txchaser

I have an Elite P/F, the handle is a standout and would buy more handles if they were in stock.

Fish were in 6 fow today, when 8-11 fow was available to them just a few yards away. This is after a 10 degree temp drop in a week, down to 49 degrees. Overcast and a litte rainy. Apparently they still prefer the weeds right now even though they are dead; this was the pattern all day. /shrug

1/2oz or heavier chatterbait, fished never really to a full rest on the bottom, but regular contact... reel reel reel as slow as you can go with the blade chattering. By far the majority of my bigger January fish. Can't say it works under 40 degrees, because we don't get much of that around here. But effective sub-50 for sure. Sometimes a blade bait. It works but haven't seen anything big on it. With a sunny afternoon, fish it shallow, they are often up and moving and hungry. Bonus: Jerkbaits are my nemesis. I'm almost guaranteed to catch a dink, and only a dink.

580P in Green Mirror for general purpose. There's an awful lot of stuff flying my direction when I'm fishing, and I've taken a frog in the forehead from another anglers early hookset. Hard enough to break the skin. Get the poly.

I'd bet my last TW order that regular readers of Bass Resource have significantly better odds than the chart above.

That message is from Apple/your iPhone.

https://www.amazon.com/Lake-Products-THREE-Tying-Fishing/dp/B006FCHC2Q These really work @Coumpy

If the fish are really active, 5-10%. Otherwise my guess is 1%. Case in point I sat in one high percentage spot this weekend where I caught one fish as I neared it... stayed for an hour and a half (so at least 100 casts), trying to figure out what was up for the day. When I figured it out it was like flipping a switch on. That first fish was the random one that was a little more willing to bite than the others.

Swim senko, very lightly rage rigged.

I don't have data, just a pile of anecdotes. But mid-day if it is overcast has a pretty high concentration of bigger fish for me. And late day if sunny. A while back I stopped getting up early enough to be on the water at daylight because while I was catching fish, I wasn't catching anything with heft.

My observations: 1) there's a major inflection point around $100. I think it is an important retail price point and there's a race to see how much a manufacturer can push to that price point. And often (but not always) below that price point it seems more cost engineering than value engineering. 2) For me, while I notice a difference in the 500+ price point in rods and reels, it isn't enough to warrant buying more. I gave it a shot, but wasn't for me. They are definitely better, but it isn't something I notice on the water. I treat them just like the other ones, no preference etc. 3) On a rod, getting the action just the way I want it is probably the most important thing. The rod I use for heavy open hook/medium swimjig/big but not enormous cranks is a MH fast mod rod that is below my typical price point. But I really like the way it fishes. 4) After a bunch of trial and error, I settled at about 350 retail on rods and reels, in my case the daiwa zillion reels and either kistler helium or poison adrena rods. Open to other rods but haven't had an application that would require it yet. As a bonus there's almost always a 20-25% sale price floating around if I'm patient, and that is much more rare in the $500+ zone. However, I don't think we talk nearly enough about line quality in the context of rod/reel price points. Premium line really is different. Super-round no-fade braid casts a littler further and lasts way way longer than standard braid. Good flouro really is different than Vanish, and different products from teh same manufacturer have really different feel and properties. Mono seems to have less of a difference, but Armilo Defier is certainly different than my spool of big game. If you said I could choose between a $200 combo and any line I wanted, or a $1k combo with off-brand mono, I would take the former every time.

I had a trip where I could only bring about 35lbs. Took ten hours to figure out how to cull. The what-if monster is bad. And I keep having experiences where a little tweak made a big difference. Case in point, this weekend, a canary mini-mag squarebill was the deal. Smaller, no bite, other colors, no bite. I really figured chartruese would have gotten a bite, but nope. More and more I'm appreciating how a little tweak can turn an ok day into an awesome day, particularly on crankbaits. I don't notice it nearly as much on soft plastics, which make up at least 60% of the weight. I started lifting to get in shape, now I lift so I can carry more stuff.

