Glaucus

Sierra Series doesn't have a cranking rod.

Yes. While you're gone they practice incoming human drills. Similar to fire, tornado, and intruder drills in school. They sit quietly in the middle of the pond holding leaves over their heads so lures don't fall on them.

Some say it's 3/8, some say it's 1/2. 7/16 splits the difference I guess. Basically all the same. Either it's overrated or the WP 90 is. The 90 is supposedly 1/2 and it's definitely heavier than a KVD 1.5.

We move out of Illinois and into Tennessee come March. I can't wait. More fishing, less taxes.

The medium power Lightning rod is a moderate fast action, if that's acceptable to you. Personally true moderate and true extra fast actions aren't something I mess with, I dislike them very much. Moderate fast and fast is all I use. But that's just me. I would recommend getting 3 nice setups rather than 6 ok-ish setups. A M/MF, MH/F, H/F would easily cover most things for you. One of the common things you'll see people talking about later down the line is regret over getting a bunch of decent setups rather than a handful of nice setups. Add more to the arsenal over a period of time as money allows.

Rod tip down helps but nothing truly prevents it. If they're gonna jump, they're gonna jump.

Quite the opposite, actually. Alaska has been slammed with 90* temps and Greenland has melted. Yay climate change with minimal efforts by humans to fix the problem.

I don't hunt for the same reason I don't keep my catch: I have no interest in intentionally killing animals when I can go to the store. If I was starving, it would be a different story. I have zero issues with those who do keep their legal catch and hunt for legal game to eat; those people are actually keeping the natural order of things rather than getting their food from slaughter mills where the animals are severely abused. It would be easier for me to keep a fish to eat than to kill a furry animal to eat. Why? Similar reason as, gun to head, fetus or toddler? You're saving the toddler.

I like your outlook, Tom, but there's nothing like a completed catch where you're holding your fish in your hands and getting some photos for the memories. It feels incomplete and that is a bummer.

This is one of those times where some really bad things happens while fishing and you've just got to pick yourself up and keep grinding and learning. I was fishing the river today and after 2 hours I finally found where some bass were holding. I got a big bite. The fish jumped and it was without a shadow of a doubt my PB SMB. A foot from landing it, it made one final jump and got off. Terrible. But wait there's more! THE VERY NEXT CAST I hook into another monster fish. It's not fighting as crazy but it's pulling hard. I see the fish, and it would have at least rivaled my PB LMB. Hard to say if it would have beat my PB LMB but it was a BIG UN. Well it shook off a couple feet from me too. I had to take a good long while to process what had happened to me. It's possible that I had both both PB species on the end of my line within not even minutes of each other but absolutely nothing to show for it. Picked myself up and kept going. Had a decent day after than, at least a dozen fish, mostly SMB and a few LMB. Nice crappie too. They shook me on a squarebill. Moderate Fast rod, mono line. I was set up for the job. Just one of those things. Maybe I need to hit the confessional or something because I clearly did something bad somewhere along the way.

I havent caught a DD, but unless I make an effort to go to a state to fish where it's possible, that will never happen. I haven't caught a bass through the ice. I really want to, but the winter and cold and snow and ice turns me into a prepubescent little girl, and I have the patience of a baked potato.

Buy a scale. Nobody really knows. A fish can look identical to another and have a significantly different weight. There's a thread in Fishing Reports to show off a catch.

A couple years ago I casted a lipless crankbait to run it along the edge of cattails. A strong wind came mid cast and snagged me in the cattails. I was pulling and pulling and it came loose and snapped back at my face too fast for me to react. It got me right below my right eye. Couple inches higher and it would have been devastating. It shook me up so bad and made me physically sick so I packed up and went home. I'm a lot more careful now.

Nothing has worked better for me on the rivers than bashing squarebills along the bottom and off the rocks. Ned Rig too. Whopper Plopper for top. Those 3 baits make up the most of what I'll use on rivers because of how effective they are.

No, that's just proof lefties are oppressed people. We never consider them. Lol

Right handed people who don't use a left handed baitcaster are a danger to national security.

My casts are always made dependent on the situation. Beyond that, I don't consider it at all. I don't consider the line capacity of a reel either so long as it holds at least 100 yards of 12lb mono according to the specs, which is the norm anyways. I certainly can't spool a reel on a long cast using the appropriate tool for the job. Some people claim that they can, but I'll tell you what (and I've said it before), so many people claim to be able to throw a football 50+ yards until they actually step onto a measured football field and discover 50+ yards is a lot further than they thought and they were only throwing 20-30 yards the whole time. Same for casting. Most people don't realize how far 50, 60, 100 yards really is.

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I had one inexplicable break off with 6lb YZH earlier this year. Still don't know what happened exactly, but what I can tell you is I consistently catch fish with massive amounts of weeds attached to them using 6lb as well as uproot cattails. Sometimes on a snag the stuff just won't break and I get scared I'm going to snap my rod. Seems you got a bad spool.

A few years ago, before my wife knew how to use spinning or casting gear well, we went into the Peoria, IL BPS to buy her a nice spincast reel and a rod. The employee I talked to said they didn't have the rod, but I found it on the shelves 5 minutes later. We got the reel and the kid didn't know how to spool it up. Had to talk him through it. I also needed a new baitcaster spooled and the same kid managed to fray my new spool of PP. Went to the Bolingbrook, IL one for a baitcaster in April-ish and the guy was irritated that I wanted to handle the reel in the box before purchasing to 1.) Make sure it felt right and 2.) To make sure it was a lefty. I like taking my family to explore the place but the customer service is trash and I hate dealing with the people there. These days it's like asking the Walmart electronics employee about such and such electronics: they don't have a clue.

Nobody drops fish on purpose. Anyone who has spent a little time on the water has dropped fish at some point. Sometimes it happens. Hooks fall out, big fish squirm suddenly and your wrist can't compensate right away, they're slippery, etc.

That's terrifying. I have open wounds and we spent all day swimming on Lake Michigan yesterday. I'm not OK after reading this. Send help.

During the spawn my wife worked a LMB on a bed for about half an hour before she finally made it "eat." She dropped it while she was unhooking it. It went back to the bed and it had a dark spot and white flesh on its head from where it fell on a rock. I'm sure that hurt. We saw the same bruised fish on its bed for several daya in a row though, until it had moved on. We never messed with it again. For one it wasn't worth catching, but my wife had never had the opportunity to try to catch a fish off a bed; and for two, it had had enough after that.

Not all living things are created equally. Cats can jump from incredible heights, and ants can withstand 5,000x their weight.