Big Hands

The markings definitely look similar.

I have caught an 8.5 lb bass on a Vision 110 with the stock hooks. The outward barbs is a weird idea, but they are very sticky and up to the task as far as I am concerned. So sticky that I snagged a tackle satchel and had to cut them out of it with side cutting pliers. That when I learned the lesson above about messing up the balance and buoyancy by changing out the hooks. Even the split rings can make a difference. I ended up up finding a set of original stock hooks and all is once again harmonious in my Vision 110 world. As for why you're losing fish, your setup sounds nice. Sometimes fish are able to shake lures loose when jumping. If I see my line headed toward the surface, I have a couple things I try to do to discourage or hinder their ability to jump. I might try switching to a different angle or even easing up the pressure to see if they will instead go sideways or back down instead of jumping. I don't point the rod at them to ease up pressure, because that lessens the amount of rod I'm fighting them with. More like moving the whole rod outward a bit while trying to maintain a 90° angle. Then, if it looks like the jump is imminent, just as they get to the surface, I try to pull them over and kind of stifle the jump. It's all a crapshoot though, and fighting crankbait fish is different than fighting them on other rigs. Ultimately, everyone has to develop their own style that works for them and the gear they use. And, sometimes, the fish just wins.

But if you try sometimes, well, you might find, you get what you need. . . . We had a plan, but the weather in Texas doesn't care about plans. If you want to make Mother Nature laugh out loud, tell her about your plans to go fishing in Texas. Our plan was to take a Fall tour of a few west Texas hot spots and spend two of three days at a few different lakes. The lakes we planned to hit were Possum Kingdom, Hubbard Creek, and then O. H. Ivie. We thought it was a good plan. We thought wrong. I arrived on Saturday 10/22 to strong winds and cooler temps. The forecast for Sunday was for even stronger winds (25 to 40 mph) and nowhere within 250 miles was exempt. Then on Monday, the storm really blew into the entire area. Thunder and lightning, the works. So we hung out at my friend's place and worked on a few things there to hopefully get in a modified version of our original plan. On Tuesday, the showers subsided, but the winds were still blowing pretty good in the morning, and then eventually calmed down enough to let us fish a few hours in his two man pond crawler at a local soil conservation reservoir just before dark. We caught fish on shallow running squarebills and spinnerbaits. My biggest was 22.5 inches, but our scale had dead batteries so we couldn't get a weight on it. It had the head of a seven or eight pounder easily, but it was sporting her summer beach body. Wednesday, more high winds in the morning, and my buddy had bought a couple of new boat seats, so we took the time to get those installed. And, even though the wind wasn't supposed to let up, it did and we snuck snuck down to give the new seats a whirl for a few more hours just before dark. Back his boat in and he went to give it the gas with the foot throttle, and the throttle cable broke. Lucky for us, his friend whose property the soil conservation reservoir sits on had a bass tracker there, and we hopped in it and still got in a couple hours. My two biggest weighed (with a new battery in the scale) went 5.66 lbs. and 4.32 lbs. Our plane had been modified to just head straight down to O. H. Ivie and see if we could fish for the day on Thursday and then beat feet back home because another sizable storm was forecast for Friday. But with the broken throttle cable, we had to get that fixed on Thursday. We were able to source one and install it, and then sneak in another late afternoon session before the storm hit late that night. Nothing out of the three pound range, but still fun fishing as I don't normally get to fish shallow water with hydrilla beds. I learned a lot and I think I can apply some of at the lagoon here at home. Friday, it stormed as forecasted, so we got ready to try to get in one day somewhere other than the local 30 acre pond. We decided to give Possum Kingdom a shot for a one day on Saturday as I had to catch a plane Sunday at 12:45. We got to PK just as the storm was subsiding and fished until early afternoon when the wind chased us off. I had four fish including a feisty drum. Just as it was at the local pond, crankbaits and spinnerbaits were the order of the day, and I also caught two on the same Carolina rig I use at home with 4" Keitech Swing Impact plastics. Such an interesting lake that is unlike any other I have been to. So, as fishing freaks are known to do, we got a wild idea that we could sneak in a quick session on Sunday morning at the pond before heading to the airport. We fished for 1:45 minutes and each caught nine fish, all on spinnerbaits. That surely adjusted my jaw to the correct setting for my flight back to LAX that I made with just a few minutes to spare. So, while we didn't exactly get what we wanted, we tried, and I think we got what we needed. And, here are a few pics to share. . . .

