Pat Brown

At that size the Dobyns Fury 7'3 mag heavy is very hard to beat for jigs.

I'm in the 'wind direction doesn't really matter...except when it does' camp but I personally always like seeing a little wind on the water when I get to the lake or the pond!!! ?

Abu Garcia Veritas PLX 7'6 MHF. Hard to beat for the price and it handles like a heavy IMHO. Abu rods are stiffer than they're rated usually.

I will tell ya straight up, if ya fish wood and timber from the bank (or a boat!) like I do a lot in my NC lowland resevoirs and man made impoundments, you're gonna be a brush jig person. The brush jig head from Siebert is the best head design for wood on the market far as I can tell and with that owner deep throat hook, they stay pinned. I have more or less stopped losing jigs since I started using them and more importantly, started catching more tanks in unlikely places which is the whole point of a jig? If you fish wood, the brush jig is deadly.

4 1/2 lb LMB is a tank anywhere in the USA, that's some good fishing right there hoss!

I don't think you're gonna be able to go wrong with most of the major competitors ~100$ offerings these days. Each and every one of them is a marvel of technology and will catch you giant fish reliably. I know because I have field tested them all and done just that. I havent had a reel 'fail' yet and I fish pretty much every day of the year for bass. I love my SLX and I love my LFS. I also love many other reels at that price point. The 13 fishing Inception and the Daiwa Fuego to make two that stand out. Just pick what seems cool to you and catch some fish! Eventually you'll try them all do I say just jump in on the on that 'looks cool' to you and I'm sure you'll learn a lot and have fun.

I have a rule with lipless crankbaits. I skunk with one, I don't order another. I get snagged, I order 3 new lipless crankbaits to replace it. If I catch a fish with a lipless crank, I order two in every color. This is very very sound.

If someone told me I'd be catching a 9 lb bass at 6:30 am in the rain in February on a jig from the bank in a foot of water from the local pressured public pond where experienced people struggle to catch any fish at all even with live bait and senkos, I'd say 'you just get right on out of town!!!'. ? I'm BESIDE myself! Grateful beyond words for that beautiful bass. Thanks for the kind words and can't wait to see what we all catch this year. ?

They're a small company in the US doing handmade jigs? Endorsed by quite a few very serious pros. They catch fish and are well made in my experience as a jig fisherman. Go get some if you see some you like! I personal have moved over to Siebert Outdoors for 80% of my jig purchases. Wire tied and living rubber skirts and more colors than the rainbow.

A lot of mornings from about 5:30 to 7:30 before work I bank fish at the local pond and often in the evenings. ? When I go out in the Jon boat, I only have down imaging, and I find it mostly useful in the dead of winter. I only recently got it before this cold season and at first it was basically pointless because there were literally fish everywhere. As it got colder, it's usefulness became apparent. I look forward to saving up and getting a better rig with side imaging and FFS because I'm a science person and I love observing behavior and learning about my lake. I don't think it's gonna necessarily make me a better angler 70% of the year. Because 70% of the year around here, they're up shallow and I know what to do.

Looking forward to throwing this on lighter weight head swim jigs so I can buzz/wake it and get a more 'fishy' look. I feel on summer nights this will catch monsters. Finesse wake bait!

