Sir Shamsalot

I don't have any experience with the Alphas, but I'm pretty sure the Tatula 100 shares its frame with the Tatula Elite series. Those are pretty small and comfortable. I use a Tatula SV TW103 on my small/light crankbait rod without much fuss. I haven't tried casting something as light as a 1/8oz like a Shad Rap on it though.

As others have said, the pintzer knot that Shaw Grimsby has a video of on YouTube. If... after you make your three wraps... you run your "running end" through the eyelet side loop the wraps form before going thru the upper loop, you'll be tying a Double San Diego Jam Knot. This Double SDJ is the Knot I use and it has never broken. Also, leave your tags long when you cut them. Since both of these knots have three tag lines, cutting the tags short turns them into little pitch forks to snag clumps of weeds. Leaving the tags about an inch long will cause the tags to just bend over making them more weedless. Fishing swim jigs in the junk and open water is one of my favorite things to do.

Just for fun, I had a Helicopter tied on up in Canada. The amount of chop-busting I endured was enormous. But I had on one that was big enough to fit that entire thing in its mouth. I just couldn't get a good hook set. I so enjoyed the crickets I heard next cause they all saw it break surface before letting go.

Probably... the beer can/bottle lures.

Roland Martin's Helicopter Lure... just make sure nobody sees you using it if you're easily embarrassed. If you do use it, follow the included VCR video instructions to a tee.

Thanks! Have to tell the wife that we're headed to Louisiana tonight. 18hr drive, but that looks soooooo worth it.

Have you been able to use that yet? I fell for the MH version in the Legend X line, and I'm pretty excited about seeing it in a heavier version.

My favorite has to be my 6' 6" Berkley Lightning Shock Rod. The older one with the cork handle. It's cheap, light, effective, and strong. Caught my first "two'fer" walking the dog with this rod.

The 7'4" H/F rods are usually considered the Croix frog/swim jig rods. I use the Avid X and the Legend Xtreme in the H/F with 20lb FC along with a Dobyns with 50lb 832 braid for these techniques without issue.

Don't forget the line conditioner. I am 100% sold on Tatsu, InvizX, and Shooter, but a little line conditioner helps alot with dealing with the unrulyness of FC. I also recommend learning to tie the Double San Diego Jam Knot (sometimes called the Pinzer Knot), the Double Uni Knot (not the same as back to back uni knots), and leave your tag ends long.

Personally I recommend MH/MF (aka a spinnerbait rod) to people new to the sport. Specifically the old Berkley Lightning Shock Rod with the cork handles for $45 from Walmart. It does everything extremely well, but isn't specialized too much.. You can crankbait, spinnerbait, chatterbait, fish light jigs, Texas rigged worms with lighter hooks, but most importantly they can decide if baitcasters are right for them. As hard as it is to believe, some people just hate baitcasters though today's casters are not the line eating monsters of yesteryear.

Usually transition lens are not polarized from my experience. BUT... you can get prescription glasses that come with magnetic "clip-ons" that are. I looked into buying a second set of polarized prescription sunglasses but talk about expensive... wow! So what I've done is buy a set of prescription with the clip-ons glasses and contacts. Then I buy Flying Fisherman Buchanan copper lens polarized sunglasses because they are by far the best cheap sunglasses you can buy for fishing ($15.90), and I buy a set of 2X reading glasses and keep them in my tackle bag for knot tying. Another thing you can do too on the cheap is to have your old prescription glasses polarized when you get a new prescription.

I use rod socks to keep the rods from tangling, protection, and quick identification. My cranking rods socks are all orange based. Solid orange for medium. Orange/Grey for MH cranking rods. Spinnerbait rods in red. Topwater in white. Jig rods in Blue (strung with FC ), Green (strung with braid), or Black. Sounds more complicated than it is. Nice thing is that I can tell which rod it is from 40 yards away or just laying on the deck of the boat in milliseconds.

I prefer the un-hyped ones that nobody talks about that work. ?

Ya know, one thing that drove me crazy for years was mapping terminology. Having been a military guy that excelled at land nav, it was like trying to learn a foreign language. "That's not a point. That's a spur." was a common saying for me. As has been stated, learning the target species life cycle along with the body of water's life cycle is key to finding them.

For baitcasters, I've bounced around from the older Quantums to Lew's to Shimanos to Daiwa. When I find something I really like, I stick with it pretty much. By a large margin most of my reels are either Daiwa SV's or Elites. For their price range IMHO, the Elite series is just hard to beat. Often though I buy a reel by looking for a certain spec. I'm waiting for a Curado 200pgK that I bought because it's has the slowest ipt I could find. I'm also waiting on a Zillion and a Metanium that I bought to try out. For spinning reels, it's become more difficult to find a good lower ipt spinning reel so when I want one I just buy a Pflueger President. For higher ipt lighter weight Daiwa Tatula LT. It's the cheapest "high end" reel you can buy. For higher ipt heavier weight (think rod balance here) Daiwa BG. I am looking at some time picking up a shallow spool reel for straight FC.

I have the 795 but mine is paired with a Daiwa Coastal. So far my favorite thing to throw on it is a 1oz Big Hammer Jig head with a big paddle tail attached for big bass and walleye. This combo just lauches it across the water.

I have two favorite ways of wacky rigging. One's the close quarter style with a 6'8" for docks and such. The other is out in the open or in the salad with a 7'+ rod and a blazing fast reel. The fish get pinned and just stay that way. I use an LTB Wacky Style for up close, and I have been searching for some time for another 7'6" M/F to replace my old favorite rod. Between the two, the longer rod's my favorite. Hopefully, there's one in this line up, but a 7'3" would do as well.

What are some favorite rigs for fishing lighter shad raps. I'm considering putting together a dedicated rig just for these lures. Interested in both spinning and casting set ups.

I keep reading about a 7' 10" spinning rod in the line up of the series. Can anyone verify?

A 6.2oz unlined Alphas Air on a H/F rod...

Sorry, I think I grabbed the wrong quote.

I got one of 2020 Legend Xtremes which are incredibly well balanced. If they honestly took the lessons they learned with that rod series and applied to these new rods, the tip heavy concern will be over. Which.... St Croix said they addressed in one of their first promotional videos "Rod Tourque" of the new series. Then again, if you go out and buy a 4.8oz reel and stick it on an intermediate level priced rod HF rod and then start complaining about tip heaviness, you deserve every dog-head-tilt-look you get. A vast majority (where the bulk of the money is ) of anglers don't buy $400+ reels to go on $400+ rods. They buy what they can afford, and a good manufacturer will figure where that's at and engineer their products towards that.

I agree with the Doc above. I'd choose one of the reels listed for overall performance with the least amount of headaches to skip, flip, pitch, and occasionally cast. For a dedicated punch rig (something you do for a relatively short period of the overall fishing calendar year) I'd be looking at a SLX/Curado MGL (higher drag that those reels OP'd, 12lbs drag) or the Daiwa SV TWS with a swapped out 100mm handle (13lb drag). I state those reels because I'm familiar with them.

Thanks... in just one picture, you took away all my justifications for complaining about how many matching purses, shoes, and such the wife buys since fishing is the ultimate "matching accessories are important" sport. On the plus side, you've given me a "reason argument" material for the next time time I need to reason with her over the Tackle Warehouse bill.