Budget range? Break down of percentage of time fishing your techniques of choice? Boat or bank?

I think there are differences in the way some of us fish with wacky Senkos. I tend to want all the casting distance I can get for this technique. I don't think everyone else has this as a high priority for this technique. There could be other factors that make it so my favorite rod for wacky senko fishing might be different from somebody else's. I can't imagine setting the hook hard enough to break a rod while fishing a wacky rigged senko with the rod I use, even if I tried. I use hooks that I also use for nose hooking dropshot baits. Small hooks that are more apt to be pulled completely out of the basses mouth using a Chuck Norris style hookset. I set the hook similarly to how I do with a dropshot as well. Reel up into them and pull up (or back) firmly when I feel the weight of the fish. My reel has 10 lb braid to 7 lb fluoro. I don't think I'll be breaking a rod on a hookset. Then I looked at your profile, and it clicked for me. You're fishing in Florida. I'm fishing a deep relatively open water highland reservoir in California. So, I will just sit back and try to learn how others do this in other conditions than I am usually fishing in.

Maybe because the response in your profile for "Favorite lake or river" is so long?

Well butter my bottom and call me a biscuit.

Can somebody please help me to understand why a Tatula LT 2000D-XH needs to have a spool capacity of 4/340, 6/220, 8/160? They appear to go to great lengths to seemingly pick the fly poop out of the pepper in so many other ways, but insist on feeding us with a steady diet of mega-capacity spools. And it's not like Shimano isn't complicit in this regard. Those numbers are for YARDS. That means it would have over 1,000 feet of 4 lb monofilament line with a spool filled to capacity. Even filled with 8 lb monofilament, it would have nearly 500 feet of line. The majority of Daiwa spinning reels are only offered with the "D" spools here in the USDM. It's not like they don't make spools with any other designation (somewhere between the "D" and the "S" spools), not to mention "S" (shallow) spools. They do. They just insist on not offering the USDM much choice. Is there some kind of application I am simply not aware of where a majority (or anyone at all) needs to have such line capacity? It's got to be a conscious decision by someone. Probably a very calculated decision I would have to imagine. Are "D" spools cheaper to manufacture? Does Daiwa get subsidies from line manufacturers and figure consumers are just too ignorant to figure out that they don't really need that much line capacity? Do I really need that much line capacity and just haven't figured it out yet? Do USDM consumers demand such line capacity?

I have the 7'3" Tatula MH/F and although I'm not much of a jig fisherman, it is my favorite casting rod that I own. It is listed as an "All Around". It will cast a Carolina rig with a 4' leader a country mile. I have it paired with a Daiwa SV TW 103 filled with Seaguar 40 lb Smackdown. If I could only keep one casting rod, that would be the one. If I had any criticisms, they would be: I'm not sure I love full cork handles, but this one isn't uncomfortable, I am sort of a minimalist and would like to have seen it being a split grip. I usually tie an Alberto knot to attach leader to braid, and when using heavier leader, I have had the knot hang up on the tip top guide more than once in the 2+ years I have owned it.

Check out the Sexy Impact. It's a pintail finesse bait that works. Not sure I think it works as well as the Swing Impact, but they work. I think there are days when the paddle tail without the tail will work well enough, other days not so much. That Keitech paddle tail has pretty awesome action even with relatively little input. I am well aware that it's against 'the rules' in some areas and downright blasphemous in others, but I use the 4" Swing Impact, with the tail, LOL, (#2 Rebarb hook with a 36" to 48" leader, whittled toothpick through the eye to keep the bait in place a little better) for my Carolina rig fishing. I'd buy those in bulk if I could because I go through them in bulk.

My first time fishing the Federal Breakwater in Long Beach Harbor back in the early 80's. I went with a co-worker's son and he had a small 13' tri-hull that had most of the inside removed, but had a TM on the bow and front and rear pedestal seats. There was just enough of the dash sticking out from the gunnel to hold the steering wheel and we shared the top of an ice chest to sit on while the boat was underway. We started about 9 :00 pm and headed for the opening between the jetties not far from the Queen Mary. It was just after a full moon and the moon had yet to appear so it was pretty much pitch black and we were on plane doing probably around 25-30 mph. Suddenly I could barely make out a thin dark stripe across the top of the surface and it was slowly getting larger. Suddenly it was getting thicker very quickly and before I knew it, we center punched a five foot swell that washed straight over us and the boat. Must have been the wake of a ship. Never saw a ship nearby. Of course we were soaking wet and stopped to make sure everything was OK. Turned on the bilge pump and continued on to the outside of the breakwall and had one of the funnest times I have ever had fishing throwing leadhead football jigs with scampi tails and a squid strip to the calico bass and sand bass along the big rocks on the jetty until about 5:00 am.