*Cracks knuckles* Well, talking about big bass I've caught is practically a professional sport for me (just ask my wife ?) so OF COURSE!!!! Today was fixin to be a day like any other. I work from home and own a small business and I like to wake up at 5 and hit it before the sun comes up so I can get to work at a reasonable time and still get some fishing in. I've been doing this consistently since the weather got to be about 50° daily around here (maybe 3 weeks?). For the most part the mornings have been mild and the bites infrequent. This morning, I awoke and made my pot of coffee and sat watching Bill Dance on YouTube or something ritualistic of that sort. I saw on Facebook a post where Josh Jones was lauding the swim jig as his magical bait this year. I almost chuckled to myself as I super glued my 4.5" Scottsboro minnow to my 1/4 oz Siebert Bluegill Flash swim jig...perhaps this bait was the illusive trick to provoking violent reactions from the giant bass I knew had been carefully evading my crawdad/vertical presentations (black and blue/PB&J brush jigs pitched into cover and around high percentage spots) and my noisier horizontal presentations (chatterbait and cranks). I figured these fish are probably mostly pelagic like tuna or salmon and probably roam the amorphous flat, fairly shallow, cover devoid pond, perpetually corralling mindless schools of shad/crappie all year long and what happens right now!?!? They gotta take a break from that grind and move up to do there thing....any day now right??? Maybe that innocuous/stealthy but BIG presentation that resembles their preferred forage WAS gonna do it? I could feel my confidence building before I even turned my car ignition on the way to the pond. This pond is small and located 7 minutes from my house. It's public access and has very little for fish to relate to, but a few small fish and bites have told me that they are moving into the NW corner pocket adjacent to the dam in preparation for this seasons coming spawn. My instinct and limited time coupled with knowing I will be attempting fairly slow presentations has me making a bee line for this area today. When I arrive, it's balmy. The wind is whipping. Visible chop all over the pond. The sky is that almost maroon color it gets on nights where it perpetually drizzles and light pollution reflects off the low clouds. I'm tempted to pack it up and head home. It's noticably getting colder. Those 50-70 degree temps are obviously giving way to a cold front that seems to be just starting to hit as I arrive. I tell myself those fronts can be big feed windows, especially right before the spawn in the spring and I force myself to walk in the cold drizzle down to the dam. I make my first cast across the dam. The same place I pulled a 6 lber out 2 weeks ago on a bulky flipping jig and chunk. Nothing. I move my cast 3-4 feet out from shore and make another parallel toss and slowly Retrieve my swim jig. Trying to get the wedge tail on the Scottsboro minnow to undulate seductively. Again nothing. This time, I place my cast maybe 20 ft out from the dam and let the jig sink the 4-5 feet to the bottom and slowly begin to retrieve it across a deeper expanse. I feel my jig get thumped hard about half way back to the shore. This bite tells me a lot. I'm confident now that they're feeding. I'm confident now that I have selected the right bait. I'm confident that my presentation is working. Armed with this confidence I fire a few more casts across the channel in front of the dam and get not a nibble or a whif of a fish. At this point. The drizzle turns into rain. I haven't been there but 30 minutes... I consider heading to the boathouse and seeing if there is a bite over there but I tell myself that they are IN this NW corner. I KNOW it from bites and smaller fish caught the past couple days leading up to this front. I traverse the outflow creek and make my way into the shady dark NW pocket just beyond where I was casting previously. Just out of the current and tucked away where I know soon they should be spawning. I think to myself that rain means they will move up shallow to avoid the muddy blow out, especially relatively warm rain (50 something degree light rain). With that in mind I decide to line my first cast up with a large oak tree dead center at the back of the pocket and then bring my jig back slow parallel to the 5 ft of horizontal dead vegetation stems along the right side of the dam/outflow. I make my first cast and the rain is really picking up. I can't see my bait go in which gives me a confidence boost. Means the bass can't either right? I slowly begin a steady retrieve with my reel hand only imparting subtle changes in speed and mostly trying to just barely get the swim jig kicking. Almost immidiately, in a foot of water, no more than 2 feet from the bank where I cast I feel her hit. The bite is far from subtle and I know it's a bite immidiately. I drop my rod tip (it's pitch black so this is all done by feel at this point). I reel the slack up, careful to pay close attention to the exact moment I feel her begin to load up. At precisely that moment, I lift my rod and reel vigorously and feel as though I have set the hook on a log.....or perhaps a bag full of wet towels glued to the bottom. My rod tip all but doubled over while I kept my pole as close to vertical as I could. I felt her pulling and it was like fighting a bull red. Pandemonium and splashing this way and that and my 20 lb fluorocarbon groaning as my drag gave up little bits of line as she surged. I was careful to keep even pressure on her at all times and NOT STOP REELING. I finally see her breech just on the edge of the vegetation line 6 ft from me. I can't believe my eyes. She's thrashing. My heart is pounding. I know under that vegetation it's nearly 4 ft deep so there's no walking in at this point. I decide at this exact moment I have to trust my equipment and get her out or she's coming off. I've lost my fair share of big fish. I know the drill. It's go time. I lift and reel and walk backwards and see her lurch forward on top of the slop to about 2 feet from the bank and I reach out and grab her giant lower lip. I immidiately see her distended belly and feel her mass and then the fact that I couldn't get her airborn all dawn on me at once in an adrenaline soaked moment of relief and victory. This is a VERY BIG fish I hold in my hands at the end of my line. I stumble over to a bench in the now pouring rain absolutely shaking with adrenaline and excitement. She's being very patient and cooperative. Almost like she's done it before and knows I have her best interests in mind. I quickly snap a couple pictures. Say a few words to the creator of the universe and the bass I'm holding in my hands and walk her down to the water. I feel her bite down on my hand as I revive her in that cold muddy February pond water...as if to assure me that she's ready and that she's going to be okay and then with grace and power I've never seen before she lunges away. I can see the power of her tail in the wake she leaves behind and she swims back down. To say it was a profound experience doesn't really do it justice!

