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You are way down the rabbit hole. No bait casting reel is backlash proof that has a free spinning spool. Braking is an effort to control the free spinning spool so it doesn’t spin faster then line coming off during the lure flight. More spool braking or friction the slower the spool spin reducing casting distance. I am so old when I started using casting reels they didn’t have any brakes! We had to use thumb to apply braking and that is still the best system. Starting the reel spool to spin let’s say 0 to 100 in 1/8 second is harder to control then a start up speed 0 to 1/2 second. This is where the rod comes into play. Faster action rod starts the spool spinning faster so let’s call the 1/8 second a XF rod, 1/4 second F and 1/2 second Mod. Rod power is the lure weight rating that rod was designed to cast. This is very misleading because every lure has different aerodynamics and slows in flight at a different rate of speed. Fast spinning spool with the lure slowing creates the line to over run (backlash) the spool. It’s inflight lure speed where braking becomes tricky. The old method was feel from use developing casting skill. Mechanical braking can’t duplicate an educated thumb. So here we are trying to decide who’s braking system out performs the other. The answer is…..practice and confidence. Both Shimano and Daiwa offer light weight long casting reels. Daiwa’s SV braking is very good in mid flight spool control but you can’t buy practice and skill. Tom

Smartest move I will ever make. And the luckiest. #manofgenius A-Jay

No weights needed or even preferred on the top two arms. I use center pin screw locks. Edit to add: Cut the swivels off the top wires and attach the screw locks directly to the wire loops. If you attach them to the swivels without a jig head for keel weight, the baits will twirl and not swim right.

I've broken 1 & that was 10-12 years ago. Bank fishing, standing under a cypress tree, could only side arm cast & set hook side arm. Caught a 6# bass about 20' from my feet, calmed her down enough to lip her. Should have grabbed the line instead of using the rod. Told myself, not a good idea, self said hold my beer I got this. Problem was I don't drink & I didn't have this. Did land the bass!

you'll find links here that give the physics of backlash and casting brakes, shows the difference between MagForceZ and SV brake inductors, and describes the dual inductor return springs in Boost. The changes between MagForce/V/Z/SV and SSAir relate initially to the strength of the magnets, improving with magnet technology, and evolution to lower-mass inductors, with SSAir having the lowest-mass inductor yet, 25% lighter than SV. The reasonable assumption is MagForceZ is tuned to heavy line and casting weights, and SSAir is tuned to the BFS end. In these photos, note the Z inductor is thicker and heavier than the SV inductor, etc. With good cast habits, you can adjust either to be close-enough to backlash-proof, by setting to the lightest thing you plan to throw.

Yea, sorry about that. Wasn't trying to derail the thread, but it's the first thing that came to mind. I'm just your basic knucklehead. So that's a big win for me. Especially since I don't really get many. But this one time, I parked my truck in the garage, and didn't even crash it. 🤓 A-Jay

I hear you there, brother.

I always run blades on my top wires.

Why go through the trouble of doing that when Plano has one already - $11 on Amazon 3700 Open-Compartment Deep

Big game

I'll give up my Berkley Big Game when you can pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

I use Big Game for bait casting. Spinning reels been using P Line CX.

I keep seeing people with broken rods and even more so I hear people talking about them. I've not broken any since pre-puberty, and that was from shutting a door on two of them; (my Dad was so happy about that). More recently a guide shut the rod locker on the tip of a new Loomis rod, but that's it. Your answers should make some entertaining reading.

If a banana duct taped to paper is called art then everything is art. Fishing is an outdoor activity that isn’t science or art imo. Tom

My old man forgot his deer rifle once not long ago when we went hunting. I checked the truck for it before we left and put it in there without him noticing. When we got to the hunting land, he said "oh sh** I forgot my rifle." I smiled and said "I got your back, old man."

I made great grades in school all the way thru college but I went fishing and forgot my boat once

I’m not going to try and compete with wives😂 but I did come up with a way to take what was supposed to be a wall mounted pressure washer and I mounted it on a 2 wheel dolly so I could move it around.

Hexane, alcohol, acetone and mineral spirits only dissolve paraffins - oil, grease, wax. I would be hesitant about brake cleaner, which likely contains stronger solvents that dissolve oxidized polar organics, and may attack rubber bearing seals. You can get a small jewelery ultrasonic cleaner for $5 on Amazon. Nice thing about ultrasonic is it moves dissolved grease and oil farther away from the bearings, leaving less residue - works like a tiny toothbrush.

