bulldog1935

@Jigfishn10 Zero Hour Bomb Company and Shakespeare are now the same company - both PureFishing. In 2014, Zebco was a still separate company, but had already acquired both Lew's and Martin then.

then there's feral nutria, imported from South America - they have no natural predators here, and can severely deplete fish populations.

The shallows are the busiest place in the lake (or the bay) in spring. The water warms up there sooner, crappie, white bass, then black bass spawn. But also, cyprinids (carp) and other baitfish spawn. Invertebrates will be rich in the warmer water. Some baitfish evade better in open water than they do in cover, and their fry will ball up and seek the shallow open wedge for their version of hiding. Many gamefish will slash into this type structure to feed on the small baitfish - even the abundance of invertebrates. I've seen schooling white bass sipping tricos during a hatch here, and you couldn't buy a strike on anything but a dry fly.

Adding to @Slipknot_Fan666 not any one manufacturer makes the best across their entire product line. At different price levels and for your different fishing niches, fishing mono vs. braid, different makers will likely offer the best reel that fits your spot. A high-grade Lew's baitcaster is still half the cost or less than a high-grade Shimano or Daiwa. In the case of spinning reels, for me, Shimano doesn't exist below their reel series derived from '18 Stella, which begins at the $200 Stradic. Balancing line management, big fish on light tackle and built to last, at the $100 price point, I want Tica. That may be different for you.

Zebco Omniflex and Abu Bonnyl are among the thickest nylon monos for pound-test. They do this on purpose to help spincast reel line pick-up release the line to cast. Both monos are about the same diameter as Berkley Big Game. If you try a thin line (e.g., fluorocarbon or copolymer) on your spincast reel, you'll discover the line pick-up won't release the thin line to cast unless you "double-button" - push the button, grab the line outside the reel, release the button, then push the button again - this time it will cast.

We had some pretty good wade fishing on our recent Estes trip. Sharks weren't going to be the issue, but with the extreme low water levels from the week-long NW blow just before us, we found redfish stacked in pockets just inside passes, feeding on the incoming tide. We released forty-five 18-inch reds, and took 5 slot fish. Fall tides are so high, you can't even find this shoal to wade. This bleak-looking winter bottom also grasses up quickly in the spring. Again, most of this is under water most of the year.

832 was always very-well-behaved braid. The odd thing is they didn't go up in strength, and the price is steep for 150 yds. E.g. YGK X-braid is 200 m (220 yds) for just a little less, and their 0.006" diameter, also coated, is 14-lb test vs. 6-lb for either Sufix grade.

I paid $160 delivered from ebay seller sportsmansoutfitters. Very happy with this reel, though I'm using mine differently, for 1/8-oz salt ML and light braid. Lew's Team Pro SP I even installed Air BFS spool bearings, which I found half-price at Japan Tackle also not a problem with hard fishing, because the S2 pinion gear seats in a drive-side heavy duty shielded bearing, separate from the spool. the centrifugal brake adjusts wide, works well, and is very lightweight Just got to use mine two weeks ago on a salt trip (in that 1/8-oz niche), and really enjoyed fishing it - nothing even close to a backlash. And of course on the wrong side of the pond, Brian, they do call this a spinning reel.

Evaporative cooling - when the humidity is low the dew point is much lower than the air temperature - the surface evaporating the water cools to lower than the surrounding air temperature. This why bridges can ice when it's melting everywhere else, why your truck ices with morning frost (solid dew) when air temp is above freezing, etc.

great photo, needs a like, love, laugh, and thanks here, I'll throw in a hat

The one that has my attention is the new magnesium-bodied '21 Luvias Airity - going to sell for about $500, and Japan vendors are taking deposits for pre-order. Luvias is the first Daiwa with braid-specific shallow spools, and the switch from plastic to magnesium body is a nice upgrade. Of course the '21 model introduction also means you can get good buys on the '20 Luvias plastic-body reel right now.

like those brown rods - remind me of Fisher

My most-long-haired shootist friend, intentionally hasn't killed a deer in years - he just likes being out in the cold before first light and watching the day develop. He does shoot feral hogs and gives them away (in advance) on craigslist. This past fall, though, his lease had a rat infestation after the deer corn. His "deer hunting" ritual switched to nailing dozens of rats at distance with .17 HMR. photo a day, my daughter popping cans across a pond with my '85 .22 field artillery if you've ever shot these, they're a hoot - the thud is louder than the retort, and delayed by the subsonic distance.

with the exception of my favorite discontinued Serengeti drivers, which I hunt down on ebay to buy nice used ones, all my quality glasses have come from closeouts - mostly sierratradingpost. I'm still using the Costas that I paid $35 a couple of decades ago.

