txchaser

You mean like... this?

https://daiwa.us/pages/icast

Heaviest? A daiwa swimbait rod for a deps 250. Two more up there in alabama rig/swimbait zone. For me, hook diameter also plays a role in rod and line size. There's a ton of overlap in the MH and H reasonable casting weights anyway. Common presentations for me on a Heavy: Frog Punch rig. On braid I haven't felt the urge to an XH, and the cast isn't really a cast anyway. Jig Carolina-rig Big, fat, or deep worms. If it needs an owner beast hook I'm moving to XH though. 4.8 keitech, 5/0 or 6/0 owner flashy swimmer (I tried these on a MH, too many poor hooksets) Deep cranks *Swimjig (although I'm moving to a midsize hook and that fishes just fine on a MH on weed edges/points, which is mostly where I fish it anyway, on flouro). One of my heavy rods is down for the count right now (knocked a ring out) and it's a bit of a PITA, as I try to get it done with five. Some of the presentations above can be fished on the same rod and may have overlap, like the big worm/jig rod. But having a punch rig on anytime a frog is in play is nearly always worth more fish. Friction to throw a c-rig is really high if it isn't setup already. Deep crank setup is a bit different than the others, etc. I tend to put more presentations into fewer places, but that leaves me hauling a lot of junk around. Usually only need two rods, but I don't know which ones for a little bit. How many medium rods? One. Mostly stays in the truck. Right next to the one ML I have that I also never use.

Should I be concerned about over stressing the honeycomb spool dragging fish out of the weeds on braid?

You are awesome, thanks!

Thoughts on the best way to pick up spare spools that will fit in a Zillion (new one) without paying 50% or more of the reel? I'd like to be able to swap out to braid on a rod for punching so it doesn't need to be hyper-digi-sv, average weight over 1oz. JDM spools don't seem any less expensive, but maybe buying the part directly from daiwa. Or is there an aftermarket spool that's great with heavy line (don't need much of it) and heavy baits?

6.5 Creedmoor versus 7mm08, go

I remember lots of amazing fishing during rain, and don't remember any bad fishing in the rain. But usually it's a warming rain around here vs some horrible 40 degrees and pouring.

For whatever reason this particular bait seems to draw more 'what rod' comments than any other. I went through a bunch of rods trying to find the right one for chatterbaits, and where I fish most of the chatterbait action is in weedy areas so the ability to wrist-snap to clear weeds is important. Try just setting the hook the same way you clear weeds - little wrist snap will do it - you only need to move the bait a few inches on braid to actually set the hook. Alternatively you might play with just not really setting at all, just reel down on it. I dont think you will actually be able to do it for real, but it might be that backing waaaay off of the hookset solves what you are solving for. Daiwa's "regular" action seems about perfect. I think it's a mod fast. I found what I was ultimately looking for in a Kistler Heavy Medium Heavy. IMO MH is too light, and H is too heavy. Something about this rod worked for me. I did -not- want any glass or composite -there's a lot going on with the bait and I want to feel it all.

This is for real. 50/50 gatorade and water is the ideal mix. Pretty sure that's what G2 is, just diluted gatorade. I use Nuun tablets since they are easy to carry and taste better than liquid IV Long sleeves and pants, gloves, and a big boonie hat. Lifesavers. For the shirt, nothing I have tested has come close to the Huk IconX for brutal heat, except the A1A, which is better when there's a lot of breeze. Columbia's boonie that has cooling dots in it, best so far. Very light material. A little floppy though. Wife got me one of the cooling towels on amazon for like $10. I didn't think it was going to do anything special, but I took it with. Really actually works. Dunk in the water and wrap around your neck. When you pull that cold water out of the cooler, hold it between your legs for a few minutes. It's not, um, comfortable, but it really does help. As a bonus for all this, my coffee stays hot all day! psa this heat (114 index here, water hitting 90 and it's only june) is really hard on the bass as the water warms up. Get them back in as quick as you can.

My experience so far is that the bigger fish (largemouth) are basically not even the same species as smaller fish. I catch small fish (around here 4lb and down, yay Texas) all over the place. But the bigger fish (6+ in texas) are pretty consistently near deep water. So this complicates it because it's almost like two species. Flats, points, and weedlines near deep water have been really productive for me for bigger fish. As mentioned above, see if you can figure out where most of the life is in the lake - if most of the bait is 7-12 feet deep that day, see what you can find that intersects that depth and is also near deeper water. Maybe there's a 10' flat? Not a terrible place to start. How far? I do think it's relative, in small waters or a creek channel close might be no more than a cast length, sometimes even less. Bigger waters maybe two cast lengths? But more likely to be just one. But deep is relative - shad-oriented fish in a lake that goes to 30ft in a creek channel might take anything under 15 or so. Gill oriented fish in a weedy lake might be near the 10' ditch that passes for a creek channel.

So far it feels like a tool for fishing electronics-heavy, and the jerkbait/alabama rig/spoon stuff isn't working, so you need a finessy presentation. Unclear to me what it does that a silent jerkbait wouldn't also do, especially a jr. sized jerkbait. I guess the tail wiggles some. I've been hauling the stuff around to use it and haven't yet seen a situation where it seemed like the right thing to throw. Last time it was kind of close, I was in serious timber and it didn't even cross my mind. I also don't have livescope yet, so that isn't helping. Think about it like a mid-column ned, but where a ned would be moving through the water swimming style, this you can kind of float it there and move slowly. I did catch one fish on it, because I happened to have it tied on - saw a fish on a bed that wouldn't bite any bigger stuff, reached over and flipped the hover rig at it and it was happy to try to move it out of the bed. I'm pretty sure that's not the intended use.

