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8 gauge would be the minimum under ideal circumstances. 6 gauge would be safer and might give more power to the trolling motor. 8 gauge is good for about 50 amps up to about 10 feet. If you're having to snake the wire around, giving your about 10-20 feet of wire run, then 6 gauge would be recommended. And I'd remove that 10 gauge wire that came with the trolling motor and replace it with either the 6 or 8 gauge. That 10 gauge wire was put there by the factory with the intention that that would be connected directly to the battery. It's only designed for about up to 5-7 feet of wire run. Since you're doing a much longer run, you don't want that stretch of 10 gauge wire to defeat the purpose of running the rest of it with 8 or 6. Now, having said all of that, I don't think running even 10 gauge wire the whole way poses a safety hazard. It's still a pretty thick wire. But I imagine that it will limit the performance of your trolling motor, as it won't be able to draw the full power it wants when it wants to. And the wire might get hot, but I doubt it would get so hot as to start burning or melting anything.

Give me a Rebel Pop-R, a Zara Spook, and a buzzbait, and I'm good. The Pop-R can be worked slow. The Zara Spook is a good middle speed lure with a larger profile. And the buzzbait is great for when they're wanting something fast. A frog would be nice too for heavy cover, if that's a thing for you. If you fish at night and there's no wind, a Jitterbug is really good as well. If you don't, I'd skip them. There are lots of other ways to go, but getting one of each of those would be what I'd start out with. Color doesn't really matter too much for topwaters. It's more about size, action, and sound.

I like taking things apart and seeing how they work. So I always disassemble a new reel the first chance I get. I also completely disassemble, clean, and lubricate each reel once in the winter. Occasionally I'll notice a reel isn't running as smoothly as it was, so I'll break it down and clean it mid-season. If you take care of your reels, don't dunk them in water, and keep them clean on the outside, they can last many years before needing to be torn down and cleaned. Factories throw enough grease and oil in them to last through the warranty period without maintenance. But most serious anglers like to do it more often to keep them performing like new for as long as they own them.

I just tie a uni knot with some thick mono onto the line and use it as a bobber stopper. It works and it's cheap. I also use cactus spines instead of toothpicks, if they're available. I find the cactus spines do a better job of holding, as they're more evenly tapered. But I don't often come across those near the water.

When approaching pressured waters, think about where that pressure is coming from. In my local lakes, it's mainly going to be from the banks that are easily accessible and fishing piers. And they're pretty much only going to be using live bait. So I stay away from those areas, and don't use anything that just sits there on the line, like a drop shot or shaky head. Drop shots look too much like a live minnow on a hook and shaky heads look like a live worm on a hook, which is where most of this pressure is coming from. So I go the opposite of what everyone says you're supposed to do in pressured water, and go full on power fishing. Anything fast and loud. I also try to look for areas that aren't obvious to the eye from the surface, using my fish finder. And I look for areas that are hard to cast into or easy to get hung up on. They tend to be more productive, as it limits the number of anglers who can fish it effectively.

I try a bit of everything. I prefer to stay shallow as long as I can, but I'm not afraid to fish around the thermocline with a deep diving plug if the skinny water isn't treating me right. The thermocline around here will get about 30 ft. deep, due to the wind. And that's with 1-2ft. visibility. So if you're going deep, you need to go large and loud.

I make my own spring keepers. I just use steel wire (we have a lot I can grab for free from work), and twist it around something round and small to make a spring. Then I bend one end of the spring out a bit, and use that like a split ring to attach to the hook's eye. If you have the wire, they take like ten seconds to make.

I remember when I first started playing guitar. I originally learned on a left handed guitar because, being right handed, it made more sense to me, since I'd be using my right hand for all of those difficult chord positions. A few months later, I learned that it was the picking hand that actually had to have more coordination, so I switched to right handed. My father, who is left handed, plays right handed guitar, mostly because back in his day finding left handed guitars was almost impossible. With enough practice, you can learn to do pretty much anything with your off hand, and get quite good at it. Like all of those left handed kids who were forced to write with their right hand back in the day. They do everything but write left handed, but they can't write worth a darn with their left hand.

