txchaser

I still haven't found a time where the Uoze is the thing to throw. If they want a blade the owner flashy swimmer outfishes it by a lot. What am I missing?

Double San Diego Jam knot is better than anything else I've tried on shock/impact strength. And it's really obvious when it's tied corrrectly.

10 days ago I fished and they were still keyed on shad hardcore. So wierd. Smoking silver in lots of presentations, totally uninterested in red or (shhh) canary. I was really surprised.

This is pretty cool. Designed to fit a 3700.

This is the coolest part of livescope, learning all this new stuff about bass. In Milliken's bass university seminar he showed a video of fish coming off the bottom in 20ft of water, with 2ft of vis, when his jerkbait landed on the surface. The least cool part of it is seeing a monster that absolutely refuses to do anything but follow your bait. Well, that's the second least cool. The real one is repeating that all day long. You can see them. You know they are bass. They just aren't in the mood. It's maddening. You're doing "everything right" and they are interested, but there's one little change that you haven't figured out yet. I promise you it's way worse when you can see the fish fiddling with your bait but not eating. Even worse when they come out of a pile or off a tree like they are about to wreck it, and just turn away at the end. Just IMO, FFS will have a bigger impact on tourneys and guides than anything else. It's not easy to learn how to use it, how to recognize what's happening, how to follow, etc etc. How many anglers do you know with great non-ffs electronics that have never really learned to read the map or use the sidescan? FFS has you trying to notice the return strength and tail separation to see what the dang thing is. It's a really useful tool, but it's a pretty high skill bar to get a massive advantage out of it. As I mentioned elsewhere, perspective mode is a different deal though. I think it's going to be the killer, because it's more like 360 but with live view on fish, and works in shallow water. Catch and immediate release would have more positive impact on tournaments that any other change we could advocate for. Catching these FFS fish isn't wrecking the ecosystem, but putting a big fish in a livewell, dragging the boat 50 miles to stage, etc can't be helping them one bit. Same thing for the spawn - while bed fishing isn't really my thing, catching one and putting her right back is pretty likely low impact. But pulling her off and dropping her five miles away may well end that spawn opportunity for the year. Maybe the male defends the bed enough, maybe not. Eh, sorry for the wall of text.

I think some shakeyhead would have made my last trip better. It was a weird day of 50% junk fishing and 50% (chrome only) lipless. Bunch of fish but mostly smaller or males, regardless of depth. Water broke 60 here, and then dipped back to 58.

Call bob lusk, and check out his forum too. But everyone I know with catfish in their bass pond is trying to get them out. Should talk to him about the tilapia too. We use them for combo grass control and bass forage in north texas. But we always get cold enough to knock them out so low risk of them over-breeding.

Used tatula SV is definitely the best control you can get anywhere in that range. otherwise https://www.amazon.co.jp/Daiwa-24TATULA-100HL-Bait-Reel/dp/B0CKHM84DZ/ Is the new tatula 100 from amazon japan. Can't beat it at that price. Or the old pre-2024 is 90.00 https://www.amazon.co.jp/Daiwa-24TATULA-100HL-Bait-Reel/dp/B0CKHM84DZ/ 20 shipping on both Buying from amazon japan is super simple and the shipping is often as fast as buying US.

Catfish will happily eat the forage you have for your bass, so keep them out.

I think it was a good market overview, but needs a lead in for how to get started with picking size and then prioritizing features like networking, SI/DI/FFS, mapping. Maybe a set of questions that would help them narrow it down?

At that size, weightless senko, owner flashy swimmer with a keitech, buzzbait. Maybe a chatterbait. Don't forget to sneak up on the pond. Those fish are going to be really aware of whats going on in and around it. Slowing down may help you get bigger fish.

I have one steez (sv). Had to try it to see if it was worth it vs the zillion G's. Eh, it's not worth it. Zillion's too good. Both butter smooth. For almost everything I throw the SV boost is a better spool than the SV. If you get one, put it on a light moving bait rod, you'll get more out of it. If you just want to check out a new reel, buy the zillion HD (JDM) and put it on your frog rod, and use that reel on your topwater rod. The reel is *stout* and the handles feel just right for frogging and punching. It's a joy to use.

