Glaucus

Yeah so getting back to my original point, I absolutely don't care what anyone else uses but neither do I advocate for cheap gear if one can afford better. I make recommendations based on given budgets. Point is, cheap, modest, or expensive, they all catch fish. Other point is, the same guy who crapped on another guy for cheap gear has a problem with my squarebill and lipless setup of choice. I could pay 400 bucks for something better, but I'll be damned if anyone is going to be able to tell me that FOR ME the Lightning Rod and Silver Max doesn't just feel and fish those baits spectacularly. But guys like that don't consider that maybe, just maybe, someone bought something less expensive because it was actually ideal for that person, price didn't matter. Just an elitist attitude I can't vibe with.

Just here adding more reasons to my Bible thick list of reasons to want nothing to do with Cali. What a disaster of a state on every level.

First time I ever tried a Ned Rig I didn't have something suitable for it. I picked up a Pflueger Monarch combo for 50 bucks to see what that bait was all about. Went an entire season of slaying fish. Now I will say that that combo did not old up and I would never buy it again, but it did its job for a season and taught me how to fish a Ned Rig. Never failed me on a fish. The cheap plastic reel just started grinding horribly and I gave it to a buddy who can't afford more than one setup.

Time and time again many people in our community of fishermen turn their nose up at cheap gear. I started on cheap gear. Most of us probably did. These days I'm so biased towards Fenwick and Daiwa, but I do branch out. My first casting setup eons ago was a Lightning Rod paired with a Silver Max, 6'6" M/MF. I threw the heck out of squarebills and lipless crankbaits with it. Today most of my setups will run me from a modest $150 upwards to a more pricey tag of $450. Because I've advanced to needing more sensitive, durable, and technique driven gear, as most of us have. But to THIS DAY, my squarebills and lipless crankbaits are primarily fished on Lightning Rods and Silver Maxs. Simple reason is that it fishes those baits so well. Nothing has felt as good to ME, that didn't put a serious hole in the pocket. I think the ego and pride of some people are so astounding that it becomes about not how something fishes or how something feels, but about how much they can say it costs. Sometimes the perfect tool for you does not cost that much. Inspired by a guy on a Facebook post who was pooping on another guys sub 100 dollar gear as if it was the worst thing ever and won't and can't possibly catch fish.

Wacky Rig by far

I and many other bass fishermen suffer from PTSD and find fishing to be the best form of therapy. I got to thinking, what it is about fishing? Well it's everything. For one, solitude. You, your maker, the water, and the fish. It's the anticipation of being on the move, whether boat, yak or foot, to find your spot. And then you find it and the world and your mind suddenly slow down, a serene silence. Click. Your reel is ready for combat. Whip. You launch. Splash. Bait is in the water. Click. Your reel is engaged, and now you're gone. You are no longer you. The world is no longer the world. You are now under water seeing and feeling everything. Over and over again you are focused on hitting specific spots with unreal accuracy, and you are losing all wordly cares under water as you quite literally become one with the water. And then there is the reward. The fish. You did something right. And you landed a fish. An innocent animal you get to admire and be proud of for seconds and a time, and then on to the next. Click. Whip. Slash. Click. It begins again. Absolutely amazing.

Some of us northerners got smacked by a pretty nasty blizzard yesterday and this morning. With the snow and the single digit and sub zero weather coming, it looks like we're finally done with until spring. Sorting some tackle this morning I picked up a spinnerbait that brought back a cool memory from a couple summers ago. I was fishing a pond that is almost entirely surrounded by cattails, and they extend out several feet into the water. There's a particular gap on the shore that's just wide enough and in a good spot so that's where I fish when I do choose to fish there. I was fishing that spinnerbait when I saw a 1.5-2lb LMB dart out from the cattails to go whack my spinnerbait that was probably 10ft away. It happened so fast that my brain couldn't keep up. I never saw the bass hit the bait, I just saw it dart to it and then the rod loaded. Lots of lessons there.

I'm looking at a MH rod that I won't mind beating up on random adventures in some tough to reach places I like to go to. Between the car ride and walking through woods gear can take a beating. On these adventures I am also limited on what I can carry. Ideally this rod will throw spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, jigs, Texas rigs, whopper ploppers. I usually use a 6 for the moving baits and a 7 for baits I work with my rod. This rod will do a little of both. I can't settle on a 6.3 or a 7.3. Which do you think would suit me best for what I'm looking to get out of it?

Berkley Cherrywood rod and Pflueger Trion reel

There's no justifiable reason to say it doesn't. That's like saying, and they say it gets colder in December, after you get a random 65 degree day in the north. Random stuff happens. Pretty cool when it does. But it isn't normal.

Well that's new

Backup plan? That's a weird was of saying spinning rod and stick or turd bait.

Edit: The earth isn't flat. Stop it.

I don't really follow pro tournament fishing much. What is this mass exodus about?

