txchaser

Lots of people make the trek down here for prespawn, so if you can swing a week there's good infrastructure for places to stay. Might still be some guides available if you wanted to get oriented. No promises on catches, but texas prespawn is pretty high on the 'shot at a big fish' list. And, mexico is good enough that I left here to go there to fish, so if you can swing it, go.

Blank and rings are an upgrade Chromium to Helium. Easy to miss - theres a detail's tab on the website.

TLDR in advance - do it I don't recall seeing better deals than 40% at kistler, unless they are running a stack and save where if you buy at least 1k of rods (or something in that range) you can get 50%. I have 16ish rods now and I'd bet 3/4 of them are kistler, and of those most are the helium. A hybrid crankbait rod (carbon and fiberglass), and a z-bone that I got from a member here. Some are gen 3's and some of the new ones. I don't think I can really tell the difference between the new and old enough to have anything useful to say there. At this point it's either take the custom leap to be able to pick a blank and get torzites, or just give Kistler dibs on the next rod, provided they have the length and action I'm looking for. If you aren't trying to fill a specific hole in your line up - the first two I'd buy are the LMH/F and the HMH/F. Why? they fish a bit lighter and a bit heavier than the stack of MH/F you probably already have and can get from lots of companies. There are a lot of presentations (IMO) that benefit from a little lighter or heavier rod. The LMH is nearly perfect for senkos or keitechs on a flashy swimmer. Sure they both work fine on a MH/F but it's not nearly as good of a fit. Same for the HMH, which is my newest addition. Got a bait that overloads a MH and casts ok but not great on a Heavy? HMH. Need another rod for a big heavy crank in a pinch? Yep. 1/2 oz chatterbait with a zako? Yep. Smaller frog like a pad crasher jr or a jackal kaera, but still throwing in slop? Yep. I punched with it in a pinch this summer with a 3/4 inch weight because my heavy rods were doing other things. Worked fine dragging up to a 6.5lb out of the weeds. I'll probably get a bunch of "no one needs a 3.5 and a 4.5, two 4's will work just fine" and they are right. But at least for me with a wide range of techniques these two always go with me. The owner is really responsive to emails if you have questions on what you need. I also have a poison adrena, and a few tatula elites (AGS and non-ags), and a couple of Irods. They have specific cases where I couldn't quite get the action I was looking for, or where the helium is probably overkill. Two examples - Frog rod (overkill) and a-rig rod (Kistler didn't have the weight/action combo I was looking for). Irod does great on those. Poison adrena I bought I search of the white whale, the perfect chatterbait rod. It's great, and it is close to what I'm looking for, but not quite. Tip just a little too stiff. Related, Hook Up Tackle's gift card deal is 45% off, and the LegendX seems like an amazing rod, especially at around $220. But I have to beleive I'm going to spend the $200 card at Hook Up, and I don't really need any more rods. Doesn't mean I won't get one, but I don't need one.

this too I do wonder about whether bigger bass also key on "that's my stump/hump/ditch/brushpile, it's the next stop". Anyone seen support for this in lake level changes, where the fish are deeper or shallower than the expected route would take them, in order to be on a key feature?

When I'm on the water, I'm a big fan of my leatherman surge. Only downside is it is a little heavy. It's pretty well thought through, including having a file and being able to get to the blades without opening it up.

To the original question, the deeper EWG's are tough to get out, because you have to get the angle right. In the regular process the hook shank is roughly parallel to the wound channel. With EWGs if you try to pull straight out it just jams the barb in harder. So a little angle on the pull and on the push on the hook. Last bad hook in me was a 6th sense. I could not get it out backwards. Ended up having to push it through... and even with a sharp hook it took pliers to jam it through the skin. Better than going to the ER and getting some Lidocaine just for them to do the same thing. Get it quick before it starts hurting. I've been lucky so far in that nothing has been near nerves/joints/etc. One of those and I'm leaving it to the docs.

