MonsterZero

For spooling, I still just pop the aforementioned pencil through the spool and hold it in my toes. Or just have the tackle shop do it for me.

I put a pen or pencil on the chuck of a cordless drill and have at it.

I could be misremembering, but I believe their goal was to only sell through independent companies, not big box/multinationals like Amazon and Walmart, not necessarily just brick and mortar shops. So Tackle Warehouse and such would still be included.

I recently ordered from Digitaka and had a very positive experience. Domestically, there are two shops that have popped up selling a good amount of JDM stuff. Tackle Bros up in Canada, and The Hook Up Tackle in Arizona. Both have a LOT of very cool stuff, and active YouTube channels with weekly updates on new stuff.

The area I just moved to is the opposite; nearly all of the fresh bodies of water are privately owned. There are some real beauties that I drive by often, with tall fences, locked gates, and signage everywhere to keep everyone else out. It is...frustrating.

If the power company disconnects the line, could you conceivably wrap a chain around one end and drag it clear?

Maybe he is just a really bad shot.

They are being marketed as having a JDM aesthetic on the domestic market to capitalize on the surge in interest in JDM tackle recently. Curious to see how it goes; I will almost never say no to new gear, but I think I have some other things ahead in line.

Hooking into a cownose is like having your line tied to a truck speeding away from you. No real fight, but so much muscle.

I do not have brand loyalty to any one manufacturer, but I do have some that I very much prefer and tend not to deviate from. I have never been let down by Daiwa, and have consistently been impressed by their quality:price ratio, so they are usually where I look first. But Shimano and Lew's have also been good to me. In the salt, I am 90% a Penn man for the same reason; I have horsed in some big fish on my Penn reels with no malfunctions or disagreements. How a company and their product treat me factors heavily into how I shop next time I need something, and if they stand by me, I stand by them, until they give me a reason not to.

For my money, this is the way it should be done. No judgement on anyone else; you guys fish how you like. But a big chunk of the allure for a kayak is that it is light, portable, and fast to get on the water. I do not want to have to back a trailer in, winch the boat off, pull away to a parking spot, etc. Just take it off the car, throw the seat and tackle in, and get moving.

Just adding onto this, the sale is across the entire Strike King brand. Buy any 3 at full price, get any 3 free. You can mix and match spinnerbaits, soft plastics, etc.

I need to add some rod holders to my kayak crate. I am also going to install my Magnalure pad, and possible change out some of the bungies I did not change from last year. Need to get new PFDs for myself and the wife as well; I am going to be fishing a blue hole this year and they are very dangerous.

I do not have those particular baits, but I have a Nomad swimbait that I use in the surf for bluefish. It has a great action and is extremely durable. Pretty sure they use the bigger ones for GTs down in Australia, so they are overengineered for a lot of North American species.

Also very true, yeah.

Late to the party but I am here. Western Burlington County creeping around the creeks and ponds. What few are publicly accessible, anyway.

That is unfortunate. I am not going to dip into my thoughts on the equity/buyout matter, as I do not trust myself to stay within forum limits, but I hate to see these brands bought out by companies who do not actually care about the sport or the people taking part. I have to believe that the people who started companies like Rapala, Penn, AG, etc, genuinely enjoyed what they did and wanted to contribute to to the sport. It is a shame to see them fall. I hope we never see the day when the holdouts finally succumb.

I exert a sort of gravitational force that pulls the single chattiest individual within 1 square mile into my intimate space, to prevent me from fishing until I have heard the tale of their entire bloodline going back a minimum of 13 generations. Never fails.

My local DSG recently had a couple of 13 combos on sale for $60, marked down from $100. They are not a brand that I am particularly interested in, but I figured for $60, I can use it as a beater and throw it in the back of the car during the summer, or a loaner. The reason they were marked down is that people keep stealing the spool tension knobs off of them. I figured I could just find a cheap, or even free, replacement and be good to go. Boy was I wrong. Came to find out that not only does Rapala not sell or distribute parts, but no one even had aftermarket parts for these reels. I would have to send the reel to Rapala for the $40 service to have the part replaced on the otherwise brand new reel. After shipping and any other nonsense they wanted to tack on, it would have cost me more than the combo cost new and intact. Luckily Dick's was cool about it and accepted the return. I will never even consider one of these rods/reels/combos again, and frankly, it has soured me a bit on Rapala as well.

My (currently small) JDM lure collection. I have more on the way from Digitaka.

When I am teaching new people to fish, I start with two things. The first is learning to read the water. It does not matter how good your gear is or what you are throwing if you do not know where the fish are. And the second is that the fish simply do not care what we think should work; if they are not interested, they are not interested, and no amount of casting and hoping is going to change their minds. So, yes, there is an element of skill in learning to recognize patterns and apply them in the right locations. But the role that luck plays cannot be dismissed either.

I have actually done some research on this topic, and frankly, we could cut W A Y back on our 'food' production and still produce enough to feed everyone currently alive in the planet quite comfortably. And we could do it humanely and sustainably, too. I will not delve into the politics involved, per forum rules, but just looking at the numbers is enough. In the US alone, more than half of the grain we grow goes to feed livestock like cattle. I think the figure is usually around 60%, but will vary some from year to year. In addition to that, our food waste (again, these figures are only for the US) we waste tens of millions of tons of food every year. That is insane; all of this food that we spend time and money producing, packaging, and buying, straight to the landfill. Think of how many people could be fed with that, or how many acres of land we could stop tilling, or how many animals would not have needed to be raised and slaughtered. It is hard to wrap the mind around. In short, it would be to our benefit to actually cut back on 'production,' it is just a hard sell to people who need to have a lot of variety.

Unfortunately, the current bird flu epidemic is not the problem; it is a symptom, so to speak. Unsustainable and unsafe factory farming practices are the problem. As long as we prioritize profit over humane, safe conditions for livestock, this is going to keep happening. Think of how rapidly diseases spread through prisons, college dormitories, or schools. You have so many individual hosts packed so tightly together that the microbes spread and mutate very easily and rapidly. The same is true of factory farms. It is worth noting that pasture raised eggs have not increased anywhere near as much, if at all, as their factory farmed counterparts. Eggs in the store where I work went up a couple dollars a dozen this morning; the free range and pasture raised eggs have not changed in months.

I use the bubble gum colored ones on a weightless EWG, fish like a jerk bait. Gets a LOT of attention from the fish. They love that profile.

I carry an HK VP9SK as my daily. Sometimes in the woods I will carry my full size Beretta. The HK is obviously easier to hide, and does have more holster/accessory options, but I definitely shoot the Beretta better. Full size steel frame; go figure. I am not as young as I used to be and have a bad back, so a force multiplier makes sense, especially where my family is concerned. 100% in favor of optics and WMLs on weapons, too. At this point the benefits and quality are too high to try to justify not using them, for me.