galyonj

Mine, too. I'm rough on my equipment, even if/when I'm trying not to be. Carrying stuff into and out of the house, into and out of the car, all the various stuff I accidentally whack bank fishing...it takes a toll. I'm gonna try to call them again today and follow up on the emails I've sent. Here's hoping.

I don't have a great story. Went to fish before work and, on the first cast, I heard a dry snap. Broke my favorite – and the most expensive – rod I own when I thwacked it with the lip of a squarebill on the backcast. First cast of the sesh. I was heartbroken. Immediately packed everything back up and left. Still don't have the rod fixed. It was a very clean break, so I think it's possible. I am much more careful how I place my gear around me when I'm fishing nowadays.

Aw, that sucks. I broke a rod a little while back and have been absolutely unable to get in touch with Lew's about it. I guess I'll just try to fix it.

This fish is pitiful, but I feel like I worked my tail off to get it, so I'm showing it off. All. Morning. For one dink. Went to two spots today. It was a weird strike on that swim jig, too. Felt a taptaptap, then nothing. Like he and I were in a Mexican standoff, waiting to see who was gonna blink first. Eventually I decided that it was a bluegill pecking at it or something, so I started reeling again, and it pulled back. It was real mad at me. This is not the fish I was hoping for. The whole time I was at this spot, I saw the silhouette of a much, much larger fish just...cruising around. It would occasionally break the surface and hit one of the eleventy billion mayflies that are flitting around here now. I threw the kitchen sink at it and never could get it interested.

At a spot this morning. The coontail I can handle (which is good, because this place had a lot of the stuff), but the bonus 50 yards of line I pulled in along with it was annoying. I feel like this picture is fairly representative of what we're talking about in this thead. Not pictured is another massive ball of line I found. Heathens.

I think you're onto something.

Yessir, I do. Everything that's ≤ ⅝ oz goes on the same setup. 5.6:1 reel with 12lb McCoy copoly through a 7' medium/moderate rod. Next year I wanna get another rod with just a hair more backbone, but I still want a pretty slow tip. The reel speed is pretty slow for this, but it works for me because I'm unable to slow myself down.

I don't know what it is, but something about lipless cranks just makes bass...angry. And they hit it like they are. I fish them on 12lb McCoy copolymer. My most productive color, far and away, is one I can't find anymore. Academy's house brand had a color called Green Terror, and now I'm out and it makes me very sad. I caught my PB on that color.

Maybe stronger, but what I change them for is to change the shape of the hook. I switch to short-shank EWG treble hooks like these. I've never had a fish come off once I get them stuck, and the shorter shank keeps the plug from getting tangled up in itself -- especially because I use snaps on my cranking rig. Throwing crankbaits triggers my ADHD, because if I'm not getting bit, I'll throw the whole box in about 15 minutes.

Yeah. All the weather forecasts here are just like "Humidity: Yes."

Not to speak for @Captain Phil, but I don't change my hooks because I want to change something in the lure's behavior on the retrieve. I change the hooks because a whole lot of crankbaits have garbage hooks out of the box. You can change the hooks to get a lure to do things like suspend deeper and stuff like that, but that's not my goal.

Yeah, I don't gotta ask. Everything that bites any plug I throw gets to ski back.

I think the line tie's probably going to be the largest factor in how true a lipless tracks by simple virtue of the fact that there's not much else about it that can be changed or bent/twisted out of alignment. I am curious, though, as you mentioned two brands specifically. In your experience, does a red eye shad always track to the side? Does it always favor the same side? Does that become more pronounced with use/wear?

I realized this morning whilst on the water that I'm slap out of the z-man finesse heads, but I still wanted to fish a little TRD. I found an aspirin-head jig with a what I reckon was a size 6 aberdeen-style hook on it, so I tied it on and fished it. Didn't catch anything, but I wasn't catching on anything else I threw either, and that little aspirin-head had a really wild spiral as it dropped in the water. The best part is that I didn't get snagged badly enough to have to break it off. Anyway, I think I'm done buying expensive jig heads for this presentation. I still want to slow the fall I saw, but I do love the smaller hooks that are actually in the spirit of the presentation as Mr. Kedhe describes it.

Miss me with that. I get snagged and lose those little jig heads like it's going out of style. The last thing I need is a bigger hook to get hung up with.

Apparently you can get this in 1/16, which isn't too bad. I guess the skipjack bend hook is kind of neat, but 1/0 is a little much.

I see this, too, and it absolutely mystifies me. What possible series of events could lead one to stripping a reel down to the arbor and just wadding the whole thing up? The other day I found evidence of a big fan of Ike's, I guess, because I found this random half of a fishing rod just laying on the bank when I filled a trash bag with other people's garbage. I'm getting real tired of being embarrassed by the people I share my hobbies with.

I have to carry everything with me when I go, so I try to minimize the amount of junk I have to haul around while at the same time giving myself some presentation-appropriate options. So I take 3 setups with me: 6'9" ML/F Lew's TP-1 Black spinning rod with a 2000-size Lew's Mach 2 reel for finesse-type stuff 7' M/M Falcon Bucoo with a 6.8:1 Speed Spool LFS for plugs and unweighted texas rigged stuff 7' MH Lew's TP-1 Black with a 7.5:1 Tournament MB for weighted plastics, jigs, stuff like that. The TP-1 casting rod broke at the tip a couple weeks ago and I still haven't heard back from Lew's, so I've replaced that rod with an American Hero rod with the same specs for now.

Yessir. Still isn't as ugly as a pec tear, but I think I'm all set with my current number of catastrophic muscle tears, and that number is zero.

You're lucky you didn't tear your biceps at the distal attachment. Deadlifting with a bent elbow's a good way to end up with that muscle rolled up like a cheap set of blinds.

Buddy of mine referred to it as jazz cabbage a little while back and now that's my favorite euphemism for it.

According to the man himself, it was half of a Strike King Zero. Which...splitting hairs, I guess.

I'm predisposed to like these because Nail Bomb is one of my favorite bands. ?

This matches my observations. I haven't used the Reaction Innovations swimbaits, but I do have some 6th Sense Divine Swimmers, and they are made with a very firm plastic in comparison to Keitech and Strike King. The action on them is considerably tighter during the retrieve than, say, a Rage Swimmer. I'm not qualified to say whether that's a good or bad thing.

Never really thought about fishing Fontana given that all the times I've been around it, I was more interested in carving up the dragon…but that's a really pretty lake and I feel like I should bring some gear next time I go up there.