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Looks like that's already happening: https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida/2021/10/16/florida-seafood-markets-to-offer-farm-raised-largemouth-bass/ I'm not a bass fan for eating, though I have no problem with other people eating them. In fact, I new a guy once who had a secret recipe that made them delicious. He fried them in peanut oil and used corn mean for the crust, but there were some herbs and stuff he wouldn't show me that changed them from okay to great. I wish that guy would have shared his secret, because I lost contact with him decades ago and haven't found a way to cook them that makes them worth the effort over something like crappie or walleye. I might have to give some of these a try. QED's look different enough from what I've attempted in the past to be worth a try. I was reading an article recently that suggested more people should eat bass in my state to help the population. The gist was catch and release was a much needed practice when it was introduced in the 70's, but we've gone too far with it and need to strike a better balance because there currently isn't enough biomass in the lakes to support the quality of bass that there once was. Here it is: https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/ooj/odwc-fisheries-biologists-watchful-black-bass-populations

7 foot G Loomis MH/F Conquest 843 MBR. Daiwa Zillion TW reel. Sufix 832 50lb braid in moss green. And a Green pumpkin Phenix Stand Up Casting Wobble Jig in 3/8 oz. with a black and blue Uncle Josh #11 pork frog trailer. I'm most comfortable with Daiwa brakes, which will cut down on backlashes and extend the life of my line. The Zillion also has a deeper spool, so I have plenty of line for reties. Sufix 832 in 50lb, which is thicker than I would normally go, but I can't afford to lose the bait. And I like Sufix's Gore fiber because it sinks better. I go with the Phenix Stand up Casting Wobble Jig because I could take off the blade and use it like a normal jig for pitching into heavy cover, go deep off points, or swim it with the blade on when needed. The Uncle Josh might be the only trailer that would last a year, or at least give me the best shot and some color options for dirtier water. Plus it would cast well in high wind and skip nicely.

Your identity has not only been stolen but erased. They take your house, because there's no record of you ever owning it. Same with your car. You didn't lose your job, because they claim you never had it. Bank accounts, retirement, everything, it's all gone. You have nothing but the clothes on your back. You don't even have citizenship or work history, so no place will hire you. You've got no way to survive in this world and nothing to fall back on. Even your own family doesn't know you anymore due to, oh let's say... an evil hypnotherapist who's employed by the person(s) behind it all. Desperate, you wander the streets alone when you get approached by a shady character who invites you to play the Fish Games. It's a year long bass tournament and the winner gets $100 million and their identity back. This is your only opportunity for survival, so you take it. Every week is a new body of water. They provide everything for you. You get the bass boat of your dreams fully decked out with anything you can imagine. Gas is free, because they want to make this a fair fight. You can pick any rod and reel you want. Everything is provided for you to your exact specifications. No expense is spared. The catch is, you only get one of each. For the most part, choosing just one of everything is uneventful. One bow mounted sonar. One forward facing sonar. One sonar for the passenger seat, which you don't need, but why not? You throw in a sonar for the live well, in case you need a backup. One power pole is a bit weird, but you'll get used to it. You're picking the best of the best, so there's not much compromising. KVD doesn't have this much access to top of the line gear. Now it comes time to pick your rod, reel, line, and lure. Yikes! Everyone's panicked. The old man in front of you panics and picks a Yamamoto Senko waxing poetically about it's versatility, but you know a single worm won't last a full day, let alone a year. And 6lb Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon on a Zebco spinning rod and reel? If he doesn't break it off, he'll be fighting wind knots all year long. Poor guy. He couldn't handle the pressure. Your turn to pick. You're second guessing everything. Maybe that old man knew something you're overlooking. I mean, you did notice he had a mean bass thumb. He didn't get that from making bad decisions under pressure, right? No. Forget him. This is your decision to make, and you know what you're doing. Time to follow your gut. Okay... deep breath. Now you open your eyes and confidently announce your picks which are...

Sunline makes some good fluorocarbon for the money. Assassin or Sniper if you can find it in your price range. Or drop down to Yo-Zuri hybrid, which is only a part fluorocarbon line, but I like it better than fluorocarbon for things like crankbaits and such. Keep that Yo-Zuri top knot. I agree it's too stiff for a mainline, but I find it makes a decent leader.

Braid is braided. Hence it's name. Thread is spun. Fishing line is exposed, so it has to be braided to keep the filaments from fraying. Thread is sewn into things, so very little of it is exposed. Plus a braided line will be much stronger than a spun line, due to the way the braid distributes the force among the filaments. Braided fishing line is actually used in the garment world sometimes, when added strength and durability are needed. You'll typically see it used for bead work. You don't normally need the added strength of braid for sewing, as at some point the fabric itself will tear before the thread breaks. So braided fishing line is usually an unnecessary cost. But it's properties are known, and it is not known as having identical properties to spun Spectra sewing thread. Plus I imagine knots would be a lot less stable on thread. The braiding gives the line texture that helps to hold knots better.