Little further south and it's crawdad. Your video should be it's own post. IMO the pic filters are ok but not as good as blue light blocker glasses that some of us use for electronics at night. Does a similar thing as the filter, but any time you take a picture you may have camera effects. It's really mind blowing to look at your tackle box or a bag of soft plastics.

The close ups on this are pretty good so you can visualize. Also, japanese knife sharpening is a little like JDM tackle. Don't even go look. This whole space has its own monkey and it's a vicious little thing. Did you know that Spyderco has 39 different steels in their beta program (Mule) that you can buy and test, but only in limited relases?

JDM is available too. $115 plus shipping, or 126 on the "use amazon but search the japanese listing name" trick. In this case "24 tatula tw 100" because that's how it was listed in japan. I can see some use cases where with the hyper gears I probably wouldn't care about the SV boost spool.

Any recommendations for a ball-head jig for small (2.8) swimbaits? Looking for a short shank hook that's pretty stout. The Morel mentioned above might work fine, I wonder about the head shape causing a different swim though?

For what it is worth, I had way better results with Gamakatsu's split ring pliers than with the texas tackle ones. Much easier to use with bass-sized split rings.

Anyone fished these yet? If I understand correctly, they have the same gear cut as the zillion. Wondering if they are the same level of butter smooth.

There's no way they'd put titanium on there at that price point. Steez blanks and titanium guides would put too much hurt on everyone else's $400-$500 rod, and might dent their "AGS is best" position. It's hard to have true (non subjective) differences in rods like a unique guide.

15 bucks for a crawfish trap on amazon and some cat food and you can see what some of your local ones look like.

Strike king makes a pointed wobble-head that will be better in your soft bottoms because it wont bulldoze as much. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Strike_King_Jointed_Structure_Head_2pk/descpage-SKJSH.html

Turn the knife edge up in a strong light and look for rolls/nicks/whatever. It should be pretty obvious at that angle. Generally a knife that's a little dull doesn't actually need a sharpener, it needs a strop. Sharpener works of course, but it's just overkill. A few quick strokes on a strop (with a little compound) solves dull. Sharpeners solve malformations, knicks, bad rolls of the edge, etc. Butcher steel does mostly the same thing; it's a little better at rolls which is more likely on a kitchen-style knife than real damage unless you are hitting animal bone. The knife thing was a deep rabbit hole for a while. It's as bad as fishing rods. I can only cut one thing at a time. Old hickory knives are really cheap, and the steel is just right for heavy food prep. Super easy to get sharp, hard to keep that way, but a couple of strops and it's back at shaving sharp. Pretty soft steel. There are a bunch of alloy steels out there that are the opposite. Brutal to get a good edge (best off getting diamond) but they'll stay sharp for a really long time. For the original question, yeah the scales are hard on that rapala.

This is really bad, because I have enough rods, and I already like them a lot. But... the best reason for me to stay away from a steez was the AGS guides. I just break them too often. Problem solved! And the daiwa "R" action is really really good. It's got plenty of give in the first third, stiffens up a lot in the middle but not too much, and solid in the bottom third. I'd prefer to not have to fish bottom contact with it, but it'd work fine. The latest round of zillions gave daiwa a bunch of momentum for the name, looks like they are taking advantage of it.

Just a couple of observations from a part of the country where red can matter a lot. Some of them might be relevant in your area too, but there's something like 44 (more?) kinds of crayfish/crawdads, and ours often have red or orange. I haven't seen much really bright red though, more like a muted red/maroonish. Red and orange are not at all the same color, and don't treat them that way. Same thing for a red bait with an orange belly or a red/orange chatterbait. Red in clear water, red/orange in tannic or murky water. Generally if I'm fishing red I like a red/green laminate like SK's Falcon Craw. The red is muted, which is also my preference, if I'm on red. Red/black seems to do ok too. Orange I have had the best luck with laminates of red/orange. A significant majority of my larger fish have come on a bait with red on it, and I don't fish red that much. Although that's changing this year. Bass have the physical structure to see two colors directly: Green and Red. Then there's white and black, and a bunch of tonal shades and flavors of mixes of green and red. IMO the comment about grass is important - if green and red are the primary colors for a bass, a red bait (orange in murky) probably stands out a lot against a green background. Moving baits probably mostly getting active bass.

Funny thing, they are heavy enough that they get used for that more than cutting hooks. Quick knock and they are done.