Not sure that this helps you as I am not sure we fish the same way or if my experience might somehow be relevant for you, but this is my WW Senko journey thus far with light tackle. . . . I have the Phenix Feather in both L and ML and I bought them with fishing weightless Senkos as being the primary reason for acquiring them. I paired both rods with Curado BFS reels. I also own a Daiwa SV TW 103, the one before the "20" model came out, but have not tried it on the ML or L Phenix Feather casting rods. IMHO, Phenix Feather rods do fish slightly lighter than what I am used to with other rods from other manufacturers. For five months a year from the middle of spring through late summer, WW Senkos have become my go to on the water I fish, so I was willing to do some experimenting and dialing in what would ultimately work best for me with this type of fishing. It's effective, and it suits my preferred style of fishing, especially when the wind isn't blowing too hard. I'm not casting to a general area, rather I am casting to the shoreline, and usually very specific spots on the shoreline. We have a lot of steep shoreline bluffs or steep rock shoreline. Often, if I can cast right at, or within 6" of the water's edge, I call that as being right where I want it. 12" away, and it's OK, but not what I am hoping for. If it lands two feet or more from the bank, I might fish it, or I might reel it back in. Some of the banks I like to fish have 30' depth half a boat length from the water's edge, some places more than that, and the lake level is over 100' low. If there is a moderate breeze, that breeze can blow a weightless wacky Senko bait off course just before it lands and that can put me on the rocks, or five feet away from the bank. It is what it is. All this to say casting precision is important to me. I fish 15 lb braid on both Feather baitcasting rigs, but I am considering trying 20 lb braid. The reason for that is because after nearly every fish I catch, the hookset causes the braid to dig in, and if I don't take a 'maintenance cast' out away from my target where I can stop it right when it gats to the dig-in and then pull it loose a ways and then rewind it in (usually with a little tension) it will 'fluff up' when I try to take a full cast. I probably could always keep a thumb and forefinger on the line as I retrieve to make it wind under tension, but it's not a habit I have reliably employed. As for casting weightless Senkos, both the L and the ML do it pretty well, with the L doing slightly better because I don't have to load it up as hard to get the distance. Whether or not that will be true for everyone, I can't say. They can both set a hook as hard as I need to, but I am usually fishing with 7 lb Samurai leader and offset, wide offset or G-Lock hooks. They will definitely cast WW Senkos farther than either of my MH/F rods (Daiwa Tatula and Phenix Feather). STILL, I was not super thrilled with being able to cast WW Senkos as far as I was wanting to. This ultimately led me back to spinning gear. I love the way baitcasters perform once the fish strikes, so it would be great to have them perform better on the front side of the equation. But, for me, they just don't. I do still like them for light t-rig, shakey head, light carolina rig and slipshot fishing. Very sensitive without tipping off fish that a line is attached to the snack they have inhaled. For the most part, they match well with the BFS reels, but they could handle a reel with a little more powerful drag. The Curado BFS reels have a fantastic drag for light line fishing, but with 8 lb line, I need to cinch the drag down pretty hard or a bass over 3 lbs is going to take longer than necessary to get into the boat IME. So, the Tatula SV TWS 103 might be a fine match for those rods. My M/F spinning rods (I have a few including a Phenix and two Daiwa rods {Tatula and Kage}) but I would really have to whip them to get the distance I was desiring, so I tried a couple lighter rods, a Shimano ML/F Zodias and then an Expride A in L/F. At that point, the Expride was working best for me. It would not have been terrible if I had settled on that. Very sensitive, casts well, and does a great job of managing the fish once it's hooked. Yes, there is an end to this verbosity, and it's in sight. As much as I could have called it a day with the Expride L/F with a Tatula LT2000 with 10 lb braid and 7 lb Samurai leader, I decided to try a Hair Jig spinning rod. I initially was looking for a Tatula 7'6" ML-M/F in either the AGS or regular Tatula, but they were nowhere to be found at that time. I happened to look through my local tackle shop, thinking they might have one of the Daiwa hair jig rods lurking in the rack, but they didn't. What they did have was a St. Croix Mojo Bass 7'6" ML/XF hair jig rod. This has been a significant step up in more than one way. It casts noticeably further with less effort with decent accuracy. It also loads up nicely when setting the hook, and then manages hooked fish extremely well. I casts a 4" weightless wacky Senko as far as I could previously cast a 5" weightless wacky Senko and puts another ten feet or more on my 5" Senko casts. If I had a complaint, it would be that when casting the weightless wacky Senko so far, it takes a little longer for the line to settle, and it's not uncommon to have a fish on by the time it does. The extra distance I'm getting on the casts may also affect the sensitivity slightly, or it could be that the Expride is just a little more sensitive, I'm not quite certain. I do know that I love fishing weightless wacky Senkos with this hair jig rod, and may pick up a second one so I can have a 4" on one and a 5" on the other. Not sure if I want to simply have the exact same rod for that, or may try either one of the Tatula flavors of such a rod, or may throw down on one of the other similar, but slightly different hair jig rods from St. Croix. I guess Bait Monkey will continue to be my guide.

