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And I do the opposite sometimes and catch fish. I'll fish a crankbait like a jerkbait. Tie on something that dives, say 6-8 feet, and just pop it so it just kisses the bottom, floats back up to about halfway to the top, and jerk it again. I don't know why it works when jerkbaits and regular crankbaits won't, but sometimes it does.

Oil doesn't last forever. Even sealed in a bottle, it'll break down over time. And 10 years is a long time to ask for any oil to remain in pristine condition. 3-5 years in a sealed bottle is about average. That being said, it's not like it would be dangerous to use. It'll likely just become thicker over time, and not protect as well. In a high stress situation like an automobile, boat, or airplane engine, I wouldn't use it. You risk damage to the engine and worse. People could die. In a fishing reel, you risk casting distance.

I've got a ton of secret lures and rigs. One is the Minnow Chaser. It's a crappie jig with a larger swimbait tied on an 18" leader that follows it. It's an excellent way to start a conga line of fish. Another is the Jig Shot. It's a drop shot with a jig instead of a traditional weight. Allows you to catch double the brush. Then there's the Carolina Crankbait. A Carolina rig with a crankbait instead of a worm. Good for getting smaller crankbaits down deeper and allowing them to suspend. Less good for catching bass. And don't forget the Jizard. The football or structure jig with a lizard trailer. Cut the head off a 5" lizard before rigging. It catches bass almost as effectively as a jig with a rage bug trailer. Also the Goose Turd. It's T-rigged soft plastic craw that's lost most or all of its legs and pinchers, but still somehow catches fish. Probably my most effective "secret lure". And last is the Texas Rigged, One Knocker Fluke. Tie a bullet weight, a glass bead, and an EWG hook and rig up the fluke weedless. Then put a bobber stopper about an inch in front of the weight and twitch it back to you. The clicking sound of the glass bead lets the bass know you're a little more sophisticated than the average angler. Now it may seem like these are all jokes. But I have literally caught at least one fish on each of them. So I can vouch that they all CAN work. Effectiveness not guaranteed.

90% casting and 10% spinning by usage. 67% casting and 32% spinning by possession. I really don't like using spinning reels, but there are times when the frustrations of using one are outweighed by the advantages.

I'm not a licensed psychologist, so I can't say if you're going crazy. But I would say that it's not really logical. Though I also know enough about the human brain to know that logic isn't what drives us, despite what we choose to believe. Ultimately, whatever works for you is what you should do. There are some things that you need to learn to do a certain way, because learning to do them the wrong way will either stunt your growth or do physical harm to your body over time. This isn't one of those situations though.

I'd go for it. That's a really good deal, and if you got it home and decided it didn't work out for you, you could probably flip it for what you put into it without too much hassle. At the very least you'd learn more about what you're looking for in a boat.

I have some Zatas. Super smooth reels, and have held up well despite having plastic frames. As suspected, the white brakes have more stopping power than the blue brakes. So they are indeed different.

Four times now I've gotten a crankbait caught up in some brush on a windy day and tried to move my kayak over top of it to pop it free, only to run over my line and get my line tangled up in my trolling motor. Each time, I had to paddle to the bank so I could get out and walk around to the back to remove the prop so I could get the line out, because I can't reach it from inside my kayak. Once, it was on a 100°+ day and it happened about a mile from any part of the bank that I could get out of my kayak on (thick vegetation everywhere). 30 minutes of heavy paddling in the heat and high winds wore me out. And yet, no lessons have been learned. I will do it again, because crankbaits aren't cheap and it's always windy here.

Very nice! And clever! I thought this was going to be a thread about using gummy worms, to be honest. But this is much cooler!

Get a WHITE bath towel and lay it out. Make sure it's clean and doesn't produce a lot lint. You want to work over that so if any small parts pop out, they won't roll away. Get a parts bin. Something with lots of small segments. That way, as you tear down a reel, you can place each part aside in order, and they'll stay in order. Then when you go to put it back together, you just reverse the way you came in. Get a digital camera or smart phone. Take tons of pictures from different angles. Before you remove something, take a picture of it. Download a schematic. If you get lost, this is your roadmap out. Be weary of springs. They love to shoot out and disappear into the room. It also helps to watch a video or two of reel tear downs before you begin. Just to show you the order and how to remove some parts that might not be obvious, so you don't break anything. Even if you can't find a video on your specific reel. If nothing else, that should show you where some of those pesky, disappearing springs live. And lastly, there are two bent washers that go on the handle shaft above the drag stack. When putting them back, they face each other to create tension, like this ( ). They don't nestle inside each other, like this ((, as that will make your drag slip. That's the most common mistake people make. The rest is just cleaning and relubricating. Take your time, and give yourself lots of time to complete the job before you begin. Try to do it all in one session. You're asking for trouble if you sleep halfway through a job, as it becomes real easy to forget where this or that goes.

