Big Hands

I have a barrel similar to the one Green Pig uses, and it was perfect for my little 15 hp Evinrude 2 stroke. Now I have a Merc 40 hp four stroke and I can thread a garden hose straight into it where the pee stream usually exits.

I have a couple of rods I would describe as not quite truly fast and I use them both a lot.

I have fished the Aird-X MH/F rod and I didn't think it was more of a fast action than moderate.

If you go too big, you may have the knot hanging up on guides or the tip, or even on the knot as it sits on the spool. That said, I would go with 10# braid if using 6-8 lbs leader, or 12-15 if using up to 10 lbs leader.

I tried the 6/0 with the sunfish and I just couldn't get it rigged where it looked like it had a chance to bury a hookset if it got bit. But, maybe you can figure something out.

I'll just say this from the get-go.. . . "but what do I know?" I see our equipment as a system. The rod, reel, line, terminal tackle and the bait all have to work together, and then receive input from the operator to deliver the bait in whatever conditions we find ourselves fishing in. That's a lot of variables. But, if we fish in mild conditions with decent gear and don't need to deliver a bait with the accuracy of a long range sniper, then average gear with average skills will generally get your bait into the water well enough to succeed to some degree. It's when we try to do challenging things that a more refined approach is needed to obtain extraordinary results. Things like extra casting distance, lightweight baits, bulky baits that are also lightweight, casting for distance into the wind. That is when we need to really start to be able to more accurately separate the fly poop from the pepper so to speak with regard to assembling the best combination for a particular set of conditions we're addressing. I have some combos (Daiwa Tatula Elite 7'4" MH/R with a Curado 200k and 15 lbs Big Game) responds well to really putting the wood to it with something like a topwater hardbait (Spook, Sammy, Gunfish type baits), and others don't respond well to that level of input. I also have a Tatula 7'3" MH/F rod with a Tatula 100 that I use for Carolina rigs that I can really feed it the onions as well, but I use a slightly different movement to load it up due to the 3' to 4' leader. Throwing the A-rig on the Dobyns 806 is more of a lob affair in comparison.

To the mangle of the tangle?

Line twist is one annoying 'feature' of co-polymer and other 'clear' lines. Braid has it's own 'features' (like the time it takes to tie on a new leader and wind knots), but I have chosen to live with those. My other reason for using braid instead is that I can mow through a lot of line at times when dropshotting. If I am tying a new leader on anywhere from 0 to 3 times a day, it's much more preferable to me to only lose a foot or so of the mainline tying on a new leader rather than ten or more feet of main line.

IYK, YK. The day I caught my PB, on a mid-December morning, something happened that I have never seen before or since at any time of the year. Literally dozens prime early 90's era Castaic tank size bass began feeding on the surface in an area about 100 yards square. Not bunched up in a wad, but just kinda evenly spaced around that area. I was worm fishing, but had a crankbait tied on another rod and slung it out past a point in about 10' of water and it just stopped cold. By the time I wrestled her into the boat on 10 lb monofilament, the flurry was over and that was that. I do too. They are unusually quiet when flying compared to many other birds though. I have them accompany me descending trails on my mountain bike at night, and I really enjoy those 'animal planet' moments. They often fly just in front of me and I think they are taking advantage of my lights to hunt for critters.

Night fishing, with a shakey head in shallow water. Snagged on a stickup. Remember that copper rivet they used to put right at the center point in a pair of 501's? Yes, that one. That was the point of impact. I heard it coming, but I never saw it coming.

That's the only time I disengage with a fish on and they will sometimes swim out, but I will lean on em for a while before I put it into freespool as a last resort to get them to swim out of whatever they're tangled in.

I went to the tackle shop one day determined to walk out with the Orochi XX Whipsnake as I had handled it several times before, albeit without a reel attached to it. I took a couple of reels with me just to make sure. . . I just didn't like the balance of it no matter which reel I put on it. I did end up walking out with a new Zodias 7' ML/F and a Tatula 2000I had to take some time to get on with foam rather than my beloved cork, I really like the rod and use it often.

I'd call it a Texas rig and the reason I do it is because a weight (and a bead) in front of the head on a plastic lizard looks . . . . weird, and because this rig moves the hook back, fits the body better, and lets it sit flatter on the lake bottom. I use either a tungsten worm weight or a lead worm weight weight in front of the glass bead (no glass bead by itself) and sometimes put a sinker stop in front of the weight with a small gap in front of the sinker to let it be flexible and room for the sinker to clack against the glass bead. I generally peg my worm hooks through the hook eye with a flat toothpick, and I shave it down for smaller hook eyes. I like flat toothpicks because they will still hold in place on opposite sides of the eye and leave a little room for the line on the flat side of the toothpick in a round hook eye. I haven't tried it yet, but I have been thinking about trying a lizard on a hook with a weight on the shaft or maybe a nail weight just to see if it sinks more horizontally. With the nail weight, I can still use an offset worm hook. Sometimes details are important; other times, not so much.