Good to have the info, and since kayak and river fishing are two things I don't do, I'll refrain from muddying up the water so to speak, sit back and learn from those that do.

This is why I hesitated to respond in the first place. Details matter. Having a quiver that is well thought out for the unique fishing you do, and things you do more than others is much more important than having one that seems like a good all around quiver. To get the most out of it, it needs to fit only you. There might certain types of rods that are popular for others, that might not be of any value to you. You might also want to invest more in a certain type of setup because that's the one you fish the most. The fact that you fish from a kayak could also be important as well as the fact that you also shore fish. When I saw your list, my first thought was, why all the short rods? It's even important to know what the conditions of the shoreline is when you bank fish. Anyone that is bored by the details probably isn't going to be able to give consistently reliable advice in the first place. It would be great to know such things as: What percentage of the time are you kayak fishing vs shore fishing? Are the shorelines obscured by bushes and/or trees? Do bushes and trees affect your kayak fishing? What methods do you fish the most? How many rods do you normally take when shore fishing? How many rods do you normally take when kayak fishing? Do you expect kayak and shore fishing to be the main places you fish from going forward? What do you use each of your rigs for right now? What kind and size reels and line are you fishing with? Which ones are you not happy with for what you use them for? What do you want to do that you think a different rig would would help you with? Any other info you think might help Or, I could just post a list of what I have and tell you that since they work for me for the ways and places I fish, they should be great for you too (not that this happens here much) ;~)

With a 5'6" pistol grip rod and light monofilament line, I felt like I needed to run to the back deck before I could set the hook. I still have several wrist wreckers stashed in the rafters, but it's highly unlikely I'll use them again. Even when they were popular, I would be fishing with them and thinking . . . I wish they had a straight handle and were at least a foot longer.

The Victory MHM weighs 3.4 ounces? And is a medium heavy with a moderate action. The Kaden rod weight isn't listed but since it is a Heavy/Fast rod, I would hazard a guess that it's closer to 4 ounces, or possibly more, and some of that weight is likely to be further out from the foregrip. Is there a reason why you wouldn't want to open your search up again to include some other choices?

Assuming "lo pro" refers to low profile. If a reel has a low profile, and relatively high line capacity, the only way(s) to achieve additional capacity would be a thinner arbor on the spool and/or a wide spool. There's only so much room between the spool arbor and the reel foot. Big channel cats and stripers in the surf can take you for quite a ride and that means line capacity could definitely be an issue. You honestly should also be looking at reels that are made to withstand saltwater fishing environments (salt and sand), and that level of sealing adds cost for sure. Unfortunately, you're asking for a unicorn and I can't even pretend for a grown adult that unicorns exist. Please don't misunderstand me, there is nothing AT ALL wrong with asking, and you're asking because if it did exist, that would be a great thing for a one combo solution to exist, especially at a semi-budget price point. However, this is like asking for a vehicle that can tow a 24' boat, launch on sandy beaches, handle like a Porsche, seats 8, gets 45 mpg, and costs less than $30K. It doesn't exist at any price, and if it did, it would most certainly cost more than $30K. I also can't think of a rod that would do all of them well, even conceptually other than a two or three piece that could have different middle and top sections. Even then multiple piece rods are generally not likely to perform or be quite as light as a purpose built one piece. And contrast a frogging rod with one that also works for shallow running crankbaits? If it does either of those reasonably well, it's going to suck at the other. Honestly, in my estimation, you're going to hate your fishing life to try to do all of those things somewhat reasonably well with anything less than three rod/reel combos and those are going to run at least an average of $300 to $400 for each rod/reel combo, and that doesn't include putting line on them.

