Russ E

along with the above mentioned jerkbaits a sixth sense provoke is a good choice. a duo realis rozante 77sp is a great choice when fish are targetting smaller baitfish,

I would chooses a St Croix victory medium heavy or heavy. They retail right at $199.00 in my opinion they fish above the price range. very sensitive and durable for a sub $200.00 rod. I have a victory 7ft 3in medium heavy/fast action casting rod. they call it the Marshall. I use it mainly for jigs and worms. I prefer it over my st croix avid x , which cost about $30.00 more. If I was going to add musky to the mix I would probably bump up to the 7ft 4in. heavy/fast. Its called the full contact rod. Another option is a megabass Levante perfect pitch. It is my pitching rod. heavy/fast action 7ft 2in. Also very sensitive and right at $190.00. either of these rods will be a big step above the rods you currently own

I own a couple mojo bass, 1 premier,1 avid x, and 2 victory rods. The victory rods are more sensitive and responsive than all the others. if I buy another St croix it will be a victory. they are very nice rods for the price.

You don't have to go south to have constant humidity. I grew up among the vast corn forests of rural eastern Iowa. In late July and August the corn sweat would frequently raise the local humidity to over 95%. the air would be so heavy you could feel it when you walked outside. In the mornings every thing would be saturated from the dew. Now living in Kansas City, I laugh when some of the locals complain when the humidity hits 75%. That would be a dry spell where I grew up.

I had a couple original chatterbait do that. Don't use them anymore. Never had the elites or jackhammers break.

It is plenty big if you are bass fishing. all of my Bass spinning reels are 2500's

July and august are usually my best time for bigger fish at WYCO. This year the big girls have been hibernating lately. I was there yesterday morning caught a bunch of sublegal largemouth and this girl. she was 18.5 inches but only weighed 2.8 pounds.

Z man Twilight. It works well here in the summer. Other companies call it morning dawn

Even though the yozuri gets great reviews, I have personally never been impressed. Their pure flourocarbon line sucks. Suffix advance isn't bad, but as you noticed it frays fairly quick. It is also very thick line. I don't use mono much, but when I do it is usually maxima ultra green. It has never failed me

If I saw that here in Kansas, I would just assume somebody emptied their catfish bait bucket, before they went home. You see it a lot here.

I did not know they made a 10 inch. I will have to check them out.

I have been using both baitcasters and spinning tackle for over 40 years. everyone occasionally gets a backlash. It happens. Mine are usually when i get overzealous, casting into the wind or if the bait hits something right after I release the spool. If you want to learn how to fix birds nest, try learning how to skip with a baitcaster if you use braid with spinning gear, sooner or later you get wind knots. they are usually caused by line twist. if you keep twist under control, they are rare.

No wake zones are only a suggestion around here. A local 100 acre lake I occasionally fish is all no wake. I have seen boats flying across that lake at wot. when nobody patrols the lakes, people ignore the rules. My worse incident in a no wake zone was on labor day at Smithville reservoir. it is a very popular lake for boaters in the kansas City area. I was sitting at the boat dock waiting for my turn at the ramp. It was late morning and I wanted to get off the water before the nuts arrived. A big wake boat came flying through the no wake zone. its wake slammed me and a couple other boats against the docks. Luckily nobody was injured. He made it about 200 yards and Lake patrol had him in handcuffs.

if I am fishing a 7 to 7.5 worm it is always a yum. If they made a big worm I would use them over the ol monster. I go through a lot of plum Yums during summer. they are cheap and get bit. not sure what they put on for scent ,but bass will hold on to them a long time.

sometimes fish finders can get confused in shallow water. Nearly every humminbird I have owned has done this. My humminbirds will occasionally give weird depth readings in 5 foot and under. The readout will be off but the 2d graph will usually either be correct or show 2 bottoms. usually one around 2 foot and one around 10 foot. have you tried going out to water over 10 foot and coming back to shallower water. This usually resets the depth and it works fine after that.

I have a 705cb. Use it mainly for deep divers. It's action is too heavy to throw lighter crankbaits. It is a typical crankbait rod. Moderate action and pretty dead on the sensitivity scale. I have better rods for other presentations.

it depends on what Kind of charger you have. Some, like my Minn Kota, shutoff when the battery is charged and does not come back on until it drops below a certain voltage. personally I don't leave the charger on for long periods of time. I had one malfunction and boiled 2 of my batteries dry.

You need a a tach . More horsepower will not give you more speed, if the same prop is turning at the same rpm at wot. You should however have a much better hole shot. To take advantage of the extra horsepower you need to get a prop with a higher pitch. A tachometer is about the only way to know if you are running the best prop without running too high on the rpms. Running a prop with the pitch too low, without knowing how fast your motor is going, is a good way to blow another engine.

I own a 5 year old z175 with the mercury pro xs 115 . It is a nice boat. I looked at all 3 when I was boat shopping. The nitro was cheaper, but missing a lot of features. Once you added everything to equal the ranger, cost was similar, but resale sucked. The triton was decent, but there were no dealers close, plus when I compared resale, it was also significantly below ranger. At the time ranger was the only boat that had the command thrust lower unit. Which allows you to run the bigger props. One thing to add is the white river marine group owns all 3 brands. From personal experience, getting any warranty work done is about as fun as having teeth pulled without painkiller. My boat, with a 23 pitch tempest prop, has a quick hole shot and a top end of 48-50 mph, depending on air temperature.

in the 90's they also had a finesse version it was called the fin s fish. cabelas online still sells it. like I mentioned above it is very similar to the original fluke

Haven't seen the twitch in a while. An original fluke is similar in size and action. Pretty easy to find. Even Wal-Mart usually has a few.

Depends on your budget. An abu garcia black max is functional. It takes a little longer to learn than higher end reels, but only cost $50.00 A diawa fuego reel is pretty reliable and easy to setup. It retails for around $100.00 but can often be found cheaper. If you can afford it, a diawa tatula sv is one of the easiest reels to use. It retails for around $200.00. It is not completely fool proof, but backlashes are much less common than other reels.

Baitcasters are always my first choice. it does not matter if I am fishing rivers or lakes. it also does not matter which species of bass I am pursuing. the only time I use spinning outfits is finesse fishing with light baits. there is a learning curve . A lot of it depends on how your reel is setup. it is all based on thumb control. with Baitcasters line twist is not much of an issue, but you will get a few birds nests while learning. there are a lot of youtube videos on setting up and using Baitcast reels. once you learn, the spinning outfits will get much less use. A good quality reel is much easier to learn. cheaper reels are functional but take more skill to use.

heavy braid is the worse. a lot of bank fishermen use it around here. I am assuming they are after catfish. it is hard to break so they just cut it. cant count how many times I have snagged it, or wrapped it up in the trolling motor.

I usually only use fine wire hooks in spring when fishing relatively shallow around beds. In summer I prefer a medium wire hook when skipping super flukes under cover. I also use the medium wire on carolina or mojo rigged fluke. I don't care for heavy hooks on a fluke. I think it kills the action. Plus when fishing a weightless super fluke I prefer a medium action rod and heavy hooks usually require a heavier rod. 4/0 no matter what hook I am using