Brad Reid

Excellent topic! Nerd Alert: I offer this as something few will want to read in its entirety. In essence, it describes the authors' attempts to predict the various metrics of tapered rods under loads using a formulaic approach that jibes with real life results. Pretty cool. Dust off your Calculus textbook. Brad Nerdy rod stuff

A-Jay, That is actually Eric Jackson of Jackson Kayak fame and also a former world champion kayaker and Olympian. He's a heck of a nice guy, experienced angler at several levels. It sort of shows one can't ever be too careful. It can happen to anyone. Brad

I used to use the Gamakatsu swivel hooks, nose hooked roboworms and really liked them. I'd still use these for nose hooking worms and other plastics. But, my hook up ratio exploded up when I moved over to the Roboworm Rebarb Hook. I use different sizes but generally like either a 1/0 or #1 light wire. I use these whenever I Texas Rig a roboworm which is now most of the time. Brad

Mentioned elsewhere in another post, I picked up two rod and reel combos from St. Croix around Christmas to fill some voids in my collection. The rods are Reign rods and I don't know what makes them different from other St. Croix rods using SCII material. They look and feel identical to me, just much less expensive. Well, back to ML versus M. I just love the feel of this new ML. It is a 6'6" stick with nice casting ability, rated for 4 to 10 lbs. line and 1/8th to 1/2 lures. Since I fish a fairly taut line on most finesse apps, say drop shots and lazy slow retrieved Keitechs, I have found the hook-ups to be very good. Whatever an ML gives away in rigidity, it makes up for by bending farther under the same loads. So, for easy sweep sets, it might even be better in the sense that it takes a bit longer sweep to arrive at the same force at the hook. Less lost fish? Anyway, I love this new ML. I also prefer an M over a MH for casting gear. If I hate anything, it is a rod that is too stiff for its intended purpose. Second, of course, is one that is not up to the task and casts spongy if the lure is over-weighted. That's no fun. Brad

For sure, stick with the Senko as noted above. You'll be using this for the rest of your fishing days. To this if I were trying to branch out, I might start casting a weightless Shad bait like a Keitech Shad Impact. I prefer using an Owner CPS pin (medium) to nose hook it on a 3/0 60 degree bent jig hook, then Texas rig the plastic. Make casts and you will learn to fish it all the way up and down in the water column. You can let it fall sort of like a Senko, you can fish it off the bottom like a worm, you can jerk it back since it is a soft jerk bait, you can put some pace on the retrieve, you can toss it over vegetation or pads and drag it across the tops of lily pads, you can run it back on a fast retrieve if the bass want to play chase, just on and on and on. It's a good bridge technique between true finesse at one end of the spectrum all the way to a power fishing technique and everything in between. Too, you can likely use your existing rod and reel and line. Brad

Oh yes! And, at age 66, after not having worn a beard in decades, all my life with dark brown hair . . . most of my beard grew in . . . as white as, well, Pat Boone's shoes. Ha!

I'd definitely recommend M over MH for spinning rods assuming you use them as intended. You want a well-bent, loaded spinning rod, and the reel is usually reeling down on line to set up another round in the fight with the rod. MH would be fine for casting reels since the play is different. For a T-Rig, I'd want a "light" MH, though, unless as others have said you are fishing larger plastics or around matted or thick vegetation. I just picked up a ML Reign spinning rod, St. Croix makes them as best I can tell, that, or they use St. Croix blanks etc. (???) and I took it out yesterday and just found it to be a superb rod. I used it for tossing an Owner Underspin with a 4" Keitech shad, then another time just throwing it weightless on a 3/0 hook. Well, it casts farther than my M powered spinning rods with its little extra bit of spring; and, all of my hook sets buried the hooks very well. I only missed one fish all day, caught 5. So, no issues there. At 6'6", this ML likely has the power of a 7'0" M anyway as it has a shorter lever fighting the fish. Brad

