Kenny Yi

Pike are mean beasts, I've seen some with part of their gills hanging out of the gill plate swimming and hunting with the same ferocity, I wouldn't be surprised if they used the newfound hardware as another weapon, not that they need it.

Chartreuse/black back, maybe throw a little red on the belly

Fish-n-fool for mono and FC, it is a Uni knot but with a doubled line through the eye

I used to use the Stealth braid in the white color, 30lb, on one of my baitcasters. Went to use it and lost three jigs due to the line snapping, 2 of which were during the cast. I gave Spiderwire the benefit of the doubt and searched for hours using q-tips to find any guide issues on that particular rod, but found no chipping or anything else. I have since used PowerPro on that exact same rod, and every other rod, for the last year and have never experienced the same issue. Maybe I got a bad batch, but I will never have near the same confidence in Spiderwire that I have with PowerPro

it's not very popular, I've had to tell many relatives who visited the US why I catch and release bass "why would you not keep the fish? why work so hard for no food?" ?

I've started using the Fish-n-Fool knot, a Uni knot that goes through the hook eye twice before wrapping the Uni knot. I'm sure the regular Uni works too, I just like the doubled line through the eye

I actually prefer 7 speed reels, I like rod-working baits, but I feel that I can comfortably slow down for any cranking application, that's where I started However, a 6.8 speed reel seems like the true jack of all trades speed, imo

I hold them with the left hand, my right has the camera

might be too big, use a smaller bait

I've used so many lead wedge keepers and have gotten pantsed after 5 casts everytime, I wish more jigs would do wire keepers

Jerkbaits. Especially in the summer months, when I want the bait to be jerked much more and harder.

I like to throw in "still" water that is behind rocks and around fast water (I believe it's called an eddy). Grubs and ultralight dropshots are my creek fishing go-tos, from panfish to smallmouth

love me some bankfishing! during the break periods, I'll definitely fish nearly every day of the week, during the busy months, I'll maybe go on the weekends. I go to different ponds or lakes to keep myself engaged. I also switch locations if it's tough. Always bring as much tackle as you can carry, nothing worse than fishing rocks with a football jig, then switching locations and not having any lures for the grass, or seeing the perfect location for a lure and not having it. I bring 3-4 rods with me, all able to cover a variety of lures and depths, and also a large tackle backpack

That's why I thought more drag was necessary, but I don't use heavy jigs, so it was only a medium hook

Prior till the last month, my bite-to-hook percentage on a jig was at an abismal 50%. I spent a long time trying different hookset styles, different lines, different types of jigs, different hooks, but I just couldn't figure out why I seemed to "miss" the fish. for some reason, I began looking into drag power as the solution, but my thinking was wrong. I assumed that I needed more drag, I was fooled into thinking my Curado DC's 12lb max drag wasn't enough to drive the hook home, I honestly believe i was fooled by modern marketing and its reels that boasted 25lb drag. I browsed an old topic on drag and had found out (I believe it was @WRB) that most hooksets don't require more than 5lbs, so cranking down drag to 12lbs would just rip the bait right out of the fish's mouth. I am using 15lb Seaguar Red Label, so I set my drag to approximately 7-8lbs to account for stretch and to have a little bit of stopping power, I HAVE NOT MISSED A FISH SINCE.

never me! I refuse to leave my house without a dedicated jig rod

ol reliable indeed!

hopelessly trying to force feed bites on any moving bait, then ultimately settling on a finesse jig and catching at least 2-3 fish per outing

spinnerbait with double Willow blades, go heavy (at least 1/2 ounce) so you can burn on the top without the lure rolling over spook, I like to do big sweeping walks jerkbait, big pops don't be afraid to stray away from the standard whites and bones, imagine a bass is stalking a shad ball, then suddenly the bait ball "parts the Red Sea" and here comes this dumb purple and chartreuse spinnerbait that is so easy of a target

I'd lose it...

#1: 12-15 pound fluorocarbon #2: 16-20 pound fluorocarbon #3: 10 pound braid to 10 pound fluoro leader any fluorocarbon application could be replaced with a mono or copoly imo

sometimes I'll backlash the toilet paper, that's when I know I'm having a "reel" bad day...

Zoom's Smokin Shad

Went to Goose Creek, it branches off the Potomac River, hoped to relax and wade for some panfish, ultralight style. I've always known that smallmouth, and largemouth, were in Goose Creek, but I could never seem to find/catch them. The creek is tiny in width, not to mention that the water level is super low right now, so I usually don't expect to find bass as far as Kepheart Bridge Landing (where I started). The bait of the day was a Mr. Crappie 2" Grub on a Mr. Crappie jig hook in a size 6. Like I said, I was targeting panfish. After 2 hours of wading and endless panfish fun, I hooked into a fish that peeled drag on my ultralight setup, jumped 3 feet out of the water, behold... my first ever smallmouth! Twas a dink of a bass, maybe only twice as big as the sunfish I was catching but it was incredible to finally catch a bass. Another hour of sunfish, then I catch another smallmouth, relatively the same size. Right before I'm about to head in, I make a cast into some slack water behind some rocks (textbook cover), and a much bigger smallmouth destroys my bait. After approx 2-3 min fight on 4lb test mono, I landed a 1lb 2oz smallie and ended my day. In total, 3 smallmouth, 2 baby largemouth, 2 bluegill, and endless sunfish

Texas rig, Tokyo rig, Carolina rig Texas rig would be my first recommendation for you, use a 2/0 or 3/0 size EWG hook with a 1/8 oz bullet weight, check out many of the Texas rig forums here for tips Welcome to the forum!