If you like Daiwas and can swing another 30ish bucks the SVF Tat Elite non-ags model is on sale everywhere because there is a new generation of rods. Supposedly per daiwa the SVF is an upgrade to the HVF. 100-150 is a hypercompetitive space, if you can find something that's normally 150 on sale for 100, you're likely to be happy with it. also there's this

IMO from the bank, braid is a pretty rough go for this very reason. Put a leader on it. Practice the leader knot enough that you know what a well-tied one looks like. Double uni is about bulletproof to tie, maybe start there unless you are really good with knots. Albright/alberto and its variants are all over youtube and pretty easy but make sure you watch a couple of different videos to pick up tricks. They work reasonably well and you'll be able to tell if the knot isn't right. FG knot really isn't that hard to tie once you get the hang of it, as long as you can maintain the right amount of tension. But it's fiddly while you learn it, and it'll take some real time. I tied it a bunch watching TV. Same deal, watch a few videos to pick up little details like tugging really hard on the first two knots as you begin the finishing stage. Best connection knot by far, but a bit of a curve to get it right. Don't start here.

Cover matters a lot. I have a bunch of gnarly stuff in texas, and after going from 15 to 20 (tatsu) I've settled on 17 as my best all-around line. I'm moving back to 20 on a couple of heavy rods, but it's 1:10:1 (couple at 15, most at 17, couple at 20). As a bonus the 17lb is often significantly less expensive. $52.00 for 600 yards of invisx on amazon.

for the flashy swimmer: 1/0 with 3.3 - Medium (barely doable on a MH) 3/0 with 3.8 or 4.3 MH 5/0 with 4.8 or larger H (MH can cast it fine but it's a lot of hook to set with a MH) IMO the 3/0 with 3.8 or 4.3 is the most versatile size anyway, start there, with a MH. Reel doesn't matter much, just pick your smoothest one since you'll be reeling a lot.

I'm really curious to hear about anyone's tests with impact/shock strength vs other knots. I feel like that's where flouro is particularly troublesome. Difficult to measure in pounds without a bunch of patience or a test rig, but head-to-head (two knots on one line, yank it, see who wins) should work fine.

Depends on what hook your swimjig has on it. A lot of them are designed to be fished on straight braid and have thick hooks. Start with your hook diameter (fine, medium, heavy, X-heavy/braid) and choose the rod based on that. Some have more medium wire and will do just fine on a MH. Most chatterbaits are a medium wire. I don't like a stiff tip on them though, so either a soft tip or something like the daiwa/shimano "R" which is probably a mod-fast. "There is no light wire hook here, the 5/0 VMC 30 degree hook is sharp enough to stick fish with little effort, but has all the strength of a heavy wire flipping hook. " Dirty Jigs Swim Jig Compare that to the evergreen swim jig (my favorite swimjig at the moment) which is a medium wire. Fishes just fine on 17lb flouro as the hook is about the same diameter as my 4/0 or 5/0 worm hooks. For a similar reason, I've moved towards heavier rods on the 5/0 owner flashy swimmer, which is a much thicker hook than the 3/0. Hookups are much better.

Screw lock hook and upgrade the CPS (screw lock) by one size. The ones owner ships with the hooks are always a tad too small. I've seen 20 fish on a keitech and a Fat Ika just by upgrading the CPS.

Nah that sounds like you had an awesome day. Plus, that bass touched land, you caught her! A few things come to mind: 1) if you have stretchy line and a floppy rod you might not be getting them hooked well. Some of the WP hooks are pretty thick. 2) changing retrieve has helped me sometimes when I'm not getting great bites. Stop and go, or burning it really fast. Usually stop and go gets me bites I wouldn't get, and burning gets me better commitment to the strike.

Fished recently with a guide that ran: hummingbird at the console for sidescan, Garmin for FFS (with lvs-34) and Lowrance for maps (up front). I specifically asked him about why he had the lowrance, and he said the mapping was a lot better on it than either of the others. That might be different outside of the east texas lakes. TBH the market is hyper-competitive and there's probably a lot of personal preference, and each of them has a strong point. I agree re playing around with the interface to see what you like and what comes natural. I helped a friend get livescope set up, and the garmin was making me nuts as things didn't seem to be where they "should" be. But @slonezp likes garmin interface better.

Got another zillion, and its performance is great, but it's almost like the second stage of the spring isn't working. Great distance, but lots of fluffing, even at 15. It's like it's 7 or so notches above what's on the dial - at 10 (halfway) it should be difficult to backlash throwing a good jerkbait. At 10 it was like "woah I better get some thumb involved". Never actually backlashed, just fluffy. Stuck magnet? Funky spring? Some ramp that has a burr on it?

Fins Sling Braid and Vicious No-fade are both great. Fins is a little softer than Vicious, and not as resilient to small bits of fraying in heavier cover. In any case they are both so good I think I bought too much as I'm not seeing any need to replace the lines some of which have been on for two seasons. I prefer the Vicious because the color on the Fins is really light/bright, at least in my waters. IMO not only do they not fade, they don't seem to be wearing either.

This thread helped me notice that the mustad grip-pin EWG point sits above the eye vs gamakatsu sitting even with the eye.