The PAs are still likely the best but also the most expensive. The Old Town Predators are "muscular" looking, fast and accelerate out of the hole better than most . . . but all of us tend to move around when we fish at around 2 to 3 MPH, so . . . The Native Titan 10.5 is likely the best bargain at around $2400. It is very stable and you could be "all in" for the various contraptions we invariably put on our kayaks for $3,000 or so with a little luck. It'd be the easiest to slide into the back of a truck without the need for a bed extender. No truck, then time to consider a trailer! I "second" the opinion regarding the Propel 10, one of the very best kayaks for fishing, super stable while seated and more. Don't let its length fool you. It'll pack a ton of gear. But, it is only $100 less than the Titan 10.5 so not as big a bargain. These are the kayaks I'd consider as top candidates. Brad

I have a very strong preference for black rods. White rods remind me of Pat Boone's shoes. Colored rods look toyish to me, or like kid rods. I traded for a really nice St. Croix Inshore rod and its color was sort of aqua-green I guess. As much as I loved the rod, I disliked the color. The same angler I had bought it from called me one day, asked if I would trade it back to him. Jeff took (takes) excellent care of his gear, said he'd trade me a G-Rod graphene trout rod, I think that was the exchange, and I took him up on it. If given a choice, I'd always choose black. Did so recently with two Reign rods from St. Croix where I could have chosen either black or gray. Yep! Black again. Cheers! Brad

Well, that video of Cornell I mentioned and that was posted above shows how stable and effective they can be. If truck bed width is an issue, that, or wanting to launch away from ramps, to carry a vessel some distance through the woods or something to the water's edge, I'd go with a Meyers Sportspal S-13. It weighs 57 lbs. and it can be tossed over a shoulder and a small athletic woman can walk with one for some distance, no issues. And, you can use either a TM or a small outboard as it has a square stern. Mine pictured below is the S-15, same width but longer. I often paddle mine over a mile on a large lake, then back, just sitting down to re-tie or eat lunch, etc. Two large men can stand in them and fish at the same time. Wide enough to drop a bladed leg aluminum lawn chair for super comfort, carry twice the weight of most kayaks. What a wonderful vessel! Brad

I like the 4 game series. What it did was force the Big 12 to add a championship game, this year won by Oklahoma as it avenged its earlier regular season loss to Texas. So, was Georgia better than the Sooners? Likely so, though it appears the air went out of their balloon when they were excluded from the top 4. But, we got to see Alabama-Georgia and I think once is enough. They might need to promulgate a rule that says only one team per conference. Alas, #1 and #2 can certainly come from the same conference so I'd likely leave it alone. Sure, #5 Georgia could have won the championship this year; but, for most years, the best team in college football will be found somewhere in the top 4. The odds of excluding a possible winner of the play-offs, yes Georgia could have won it, won't happen often. The way around it is to not lose 2 regular season games. Tough to do in the SEC. 8 teams and another round of games is too many. Hoping, here, they stay with 4. I'm not even certain how they could fit it all in with semester lengths being what they are. Students, first, I'd like to think. The NFL? I bet it wishes it could buy a "bottle" of the football played at the highest levels in college, get that sort of excitement. Alas, there aren't 10 games a year in the NFL that are of the excitement caliber of high quality NCAA football games played each and every weekend. Brad

One popular YouTube angler, Cornell, fishes almost exclusively out of a mini bass boat, even has a video on its characteristics you can watch. He stands the whole time, occasionally has a companion angler on the vessel with him, both standing, no issue. Yes, it is about width, for sure, but also length. My Meyers Sportspal S-15 is a little over 15 feet long, I think 43" wide if the boat collars are added (they call them sponsons). My nephew and I can both stand and fish at the same time. And, Carl on another YouTube channel does the same with the smaller S-13, that is two anglers standing at the same time. Advantage? The 13 footer only weighs 57 lbs., can be carried overhead by, say, a woman for some distance to the water if that is ever an issue. The square stern models, S-13 and S-15, are factory ready for either trolling motors or small outboards. This provides super flexibility: paddle, TM or gas power. I typically stand and fish, like to paddle my S-15 around standing using a 280 cm double-bladed paddle that works great standing and seated, too. I'd go mini bass boat over jon boat, plenty for sale used at all times. I'd go Meyers Sportspal over any other canoe as it is the best fishing canoe of them all. I'd recommend it to anyone needing great flexibility: carrying issues, slow rivers, ponds and lakes, easy toting on a car top or truck. I attached the S-13 below. Brad By the way, Cornell's YouTube vids are great. Here is one to get you to his page. Brad Mini Bass Boat Angler

