Trox

This feels like reading a chapter in Sowbelly minus the 15 pages of character building. Right to the action! Love it

I always do, but I am always VERY skeptical when reading reviews on rods or reels, and NEVER rely on a single source. If I'm ever considering buying a new product, I will read reviews from, at the very least, 3 other websites. It's also worth noting that most people don't post reviews 3 months after a purchase to tell the world that the product works exactly as expected... Most of the time, they need a reason to come back. e.g. something went wrong, it was actually a bad product, or that they just absolutely loved the product. Here is how I see it normally going... Scenario: 100 people bought Rod X - 80 people "like the rod" - 15 people "love the rod" - 5 people "hate the rod" We will never hear from the 80 people who "like the rod" as there is really no motivating factor for them to come back and post something like "works as expected". We will hear from about 11 or so people who "love the rod" and want to support what they feel like is truly a superior product. And then we will likely hear from all 5 of those who "hate the rod"... If it plays out like that, you have about 16 reviews with a little less than 1/3rd of them being negative. However all are considered, I typically don't start to worry until the negative reviews start to get higher than 1/3rd of total reviews. If that happens, I will definately look into it... Any negative reviews that are like "The picture is lime green, but it's actually dark green, and I hate dark green" get immediately dropped from the equation and do not count towardds that threshold... One final thing to note about negative reviews is to understand what they are actually being negative about. Sometimes you can actually tell the angling experience of someone who posts a negative review based on what they see as important, deal breakers, etc... for example, they bought a deep cranking rod but are complaining about the handle length being too long, making it hard to work a jerkbait.... Those are typically dropped from the equation as well

I built a garden for my wife like 4 years ago and it got about a seasons worth of use... It's since been repurposed as a giant litter box by our cats. Every now and then, something will randomly decide to grow from it, but I know what I feed those cats, and what comes out the other end can't be much better for those plants... hard pass.

I have no motivation to watch it, so I'm depending on you guys for updates. I'll start holding my breath now.

Washington Commies for short

Our cat loves baths...

I feel like the Central Bass Fishing corner never gets any action. Love seeing an actual fishing report on here. I've been thinking about creating separate threads for the lakes I fish, but I can't help to think that it would just be me talking to myself most of the time.

In my experience, If there are zero fish where I am fishing, it's harder to catch them than if there are fish where I am fishing.

Most things that are non-fishing related are just in case/hope I never need em items - first aid kit -- has come in handy more times than I care to admit - extra pair of clothes -- especially this time of year, the difference between getting wet and cold and staying wet and cold can be life or death if you get dunked in the winter! - 9mm Sig Sauer -- to fight pirates with

I'm going to have to second this...

If it's a white or striped bass, yes. I actually clean em and feed them raw to my two cats... pet food is expensive! to be fair though, I don't know (or care) enough about those species of bass to know if they are spawning or not, so "purposefully" may not be the best word. And I never target them but sometimes randomly catch a couple by accident. When that happens, and they're legal, I'll keep em.

If my wife ever leaves me, this is where I'm moving I've already proposed it to her but it got shot down for some strange reason ?‍♂️

Yup... It WAS a hidden gem! lol. I remember those videos of the Milliken guys catching a 60lb bag and a 15/16lb bass dropped on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. I live 3 or so hours from that lake so I decided to take that Thursday and Friday off of work and stay up at Ivey until Sunday, because I knew what was about to happen... You're totally right. When I got there on Thursday the lake was just like a ghost town... then on Saturday morning, 200 or so trailers loaded the parking lot and half of the trucks had guys still sleeping well into the morning, exhausted from driving all night!! It was wild!

Welcome!

Started fishing when I was 5, and probably averaged bi-weekly fishing trips until my mid 20s where I was able to started fishing 3 or so days a week out of a bass buggy, weather allowing... Once my step dad sold me his 2005 ProCraft 210 SuperPro when I was 29 it was all over though and I've been an obsessive tournament fisherman ever since... pushing 33yo now.

That lake is going to be special for a while... Think about it... no one even knew that lake existed before last year, and theres been what, 10+ Sharelunkers caught out of there since? Maybe even closer to 20? I've lost count... And all those sharelunkers have been spawning their faces off in that lake over the last 10 years so the gene pool sitting in that lake is absolutely insane right now. in addition, a major contributor with that lake is that a large majority offers protected spawing areas. i.e. the stick ups don't allow boats to get shallower than 5-10ft depending on water level. So bass fishermen aren't yanking fish off beds... It's setting up quite nicely for at least a few more years... What I'm curious about is all the sleeper lakes in that area that aren't getting any more fishing pressure due to the O.H. Ivie hype train.

Either one would be a good choice. Having used both brands, I would definitely say that Garmin is a little more user friendly (as in, the learning curve is not as steep as Humminbird imo)... also, the touch screen on the echomaps is a huge plus between the two... Dont forget to budget your maps into that $1,500! If you go with 2 Helix's, know that they do NOT share Lakemaster map information, so you will have to buy a $100 card for EACH unit, or buy each lake separately for each... On the other hand, Garmin DOES share it's LakuVu maps between units.

Worst nightmare... Hope it all works out for you somehow in the end

If so, it will be the 6th teener out of that lake so far in January alone... including a 15+ and three 14+. It's getting comical.

Must be a Tennessee thing

The only way to get Mega SI with a DI unit is to get a Mega 360 since it has both a side scan or 360 setting. For side scan, instead of rotating 360 degrees, it just points the beams side to side and freezes. I don't think this is a good option for your application at the console though nope! If you really need SI at the console (which you should), you will need to move the SI+ model to the console and also replace the transducer with the SI+ transducer. And if you are to use the SI at the bow, you will need Mega 360 I have two Helix G4s as well, one SI+ and one DI+, and this is what I had to learn the hard way.

omg it's actually a thing...

Wait... is a "stupid tube rig" an actual thing? I just thought the OP was frustrated and getting creative with his adjectives...

I'm tired of these cold fronts too... Had a 50 degree drop (80 to 30) during the last one that finally dropped the average water temp in the lakes in central/south texas to below 60 degrees... The typical winter bite has officially began here... FINALLY... It's been one of those warm winter years though and the cold bite won't last long... Some bass were already locked on beds at Choke Canyon starting mid/late-December, I bet those fish are confused as heck right now!

I once heard, "The hooks that come on the rattletrap, are the best hooks for the rattletrap"... And that has actually proven to be true imo, even with other baits. Manufacturers know that MOST fishermen won't buy more of a lure that has noticeably cheap components, so they will typically put the best hardware they can find/create on their baits. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule... And I capitalize "MOST" when talking about fishermen because I know guys who literally change every hook, on every bait that they buy, no matter what. Could be a turd for hooks and they would still buy it. But that's not me, or the majority of the guys and gals I know out there... In short, I believe that most stock hooks are pretty alright, but I will change them out in regards to switching from EWG to roundbend (or vice versa), or lighter to heavier, depending... but not always, and not because one wasn't a good hook... Now, It's also important to consider the percentage of fishermen that will ever even consider changing out hooks, at any point. As in, no one who is not serious about the sport is going to spend time tassling with split ring pliers and such... so this leaves a rather small percentage... maybe under 25% of the fishing community regularly change out their hooks. But this 25% is serious, man! And don't let them catch you talking about using stock hooks on your... Crud! they've spotted me, gotta run!