My kayak has two "rod holders", which are basically just bungee straps, on the tops of the side walls. They allow you to secure your rods to the sides of the kayak. There's a lip there, and you have to bend the rod a bit so they don't stick out in the front. You can also store rods in the front hatch. They go in reverse and the rods themselves go along the inside of the side walls in the hull. It's a bit of a pain to do, especially if you have anything else in there, so I rarely use it. They do make horizontal rod holders. You can look them up. Some are basically what I mentioned at the top, only a little bit more refined. Some are entire racks capable of holding multiple rods. I just stick mine straight up from the behind my seat. Yes, they can still get caught in trees. But, if I'm fishing in trees, I'm usually standing up anyway, so I can grab the branches and move either myself or the branches around so they don't cause an issue. If I need to get underneath one, I'll usually pull them all out and lay them on the deck in front of me. I don't own a pedal kayak (I use a trolling motor), but when I'm in that close with trees, I'm using my paddle anyway, as it's better for pushing off trees and navigating tight quarters.

I like 12# Yo-Zuri hybrid for those applications. It's similar to fluorocarbon, but a lot easier to cast. You might like the 30# braid as well. I've used that in the past for cranks, and with a flexible rod, it works pretty well. Braid doesn't like to hold knots as well as mono. It's slippery and doesn't compress like mono, so knots tend to free themselves pretty easily. If you're having a problem with lures flying off on the cast, or losing fish, regardless of the braid's size, I'd look at your knot. The usual clinch knot that works wonders with mono will often fail with braid. I prefer the Fish N Fool knot for braid, especially if treble hooks are involved. I use about 8-10 wraps though. Many like the Palomar knot as well.

Nylon is great for gears that don't see much stress, like in a level wind. Nylon is self lubricating, light weight, doesn't corrode, doesn't shrink or expand, and is fairly stable (as far as plastics go) to oxidation and UV light. You don't want it in your cranking gears, as they strip easily. But for parts that should never see much stress, they'll last longer and stay smoother than metal gears.

Thanks! I probably will, since it's done so well for me. I also have an old Shad Rap where the bill broke in two. I used Oatley Fusion clear PVC cement to weld the bill back together. I had tried super glue before, but that never lasted long. The PCV cement seems to be a permanent solution. And while that lure doesn't seem to generate much interest from the local bass community after the repair, it also didn't generate much interest before. You know how balsa baits can be... sometimes you get a good one, sometimes you don't. This one seems to have been a "don't". I've also got a frog I found, just like Bassin' Brad's only in white, that won't stay afloat. It takes on water immediately (which is probably why someone threw it on the ground). I tried repairing it with some silicone, and that helped, but it still wants to sink pretty quickly if I don't keep it on the move at a pretty good clip. I don't think I've ever caught anything off of it, but it's so frustrating to use, I rarely ever tie it on. I like to repair lures and keep them around for those situations where you see something you want to target, but you know you'll probably lose whatever you throw in there. The way I see it, I'd rather throw a broken lure away into a thick pile of brush than the trash bin.

I'm glad to hear that one worked for you. A kayak cart that doesn't hold the kayak secure is almost as bad as no cart at all.

That Ambassador 5500 is pretty gnarly, so I'm not surprised you had problems with it. That would be a difficult reel to learn on. I'd just get a Daiwa Fuego or Tatula CT. They're both really easy to cast with and set up, and they're both reasonably priced. Plus they're both excellent reels. I wouldn't worry about getting an SV spool of you already have a bunch of spinning gear. You'll likely find them preferable for lighter baits anyway.

Get a Fish Winch. It's a regular reel with an electric motor attached so you can fish with one hand.

