Aaron_H

Fixed a ProMax I had lying around, my first casting reel, been sitting after the thumb bar cracked in half on it. Replaced it and didn't know what to do with it, so I picked up a 7' MH/F Aird-X to be matchy matchy with it as a beater/loaner combo. And on my way home, got a notification that the Berkley Nessies I ordered were delivered. Two 7" in shad and two 5" in hickory shad, will be curious to see how these work.

Nice to see you back at it. Beautiful smallie!

The SLX MGL was the runaway star of the SLX line in my opinion, the upgraded MGL III spool and silent tune with no price increase make it a no brainer and a tough one to beat at its price point.

For my weightless Texas rigged senkos, I use a 6'10" M/XF casting rod, on 30lb braid to 12lb mono leader. For wacky rigged senkos, I fish them on a 7' M/XF spinning rod, 15lb braid to 12lb mono leader.

Good luck finding that in Florida! 😂 I've seen decent sized gators in a spot of water smaller than my driveway. Any speck of water that's been there long enough to be worth fishing is gonna have gators in it as well.

Spinnerbait: I don't know enough about them yet to say, but currently the Strike King 1/2 oz compact double willow in either silver/white or mouse, responsible for my two biggest spinnerbait fish so far. Jerkbait: If any of you have been watching me try to learn how to become an effective jerkbait fisherman over the last couple of years, then this answer will not surprise you. H2OX Ultimate Jerk Shad in the Crackle color. Lipless: An impossible choice, but if I had a gun to my head, I'd go with the 1/2 oz Booyah One Knocker in Flashy Momma. Bladed jig: Tough one. The 1/2 oz Chatterbait Evo in bluegill would probably be my choice, but it would be hard not to take the "Original" Chatterbait 1/2 oz in green pumpkin. Very quick and easy to modify the blade to have instant startup, all of my biggest Chatterbait fish have been on this version. Jig: 3/8 oz Strike King skipping jig in watermelon/red. Squarebill: N/A Crankbait: N/A Soft body swimbaits: Gambler Big EZ. Hard body swimbait: N/A.

The one thing I'm jealous of you northerners about. I could never bank fish that late at night with the gators here. S L A B

Was it the post in November where I talked about losing that enormous bass on a work trip on that color? Still wake up in a cold sweat some nights thinking about her, she was a truly awesome fish. Unlikely I'll be in that area to get another shot at her, but you never know.

Main negatives I saw were people having issues with the blade not rotating. I have a handful of these spinnerbaits in a couple of colors, all of them run true and the blades spin freely. My experience, outside of this incident, has been positive.

Yeah, I lose plenty of lures, but never had one break on me. Still newish to spinnerbaits so I wasn't aware they lasted for so few fish as the norm.

Picked up a few Chatterbait Evos from Academy. Really been enjoying the bluegill color, picked up a couple to replace ones I lost since I'm down to 2 of them, and picked up 4 in electric shad. Really wish they carried over green pumpkin shad to this line, but electric shad is close enough.

The new moon is traditionally a good bite for me, so I was fishing either way, but I was definitely curious to see if there would be any effect from the eclipse. I'm not anywhere near the path of the total eclipse, but we were supposed to get a little over 50% coverage from what I read. If there was any effect, it was a negative one. 😅 I got out right as the eclipse peaked for my location and fished 5 hours until dark. Only thing I could get bit on was a chatterbait, and aside from a couple of aggressive eats they were mostly very soft hits. Missed quite a few fish. This little guy ate it pretty good: First time throwing it with the new Rapala freeloader as a trailer. I was hoping it would stand up to tilapia short strikes better than the Zako does, but that hope was short lived. One tilapia short strike and ripped the tail right off. C'est la vie.

I've caught more fish than that on a single stick bait, which is why I was surprised that this is the amount of fish I can expect out of a spinnerbait. I do still have the blades, no sense in trashing good parts IMO.

I've got around a dozen or so of them, we'll see how they go.