I fish lakes all of the time with no shad, but only bluegill. Bass still target shad type lures. They're opportunistic predators. They'll eat anything that looks like food, even if it doesn't look like their normal food. I've seem people catch bass on a lure that looks like Homer Simpson, and everyone knows bass show dismal Nielsen TV ratings when it comes to animated adult comedy programs.

Either jerk straight down, or alternate sides. I have the same issue in my hard plastic kayak. And it's far from just jerkbaits. Deep diving cranks are the worst. About all you can do is position your kayak so that you can pull it off to two sides, so as the boat starts to pull off in one direction, you switch sides to counter the spin, and get started spinning off to the other side. Even a stakeout pole or anchor won't really help much. Two might, however. In fact, I'll often cast a lure to reposition my kayak. Or even use the rod tip like a paddle to swing it around. Without much weight, it doesn't take much to get it going. So you have to learn how to use it your advantage, rather than let it be a disadvantage. Plan your cast and retrieve out ahead of time, and figure out what you'll need to do to maintain control of your kayak. It sounds like a royal pain, but once you get used to it, it's no big deal.

Same. I try to avoid pegging my weight if possible. I find I catch more fish more often with a free weight. But sometimes an unpegged weight will get hung up where a pegged weight will pull through. And since I'm usually throwing a T-rig around heavy cover, they wind up getting pegged quite a bit.

I hate spinning gear. But there are times when I'm casting light lures or need a really light line, and spinning gear wins out. I almost always opt for baitcasting gear, if I can get away with it, but I usually have at least one spinning rod with light line on me.

I'll usually study a depth map before going. And I'll pay attention to the weather and wind direction and speed. Just trying to get a general sense of the situation before hand, so I can make more informed decisions later on. But once I'm there, it's all just experimentation and reacting to what my experiments tell me. There are a lot of lakes near me, and they all fish differently. Some appear nearly identical to the eye, but they'll fish completely differently. And if I go in with a plan, I tend to stick to it far longer than I should. So I try to remain more curious than confident, and focus on learning what the lake can teach me rather than trying to force my will onto the lake. Though, there are several things I'll do at any lake, like topwaters when the sun is low in the sky, and docks and shaded areas when the sun is high. Maybe deeper or more shallow water depending on the season. Just generalized, non-lake-specific stuff.

I'd probably send it back. I'd be worried it was either used, a fake product, or a factory defect that extended beyond just the color.

That's what I do. I pinch it to keep it tight as I'm typing it, and I'll cinch it down every other wrap. I use it with 6# fluoro on 10# braid and never have problems. Most videos show you waiting until you've tied the overhand knots to cinch it down. That never works for me.

The best weather to fish in the fall is when there's no lightning, and the winds are below 25mph. In the fall, unlike the rest of the year, I don't think the weather has much effect on the bite. The fall is just different. Like in the fall, I usually won't even hit the water until after noon, and in the spring and summer, I'm using headed home by around noon. In the spring, summer, and winter, I'm looking for cover and structure to find bass. In the fall, I'm just chasing schools of baitfish. Forget cover and structure. Everything's different about it. And for me, it's when I do my best fishing.

It's all about what makes you the most comfortable. I know people who use spinning reels for everything. It works for them. They don't understand why anyone would use a baitcaster. I hate spinning reels. The only time I use them is for really light lines and lures. And even then, I use left handed spinning reels so I can hold them in the same hand as my baitcaster. There are some minor differences between the two styles, and even those can largely be overcome. For instance, BFS baitcasters can cast lures as small as 1 gram on 1lb test line. And there are saltwater spinning reels (size 300 or 30,000) capable of handling 100lb braid.

Y'all jinxed me. Just a few days after posting this, I'm fishing and a small bass strikes my crankbait about 6 feet off my kayak. He's so close that I can see it in his mouth and am about to run out of room because I'm cranking it in fast. So I set the hook and it pops out of his mouth and flies back at me. Luckily it was a crankbait, so it was more of a side sweep than a jig type hookset. So I wasn't actually in danger of getting hooked by it. But it did make me think of this post. Then, about an hour later, I've hooked another one and he surfaces right in front of my kayak and throws the lure right at me. I blocked it with my hand (reaction more than skill), and luckily it just bounced off it into the water. But again, I'm blaming ya'll for this.

