Aaron_H

Was just 20% off on Amazon. I just searched Kastking Zephyr BFS (careful since there's a non-BFS Zephyr now). It's the drag-clicker version for 59.99.

Picked up a Kastking Zephyr on a decent black Friday deal to try my hand at BFS. I'm primarily interested in using this for panfish, throwing 1/16oz jigheads and similar, so if I can do that and get the ergonomics of the baitcaster, I figured it was worth a shot for the price to see if I liked it. Definitely finicky to get dialed, it's a cheap reel. But it works so far. This little guy was the first fish on it this morning trying to get it dialed in out behind the house. Spooled it with 6lb Seaguar Basix, throwing a 1/16 oz Roadrunner underspin with a 2" grub for a trailer.

Great proportions, but I think all the ~6lb guesses are the closest. Based on his hands, fish looks right around 20" in length. No way it's a DD (unless we got weights in fish!!)

Lipless, jerkbait, jig, chatterbait.

From Rapala, the Shadow Rap Shad is my best producing, though the new Mavrik 110 looks very promising. The Shadow Rap and Husky Jerk are great, also, but I have yet to unlock any secrets with the RipStop. From other brands, the Berkley Stunna is very solid, and if you have an Academy near you, the H2OX Ultimate Jerk Shad has far and away been my best producing jerkbait in the last two years.

Picked up a Curado K 201 HG at Academy for $142 today. No idea what I'll use it for, but for that price I figured it was worth trying.

Went down to Tampa area for ten days for work, took a couple of rods with but was only able to get out once for a little pond-hopping close to the hotel. Caught a handful, including a 3lber, and hooked into a huge bass that I thought was a carp at first until she came up. Sadly the hook pulled when she went under and changed direction. I don't want to be the guy saying "it was a frickin' ten pounder bro!!!" but I wouldn't have been surprised if she would've beat my PB, she was a big girl. To add insult to injury, I broke off that chatterbait evo a couple of hours later. This evening was the first trip out since I got back home Friday night, nothing insane but did get into a decent jerkbait bite, biggest of the trip was this 5lb 12oz LM. I thought she would've weighed a bit more based on her length but she was definitely pretty skinny for this time of year.

It's got more plastic than the SLX, and a graphite frame instead of aluminum, but I picked one up for my younger brother last year and it's a solid reel for moving baits; easy to dial in like the SLX and will sling a bait out there. Personally I would pay the extra $20 for the SLX A for the aluminum frame and silent tune, but if the Caius fits your budget it's a fine reel. The SLX MGL is the sleeper of the series IMO. The MGL spool is no joke, and it's the only SLX model that comes with cross carbon drag. I have not experienced line capacity being an issue with the 70 size spool, either, but your mileage may vary on that. For 150 bucks, if I could go back I would have bought them for my lineup over my other SLX reels and my SLX DC.

Sorry, was out of town for work. I bought all of that at my local Academy, all of the gold label was on clearance for 9.97 I believe. The spool I picked up is 20lb since that's what I generally use for inshore leaders.

Good to see you're still at it, Mike!

I haven't broken 20lb in a single day so far this year, and my best five for the year is currently only at 22lb 6oz. Still two months left in the year and the bass are starting to chunk up for the winter/spawn, still optimistic I can get a little lucky before the year is out.

That's the neat part, I don't! Looks like we are fishing them differently, I tend to focus my jig fishing around hard cover, especially wood.

This is slanderous! 😂 My once-upon-a-time PB (7lb 15oz) was on a jig, and it's been responsible for a good number of 5lb+ fish for me since.

If you haven't tried out the Thunderhawk Sergeant lipless, give it a shot! This 3lb 4oz bass was the first of the evening and T boned it.

Except for spooks, apparently. Come on TW, it's right in the name!

Threw the new chatterbait evo around for a few hours this evening along a 2 mile stretch of canal. Very strong wind out of the east wasn't too fun to contend with, but managed 8 total. 5 on the chatterbait and 3 on a senko. Nothing over 2lb, but nice to get bit on something new. Last fish of the evening had a crawdad sticking out of its gullet.

Sorry to hear about that, but like you said the silver lining there is that you managed to salvage the reel. I'll echo the sentiment to check with Okuma and see how their warranty process goes. You never know, and it costs nothing to try.

This coming from Mr. Olympia over here.... 😂

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Fenwick_HMG_Spinning_Rods/descpage-FSPR.html I've had two of their Aetos 6'8" MH/XF spinning rods for about 7 years now, thrown everything from senkos, underspins, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, jigs, lipless, buzzbaits, whopper ploppers, you name it. Caught bass, snapper, redfish, black drum, trout, etc on them.

I like the Fish Head underspins, they get a lot of use inshore for us here.

Would've had some words for that guide if it'd been me. A cast here and there is one thing, but you're there to guide, not fish. Wouldn't have tipped, and would've posted a bad review. Sorry to hear the trip was a disappointment for you.

Tried out one of the stealth blade chatterbaits I picked up the other day, so far pretty impressed with it. Water was cold and the shad are finally starting to school up, but the feeding pattern isn't wide open yet. Still managed a handful, couple of nicer fish with the biggest going 3lb 3oz. They were eating it pretty deep, too, which is good to see. One little guy right before dark choked it.

There's still time left in the year for me, no freeze down here, but so far I was pretty wrong. Wacky rigged white senko is my biggest of 2023 so far at 7lb 2oz. I do like how optimistic I was for the prespawn before the Year of the Humble Pie™ wore me down. 😂

Haven't tried a trailer on a spinnerbait yet. Chatterbaits: my top trailer is the Yamamoto Zako, but I've caught some big fish using the Zoom Swimmin' Super Fluke when I first tried out chatterbait fishing. The Zako is such a great trailer on them that I have no reason to try anything else currently. But all accounts, the Spunk Shad is supposed to be pretty killer on them, though.

They changed it early this year, just H2OX now. Can definitely attest to a few of their hardbaits, the Ultimate Jerk Shad and the 5/8oz medium profile lipless (5/8 oz RT on the website) are very effective and also very inexpensive. The tungsten weights are great, as well. Haven't tried the rods yet but the old Tac-40 felt fantastic when I played around with it. Wish I'd have picked one up to try out when they were clearancing them out. Felt very similar to my Fury 705CB