When you've trained your mind to fish at a certain speed, it's going to require a lot of focus to shift speeds. And focus, these days, is no easy task. It's hard in our constantly connected world to quiet our minds and just listen. We're so used to doing three or fourth things at once, it's hard to do nothing at all. It's almost impossible anymore to block out all of the unwanted thoughts and just listen to the void. Meditation is a lost artform that could do us all some good. As would the art of patience. But the world we live in doesn't directly reward that anymore. So, barring a complete teardown and rebuild of your life, singing a song in your head will be a good shortcut to fishing slower. That will give you a steady tempo to work off of, and keep your mind active, which is a lot easier than clearing it. For slow fishing, sing a slow song. If you need to fish even slower, then just react on every 4th, 8th, 16th beat or whatever. Maybe just the first beat of each new line in a song's verse and chorus. Whatever you need to do to set the pace you desire. That way you're fishing slower without having to slow down your mind.

Location, first and foremost. Time spent driving is time wasted not fishing. And my free time is scarce and precious. Second is wind. Speed and direction. Some lakes are better at shielding from the wind in general, and some are better at shielding from the wind only in certain directions. Plus, sometimes the wind be a lot worse in one spot, and not nearly as bad 30 miles away. Third is familiarity. Not necessarily familiarity with that particular body of water, but familiarity with bodies of water like it. And that can go either way. Maybe I want more of a challenge, or maybe I think the conditions will be challenging enough. Fourth is water temperature and depth. It's not usually a big deal most of the time, but occasionally it will matter, like during the transition periods when one lake might be 40° and another might be 55°. And last is popularity. Typically I only worry about this during holiday weekends. I don't mind a lot of boats on a lake, but when it's crowded enough to make fishing dangerous or even impossible, I try to find a less popular lake.

I have never even seen a Fantasia X in person before, so I know nothing about them. But if they're anything like the rest of the rods in Abu's lineup, then I would expect them to be almost a full half power heavier than their listed rating. In other words, their Medium Lights are about what most other brands would call a Medium. So if I wanted a Medium Light rod, I'd look for a Light instead.

In theory? A guide. They are professional anglers too. And while they may not have the generalized skillset of the touring pros, they have more useful knowledge about that specific body of water. The guide might not be able to read the conditions and adapt as well as the touring pro, but they'll know most, if not all, of the highest percentage spots in that lake. Though, the guides at my local lakes all specialize in other species. Mainly catfish and white bass, with some crappie and walleye. So my guess is the touring pros would be the better bet for black bass in my specific situation.

That would be a terrible business decision. While it's true that some companies will artificially create scarcity to increase demand (De Beers is notorious for this), it makes no sense for a smaller manufacturer in a crowded market to do this. For this strategy to work, you have to have the market cornered and not have a viable competitor that your customers could go to instead. Much more likely is that the demand has outpaced supply. And scaling up to meet demand is exponentially more difficult for a small company to do than a large company. As you noted, these swim baits have exploded in popularity, as has the boutique bait market.

Why not just wait for a heavy rainstorm and walk your fish like a normal person?

That's a good idea! The Rad Sportz uses a double pulley system. The top pulley just redirects the force downward, but the bottom pulley on the hooks cuts the force by half (and doubles the distance you have the pull). Replacing both pulleys, which are just bolted in place, with compound pulleys would cut the force required even further. And depending on how many extra pulley's you added with your compound pulley's, you could get it down to just a few pounds of pull. You wouldn't need much grip strength for that. You'd have to pull a lot more rope to work it though.

I prefer RH casting and LH spinning. That way my right hand is always cranking. When pitching and flipping, I use my left hand, which took some getting used to, so I'd always have my right hand ready to engage the spool. But after a month or two of practice, it feels natural to me either way. Otherwise, I typically cast right-handed. But again, I'll do it left-handed in situations where I need to. And I am severely right-handed. It's whatever you feel most comfortable doing. There's no serious advantage to doing it one way or the other. Fishing doesn't require the fine motor skills of something like playing a musical instrument or drawing. Even accurate casts rely more on timing that coordination. As for what to do with your old reels? I'd say keep them and make the transition slowly. You've already learned how to use them, so you won't be at a disadvantage while you slowly switch over. You won't become a left-handed reeler. You'll become an ambidextrous reeler who prefers using their left.