I really dislike when people call fishing all luck. Like we just throw a bait out there and wait for a fish to come to us. First of all, we have to generally know where to find the fish we're after and that's a skill. Second of all, we have to know what baits, when, where, and how. That's skill. And lastly (and I'm no professional at all), I outfish my group and anyone I fish with time and time again. I get asked, how? Because we fish in the same spots and with the same baits usually because we're together. But I outfish them almost every single time. Why? I haven't got a darn clue other than an instinctual part of who I am that feels exactly what is going on and what I have to do. Being a good fisherman is a skill that goes beyond what you can learn but is rather a god given talent.in professional sports like football we talk about the things you can't teach that makes players so good. Well good fisherman are the same way. Some things you can't teach because you've got to simply be created and born with those intangibles.

Stock up on what you've used before that you liked via online shopping.

It's skill to know where they should be. It's luck to find that they currently are where they should be.

As of a few years ago, more Americans now live in urban areas than they do rural areas. Personally I also live out in the boonies. Town has 300 or so people. Have to drive 20 minutes just for gas. Have to drive 40 minutes for a Walmart. And yet our internet is pretty good. We stream; haven't had Dish in a few years. Also get 4G LTE. It sounds like you're in an area "they" haven't gotten to yet, but rest assured "they" will. If we go back 5 years, no high speed internet here and we had to have expensive satellite TV. You're also going to have to define big city, man. The town I grew up in has 10k people and it seems nobody I know uses cable or satellite there. That is a small town, albeit not a village, however not a big city either.

As of a few years ago, more Americans now live in urban areas than they do rural areas. Personally I also live out in the boonies. Town has 300 or so people. Have to drive 20 minutes just for gas. Have to drive 40 minutes for a Walmart. And yet our internet is pretty good. We stream; haven't had Dish in a few years. Also get 4G LTE. It sounds like you're in an area "they" haven't gotten to yet, but rest assured "they" will. If we go back 5 years, no high speed internet here and we had to have expensive satellite TV.

As does everyone. However, more people are watching television using a streaming service (or several) and not the traditional cable or satellite that these shows air on.

The thing you're all forgetting is that a record number of people don't even use cable or satellite TV anymore. More people use streaming services now more than ever. The only use for cable and satellite TV is live sports and news. However, even that use is dwindling with the sports streaming services online and through providers like Hulu. Streaming, social media, and internet in general is where most people are getting their entertainment and information. There's also definitely an age factor in who is using streaming services and social media. Younger people are not using traditional methods, while older people still are - and overpaying for what they're getting because it's what they've known for so many years. Shimano is exactly right to stop trying to reach people via traiditonal television: it's dying the same way newspapers and magazines are. The internet is and has been the future - been that way for awhile now, only continues to grow while other methods rapidly shrink.

Well first of all you can leave the finesse stuff like drop shot at home. No need in south Florida. A Texas rigged worm or a Senko are old standbys that will always get bit. It's what most people really start with because they simply produce and are easy to fish. Keep it simple with moving baits: Spinnerbaits and crankbaits to start with. Honestly if you take a pack of your worm of choice (with hooks and weights), a package of Senkos, and a spinnerbait, you're going to be just fine. Remember: most of the stuff you see on the shelves is meant to catch fishermen. A forum like this is valuable to weed out all the junk you don't need to be worrying about in the first place.

The summer of my 19th or 20th birthday is when I decided to try bass fishing. There is a little half acre pond where I lived out in the boonies (town with a population of 200). I read and read about this sport and a younger a very confused me went out there with a spinnerbait. I casted and casted, but no fish (also surprisingly I picked up baitcasting almost immediately and with ease). As I was about to call it quits, I was bringing my spinnerbait back in (I was standing by a very weedy shore - cattails, extending 5 or 6 feet out into the water). My spinnerbait got a little hung up coming back in, rode up a cattail, and then splashed back down into the water. Almost immediately upon impact what I now know to be a 3 pounder (it was a monster to me back then) demolished it. It was at that moment that I became fascinated and obsessed with bass and fishing. The LMB was much paler than normal and had a unique mark on its side. A few weeks later I walked up to the pond to see that someone else had recently caught my bass and left it to die or killed it or something, although the corpse (?) had no injuries to it. Laying next to it was a Busch Light can. Sticking out of its mouth was 3/4 of a cigarette. Apparently someone thought that was funny. Broke my heart to see my bass like that.

If you can't get in there with Texas Rigs or a variety of jigs with hefty weedguards, I'm not sure what you can do. You did mention fish getting wrapped up. Heavy braid with heavy rods - muscle them out.

Yeah it's gonna happen. No different than a crankbait or any treble hook bait really. Always gonna have some cases of the lower set of trebles snagging somewhere on the outside of the fish if they don't inhale the whole thing. I wouldn't remove them. There's 2+ sets for a reason.