softwateronly

My underspin success definitely leans toward small baits. 2.8" keitech was a mainstay, but this year I've done much better with a 3" armor shad straight tail. I really like the northland tackle smeltinator underspin in 1/2oz 1/0. I've never been on fish in 40', but 25-30' fow crawling on the bottom or slow rolling mid column is my cold water success. scott

There was online talk about ags guides not playing nice with braid, but I have two ags rods and fish braid to leader without issue. scott

I've never fished the x-bites, but from what I heard it sounds like a good worm, free rig, and fluke rod. But, I can see the dark sleeper also excelling in these techniques especially because I don't love x-fast rods when dealing with weeds. If you fish full size spooks and you drop the 734 champ, you might need to slightly compromise. But between the expride, dark sleeper, and 873 you can probably cover that too. Have you spent anytime with the expride in single hook applications? I find it pretty darn good to go with being a good-great treble hook rod. I do fish braid to leader, so that might play a role. So if you can swing it, trade/sell the 734 and x-bites, get the one ten stick, and hold on to the expride would be something I'd consider. scott

Can't wait! My team's former head coach saved all his timeouts for the new guy. What a gent! scott

I've gotten used to the pick point being slightly inset, helps line up the smallest split rings by getting the ring around the clean arm slightly. When you miss with the dull pick point and slight recess, small adjustments are possible because it's still mostly lined up. If you're happy with the kast king return the TT and buy another lure, that's what I'd do. scott

I have cast off many a lure over the years with braid 40lb and under, but never on my 50lb or 65lb set ups. If you're happy with the move to copoly/floro I think you should stick it out. If you want to go back to braid I suggest upping your braid diameter to eliminate the braid cutting itself. scott

I'm sure others will fill in better details, but in general a silver wolf is strictly designed for thin braid, pe .8 being in the wheelhouse whereas the alphas 800s would struggle with line lay at that diameter. My alphas are loaded with pe 1.5 and sit on medium power rods (and I love them) whereas I would add a silver wolf for BFS applications. What I did for my bfs is get a roro x27 spool, loaded with pe 1, and swapped it into my zillion tw sv. Allows me to work a solid tip ml rod from 2-20g. In general they don't excel in the same things. scott

Really is. I can throw 10" worms and and certain 1/2 & 5/8oz jerkbaits on the same rod and find it perfect, makes no sense when I think about it. scott

Interesting. I don't find the MF adrenas super sensitive, good but not great, but the F models, especially the 6'11M+ ranks really high for me. Is your comparisons including either of the '18 fast models? scott

I'd like a bass with 25" as one of the measurements, I'm not that picky. scott

@Swamp GirlI do appreciate the solstices more as time goes by, and try to mark them in my life. But what gets me every year is the rate of change during the equinoxes, moves so darn fast even at my latitude compared to yours. scott

The longest 4 weeks! Can't wait scott

I have a stradic ci4 from 2016 that is still behaving like new. It threw everything for me for about 5 years, definitely ridden hard and still working great. No company is perfect, but shimano and diawa from Japan is a no brainer for me. scott

I've ripped a lot of ABS on a table or free form for work over the years, and a fine tooth blade has always worked best. A rip blade will chunk and snap the brittle plastic, and an abrasive wheel will gum up almost immediately. Might be useful info if you have attachment options for your dremel. scott

When taking my nieces/nephew out and making the move to artificials a 1/8oz guppy head and a 3" easy shiner was my goto. We'd start with worms and bobbers, then when their attention waned, I'd switch them to more active fishing. If we sat in shallower water and casted toward deeper water, the time it took for them to flip the bail and start reeling would naturally keep the bait above the weed tops. It was a great change of pace and usually caught them their biggest fish. A reel set was also easy and natural to what they were doing. Coaching them on reel speed didn't seem overbearing and usually bought us more time on the water before they wanted to go back in. scott

