Michigander

Anyone used the SSR guides from Mudhole? Price is certainly right, but curious if anyone has experience with them. Considering them on casting rods, a MH for Trigs and a Heavy for jigs.

Weighted Trig and go in after them.

Yes, your technical term is correct. ,?

You gotta flip your camera phone into selfie mode and take a pic using your head for scale!

Did a quick search but didn't find much on here. So airbrushing some soft plastics sounds fun over the winter. Any recommendations for paint that will stick to baits well enough that I don't have to seal them in clear plastisol?

What email are you getting?

Looks like regular bass tournaments out of Hobart which is right next to you. I would go attend one of their weigh ins, share your story, and pick their brains.

Never clean my braid. I do full reel teardown and clean/lube at the end of the year when the ice comes. I find a lot of junk under the reel and in the seat but nothing in the reel itself. I'm all braid to FC leaders. Occasionally I have to clean the eye of the reel, but I had that problem when I tried straight FC too.

I use, uni to uni and measured the knot, it was 1.8mm. That's over half the inner diameter of the ring. Too small for me. I would rather go with bigger guides and not have to worry about it. Be shipping the old guides out tomorrow morning.

El Jig.

Beat me to it, lol.

A #5 guide has a 3mm ID on the ring which is too small to me. I want to go up to #6 guides which have a 4mm ID ring size for my Uni to Uni knots. Also fun fact, I talked to Mudhole today and they said Fuji has discontinued all the black alconite guides. So they're collector's items now, lol.

@TOXIC I only made it over to St. Clair one time this year and the fishing was poor. They were concluding a two day tournament when we trailered the boat and I looked at their leaderboard. Out of forty-ish teams, only one single day bag was above 15lbs for either of the days. Shocking!

I use the Strike King KVD ones in the summer, they seem to work better than my Visions in warm water when I'm fishing faster.

"Everything Bagel" is my vote. Also, you're missing some product photos. If you send me one of everything, I'll photograph them in my lightbox and optimize them for the web for you. ?

I'm down for bi-weekly.

I would check your local marinas and see if they have qualified service techs for these. If not, you'd be on your own with a major problem, should one arrive. I value peace of mind very highly so I would not be comfortable with the purchase.

I think at least monthly would be nice. It was interesting to listen to the southern guys talk about their techniques/baits and how wildly different they fish compared to where I am.

In the kayak I use two spinning (one is a Heavy). But I'm building a bait caster heavy to replace the second one. I figured out how to use bait casters this year and like what they offer.

Great to talk to everyone. When's the next one?

I get the swim bait thing, it's much more comfortable (and lighter) to use a bait caster setup. But if BFS is just avoiding spinning gear, then to each their own. I'll stick with my spinning gear.

There is no best unfortunately. It just depends what action you want, and what your fish prefer. Silicone is the easiest to work with and has the widest color variety. Rubber has the most movement but is limited on colors and is the hardest to work with. Hair is kind of in between. There's some other oddball materials out there too, but that's some deep down the rabbit hole kind of thing. Stealth jig looks like fine cut silicone to me.

I never really understood the BFS lifestyle, what's the deal and why does it justify the gear expense over say.... A spinning rod? Genuinely curious.

I also think that's why it was hard to sell these since there's no special equipment. Most anglers could open their tackle box right now and make one. LoL