Texas, here. My favorite days are the rare cooler days in our hot summers. A close second would be warm days in winter, of which we get a lot more of these here in Texas. Fishing can be great in either case but super for the angler! Brad

I really like all of my St. Croix spinning rods. Versatility, sort of a rod's version of a "jack of all trades, master of none (well, actually mastering a few!)": a Medium power for spinning rods qualifies as the one power I think is the most versatile. A Shimano Stradic Ci4+ in a 3000 series is a fabulous reel. Rod length, to me, depends on where and how you are fishing. Likely the most versatile length would be 6'6' to 7'0". Brad

Mick, correct on your metals analogy. A quick cinching of a "dry" knot, any resulting friction heat created, won't penetrate and move through the fluoro as fast as it would mono. There just isn't much heat to localize or otherwise spread. I think we agree that it is insignificant for either line. And, it certainly is if we wet the knot though I view this as more of a lubrication than as a "heat sink." The heat conductivity of both line types is very close to begin with. Yes, more about fragility of fluorocarbon. I also use it solely as a leader, don't like it as a main line. Brad Stiffer lines are harder to "bend," tougher to draw into a tight knot, too. So, my general thought is that a stiffer line bends more poorly, suffers the consequences related to it. For sure, it is tougher to cast. But, where it remains relatively un-bent, like a short piece of these tougher fluoro formulas specially-made for leaders, they have other attributes, likely stand up to abrasion better, for example. I personally use 6 to 8 ft. leaders using standard fluoros like Invizx. Brad

Mick, no. The heat generated by the friction of snugging down a "dry" knot never rises to the level in fluorocarbon that it does in a monofilament. This is the heat conductivity part of the equation. But, when you wet a knot, of any sort, water (spit) has a much higher level of heat conductivity and conducts it away from the line. It just conducts less heat away with fluoro than mono because the fluoro never gets as hot. Advantage, fluorocarbon. There are other aspects, for sure, and fluoro lines do have fractionally higher levels of thermal expansion for the same amount of heat exposure. But, the slight difference is offset . . . because fluoro never gets as heated to begin with. Let's call this physical property a draw. The real culprit is fluoro's much lower bending strength. For a given tensile strength rating of the two lines, say both can suspend 20 lbs. before breaking, fluorocarbon does less well when "flexed" (bent) and blows out or ruptures more easily. Advantage, monofilament. Add this to the fact that the fluorocarbon material is just much more dense and it makes getting it set well and deep in a knot, of any kind, more difficult than with most monofilaments. Advantage, monofilament. Brad

Good observation, NHBull. I tie Palomar knots frequently because I drop shot often and it creates a good knot , size-wise, for passing back through the hook eye to get the hook to stand out perpendicular to the line. And, I tie them correctly. But, for those who have trouble using with them with fluoro, heck, just use a different knot. Lots of options. Not because of a bad knot, I just greatly prefer a Uni knot for most applications . . . other than a drop shot. Your best knot is the one that you tie well. Brad

Gosh, I hope I am not "beating a dead horse" here but I want to explain why tying a knot, any knot, correctly is important. So, most fishing "knots" rely on friction to hold them together. If the wraps lie perfectly against each other along their wrap lengths, it creates more friction resistance, more drag. If a sloppy knot crosses lines, the only friction occurs at the intersections, not along long circular wraps. Analogy: If you are trying to start a fire rubbing two sticks together, you rub one perpendicular to the other, you don't rub them against each other long-wise, side by side. Why? Well other than concentrating the heat generated, it is because you can push and pull two crossed sticks rather easily (less friction). If you rub two sticks long-wise, there is too much friction interference, too much contact. This is exactly what we want in our knots, the most surface area of one piece of line coming into contact with another. Poorly tied knots limit friction to small intersections, criss-crosses. They pull apart much more easily. Brad

Well, they can certainly "out fish" me any day; doesn't mean, though, they are scientifically correct. Fluorocarbon has less heat conductivity than monofilament. It does. So, to the extent that burning is an issue, it'd be more so with monofilament. Other than lubricating the line to assist in getting a knot properly tightened, water (spit, too) has a thermal conductivity 3X greater than that of fluorocarbon . . . so it absorbs and wicks away any heat issues. When you singe the end of a rope to keep its fibers from unfurling? Many of us lick our index finger and thumb, then tamp the burnt end to cool it off, terminate the heat. Anyway, no, fluorocarbon is less, not more, sensitive to heat than mono. Brad

