Hook2Jaw

Budget man will budget. My favorite current spinning setup is my Daiwa Tatula XT 7' Medium Fast. It is paired up with my Daiwa Fuego LT 2500D-XH, because I slack line a lot of weedless sticks and flukes and use the 10# Berkley X9 as a strike indicator. That is normally tied to 10# Berkley Trilene 100% Fluoro, but I have gone as high as 12 and as low as 6. The rod has a good tip to it and can toss my presentations a mile, and enough backbone to drive a 4/0 EWG. It may not be a Stella strapped onto a G-Loomis, but I'm pretty proud of it.

A Penn Pursuit III combo or Penn Fierce III combo should do you just fine.

A ½ ounce jig is such a confidence bait for me that a ⁵/¹⁶ ounce has largely replaced a weighted Texas rig when I have to have bites and bottom contact is the way to get it. Somehow, some way, a flaring silicon skirt and a trailer is such a great imitator of a sunfish or crawfish that it just gets chomped violently and oftentimes by very quality fish.

I've seen the original Feelfree Moken blast through surf and then handle the ocean all day. They're a pretty nimble boat.

@dickenscpa, I switched from a Hobie Mirage Drive 180 to the Old Town PDL Drive. The pull cords on the Hobie drives suck. Bent masts on Hobie drives suck. My PDL Drive is faster than the MD180 I had. It also costs 6 dollars to replace the pin and prop versus about 50 bucks for a mast and fin. Hobie owners constantly parroted the ease of pedaling of their drives versus the propeller style, but I prefer the full circular motion. Hobie owners constantly touted their boats as the end all be all of kayaks. Everything else was trash. I prefer my 2020 Old Town Predator PDL to the 2017 Hobie PA14 I had, and only a little bit of the new preference for it is because of an obnoxious group of owners. The only thing the Hobie drive does better than a good propeller drives is operate in 20" to 15" of water or so. The whole flutter fin thing has huge diminishing returns and the positional control of forward to reverse and back with just legs beats the ever loving crap out of it for fishing. It also does a tad better in grass, but eventually any drive needs clearing of debris. Hobies are good boats. That's about it, in my often not humble opinion.

https://6thsensefishing.com/collections/axis-metal-2-0 I've seen nothing about this crankbait, but 6th Sense seems to make a good product. It seems they're trying to make a bait that hunts often, and I think it's a good idea if they've tuned this model correctly. Hopefully it catches fish and fishermen alike. What say you, BR?

The Daiwa Tatula XT at 80 dollars on sportsmanoutfitters.com. I own three, and plan on adding another.

I keep them in their original bags and store them by type in large size KVD Speed Bags, and it's been one of the best investments I've made. One bag holds worms, be they trick, stick, or ribbon. Another bag has all my dropshot baits, Ned plastics, and flukes in it. The last has all my trailers, those being my craws, creatures, and swimbaits.

As far as an affordable paddle kayak, you'll be hard pressed to beat the Feelfree Moken 12.5 V2 at 800. Affordable pedal, the new Old Town Sportsman Salty PDL 120. They're 1900. Premium pedal, Old Town Predator PDL 2020. They're like 2350 on sale right now. Premium motor, Old Town Sportsman Autopilot 120 or 136. 3800 and 4000. My advice is to buy once, cry once, and buy your second kayak first. If you're considering kayak fishing, you'll probably enjoy it and stick with it. Welcome to the fold!

6', 210 pounds here. I fish from a Predator PDL, so a fairly similar platform. I wear an auto inflating PFD with it switched to manual only. I've worn the foam filled angler style PFDs, though none as nice as the NRS Chinook, and don't like my movement impeded. As far as paddling my Predator, I prefer a 240cm paddle.

The YUM Pulse works well for me. They're very durable with good body roll and kick. The ribs seem like they help hold depth well. They're cheap. The only issue is kinked tails, you may have to boil and cold dip a few.

I use braid to fluorocarbon leader. The braid offers easier line management, sensitivity, casting distance, and makes line watching much easier. The fluorocarbon offers sink rate and a little more abrasion resistance.

I was seriously hoping someone would say going up in spinning reel size might get more casting distance. It looks like I'm sticking with 2500 size reels. Thanks, guys!

I'm a big fan of tons of YUM baits. Dingers, Craw Chunks, and Kill Shots are some of my top producers from their line. The Bad Momma that was mentioned by @Bluebasser86 has been putting fish in the boat for me as well, but I haven't truly put it through it's places yet. ZOOM Trick Worms, Fat Alberts, and Super Flukes are good stuff. Big Bite Baits Cane Thumpers come in 30 packs for a reason, they're great paddle tail swimbaits. As far as Ned plastics go, I haven't found any as good as the Z-Man products.

As a kayak guy, I only take two spinning rods with me, but I've got a spare Tatula XT 7' Medium Fast that is currently without a reel. My other two spinning reels do the brunt of my finesse work, primarily slower presentations: weightless plastics, shakyheads, Neko rigs on my Medium stick, and drop shot and Ned rig on my Medium light. I was thinking of purposing the extra spinning rod for windy day jerkbaits, smaller cranks, and generally lighter versions of my hard bait or wire bait repertoire. Is there any benefit to stepping up or down from my standard 2500 sized spinning reels for those techniques on rough weather days?

The FG is best. I had failures until I started switching the overhands when tying. It's hard putting it into words, but when you're doing the finishing overhand knots after snipping the fluoro, do one over, one under, one over, one under. I haven't had any failures for several years.

Jigs.

7 speed, for sure. They catch up quick enough and pull moving baits that don't offer too much resistance excellently. 7.3:1 with 29" IPT is probably my favorite ratio.

I try my best to keep it to four colors for worming, those colors being for different water charities and different conditions. Clear and prefrontal gets watermelon with red flake. Clear and post frontal gets green pumpkin. Stained and prefrontal gets junebug, stained and post frontal gets black and blue. When I was younger, I remember a Culprit color called Red Shad being the jam locally.

Cut my teeth on an older Berkley Lightning Rod Shock, 7' MF and a Pflueger Trion. Caught a ton of bass in the river on that stick with a Texas rigged YUM Dinger. I miss that rod. It was stolen off my carport.

A: Take the hooks off.

Jigs are the best bass bait of all.

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I know I've already commented with my jokes, but when it gets time to get serious, and I take my bass fishing seriously... I use whatever rod can present whatever bait the best. I'm on the water to catch fish, and if I need to skip a stick worm up under a willow tree I'm grabbing that medium powered spinning rod. If I need to drag a jig through a laydown, I'm grabbing my casting gear.

Sometimes I put down my 7'6" heavy and pick up my 7' medium spinning outfit. My sissy wrist loves me for it. My bubba hookset does not.