regularly, I can't say I blame him. I usually throw senkos in the milfoil and frogs.

I would give this a pretty good look, A-Jay is our resident brown bass pro. For the most part as for lures, the same lures for largemouth work for smallmouth with few exceptions, the difference is you want to target structure instead of cover.

Never. But I rarely get sick either. To me, getting sick is being really tired and achy, sleeping until 3pm and then watching TV for the rest of the day and feeling fine the next day. I'm fortunate like that.

^9. Eric Gales is great. Hmm I wouldn't exactly have thought of Ted Nugent, although his lead style is sort of like Stranglehold with the bends in key. Funny you mentioned Ted Nugent... https://www.mahoganyrush.com/showdown.htm

The Tatula SV reels are supposed to not slip when you tie braid straight on - and I've done it and haven't had any issues. Alternatively, if you can tie to the spool you don't need backing, and if not, use electrical tape. If you have a large spool, it may be a good idea to use backing and save some money in the long run. I pretty much only use braid on casting gear only for when it's needed myself, but I understand why many prefer it. My first rod and reel was an old combo my dad had when he was a kid that may have belonged to one of his older brothers before him that was probably from the 1940s. It sat in my grandfathers basement for years. And guess what? It had braid on it.

So where I work, we have two A Teams. I am part of one of them and there is another one in a completely different division. The thing is, the leader of the A team is always sending emails to the wrong alias to my A-Team, for things that have absolutely nothing to do with us. So one day I got an email saying "Send me your shirt size and I'll send you your shirt!". Fast forward a couple of weeks, and they sent us a spreadsheet of sales numbers for what looked like a competition. Someone replied and said "hey this is great, but I still haven't got my t-shirt" So I replied and said "I got mine the other day, it came out great"

I picked up a Tatula LT, 2000 sized earlier. It's great, smooth and super light. If you're on a budget, the Daiwa BG is a pretty solid reel for the price. A 2000 or 2500 size would do. I'm not sure if you can get them as cheap now but I got mine brand new for something like $40 but I had some amazon points on a credit card.

Dangit! I did misschedule. Alright, I sent a corrected invitation.

Always on by design? That's a great design!

It should also help that the heat wave broke and this weekend should be cool. Going out the evening after a cool day after a heatwave or maybe the day after can be very good fishing.

The bite definitely slows around 8-9am in the summer and often drops off around 11am. And picks back up at sunset again. You can still get them, but it's much harder. Frogs can be a challenge to get the hookset down. Basically 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi set the hook. The idea is to wait for them to turn with it first.

I use a St Croix Avid X 6'9" ML/XF with a Daiwa BG 2000 with 12# Sunline SX1 12# braid with Seaguar Blue Label 6# leader.

I personally think a lot of people use heavier rods with their T-Rigs then they really need to. I mean if you're punching that's one thing, but in open water and lighter vegetation, I greatly prefer a M/F rod, preferably one that runs slightly on the heavy side for T-Rigs with no weight or a light weight. They cast like a dream and as long as my hooks are sharp, I have no problem setting the hook. A MH/MF overall should perform very similar to a M/F depending how you do your hooksets.

I have this rod. It's quite strong and pretty much my frogging rod and very good for that as it has plenty of power to pull them out. I could see maybe throwing other heavier lures on it that have a fairly stout hook, like smaller swimbaits and baitballs in a pinch as it is rated up to 2oz and that's probably not too inaccurate although it does load up well with the 2.25" LiveTarget frogs that I usually throw and I think they weigh 5/8 oz.

^7 In honor of one of my all time favorite guitarists retiring, I gotta post some Frank Marino.