I think you are spot on with a lengthy rod for making better casts, covering more water. I'm not certain what a 7" Basstrix weighs, this added to a large weighted hook, but if it "dials in" for a MH rod, say around the mid-point in lure weight range, a MH might accentuate the casting aspect. But, if you are letting the swimbait work deeper in the water column, even dusting up the bottom of a lake, you might prefer a heavy rating for a more forceful hook set. We were fishing near a bridge on a lake in east Texas, Naconiche, and the angler I was with is a large swimbait aficionado. He used a heavy rated rod, often let a large swimbait work very deep with good results. Brad

Interesting. The weakest part of a line is always the first acute bend in a knot . . . assuming the line isn't otherwise flawed. Lines break at knots because the act of creating it stretches the fibers or material on one side, compresses them on the other. Flourocarbon failures owing to overheating is not the issue; fluorocarbon is less sensitive to heat than monofilament. It is just harder to form it into a tight knot that causes some failures . . . and people attribute that to line burning. So, my guess is since you pulled back a "C" shape with some additional straight line beyond the "C" and toward the end, is that it didn't break in the knot . . . but slipped apart. Palomar knots can slip apart, most knots can. What it lacks in friction, it makes up for by being a doubled line knot, that, and the fact that when you slip that bight over and around the hook or lure, it "anchors" the end of the knot better than knots with just a single terminating tag end clipped off. It sounds to me like the knot was just old, needed re-tying. I suppose a good rule is to visually check your line every so often, first, then at least visually inspect the knot, replace it after "X" number of fish are caught and certainly after a big fight with a large one, then always retie junction and terminal knots between fishing trips. Brad

Just to add another dimension here that might not have been discussed, it depends a lot on eyesight. My eyes, at age 66, aren't what they used to be, so it is hard for me to tell how a fish is hooked as it approaches me in either my kayak or canoe . . . meaning I am pretty danged close to them. But, often you'll see that professional anglers will comment on film whether the fish is well hooked or just barely hanging on. If it is hooked well, they will often sling them in; if they are just barely hooked, the anglers play the fish longer to tire them out, get down and lip them. So, regardless of the equipment, whether one is using finesse or power gear, it's nice to get a heads up, visually, to know and decide how to get it in the boat. I eliminate the "skiing" a bass back to the boat at full speed. There, the fish are moving so fast being literally dragged across the water, I can't imagine it is easy to tell how they are hooked most of the time. I see this as the far end of the philosophy already stated: The less time in the water, the less possibilities of the fish coming off. Not my style but I can see its application. Brad

Great names listed here for SBs. Clunn, in particular, attributes his success with them to learning from two legendary spinnerbait anglers. One, whose name I have forgotten, fished with SBs all year long, in all conditions.

I think "all that" simply suggests, accurately, that it never pays to use a power and action that is not up to the task at hand. I agree. And, certainly if someone is breaking rods on back casts, he or she is way under-powered. Most rods have rather decent lure weight ranges. Since I have mentioned the prowess of my little 5'-6" St. Croix, I'll use that rod manufacturer's data and note that its Mojo 7' MH has a range of 3/8s to 3/4s ozs.; and, its H in the same series is rated 3/8s to 1-1/2 ozs. The only thing the "experts" have said, not really all that stridently, is if you are in a kayak . . . say tossing something in the 1/2 to 3/4s ozs. range, it might be better to pick the MH over the H. From there, it is just personal preference. I almost always feel more comfortable with the lowered powered rod when there is an "overlap" of acceptable rod powers for a particular presentation. I, for example, wouldn't even consider a heavy powered rod for a T-Rigged worm if it weighs 5/8s of an ounce. Brad

Instead of a Keitech Swing Impact with its paddle tail, I'd recommend you try Keitech's Shad Impact which has a straight tail, more of a soft plastic jerk bait. It'd work fine for this presentation. There are other plastics, for sure, but all Keitechs are great, of the highest quality. A really good winter presentation. Let us know how you do if you get a chance to report back! Brad