I might give them some help and myself a challenge in those situations. Like I might rig up a drop shot, hand my rod to them, and say "cast this over there". And I might pick up what their throwing and try to see what I can do with that somewhere else or something. That's what my grandfather did with us grandkids when he taught us how to fish. You don't want to be patronizing or controlling with it. Just, if you see them getting frustrated and not having fun, try to share a little bit of your fun. Fun is like fire. The wider is spreads, the brighter it burns everywhere.

If you use any pressure on the spool tension knob, you don't need new bearings. You're already not taking full advantage of the bearings you have, and likely won't gain anything from new bearings. Also, always use a light oil for reel bearings, especially spool bearings. Grease is good for car bearings and other applications where they're under high stress and heat. Oil is better when you need low friction and high speeds and acceleration. Grease will slow a bearing down. Even too much oil will slow bearings down. Best you can do is make sure they're clean and use just enough oil to make them shine.

My left hand is so uncoordinated, I'd swear it belongs to someone else. I certainly can't cast with it. But I do pitch left handed on right handed reels. When I first started to learn how to pitch, I made the concious decision to do it left handed, and now that's the hand I pitch best with.

If you switch up presentations, it might mess with your hookset if you're not careful. I often miss a couple when I switch from small to large hooks, because I get used to the weaker hookset. And then when I switch back to small hooks, I sometimes tear them out of the fish's mouth. Also, I think the lips of bass change with the seasons. It seems like they get thinner in the heat of the summer, and too hard of a hookset can rip a big hole that will allow them to slip out. Those are my theories. I might be way off here and just looking for excuses to dodge responsibility.

Hard to say. But I'd tear it down, give a good clean and relube, and try again. My guess is the grease caught some junk that was already in the reel and migrated it to the gearing. But who knows.

I went fishing this morning and couldn't buy a bite on any of the usual stuff. While digging around for a spinnerbait, I noticed the Knuckle Bait in my box and realized and I hadn't tried it yet. I bought it on clearance a long while back, read a bunch of terrible reviews, and forgot about it. But I tied it on today and it absolutely killed... with the dinks. I went from nothing to landing probably 10 1-2lbers in probably 2 hours, and I was catching them all over the lake. I just threw it to the bank, gave it two turns of the reel, killed it for a second or two, and then gave it another two turns. I guess they had never seen anything like that before and just went nuts. I will say that it got hung up constantly. It was like a wood magnet. Much worse than a regular spinnerbait. I spent probably 30-45 minutes of those 2 hours trying to free that thing. I don't know if I'll try to replace it when I do eventually lose it. But it made for an interesting day. I almost hate to try it again, because if it does well next time, and actually lands some sizable bass, it might be hard to replace since it's been discontinued for a while.

I don't think bass key in much on scent. Besides, I don't think plastic lures give off much scent. It's mostly a taste thing so they'll hold on to the bait longer, giving you more time to detect the bite and set the hook. I use Zoom plastics all of the time in stained water, and they definitely work.

You might try setting it a little tighter with lighter lures, so the lure doesn't fall until you shake the rod, but then once it gets started, it falls on it's own. Most of my reels allow me to set the spool tension like what you have there. But I do have an older reel that especially prone to backlash in the middle of the cast, like you're experiencing, that requires more spool tension than normal. But with a little extra spool tension, it does alright. Also, make sure you're making smooth casts. When you try too hard to cast the lure, you can get backlashes at the beginning of the cast. It needs to be smooth, and you have to let the rod do the work. Part of it is making sure the rod loads properly and doesn't release too early or too late. If it does, then you're probably gonna backlash.

What reel are you looking to upgrade? You can find drag washers for most common reels just by including the make and model of your reel in the search. For other reels, you may have to disassemble it and measure the existing drag washers with calipers.

How about the spool tension knob? How do you have that set? That will usually slow the reel down on startup better than the brakes.