Wearing the correct UV-blocking sunglasses also prevents cataracts over your lifetime in the sun - I hope this thing is on. "I never wear sunglasses" is a really bad answer on this thread. My freshwater glasses are Smiths copper, very sharp resolution even in low light. Salt glasses are Costas, dark gray - something else very nice about Costas, salt even from power boat spray doesn't stick to them - amazing surface coatings. My driving glasses (non-polarized) are brown Serengeti. My bicycling glasses (non-polarized) are Smiths with interchangeable lenses from clear to dark green, and these double for shooting glasses with amber shatterproof lenses.

Never used Power Pro, but recently put a full 200 m of PE#0.6 X-braid on my salty C2000SHG. Other spools this size, I've loaded with slightly thicker Florida Fishing Products braid, and much thicker and well-behaved Sufix 832. I'll throw up again the Pattaya Fishing Line Capacity Calculator This is the version for Stacking Lines of Different Diameter, and has proved to be quite accurate.

I tend to use paper clips on my baitcasters, and micro-swivel bite traces on my spinning rods. Whenever line twist comes up on spinning tackle discussions, I've seen it on my friends tackle, but never on mine.

If you're buying the C2000S from Japan, that's a great choice for braid. The US-market FL2000 is the same high-geared version as Japan C2000SHG

If anyone is interested in the history of Powell, they go back to E. C. Powell, split-cane, later glass and finally IM6 fly rods hand-made in Chico, CA. My Silver Creek 4-wt bought new in 1987 is the finest graphite fly rod I own, and both my girls grew up on it. Their status was once comparable to Sage, Scott, Fisher and Winston. They were the first among pro-shop fly rod manufacturers to move production offshore, move inventory through discount tackle stores, generally lost their status among fly rod makers, but gained a market in salt rods. I would expect their rod blanks to be among the best made for the price level.

Tatsu is lowest memory. I find any of the low-memory fluorocarbons to be very springy, really want to be straight, and really want to jump off your spool. Seaguar's most limp fluorocarbons are their leader compositions, kind of by definition. Their nylon monos are all also more limp than any of their fluorocarbons. So I put InvizX at the limp end, and Tatsu at the low-line-memory end.

I gave Tatsu another shot because the 10-lb gave this ML spool just the right capacity. A spare spool for the same reel got PE#1 22-lb YGK X-braid from the last time I stocked up on Japan line. Had already loaded my Team Pro SP with this same PE#1 X-braid, and really enjoyed fishing it last weekend - it would sail a light lure farther than I needed, and no problem with line dig on big fish. Fished it side-by-side on heavier rod with 20-lb Sufix 832, which is PE#2 diameter - both performed flawlessly, but the the thinner braid is a boon with lighter lures on baitcaster. For this diminutive XUL spinner, tried a charge of 4-lb Toray Exthread fluoro, and it's the most Tatsu-like line I've found in other fluorocarbons - extreme low memory. Think I've become spoiled with braid especially on spinning reels, because of its limpness combined with total lack of memory. With both the Tatsu and Exthread, the low-memory fluorocarbons want to spring off the spool - great for casting, but kind of a pain when you're doing anything else without line tension on a spinning spool. Most recently charged another inshore/offshore 4000 spinning reel with X-braid Castman, and this may become my favorite braid of all - I like the stealthy gray color, sensible line markings, red every 10-m, and green every 50-m; 30-lb-test in PE#1.5.

@A-Jay, a bud on corpusfishing forum was picking on the amount of gear I manage to take out in a 16' kayak.

Both the question and the answer above. Distance and wind are the two things you can do better in a kayak than a canoe. Here, we were out in 16- gusting to 25-kt Decades ago, a buddy and I would take a canoe to cross Aransas channel, beach it and wade Lighthouse Lakes with a fly rod. Now we paddle kayaks all over the flats, and have crossed Lighthouse Lakes from Aransas channel to Lydia Ann channel and back.

hi friend, you probably can't go wrong with Ardent products. Adding another thought here that I left out above. Compared to bass fishing, inshore we will more often use lighter lines and lighter drag sets. We're not trying to haul plugs up through submerged trees in reservoirs. Casting lighter lures (1/4-oz) to good distance is the usual goal of our tackle choice.

I've had so many lifetime dues-paid-up-fishing-natural-phenomenon days, the concept of a skunked day, let-down, etc. doesn't enter the picture. A skunked day is sitting in the office. Paying dues is how you get on natural phenomena that concentrate bait and gamefish. Paying dues is how you learn to plan around harmonics and structure, learn the water, even how to pick and use what bait. Recent salt trip, we had two beat-our-butt days for one absolutely phenomenal day. I'll take those odds and call the whole trip a success. No time on the water is wasted.