ElGuapo928

Thanks!! It’s a labor of keeping my 80’s dreams alive!!

Good point on the pleasure boats getting bigger. The wake boats now are bigger than a cabin cruiser of 20-30 years ago (yet they rarely ever venture more than a couple hundred yards from the ramp), and the typical 18’ bowrider has all but disappeared around here.

Any plastics - I’ve tried and tried, but never any real positive results.

Definitely go down on the weight - I don’t go to a 1/4 oz until I’m over 30’ deep. For skinny water (6’ or less), my preferred dropshot sinker is a #4 splitshot, with a 4”-6” dropper.

I’ve had more success with bluegill or PB&J than anything else in the river. To be honest, I think my lifetime numbers anywhere on green pumpkin are in the low single digits.

I throw about 50/50 - rattles when they’re actively chasing, balsa when they’re not.

My first thought is a beaver or craw on a free rig. We’ve been tinkering with a Gilly on the free rig and it’s been a winner in the brush as well.

That’s really awesome. I need to do something actually coherent like that. Thanks for the inspiration!

I throw both on a Medium/Fast with 15lb mono, except for the smaller 1/4 and 3/16 oz, they go on a Medium/Moderate Fast with 12lb fluoro.

If you’re backseating with me, we’re going to get you unsnagged - just tell me when you’re hung up. I’ve had a couple guys that broke off without saying a word, and then blamed me for it after the fact.

When everything else fails for me, I start dragging a 4” straight tail worm on a dropshot.

That’s about my experience with it as well -brittle as glass, and kinked if you looked at it wrong. Come to think of it, I haven’t had all that good of an experience with any PLine product.

Glad to hear you got going! When you get to that project, I’m more than happy to help any way I can.

I have the Josh Bertrand worm rod, and it’s a pretty solid rod at $100, but wouldn’t go above that.

I tend to stick with my big 3 (Free rig, dropshot, spinnerbait), and branch out from there. I do like to tinker with new/different baits/techniques, and will occasionally dedicate a day to that.

Bass Pro XPS run about $5 and are surprisingly good. Check the $1.97 box at your local WalMart - there’s usually a few Big O’s in it.

Not suggesting that it’s anything you are doing, so much as trying to isolate a cause. No offense intended at all. I only brought up knots as a possibility based on certain lines’ makeup working better with different knots, and some are more sensitive than others to the number of wraps in a knot (example from my experience: I usually always do 6 wraps in a SDJ knot in 15lb fluoro, but when I switched briefly to a different brand, I found that the knot would burn under the load of an 8XD crankbait. I had to go to 8 in order for it to stay cinched and not move so much).

It’s entirely possible to get a bad spool, so I’m not really questioning that part of it. But bad spools across 2 radically different manufacturers back to back is pretty remote odds. If it’s breaking while cinching knots, it sounds like a friction burn. Perhaps you aren’t wetting the knot enough, or putting a couple too many wraps in the knot?

I agree. I switched to Izorline for all my monofilament a long time ago and have never had breakage that wasn’t strictly my own fault.

As far as the CXX goes, take the spool of it, throw it into the nearest portable toilet, close the door and light it on fire before it can hurt anyone else. Sorry…..don’t have the highest opinion of that stuff. Getting back to the subject, it may be worth it to try a spool of good 12lb FC leader (Sunline or Seaguar). I dropshot regularly in some really nasty rock and brush, and upgrade from 8 to 12 FC for the worst conditions. It sounds to me that there’s something under you weakening the line that you’re not seeing, especially if you’re getting midline breakage. A harder 100% fluoro will withstand abrasion and random cuts better than a copolymer or mono.

EvapoRust is the best thing for this.

Any more, formal clubs are more headache than anything. As mentioned above, starting a Facebook/social media group for the local area and setting up some informal outings is a good way to start. The group I fish with has completely disorganized “derbies”, running the gamut from $20-$50 buy ins,“loser buys lunch”, random stuff wagered (rods/reels/etc), we have the traveling big fish trophy, which is a thong bikini bottom that someone snagged at the marina, and “tastefully” mounted in a display case (my wife loved the few months that it graced our living room). By keeping it all catch/weigh/photo, and minimal rules (or weird rules made up by whomever decided the ‘derb), we pretty much fly under the radar of permits and have a lot of fun.

I have had a couple come loose on me, and I never swap them. The alloys used by many manufacturers now will continue to stretch long after they are initially torqued, so unless you’re using a non-threaded setup like a B&W or a welded mount, it’s a good idea to always check them.

I pretty much only throw Keitechs on an underspin anymore, but a plain old ball head works just fine. A 3” Keitech on a 1/4 oz football head can be a killer on riprap banks, popping it off the bottom followed by a fairly long pause.

There’s still a few diehards scuffing them. Now that you mention it, I remember an article in either WON or Arizona Hunter and Angler stating that sanding was mandatory to fully realize the benefits of the Power Worm.