I always go with hammered colorado blades and smooth indiana and willow blades. Why? Because that's usually what the store has in stock. I gotta go with Jimmy Joe on this one. When the bass are biting spinnerbaits, it doesn't seem to matter much what you use, but where you throw it. When the bass aren't biting spinnerbaits, it doesn't even matter where you throw it. I've many times lost a spinnerbait and had to switch it out for a completely different style with no impact on my catch rate.

What about a Rapala Floating Minnow?

Have these been discontinued? I can't find them anywhere locally. And I've even having a hard time finding them online. I can still find them online if I look hard enough, but places like Bass Pro, Academy, Tackle Warehouse, etc., don't seem to carry the Fat Boy anymore, but they have other crankbaits in the Norman line. So while I could order from eBay or a company I haven't done business with before and wait who knows how long for shipping (which I might still do), are there any alternative squarebills that have a hard thump like the Fat Boy? Perhaps something I can pick up locally this afternoon? I lost my second to last one yesterday on what might have been my PB, or a catfish. Whatever it was, it took me for a short ride in my kayak before breaking my 12# Yo-Zuri Hybrid. Serves me right for not checking the drag first. I was getting bit left and right with that lure and couldn't get sniffed with any other squarebill I had with me. And I immediately noticed none of the ones I was carrying had anywhere near the thump of the Fat Boy, so I'm attributing it to that. Or the profile, which all of my other squarebills were more of a standard, elongated shape.

50% is probably near to what I run with toads. A stiffer rod might help, especially in a kayak where it's harder to get a good swing on it. But toads and frogs aren't good lures for high hookup percentages. I generally avoid them except when I need something weedless.

I fish them year round, though in the summer months I tend to use them more as jig trailers, by tearing off the head (to allow more meat for the hook keeper).

Are you talking about a plug knocker or a pole? As far as a plug knocker goes, I've done a tad of personal R&D on these on my own. My personal plug knocker has a PTFE sleeve, so it slides better. It's also more hydrodynamic than some of what's currently out there. I like it because it travels faster through the water to strike the lure with more force than a lot of others can. It also has detachable chains, which can help to snag treble hooks. But sometimes those get in the way. So being able to remove them is a nice feature. I do which is held closer to the line and didn't hang so far below it, however. But I haven't experimented with the height, so I don't know if that would make it better or worse. It's literally made from found parts. My number one goal in it's design was that it be free (to me).

Me too. I've had to remove several hooks from my body over the years. But they were all caused by a snagged lure flying back at me or someone else casting near me who didn't know what they were doing. I think there are a couple of times where the fish surfaced and threw the lure at me while I was trying to keep tension on the line as well. But I can't ever recall it happening on a hookset. I also don't think I've ever been hooked by a fish I was trying to lip, or had already lipped. At least not the point of the hook getting stuck in my skin.

In my opinion, Lew's and BPS are virtually the same brand when it comes to low profile baitcasters. So I wouldn't call it step up or down, but rather a step to the side. Basically, you traded your dual brakes for the double supported pinion. You'll likely get a bit more longevity at the expense of centrifugal brakes (the LFS only has magnetic). My Pro Qualifier 2 has held up quite well. Not as well as my Daiwa Tatulas, which still feel like new, but well enough. It's certainly not geary. But just like the Lew's (made in the same factory), the quality control isn't the best, so it's easy to get a lemon.

Try calling them. I had the same problem with their general email address, but gave them a call. They answered right away, every time, and were extremely helpful. From there, I was given a direct email to one of their CR reps and she always responded to my emails within a few hours.

Learn to enjoy the process, not the results. Fishing, like so many things in life, is a lot like surfing. You just sit there, bobbing up and down in the water, waiting for a wave. Some days, the wave never comes. All you can do is wait and be ready, so when a wave does come, and it will eventually if you're out there long enough, you'll be ready. Then, when you've caught that wave, ride it out. And when it's over, reset and wait again. It's not about mastering your environment. It's about being patient and readying yourself to take advantage of any opportunity that passes by you. From October of 2019 to the middle of May of 2020 I didn't get one bite. And I fished just about every opportunity I had. The weather played a big role in that dry spell. And even when I finally caught a fish, it would be another month before I finally caught a largemouth. And that's far from the only tough stretch. What makes fishing fun, for me, isn't catching fish. It's returning to a state of peace and becoming a part of my surroundings. It's learning how to be vulnerable and comfortable in that vulnerability. You gain nothing in life from success. Only in failure do we grow. No one learns how to walk. You learn how to fall. Then you learn how to get up. Then you learn how not to fall, and the walking comes from that. You can't control the weather, the water, nor the fish. All you can do is ride the waves and be ready when your wave comes in.