Well, if the 'way back machine' was working, I would post this without explanation, but it's not, soooooo. . . . . Back when Pterodactyls freely roamed our smog filled skies. . . .

On my medium handle Tatula 7' M/F spinning rod, it's above the foregrip, which is generally my preference. I thought the M/F spinning rod would be perfect for dropshot fishing, and it works fine. But after using ML/F spinning rods for dropshot fishing, I prefer them over M/F. As for Phenix rods, I have a few Phenix Feather rods (and others built on Phenix blanks) and find that they usually fish a little lighter than their rated power. For instance I have a Phenix Feather MH/F casting rod, and I would rate it at somewhat less power than my MH/F Tatula casting rod, and another Phenix rated as H/F that is only ever so slightly stiffer than the Tatula MH/F casting rod. Interestingly (at least to me) is that Phenix doesn't make a Feather casting rod in M/F, but instead goes down to ML/F and L/F and I also own those two models as well and use them as semi BFS-ish type rigs with Curado BFS reels. I have another Phenix spinning rod that is rated as being M/F, and it fishes a little lighter than either of my Daiwa M/F spinning rods (a Tatula and a Kage). My four cranking rods are also Phenix X-1x series rods and all of them have the hook keeper just above the foregrip. The only rods I won that don't have the hook keeper just above the foregrip are Shimano spinning rods. On the Zodias, it's mounted in the split, and the Expride doesn't have one, but I assumed that the slots in the seat nut are intended to be used as hook keepers (at least I use them for that). I don't love the placement or style of the hook keeper on the Zodias and have installed on of those snap-on keepers just above the foregrip on that rod. One other thing on the Zodias that I personally don't care for is the Hypalon grips. I just don't care the feel vs. cork grips. And that IS what would keep me from purchasing a rod with Hypalon grips in the future. I don't think that the placement or lack of a hook keeper would be a deal breaker for me, but if there are other similarly good choices within my budget, it might make that rod fall lower on my list. The difference between the 2000 and 2500 is the outside diameter of the spool. The spools are interchangeable on the Tatula reels, and even between Tatulas and Kages. I tried them on each other in the store to conform. Personally, I think the 2000 is fine, especially for dropshotting. In fact, my preference is a 2000 with a 'shallow' spool. But that is not a reel that is sold here in the states. I had to order one from Croatia (Fuego LT2000S-XH) on the auction site. It holds all the line I need to dropshot, but very little of the line I don't need. Line is expensive and I have never been spooled. I also have a Tatula LT2000D-XH and a Kage LT2000D-XH along with other 2500's. I wish all of my 2500's were 2000's in retrospect. JMHO. Some people use 3000's for the extra diameter of the spool, effectively increasing the inches per crank, but 6.2:1 3000's are almost non-existent with the Procyon being one exception but it weighs two ounces more than the Tatula 2000. Name your poison. Other Phenix rod lines may fish differently, but I don't own any of those so I don't know.

Going on my own personal experience, separating fly poop from pepper is not a skill one acquires overnight . . . . if ever.

I use the stiff clear plastic from blister packs and fashion my own for one particular spinning rod I own that has a little slop with any reel I try on it. That works to keep it from squirming. Other than that, although I LOVE the rod, but I will never buy another or recommend one to a friend because I HATE that squirm when setting a hook or fighting a fish.

My son and I volunteered at a local Cast for Kids event last weekend where we take kids fishing. We 'pre-fished' last weekend and came to the conclusion that getting bigger fish to bite was going to be a tough proposition and that smaller baits for smaller fish would at least get them bit and we could even see them in the shoreline rock and swimming above the weedbeds where the 'mower' had been cutting them down 2' to 3' below the surface. We settled on Keitech 2" Swing Impact baits on dropshot and 1/16 oz ballhead jigs near the shoreline rocks, and after seeing how interested they were in a tiny (brand unknown) jerkbait I tied on during pre-fishing, I bought a couple Lucky Craft Pointer 48 suspending jerkbaits. I changed the hooks out to Owner ST-36 #12 dark colored hooks as I don't have as much confidence in silver hooks. The kids (and us) caught bass and bluegill on all of those baits, while no one else caught nearly as many fish and many boats blanked. I don't normally fish for small bass or bluegill and wouldn't usually go down to 2" baits like the Keitech, but I have decided that the Pointer 48 may get some future use for schooling bass or stripers.

This is like going to a BBQ where everyone brings something to grill. Does this look like the faces of two guys that just won a big tournament?