Makes sense. I don't know if I'm good with that gamble on "will I lose a PB because the wire failed", maybe spinnerbaits aren't for me. I've lost PBs due to many things, but lure failure was never one. 18 small fish (sub 2 lbs) and one good fish (5lb), but point taken.

Went out yesterday, hucking a spinnerbait as I made a promise last year to @LrgmouthShad , hooked into a decent fish (3lb or so, nothing big) and it jumped and shook the bait. Or so I thought. Reeled up to make another cast and was left with the top half of the arm Now, I know spinnerbaits get bent up, and you can only bend that wire back so many times before it becomes too weak, but I have only caught 19 fish on that lure before it broke. And it wasn't some 99 cent Walmart special, it's a Strike King "Tour Grade" compact (more like Poor Grade am I right), certainly not the Cadillac of spinnerbaits but I would've expected it to stand up to more fish. Throwing it on a pretty soft MH rod with 15lb mono, really not a harsh setup for this IMO. My spinnerbait experience is pretty low still, so is this a normal range of wear and tear, or did I get hosed?

That's a whole lot bigger than my first bass! Very awesome of you to be able to get someone's feet wet in this sport.

I appreciate that vote of confidence, some of the reviews online were very unfavorable, but lemons happen with anything. I don't typically use the handle on the scale I use now, so no worries there. If anything I can wrap some grip tape around the bottle opener at the top to make it easier to loop a finger in there. I don't drink anything but water while fishing, so a bottle opener has zero use for me. I like the idea of the high contrast screen, taking pictures of a scale in the harsh FL sunlight can be tricky at times. Hopefully mine is good to go!

Their website ships! Haha I'll post my thoughts about the Basix for sure, this is for my lipless rod which I don't like to experiment with, but for 10 bucks I figure why not try and learn something.

Academy is running a promo on their H2OX baits, buy 4 or more, get 25% off. Works online and in store.

Was in the market for a new scale, and saw that Academy is running a promo on their H2OX lures, buy 4 or more and get 25% off. Picked up an extra chrome jerkbait, a walking bait that was posted in the Found Lures thread had my interest piqued so I snagged one, then a few squarebills. Also time to respool so I picked up some Seaguar Basix to try out; never been a fluoro guy aside from leader material so we'll see. Also saw Academy has a bladed Alabama Rig under their H2OX line now, but I can't find it on the website so it must be pretty new. Only 10 bucks, I was tempted but A-rigs from the bank sound like a recipe for snags. I threw some upgraded hooks/split rings on that topwater and rigged it up, going to throw it tomorrow and see how it does. Edit - Walked out back just to see how the bait walks, it definitely works lol

That's a day to be proud of, awesome job!

Ahhhh I definitely got sucked into the LiveTarget hype when I started out. Still have a handful of their swimbaits left in the box. Good call, I definitely avoid them these days.

An eventful evening. Numbers were decent, managed 12 bass, ten of them on a chrome jerkbait and two on a spinnerbait. About an hour after I started, these two guys showed up across the pond from me, no big deal. Saw them catch a couple of tilapia and throw them in a bucket, so I'm thinking heck yeah keep it up, get those things out of here! Welp, then they decided to bring that bucket over to an area I was just recently fishing, and start feeding a 5 foot gator that was sunning there. Biiiiig no no here in FL. I let them know that what they were doing was illegal, that people fish here with their kids and walk their dogs here, and feeding that gator is putting them in danger. Walked back to where I was fishing and they didn't seem too dissuaded, ended up calling FWC and their operator dispatched an officer to me after I explained the situation to her. Unfortunately the guys saw me on the phone and I'm guessing knew what I was up to so they hoofed it out of there within a few minutes of me ending the call. Unfortunately it means that gator will get trapped an killed so that it doesn't pose a danger to people. On the bright side, I did manage to get into a nicer fish, biggest of the evening went 5lb even, caught on a spinnerbait. My second biggest spinnerbait fish currently. Ate it right at the bank, inhaled at when I gave it one last little pause/pop.