Daiwa Fuego is my recommendation. I own and enjoy using the other two options you're comparing but at that price point I think the Feugo is a better reel. I think you just need to get your hands on them all.

Dang that happened quick Pat! Don't ya hate being right!?!? Gonna be hard to beat this one but I got 10 months to do it. Jig for the win! ?

Swim Jig/Lipless Crankbait. I don't really need a 3rd but if you forced me to pick another bait, probably spinnerbait.

Green Pumpkin 5 inch senko weightless usually gets a bite or two. Go super light on line and super slow and make sure you're positive there's fish where you cast it. 1/2 oz lipless burned a bit might get a bite.

NEW PB! Happy Pre Spawn from muddy, rainy NC! 9.1 lber on the 1/4 oz Siebert Outdoors Bluegill Flash swim jig with a 4.5" Yum Scottsboro swimbait trailer. 7'6 medium heavy moderate veritas/daiwa Fuego /20 lb seagaur red label/san Diego Jam knot. She was taken out of 1 FOW in the NW corner of my local pond when drizzle turned to rain. Released shortly after a little DIY photo shoot and she swam away happy as a clam. The most incredible fight of my life and the peak of my bass fishing adventure so far!

Now he can go target double digit bass off shore with glide baits on live scope and have fun in his golden years. More power to him, the dude has earned it.

My younger brother is from Western North Carolina and kayak fishes a lot in the rivers up there and he does not understand why I use baitcasters because he's basically drifting down a river and casting as far as he can to try to get river smallies to bite little lures. When I talk to him about fishing for largemouth in Central NC he makes fun of me for using 20 lb fluorocarbon and a 7 and 1/2 ft. Flipping stick and an 8-speed aluminum winch to reel a bass in. His personal best is somewhere around 2 and 1/2 lb. Last year I caught close to 50 fish that were over 5 lb. Most of them came out of trees that were no more than 10 ft away from me that I threw my jig directly into. It's just a different game completely and a spinning reel just doesn't do the job. For crankbaits and jerk baits and finesse presentations and things where you're going to do long casts and don't need massive amounts of hook penetration (lighter line and hooks) a spinning reel is perfectly adequate. It all boils down to where the fish you're targeting live at. The big ones always seem to live in some stuff that would snap 12 lb line like it was nothing around these parts so no point in playing games with them. Broken off plenty of giants using 7'6 and 20 lb line but I know I'd have broken off or not even hooked a darn site more without it. etc etc etc I really like the Daiwa Fuego compared to even my 2-300$ reels. You can pretty much just stick to those and never look back and be fine.

In honor of you and the thread, I put a 10-in ribbon tail worm on the back of a full skirted rubber jig and I'm going to throw it before the snow hits tonight lol. Let's see if these bass want that lure to look like it's 1978.

Don't forget to throw a Carolina rigged lizard and a jig n' eel to cover the bottom old school style! B-)

That's a stone cold stunna of a largemouth bass. I'd be shaking for days off that one! Congratulations!

In general I'm a rational person too. ?

I tend to think that with a jig, it can be fished in virtually all of the water column, which has made me lazy about lure selection. I can put a buzz toad or magnum rage bug on a 1/4 oz swim jig and reel it fast enough to buzz it/gurgle the claws on the surface and I'll tell ya what, that's a heck of a topwater strike when they're hitting it! I also got a thing with gut hooking/gill hooking fish. It just always puts me in an off mood. Hasn't ever happened with a jig. Sometimes with a senko or a crank they are a little too enthusiastic and I end up killing a good fish. FWIW, I'm not loyalist! I fish for fun and enjoy experimenting and sometimes they want one specific sort of thing! Got to love it!

Put me down in the 'some sort of jig' camp. I'll get some on soft plastics and cranks but I'll get a lot more on pitching/football/finesse/shaky head/casting/swim/bladed jigs. My best producer during the cold months is a jig and chunk or beaver and then when it gets warmer I like stuff with more action like a Z Craw or Rage Menace or a pit boss. I use spinnerbaits and bladed jigs when it's windy or cloudy or they're chasing bait. I use swim jigs when it's calmer/they want a horizontal presentation and around grass. I use pitching/brush jigs 90% of the time and I'm usually making short pitches or longer casts to shallow or deep wood/brush/vegetation/rock/shade or any other structure or cover bass relate to either from the boat or bank. I use football jigs dragging slow around rock. I use finesse jigs when fish are finicky and the water is clear. I use ball head jigs with swim baits and worms on pressured fish when the bite is hard. I like throwing other things but I like the bite detection and hookup to land ratio and size you generally get throwing jigs so I use them the most.