Out of the clam shell and into a 3700 Edge Flex. Something like 10 packs will fit in there. Otherwise they are way too bulky. If you have a lot of 3.3's you'll probably get more like 13 or 14 packs. I do ensure that they never get pressure on the end - they all lay sideways in the box. IE bait is parallel to the ground or deck, so I haven't seen a tail bent enough to matter yet. The seal is nice to keep the wonderful squid scent in the box. I keep all my a-rig specific paddletails in one of the 6th sense bags with the double zippers. It works great. I don't go through enough of the (mostly smallish) paddletails so my rationale is that more time eventually might lead to kinks, and I have shapes/sizes/colors that I may only use a few times per year.

For learning, solid A. I learned a lot! For fishing, eh, a B or B minus. Most days just seemed ... hard. I had to put in the work. Very few days where it felt easy and they'd bite nearly anything, or magically caught big fish all day. It felt like a lot of grinding hard. I guess that's why the learning got an A! Learning: 1) From some time at baccarac in october of last year, I learned to get really comfortable fishing 20+ feet deep on soft plastics and jigs. That carried through the year and put me on some big fish. 2) I've started to notice some subtle things about forage that have caused me to deliberately fish the "wrong lure" or the "wrong color" for the situation and the season and I've been rewarded with big fish. An example, I don't think our craws are supposed to be black and red in the late summer, but I noticed a fresh claw at the launch, and it was black and red. I resisted for a long time, and the first cast into a spot I had fished very thoroughly, but now with some red (soft plastic) I pulled up a 6+.And shades of that color basically doubled the size of the average fish for the rest of the day. I had a similar experience in a couple of lakes with very dark and muted bluegills. In particular when the color is really divergent from a typical color forage is when I'm seeing the most keying. Size was more straightforward, just get in the range and it seemed to be ok. 3) I put some time in with mid-depth crankbaits, enough to get confident. 4) I learned that (at least for me) really erratic twitches/pops/burns/stops catch smaller fish. Two examples - I catch much bigger fish with a slow steady a-rig than popping it or stopping it or anything but slow and steady. Similarly, fishing cranks as slow as I can go got me bigger fish across prespawn, postspawn, and summer. 5) I got on enough of a punching bite to get comfortable with the presentation, locations, and process. I'm early on the curve here, but I'm at least started, vs being frustrated about the whole thing. And given how much fishing around here is weed related, this has a big payoff potential next year. 6) I'm not 100% on this but I'm pretty sure there's a real difference between on the bottom feeding down and on the bottom feeding up. Like when I can get a bite on a t-rig but it doesn't have much vigor and the fish are sort of half-way interested in it, and no real size to them. Sometimes a crank run a little above the bottom can be the deal (speed up) and sometimes a bubba shot about 1ft up (still slow, but up). 7) learned that I am bad at fall in texas, at least this fall. All my instincts are backwards, and when I do the opposite of what I think I should do I catch more fish. Still can't find any big ones, but there's a lot of fall left in texas so we'll see. Fishing: 1) My five biggest fish of the year were on flatside (one pre-spawn, one mid-summer), a silent lipless, a mid-depth (4m) crank, and a chatterbait. Lots of nice fish on "big fish" presentations, but for whatever reason these three baits were really doing well this year. I lost two of them, but they were big enough to be unquestionably larger than most of what I caught this year. Both losses were my fault, one boatside using someone elses net and I was too dumb to just grab the fish, and another one where my phone dinged in the middle of a jump near the boat. 2) I got some other people on some really nice fish, and that was a blast. I've learned so much here so the opportunity to pass some of it on has really meant a lot to me. Experimenting: I think I catch more fish sitting down, regardless of bait. Maybe because I'm presenting more slowly, maybe because I'm more stealthy. Need more time to see if this is true.

Do you need it short for casting or for transport? If for transport, some makers like irod have removable handles on their longer rods.

So much fun catching stripers on an a-rig.

“You just want to use your wrist to snap a cast. I believe if you make a big, animated arm motion, you can spook a trophy bass,” he said. I find something new every time I read this article.

