Hogs_n_Logs

Evergreen shower blows. 110 obviously. DRT Tiny Klash. Chad Shad. Any of the good bladed jigs. Tons of JDM plastics. JDM spinnerbaits. Theres plenty of standard priced lures that work great, lots of premium stuff works exceptionally, and theres some cheapo stuff that works pretty good. I'll pay whatever the price for the stuff I know works, every time. Well designed, quality lures work because you can use them more effectively, efficiently and consistently for the given technique you are doing, that means they not only catch more fish this way, they're just more enjoyable to fish. There is nothing worse than fighting with a sub-par lure on the water especially when you know theres an equivalent that works much better. I am not a rich man, but for the amount of time I'm on the water and the enjoyment I get out of pursuing large bass, its stupid to try and save what amounts to a few hundred bucks a year by putting effort into pinching pennies on cheap stuff that works anywhere from "pretty good" to "useless", when I know what works exceptionally well.

Without knowing any other information, try deeper. On smaller private lakes/ponds I find thats were all the big ones go in the summer and if youre in FL they'll prob be there unless spawn or pre-spawn, although they'll occasionally cruise shallow they rarely live shallow. In warm sunny weather big ones like HEAVY shade or depth, especially if youre in a BOW with no current, and on small private lakes the heavy shallow shade cover is an obvious target for anyone that fishes the pond and likely gets hammered. Find deep areas, if possible with a fish finder, to look for good contours or even structure, and use some plastic rigged a way you can fish effectively down there depending on the bottom composition(c-rig, drop shot etc)

Like many here I'm going to suggest something out of the saltwater world. The smaller Pencil plugs for tuna/jacks are about 5.5" long, i think about 1.5 ounces and do a subsurface walk better/easier than any inshore style salt walking minnow I've tried (mirrolure etc). Admittedly I havent tried them for bass yet cause i was always borrowing the lures and the hook rings and line tie are waay overkill but the moment I first used one on a yellowtail jack trip my immediate thought was these would kill for bass if you threw some 1/0 Owner st-36s on there. They are dead simple to walk and they dart extremely wide.

Manslaughter is a heavy charge and its appropriate here after seeing the footage. Video is brutal, he hits the boat broadside dead center at over 60mph WOT and on a zoomed-in view you can see one of the deceased being speared by the bow. Completely clear sunny conditions, no fog, open water. He was almost certainly looking at his graphs or phone, he certainly wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. Hopefully a wake up call for bass anglers in general, you see a lot of guys being way too casual with how they drive their boats. I'm not a huge stickler when it comes to safety stuff and like to have fun in my motorized vehicles, but was shocked when I saw how a lot of bass boat guys operate their rigs when i started getting more into that world.

How can you judge a rod by simply holding it at the store? Like others said, you dont need a expensive rod to fish, but if you tried one out for a day you'd get it. I've fished my fair share of rods from $20 ugly stiks to $700+ World Shaulas and Poison Ultimas. Not sure if you golf, but think of it as switching from a random set of cheap 80s era clubs with persimmon woods and tiny chunk irons to a custom fitted set of modern clubs. I can get a round in with either, but I hit better farther with more control all with ease with the latter, not only is it more effective its more enjoyable. A dialed in setup matched to your application with a quality rod(not necessarily NRX price, but a well designed taper with a quality blank) your setup basically becomes an extension of your body, kind of hard to explain but it gets to a point where you dont even really think about your rod when fishing it because its so seamless and smooth to operate in all aspects of fishing (casting, retrieve/sensitivity, hookset/fighting the fish). I'd add that given the choice I'd get a spendy rod with a mid tier reel than the opposite every time, which is what I do.

I already use it in fishing but more to organize information and a data retrieval/compilation tool. AI is incredible right now and getting better but it will not really do actual "thinking" for you, ie if tell it to make a gameplan without yourself making queries from your own previous knowledge and expertise you will likely not be succesful. Of course analyzing changing variables on the water is more than half of fishing too. In all applications its best to use AI how a military general or executive would use a human assistant. They wouldnt entrust this hypothetical assistant to guide in making decisions, come up with proposals, integral planning, or for important advice, AI is not good at these things and the only people that think that it is are usually frankly dumb. But you would ask it to(and its excellent at) compiling massive amounts of information and variables in an organized manner, taking dication or shorthand that is later organized into a report, scaffold the boilerplate of a project for you to later fine tune, create models to test ideas with etc etc and it can do all these things that take humans hours or days in seconds. Similarly good software engineers arent really using AI to literally do their job, they are basically using them as a replacement for a team of junior developers, the developers using AI to literally do their job will soon simply be replaced with it. The reason its incredible is this kind of service was previously only available to executives, high ranking officials, nobility etc.