I have gone to using the design of #1 up to 7/0 for lizards so they'll run flatter to the bottom and because they tend to be longer overall. I also cut about 2/3 of the lizard head off (right where it starts to taper down into the neck and effectively replace that section with the worm weight and sometimes a glass bead. The worm weight (and glass bead) look like the head instead of having something hanging there in front of the head. This also gets the hook point further back on the body of the worm.

You could eat worse things than your words. They taste just like chicken if you season them right.

If it is for a spare that you won't likely have to use, I would get a cheap one. I see rim and tire in your size for as little as $70. It's most likely not going to be needed and and only going to rot in the sun, but if you need it, you've got it.

There is a 'trash fish' and a 'sunfish' and I was using the sunfish, which has a taller profile. My local tackle store is currently out, and has been for months, but they promised to let me know when they are back in and available. That one worked best on an 8/0 beast hook flashy swimmer, and it was tricky to rig as I had to use my imagination to keep the hook somewhat weedless. Caught a 4+ on my first cast with it dragging it though some relatively sparse tules in the same spot where I was killing it with the Keitech. The little creeper sunfish is more of the shape of an actual bluegill/sunfish that most other soft plastics for better or worse. The worse part is that rigging baits like that is tricky, but it actually came out great and swam perfectly with a very slow retrieve. I lucked out and nailed it with the 8/0 flashy swimmer. The 6/0 just gets completely lost. The 4.8" Keitech on the 5/0 flashy swimmer was a little more . . . . 'bite size', so it might be a little more consistent. I caught fish on the Deps Frilled Shad and the Megabass Spark Shad on the Flashy Swimmer too. If I had to rate them, it would go like this: 1) 4.8" Keitech Swing Impact w/5/0 Flashy Swimmer Goes through cover pretty well, especially if you are adept at pulling through without burying the hook before you realize it's hung up. 2) Little Creeper Sunfish w/8/0 Flashy Swimmer Also goes through cover pretty well and was fairly durable, however they are not cheap. I will buy more as soon as they are available locally. 3) Deps Frilled Shad with either 5/0 or 3/0 Flashy Swimmer In spite of having that. . . thing on the top, it was not quite as weedless as the Keitech or the Little Creeper. And I definitely got bit more in and around the tules with all of these baits, and not so much in open water. The Deps definitely caught fish though. 4) Megabass Spark Shad in both 3" and 4" (4" was better than the 3") These caught fish, but not quite as well as the others. One thing I liked about them is that with the flat top, I cut out a trench with a cautery pen so that the hook point sat in the trench except for the 1/8" at the point that stuck into the plastic at the front of the trench which made it pretty resistant to getting hung up.

I like #10 or #12 braid to a ten to twelve foot 6-8 lb fluoro leader. I would go through a lot of spools with all fluoro or mono. If I put a fifteen foot leader on braid, I might go through that from one to three times in a day of fishing depending on how often and where the leader breaks. With braid, I only lose a foot or so when I retie another leader onto it. My spool stays nice and full for much longer, and I don't deal with unruliness or line twist, although sometimes wind knots can be a PITA. I'll happily accept whatever tradeoffs that braid to leader throws at me. And if I was going to buy a 3000 size spinning reel, I would go out of my way to get one with a shallow spool if possible. Sure, you can deal with backing, but after having shallow spool reels, I wish all of my spinning reels had them. YMMV.

Californians don't even like Californians. On my visits to Texas, I have checked out Academy and the H2OX brand stuff seems like it's (dollar for dollar) probably at least as good as the house brands from Bass Pro or Cabelas for whatever that's worth.

I pretty much exclusively fish at Castaic Lake, where I live, unless I go out of state to somewhere like Texas to fish. And, you are correct to characterize Castaic as a 'highland reservoir' that ARE very much weed free in most areas. With the Flashy Swimmer, I target areas that have cover and structure and mostly do not fish them in the open water most think of when imagining a lake like Castaic. Cover and structure is where they are most effective for me. I generally lose them before I have a chance to tear them up, but I have purchased spare blades for them so I can change them out as I wish. I prefer the silver and gold Colorado blades personally, but I know others that favor the willow blades. I think I will start a thread where can all share some of the bizarre places and circumstances we fish. But, so as not to hi-jack your thread here, I will just share a couple pics to illustrate the relatively weed-free highland reservoir environment that I fish in. This is a pic of a transducer that was only on the trolling motor of my boat for one year. It was on a Minn Kota trolling motor, which has a skeg in front of it and goes down a few more inches below it, which protects it to a large degree.

The Owner Flashy Swimmer has held up great for me with the only issue being that occasionally the wire gets a little bent, in which case I just straighten it out.

Sounds like a severe case of Shimanophobia, with a healthy side of Daiwaphilia. Can you show me on the doll where Shimano hurt you? I kid. Is there something about Shimano that repels you that strongly?

I'd throw down an extra $20 to get a 'regular' Tatula or St. Croix Mojo Bass, but it's easy for me to spend someone else's moolah.

You just had to go there. . .