bigspirit

Well. It happened again. Used my PayPal account to order a couple things from TW with the balance I had on there (credit card was in my account as well) and wake up this morning to 131 emails on my gmail account that my email had been signed up for a mailing list to various places. Within these emails, there were a couple order confirmations from Igloo Coolers, Lowes, and a small farm and fleet store. Also had 2 texts on my phone for temporary security codes from when they were trying to login to my account. All together for the transactions it was about $500. Called the credit card company and informed them of the fraud, canceled the card, and called the stores to make them aware as to not ship these items to the scammers. **Turns out it’s a common thing that they spam your email with all of the similar mailing list emails so that you overlook the order confirmations which gives them time to process and ship the order.** The only other time I’ve had fraud in the past 6 months was again, right after ordering from TW. I’m done. Not placing another order with them. Closed my PayPal account and that’s it. They didn’t even apologize or anything; it was stupid easy to close the account too. Too easy. Done with them as well. Hopefully this info can save someone else from a similar situation

Pearl, Smokey shad, and green lantern are my 3 go-to’s for bass fishing. Ralphs shad is a good color as well.

Anyone tried it? Curious if it would be too much stick for something along the lines of a 6 or 8XD?

Caught a few dinks and a warmouth on a watermelon red dinger. Then got out the big bait setup and caught this 4.99er on the 2nd cast, right where I had worked over a corner with the dinger.

@DitchPanda, when I was up by you a swim jig was my favorite bait in the IGL region. Ripping them out of grass was always my fallback when I couldn’t catch fish on anything else. Vertical rigged menace was my favorite as well. I haven’t thrown them as much where I’m at now but probably need to change that.

For those that have used these, have you seen more fish per bait? I’ve used the black O rings but still manage to lose them more often than I feel I should.

On top of that how about keeping a limit of fish in the live well getting bounced around all day so Chad or Brad can get a cool photo at the ramp. I think this is even more important when the spawn is happening. I “get it” for tournament, but what is the need when one is just out to fish recreationally? I mean if you’re worried about weights either keep a list or use a scale that does it for you.

I’ve got the 6’10” M Zodias that I bought for topwaters and jerkbaits. I like it a lot, love the short handle for working baits. Rated up to 1/2oz but I’ve thrown a megabass diamante that’s 3/4oz and does not feel overloaded. Shoots it like a bullet. I’ve tried throwing a 110jr but it’s pretty easy to over work the bait. I use a 110+1 normally when im throwing a jerkbait and it works great. The tip is fast enough that it’s a pretty effortless jerk but haven’t seen any issues keeping fish pinned.

Berkeley bullet pop 60 might be worth a look

Ah gotcha. I think I may have thrown a buzz bait literally “a time or two” a decade ago while in high school but that’s been it. On a side note, I was in a local shop today and while they did not have the double bladed Picasso, they did have the Squealer. I played around with it in my office and it certainly had some squeak to it out of the box, but on the way home I held it out the window and I can really tell it made a difference. It’s in front of a box fan now in the garage but it is definitely getting almost “obnoxiously” loud

Do you think that’s because of the holes in the blade?

Wanting to try out a couple buzz baits as it’s a presentation I haven’t tried much. I’d like to get one with 2 blades as I’ve heard/read you can keep them on top at a slower speed. Any recommendations?

Ah thanks for the insight. No idea why but for whatever reason the Everglades was all south of 75 in my mind. I haven’t spent much time in south Florida but hoping that changes with my new career path. Florida is now in my territory and I plan to make stops to fish while on business. I’ll actually be in Jacksonville next week and mapping out where to drop the kayak in in the evenings. When I’m down there in S FL though I will likely fly - probably need to find a travel rod and bag of flukes to fly with!

Incredible! I must have a big misconception of the Everglades, in my mind it’s basically all saltwater or tiny canals - not the more open areas like in your pictures. Especially with the talk of “flats”; when that word is associated with the Everglades it means snook and tarpon to me. Is Okochobee part of the glades? To further expound on my mindset of what they are it would be everything south of 75.

Makes my blood boil. Unfortunately, bass fisherman are some of the worst I have seen. It baffles me how I can be fishing a bank with a half mile of open water behind me yet some dbag thinks it’s a good idea to buzz by at 60+ about 40 yards away.

I’ve got a 7’5” Heavy Zodias that may be my favorite rod. I’ve used it for throwing A rigs, swimbaits, frogs, and jigs. I love it for swim jigs around thick grass especially. Very light rod, I haven’t weighed it but it certainly feels lighter than my Fury 734. Sensitivity is fantastic. As a disclaimer, I haven’t thrown frogs much on it but I’ve thought it’s done a fine job when I’ve used one.

Same here. Haven’t had any issues and I use the 8/0 freestyle.

Those of you who have one and record trip data, what all do you keep track of? It’s something I’ve thought about, but I feel like there’s 100+ variables or values that you could record and I’m just not going to do that for every trip. Not sure I want to even subject myself to having a journal at all so surely don’t want to fill a page for every trip

I’m a HUGE braid to leader fan for everything but for my swimbait setup I use CXX 15lb on my dobyns 795 for 1-3oz baits. If I was throwing heavier I’d go to 20. But I’ve really enjoyed it since trying it. I’m waiting on the Armilo defier that WRB has mentioned - I expect I will enjoy it as well. Part of the reason I went to straight mainline was the risk of backlashing and snapping off expensive baits as you’ve experienced first hand. I’ve had a couple casts that I can confidently say would have lost a bait on a backlashes cast if I had braid on.

That’s a great idea, I’ll have to use that in the future. Although that unfortunately won’t work in this cast, it’s the part where the hook point goes through that’s opening up and causing it to slide down. The nose is on a screw lock so luckily that seems to be pretty solid so far

Great. Placing an order and going to pull the trigger on a spool of 25lb. Looking forward to giving it a go from all your recommendations

One more question, this stuff looks very dark in color. Almost gray/black? Is it not just clear?

I’m with the others. Bought an SLX DC and only kept it for a few months. I did find it very helpful when casting into wind, but other than that I’d prefer a reel without it. Plus, after a big of use I got tired of the sound of it

I didn’t realize this stuff was that great! Definitely going to order a bottle. I think it’d be worth it for the magdrafts alone - the freestyles are $7 a piece which isn’t terrible for what they are but sounds like a little mend it could probably double it’s life. @Captain Phil It was semi-rhetorical as I know some people love orange baits but orange is a color I really haven’t spent much time throwing so I probably should give it a more intentional try sometime.