Japanese fishing magazine did one a few years back, Kagiya is a Jackal tournament pro, Yoshida is a bank fishing specialist, not sure about Kawashima

BPS has way better selection than my locals but still manages to infuriate me by ALWAYS being out of or very low stock of very common essentials that are clearly big sellers. Why do they only stock 1 hanger of the most popular sizes of EWGs, Owner beasts, 1/8oz bullet weights, seaguar 8-20lb flouro, magdrafts, bladed jigs etc. You're telling me online retailers can keep stock of these 24/365 but BPS cant. Makes me not want to shop there because I end up having to order online anyway. Maybe just my specific shop.

Was the issue you couldn't find fish or you found some and you couldnt get them to bite?

IMO all the reputable brands hooks have good to great penetration and materials nowadays, so the primary way to choose hooks is shape and design. In that respect I have never like VMC hook shapes and designs, any I've bought end up collecting dust cause they are just off. While the redlines look to have some shapes that are actually good(with others that are usual VMC), looking at the price of these hooks I see no reason to get them over others, especially when you can get hooks with excellent design for half the price or less. In regards to the Infini, its an excellent hook(probably my most used hook overall) but be aware that it has an enormous gap and the point is not angled slightly inward like most EWGs, so if you like to use narrower plastics it is basically impossible to line up the bait correctly. But paired with thicker baits its designed to be used with, its the best EWG there is, it will hook your fish almost no matter what. I've gotten some of the weirdest hook placements since starting to use this hook because it just hooks them even if you screw up the hookset technique or timing badly.

I'm pretty sure almost everything is more than strike king

Fishing for bass in Japan completely changed my perspective on things. The biggest thing, bass 100% are highly susceptible to fishing pressure; lures, retrieves, sounds, boats, sonar, any kind of non-natural presence and they do so very quickly the more prevalent the pressure. The only way I could consistently catch fish "easily" was finding weird, highly inaccessible backwater ponds connected to rivers on google maps, basically trudging through 8ft tall brush. Even then, half the time I would arrive only to find clear signs of people having previously trudged through the brush or even a couple anglers there already. If youre fishing popular reservoirs there, you have to be 100% on your game in every aspect of angling or you are skunking. You can see dozens of fish by sight or livescope it wont matter. The fish there also act very weird, they are generally lethargic, and typically don't strike very fast or hard besides at Biwa. My takeaway, bass are extremely maleable based on their enviroment, which makes sense considering their enormous range and habitat.

I dont think a looser drag wouldve saved you, especially now that you say you were on a kayak which is another source of "cushion" between you and the fish. If your kayak has a skeg, foot paddling system, or deep scrapes or burs on the hull from use, the line might've gotten compromised if when the fish dove under the thing the line made contact with one of those. I'm not trying to go on and on about the drag to try and school you or anyone else, and not to say you shouldn't loosen your drag if you want, with straight braid its easier on the reel and you'll lose less fish from thrown hooks. Its just that if you understand how fishing line(all the types) works you can almost eliminate break offs due to line failure entirely by being aware specifically what to look out for and do before and during the fight you'll not lose those big fish when the moment comes! If you rely on a loose drag and an identical or similar situation arose in the future you'd probably still lose the fish!

With pricey JDM baits you're paying for quality control and consistency in addition to paint, that includes the ones made in china. Its very easy to make or acquire ABS molds, shoot plastic into them and pay slave wages for people to assemble them, its hard to set up a system that ensures every one you ship works great out of the box. Especially with suspending jerkbaits.

Someone feel free to tell me why I'm wrong but I dont think theres any way a locked down drag was the problem in this situation. Undamaged braid is ridiculously hard to snap off, 20lb will slip a fully cranked drag on a brand new standard size bass reel, it would roast a 20y/o pinnacles gears before the line breaks. Your line was compromised/damaged in some way, it got pin-point tension on some kind of underwater obstruction, or your knot failed. As for your actual question I've personally found 8 strand to be better than 4 in every way. Namely it casts much better and is less likely to get "caught" on stuff.