It's a craft and you can only get better by doing it. scott

Three for me, and two were my fault. Set the hook on a football jig with a 7'7H expride and it decided to explode a third of the way down. That was probably my 5th day fishing it and covered by warranty. I broke the tip off a Dobyns 734 champ on my pier aggressively shaking off some weeds from a chatterbait. Not even sure what exactly I did, but I was straight braid and think the line wrapped around the 2nd or third guide during my aggressive laziness. My most recent was a poison adrena 7'3MH, that was real bad luck mixed with stupidity. I was on an open water bite, chasing blowups. I had 4 or 5 rods laid out over the gunwale that I kept switching between because the fish were aggressive but picky. I reached down for the PA and as I grabbed it, the back handle hit my toe and pivoted the top third under the cleat as I stood up. My least favorite sound since I tore up my knee. scott

My patience would be tested and admire your determination. I'd find a way to break out something in the center and bend a longish metal sawzall blade flat to the bottom and clear out large sections quickly, should get 80-90 percent done. Dremel or 60 grit for the nubs. This will scuff the bottom. If I had a hot knife, that would definitely get a test first. scott

Not good, not good at all. Almost everyone got me for something, and always enough for free shipping. scott

Cold water means 2 different things to me, 45-60 means active, big bass and is by far my most successful times of year and I tend to fish the fastest, most erratic baits of the year. Once it's below 45, my expectations change on activity level, so I slow down more often than not, but I still feel like a big bass day is on the table. scott

Nothing whiskey and timing the bite windows couldn't fix, I have faith in you! scott

I can get behind this.... I usually think about Texas and Florida, but the last couple years it's @AlabamaSpothunter's quiet coves full of feeding bass. scott

You're not kidding, it didn't even dawn on me that it could be a reservoir. scott

Hell Yeah, congrats!! scott

This is difficult my friend, all these are personal choices. Here's how it would play out for me, but I'm guessing because I've never held most of what you have. I also fish braid to leader as a preference that many dislike. Daiwa Tatula SV TW 150 (2024 model) Daiwa Tatula BF70 BF Daiwa Tatula SV TW 70 Daiwa Tatula Elite Rod 1: 6’8” Mf Lew’s TP2 Spinning Rod (6-12 lb. line & 1/8 to 1/2 oz. lures) Shimano Vanford, but I haven't thrown spinning gear in 2+ years. 15lb braid to 8lb sniper. Finesse plastics, free rig, wacky, weightless, jig n minnow, etc Rod 2: 7’5” MHf Megabass Levante Braillist Casting Rod (8-20 lb. line & 3/8 to 1 oz. lures) Daiwa Tatula SV TW 150 (2024 model) 30lb braid to 16lb sniper. This would be my main worm/jig rod and also throw texas rigged swimbaits in the 4-6" range Rod 3: 7’2” MHmf Evergreen Combat Stick Casting Rod (10-20 lb. line & 3/8 to 1-1/4 oz. lures) Daiwa Tatula Elite 30lb braid to 12 or 16lb sniper. Spinnerbaits, swim jigs, open hook swimbaits, scroungers, etc. Moving single hook applications primarily. Probably a decent trap/spook rod too, if so I'd move to mono leader for topwater. Should be good for most bigger mid depth cranks or squarebills. Rod 4: 7’8” XHmf Evergreen Combat Stick Casting Rod (40-80 lb. braid & 1/2 to 4 oz. lures) Money not an issue; JDM Zillion HD, cheaper tatula 200. 65lb braid to 25lb floro/mono. All treble hook 5-8" swimbaits or open hook swimbaits and large flutter spoons, probably staying under 3oz. Could also crank your 20+ divers, though the 65lb braid isn't ideal diameter so expect less depth. Rod 5: Your suggested crankbait rod (and reel) I'd go 6'10 ish M/RF or M/F (1/8-3/4oz) here for finesse plastics, shakey head, jerk baits, small spoons, topwater, squarebills, flukes, etc and pair it with the Daiwa Tatula BF70 BF, PE 1.5 to 10lb sniper And all of it is subject to change once I fished it. I'd then have the tat 70 in the wings for another M or MH RF/MF that compliments or slots in around the gaps of the MH combat stick and the not yet determined rod. scott