First and foremost, I would put at least 30# braid on your baitcaster, personally I would say at least 40# if you decide to stick with braid. It will improve your casting and greatly reduce birds nests. Set your drag as if it was 20# flurocarbon (so 4lbs). Personally, I would go out and get 15# monofilament or fluorocarbon if you don't fish topwater, but that's just my preference. Artificial lures can be tricky because you have to impart action on the bait and learn what bait to fish and where. I would start with some chuck and retrieve lures like a crankbait or spinnerbait, probably a spinnerbait on a MH but a 2.5 sized crankbait is passable. Look for stumps to bounce them off. Try to hit the crankbait off rocks off the bottom. If you have grass, a chatterbait can be very good. And a swim jig can be very good in clear water or around wood in particular. For lily pads, try a hollow body frog. If your lily pads are thick though, a medium heavy rod may not be strong enough to pull a bass out of the thick cover before it figure 8s every lily pad in the place. Finally, I would learn to fish a texas rigged soft plastic. Start with a senko and a ribbon tail worm, the latter in open water and the senko in cover.

It wouldn't be the same without you! I think you have made every one so far!

I would suggest picking up both 3/8oz and 1/2oz arky head style jigs, often referred to as pitching jigs. I use Dirty Jigs, but there's Siebert and several others. The Strike King Tour Grade skipping jig is actually pretty good and has a flat head designed to skip as well. Use 3/8oz in up to around 12feet of water, and 1/2oz in 10ft+ and in the overlap, use your best judgement. When throwing into heavier cover, a heavier weight can often be preferred to get down in the cover faster, but you'd be surprised what you can flip a 3/8oz into. Use anywhere from 15-20+ fluorocarbon or 50#+ braid on a Medium Heavy or heavy rod with a fast action tip. I get by with a MH-H that works very well for moderate weeds and wood, and then I have a flipping stick with 65# braid for the real heavy stuff. Then for open water situations especially in later spring and earlier summer, I would also suggest some finesse jigs. You can get a full sized finesse jig that just has a lighter wire hook and a smaller skirt such as Dirty Jigs Luke Claussen finesse jig, or an all around smaller jig. The Strike King Bitsy Bugs generally work and are cheap enough, but if you have the money step up to the Santone Texas Finesse jig which has a better hook. Use 10 or 12# fluorocarbon. A medium/fast rod that runs a little on the heavy side usually works well for most finesse jigs but a medium heavy will do if you don't have a medium. If you have a hard bottom, get some football head jigs. You can go with 1/2oz or 3/4oz and stick to one size. Typically 15 or 16# fluorocarbon is a good bet here. A MH/F rod that runs on the heavy side (typically 10-20# fluorocarbon) works very well here. You can also get finesse football jigs (Terminators are good). For colors, keep it simple. Most of my water is clear and similar to yours so I generally go with green pumpkin and brown colors. Black tends to excel in dirty water, but can also work in clear water, especially as you get deeper or into thicker cover with less light. For trailers, I usually go with a NetBait Paca Chunk. When the bass are a bit more finicky, I will use a Rage Bug which adds profile and reduces action. If you need a jig rod, I bought my youngest son a St. Croix Victory Full Contact Finesse rod which is a heavy with an extra fast tip but at the same time the tip is quite soft so you can cast or pitch or flip right into cover and it has a lot of backbone to pull them out, and it's quite sensitive for the price point. I mean you can feel the jig head scraping against rock quite easily. Finally, Glenn did a video on setting the hook on jigs and offers some pretty good advice. Most of the time, when they take a jig, they hold onto it and a good hookset gets me a fish, except for lately it seems I'm getting short strikes and I've missed more on a jig the past week than I ever have before. I hope some of that helps.

Well with vacations and whatnot, I did not have time to schedule a call in June, but it's that time again. With the holiday upcoming, I figure it would be best to skip next week. How would July 13 work for everyone? Let's use this call to catch up on how our fishing season has been going.

Now isn't this the problem we all have?

Sorry, I searched for threads and all I found were really old and made up of discontinued models. I was looking at this one too as well as the high contrast digital scale. The cheaper Rapala that I keep in my tackle bag has been fairly reliable for me other than the screen warping somewhat.

Thanks guys. I'm gonna seriously consider the Bogagrip, although if I could find something small that fits in my life vest that would be good too. I have to replace a rod my kid lost so I have an order upcoming as it is, I'll tack on a scale.

I was looking at those. They are pricey, but I imagine reliable.