A lot of great books above, but this one really stands out for me. So many implications for what we call civilization, how we interact with each other, and why we do the things we do around the edges of humanity and violence. In the fiction realm, Blindsight by Peter Watts, explores some interesting ideas about the nature of consciousness.

Small one like a 3.3 trailer?

Bait monkey wanted me to remind you to get a few with tail spinners too.

Until now, I was feeling really good about this year.

Ah good to know. I guess the dividers are made out of the old stuff.

Amazon has been good for Tatsu so far. I will only buy "ships from and sold by amazon", or one of the known fishing sellers. And pricing is consistently better than 30% off sales elsewhere.

Ah ok. I mixed a bunch of stuff and it did just fine, but I was mostly keeping similar colors togther like Smelt and the Deal in the same part of the tray, GP + Carolina Craw in another, junebug and B/B in a third. I didn't notice any bleed when stored like that.

I put a bunch in a polycarbonate box in my truck for a year, including through a texas summer. The box was unharmed and so were the baits. I'm pretty sure the plano edge boxes will do OK with them too, but I haven't tested that. @Jig Man theres a post around here somewhere about the specific SKUs from flambeau that are polycarbonate that are recommended by the manufacturer. That's what I tried. GP and anything with chartreuese seemed to bleed, the others not so much. Like most baits, if you store a bone white bait laying on a colored bait, the white bait will lose that fight, but it's not specific to zman. If you do decide to store them out of the bags, keep zinkers separate there's a bunch of salt in them that gets weird out of the package and it gets all over everything. Probably just like any other super-salty soft bait.

Thanks. And TW also carrying these now too. @softwateronly and @A-Jay are you making a distinction between the camo wire and the shiny wire on g-funk , or at this point it is splitting hairs?

I think so, yes. Definitely worth the extra $ over the plain t100 in terms of versatility.

This year has been really good for alabama rigs for me, but it has left me with a few questions: 1) I almost never get bit on the back/trailer bait, whether it is the same, larger, or brighter/dipped/whatever standout I did to it. Is this expected? 2) I'm in search of higher quality rigs, the big daddy boat dock ones from TW have failed at the snaps in some disappointing ways. I have a non-bladed g-funk and it is great, but I thought I'd ask before I start pulling the trigger on upgrading. 3) I get far more bites one the shorter wire rigs. What should I be looking for when I should throw the longer wire? 4) 4 blades seems to be standard. When is 8 a good alternative? 5) Line twist... wow. Should I be installing a swivel with split rings when it doesn't come with one? Fished for six months without respooling and the line is a train wreck from twist. Some of it is my fault as I'm often casting with sort of a 45 degree split between a roll cast and an overhead, so I'm imparting some spin to it. And a recent issue, this weekend I had something that I'd never seen before - had quite a few bites where the fish was on then it was gone, or I could never get a hook into them. But.. it's open hooks? And I wasn't getting baits back with missing tails. It felt more like smash and gone. I just done recall anything like that.

SV TW or SV TWS will be the most versatile reel you own. Where it will really pick up is when you are casting into the wind, or light baits, or baits a little light for the rod you have them on. The only time I wouldn't recommend them is if you are focused on getting the last couple of yards out of every cast. They definitely arent for that. As a tradeoff, you get a bunch fewew backlashes, and can make casts in the wind that would otherwise be madness. The difference between the two is neglible - they are different year models; one is sleek and small (the new one) and the old one feels a bit more refine. I have both and don't really make any distinction between the two, but for the smaller one fits the way I palm a little better. I bought some tatula elites, they were ... ok I guess, but you can get the SVs for about $150 on sale regularly. Context - I have fuegos, 100's, a 150, two elites (reg and pitch/flip), and a bunch of both year models of SV, new zillions, and a Steez. Of those, the new zillions are my favorite, but they are 2x the SV price when they are both on sale.