Willing to order from amazon Japan? Zillion by a landslide. Otherwise: Each under 200? Tatula SV Total under 200? 2x Fuegos

3.8 keitech on an owner flashy swimmer. It's so so good in grass; you aren't that far north of me and it's a consistent producer around here over the last month, even after these cold rains. 3.3 as a backup if they are really shad focused. T-rigged senko and bubba shot into places that were high percentage picked up some extra fish. I went into the day expecting them to be deeper and likely near outside weed edges or hanging on the bottom of creek channels. I was really surprised how shallow they were last weekend after the rain we got. Water temp dropped from 70 to 62 in 7 days. Most of the fish we caught were up out of the creek channel but very near it, in the transition 1/3 where the creek channel opens up to main lake. No more than 5fow. Main lake, except as it eased into the transition, was a waste of time. They didn't seem to move at all from 10am to dark.

Yeah the hook feels like OG ned rig hooks. I need to stop forgetting I have them and actually use them, been dragging around for a while and it's a good time for smallish baits anyway.

Yeah that's a different deal for sure.

The mount weights almost nothing, less than a pound. Battery and FF together, maybe five total? I could cut a lot of weight with a Lithium battery. I gave up on the trip count. Anchor, another tackle bag, more rods, net, lure retriever, cooler, etc.

I hope this makes sense, but I've had the best luck when either a) I know there should be fish there and I have no bites. It's on the backup plan. Or b) when they are on the bottom but... feeding up. Like a halfass bite or two on a t-rig or a jig, bite here or there on a crankbait, but not much pattern. Something about it just sitting suspended has been a lightswitch for me sometimes. Doesn't take long to get the bite either.

Started with a deeper chirp and it was great, but as some others mentioned, staring a phone screen wasn't really a good long-term plan. Their mapping was pretty good though. https://www.fishfindermounts.com/product-page/10ah-7-5-pole-mount-kit this is their picture not mine, so the non-clickers can see what it looks like. I've mounted on everything up to an including a skeeter with a broken FF and a couple of pontoon boats; mostly goes on a jon boat. Self-contained battery box, pole for the xducer, swivel mount, etc. And I put a 7" Helix SI on it. If I had to do it again I probably would have gone to the 8" Helix, but other than that it's perfect. Expensive? Yeah. Some of the best money I've spent though. I fish a lot of stuff most anglers can't see, and the electronics gap is gone now. You can hack the whole thing together in your garage as an alternative, I wanted something that was going to be just right, and quick on and off, and not get in the way. I'm chewing on replacing it with a portable livescope mount from the same company. With all that said, I'd get 80% of what I need out of a 4" screen with a suction mount - how deep is the bait, how deep are the fish, and how deep am I right now. But being able to make really nice maps is hard to beat, and I'm 100% catching more fish because of this thing vs the alternatives. ps: superglue the rubber feet on the clamps. They fall off.

I flip it over the first ring if it is long enough. If not I'll hook the hook on the usual place and spin the weight around the rod a couple of times. And stick it in a rod sock if I'm done with it for the day.

congrats!

This was my #1 question when I read your post. Your hookset should be more of a reel and sweep of the rod to the side. A hard hookset, especially using braid, shouldn’t be needed. Also, if you’re missing fish, or they are barely hooked, a change in color can make a big difference. The vision 110 hooks are really thin, I'm not even sure you need much hookset on them unless you have really light line. Just this side of a ned rig hookset, or a drop shot hookset, maybe a little pop but it shouldn't need much at all to get past the barb. There's at least one hole in my fingers to confirm IMO proceeding down the path of it's getting swiped not bit, and changing color or cadence might help a lot.

Oh... I like that thing.

I was expecting a few different endings to that story, but... "he apologized with a vacuum cleaner" was not one of them.

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Gitzit_Dying_Shad_II_2pk/descpage-GZDSHD.html

I used to use braid to leader on jigs. But braid sucks in wood. It's loud and it cuts into the wood. It was already a bit irritating, and it just took one big fish loss to put an end to it. Now it's all straight flouro, with a double SDJ knot. Punching is straight braid for me, and I haven't pitched weed edges enough to have a strong opinion on straight braid or straight flouro in that situation.