I definitely have no desire to produce my own videos. It's way too much work, and I fish to have fun. What's funny is I have a degree in video production (actually graphic design with an emphasis on digital media). So maybe that's why. I wouldn't feel right doing anything but a high-quality production, which takes a TON of time and planning and a bit of money. And I just want to fish. That being said, what I like best about fishing videos are videos of people fishing and NOT catching fish. That's my biggest complaint. Way too many videos are of people talking about gear and not fishing, then cuts to them setting the hook and reeling in a fish. That doesn't help me much. Show me the work behind all of that. Show me why you're casting where you are. Show me your retrieve. Show me how you're making the decision to change your approach. Show me the stuff that will make me a better angler. I don't care about the stuff that makes you LOOK like a better angler. Not that I don't understand why videos are shot that way. I do. I get that that's what most people want to see, and getting views gets you paid. We all have to eat, right? But I'm looking for ways to get better, not people to live vicariously through.

I don't really have a strong preference. I probably use naphtha more than anything, since it's cheap and relatively safe on most paint and plastics. But I've used mineral spirits, acetone, iso alcohol, ethanol, and toluene in the past. On painted or plastic parts, I usually use Dawn dish soap.

I typically only use a leader if I have a reason to. Otherwise it's straight braid. Leaders are one of those things that really depend on personal preference. You kind of have to form your own opinion. Unless we're talking about things like Carolina rigs that require leaders or fishing in places with toothy fish that will bite through normal line. Stuff like that is about the only time you HAVE to use a leader. Reasons can vary. Sometimes I'll use a leader due to the stiffness of the line. Sometimes I'll use a leader to reduce visibility. Sometimes I'll use a leader for abrasion resistance. Sometimes I'll tie on a leader if I think I'm going to get hung up a bunch and have something like 50# braid on my reel, which can be a pain to break off. So the leader gives me a weak point to break off on purpose and save line. Basically, experience will tell you when you need to use a leader. Most of the time, it's not worth the hassle for me. And experience will also tell you what knots to use. Just experiment around and figure out where you stand on all of this. There's no universal consensus here.

In my state, the game wardens have the most authority and jurisdiction of any law enforcement agency. They have the full power of the police. They're even deputized by a couple of federal agencies, so they can arrest you on any land within Oklahoma's borders. And their bar for probable cause is quite a bit lower than other police agencies. If you so much as have a gun while being near the woods, they can legally search your car with probable cause. Now, that's not to say that they're running around abusing their powers. All of the one's I have met have been extremely polite and understanding. They're just wanting to make sure everyone is following the rules that protect our fish and wildlife and aren't really wanting to get involved with all of that other stuff unless they have to. They're not ticket happy. But from a legal standpoint, they are the most powerful law enforcement agency in the state.

Instead of approaching it from the perspective of how tournaments and fishing pressure effect a body of water, think of it from the perspective of a body of water effects tournaments and fishing pressure. If a lake becomes overfished and no one ever catches fish on it, eventually, most people will stop fishing it and go somewhere else. If the best lakes experience so much fishing pressure that no one manages to catch many fish, then they'll quit having tournaments on them. So, in the short term and lake specific view, fishing pressure and tournaments can indeed ruin a body of water for future generations. However, in the long term and world view, they won't matter. Once a lake gets a solid reputation of being a bad fishery, it'll be allowed to rebound just due to human nature. People don't like wasting their time, after all. The real threat to the sport comes in the form of pollution, drought, invasive species, etc. With catch and release being so common, you can understand how fishing pressure won't affect the actual fish population so much as the fish behavior, and thus the angler's behavior. It's the things that directly affect the fish population that are most concerning.

Except for the Whopper Plopper, in my experience. I've had more luck pausing buzzbaits and toads and letting them sink about 2-3 inches than pausing a Whopper Plopper. They only seem to work for me on a steady retrieve, which is odd, because you'd think it would be like a buzzbait but with the ability to pause. The fish near me just don't seem to like that.

A lot of phones these days are lightly waterproof. You might want to check the specs on yours to see. Mine is waterproof up to one meter for thirty minutes, which means you don't want to go swimming with it, but it'll survive water getting splashed up on it, heavy rain, and even sitting in water in the bottom of my kayak. Basically, anything a normal day of fishing will throw at it, so long as I don't drop it in the lake. And seeing as how it's about 4 years old now and has been through all of those scenarios multiple times, I think it's safe to say that it's lived up to that promise.