ironbjorn

Sometimes. Sometimes it's also about the body of water.

Johnny over at Fish The Moment on YouTube has a video on the Black Max and why he fishes them. The video has to be 2-3 years old by now. I was recently watching a newer video of his and he's still fishing them. He gives an honest review and it lines up with my experience. When purchasing new setups I'll still buy SLX XTs and Tournament Pros (my favorite reels), but if I need a replacement, something right now, or a scenario in which I just had (a few rods without reels), I'll keep buying and fishing the Black Max and not lose any sleep over it.

My Black Max claim has more to do with the fact that, if I lost everything today, there's no way I'd want to pay to replace it all, especially with the Black Max performing more than adequately and being entirely replaceable. I feel the same about Aird X and Fury rods. My life would go on.

Is your 110 diving a whole 8 inches with that 20lb mono? Good Lord. You can bump that down to no more than 12lb.

Any, but mostly fishing ponds and rivers, lipless are great in ponds (1/4 oz Rat-L-Trap in Blue Shiner is my best) and squarebills are great in rivers smashing off rocks in fast water.

Anything soft plastic is what I'm best at, as well as lipless and squarebill crankbaits. Chatterbaits are the worst. They were alright for awhile but have become a nightmare for me. Spinnerbaits have made a resurgence for me, but they're more about opportunity and size than they are numbers.

My last 6 casting reel purchases have been the Shimano SLX XT and the Abu Garcia Max X (formerly the Black Max). I've said it before and I'll say it again: if I suddenly lost everything and had to start over, I would just buy a ton of Black Max reels. I haven't bought a Black Max (Max X) in awhile, but I had a few rods laying around without reels and didn't feel like dropping any serious coin on reels for them. I've never had an issue with the Black Max line.

Ugh that's so gross. Part of the rush for me is the mystery. Did I throw to the right spot?

Holy run-on sentences. I think I just had a seizure looking for a punctuation mark. ?

Since last season, usually a spinnerbait.

I'm way too hyper alert and sketched out to fish at night comfortably, but the few times I've tried, it was miserable because of the lack of vision.

Well I'll be. Thanks man.

I'm trying to order a few of these to slap on some rods without reels I have laying around and I can't find the actual Black Max. Is it now the Max X?

Always multiples. If you're interested in catching bass, you will lose a lot of lures. If you're interested in keeping lures, you won't catch a lot of bass.

I throw them on any Texas rig and/or jig rod, it's not that specialty

Considering the month, you almost made me quit bass fishing forever in favor of finally crawling into a cave and letting nature do its thing.

5" Senko 1/4 - 1/2 oz Rat-L-Trap 3/8 oz War Eagle Super Spook Jr Vision 110 Culprit Worm 3/8 - 1/2 oz 6th Sense Divine Hybrid Jig Rage Craw KVD 1.5 - 2.5 Ned Rig (Z-Man products)

I'd rather my underage kids shotgun beers than drink that stuff.

Red Bull gives you wings. Because when you die you become an angel.

I'm absolutely trying this, but only because I'm too stupid to stop buying Chatterbaits that don't work. At least now it'll only cost me 190/110 and a stroke.

Pretty much why I went from 50/50 BC/Spin to 99/1 BC/Spin. Time, time, and time made it possible to throw those lighter baits on BC gear. Still don't have a BFS though but definitely looking into dropping the coin sooner rather than later.

Dobyns, Shimano, Strike King

That entirely depends. The only thing I use a spinning setup for anymore is a Ned Rig. I don't care to drop shot, and weightless plastics (Texas and wacky), jerkbaits, shakey heads, small cranks etc I throw on baitcasters. Pressured California lakes, Great / northern deep, clear smallmouth lakes, and smallmouth streams it's definitely wise to have a spinning setup. Wacky rig on 12lb Big Game, 3/0 EWG, 5" Senko, and a 4 power Dobyns yesterday... Bass fishing is not as hard or as complicated as we so often make it out to be outside of the aforementioned extremely high pressured lakes or the ridiculously clear lakes. Shoot I've been on some of those northern clear lakes that don't see too much action and the smallmouth bite anything. I've been in some secluded smallmouth streams and found deep, fast water and a baitcaster and a squarebill was all I needed. Location is key. Know the water you're fishing and know your thumb.

Where's Samuel L Jackson when you need him?