I found a bunch of suffix siege for the cheap at Ollie’s a couple of years ago . Tried it, loved it , went back and bought all they had .That was a good story, huh?

With proper casting brake set-up, you should only need thumb to release and stop the spool (adjust final distance) - that's kinda the point, for brakes to take the place of your thumb modulating start and mid-cast. But there's more to a proper cast, which is how you load the rod. The bad habit brought from spinning tackle is wrist snap, which is rewarded in a spinning cast with extra distance. In a bait cast, this added jerk has to be subtracted by brake force to eliminate start-up backlash, so it adds Zero to a bait cast. If you only have linear mag brake (fixed-inductor BFS spool), wrist snap is start-up backlash (in a fly cast, wrist snap is a tailing loop). Maximum cast distance comes from smooth acceleration and wrist follow-through without adding jerk. In the early 80s, I was fishing Ambassadeur weightless, and could out-distance guides with their weightless spinning tackle. I made a forward-spiral centrifugal cast, which is completely without jerk, and also effectively lengthens the rod (tricky thumb, feeding line during cast stroke). I PO'd two guides who tutored me on what was wrong with my cast, then we compared, and I doubled their cast distance. It's ok, I made them both look good back at the dock. @FrnkNsteen those two anodize colors in my spool photos above are the stock inductors for all Z and SV brakes. Daiwa tunes those inductors on individual spools by shimming the inductor depth in the mag field (see white washer in SV photo above), and changing return-spring rates. Also Note with Daiwa brake - leave the spool tension out of it. Only adjust mag brake scalar to prevent mid-cast backlash throwing the lightest thing you plan to throw. If you're facing the wind, add 2 mag notches. Thumb - if you want to become a thumb master, take one of these to the back acre. Meek and Talbot NLW reels from the ninteen-teens held all world distance-casting records until Ambassadeur CT arrived in the '70s.

This ^^^ works for me, too. I used hitchhikers (screw lock/twist lock/CPS spring) in Indiana with smaller soft plastic baits as “dummies” on top 2 arms where 3 hooks was the limit.

Magforce Z is awesome. I have a lot of experience with Magforce, Magforce Z and Magforce V , I have tried the SV and in my opinion it’s a grossly overbraked system for my uses. However in testing on a Daiwa Zillion rod 7’ 3” MH rod w regular bend and with a 3/8 ounce lead casting weight the reel and rod would throw 120 to 130’ rather easily. As far as pitching, I didn’t like it for that at all. Edit: I should add that during my testing of the reel with the SV spool my brake setting was on zero for everything. So you can see the amount of brake force that was still being applied even on zero.. for a 120 foot cast. This was performed about 50 or 60 times..

I hope you get to feeling better soon. Rest up and take care of that thing. Sorry to hear that it sort of ruined your season.

I got that as well. But what's a "Retired Rod" ? I'm retired and ain't no one buying me . . . . A-Jay

XT if I'm running mono. Low stretch, abrasion resistant, strong, handles well, affordable. Co poly? YZH. All the attributes of XT with a bit better feel.

That's a Flourocarbon line, not a Nylon.... For me, it's Sufix Siege all the time....

Right eye done. I’m good to go. It looks like I’ll be able to wear normal sunglasses and use reading glasses for real close stuff like this typing. Pretty happy!

I use Sufix Siege and Elite. they are both amazing. both are limp strong as hell with a palomar knot and cast smooth on either spinning or baitcasting gear

Berkley Big Game Abrasion resistance & shock absorption

Got out this evening for a few hours before dark at one of my favorite spots, started fishing right at 2:00. I really wanted to try out the new reel I picked up for my chatterbait setup, and managed a small bass right off the bat with it. Before moving down the bank, I picked up the lipless and worked my way through the spot again, and second cast with it I hooked into this big girl: My biggest of 2024 so far and will be my first FWC TrophyCatch submission in almost 2 years. Finished working the area some more but no other bites after releasing her, so I moved on. Bite slowed but I was getting them here and there, mostly against grass lines. Got a 2.84 and this 4.52 on the chatterbait out of a windblown corner. I like this Curado 150 MGL quite a lot so far. Worked my way back towards where I was parked, threw the lipless around some more active feeding I was seeing, and ended the night with another big girl, my second biggest (barely) of the year: Unfortunately, the treble just barely got her in the gill she didn't bleed when I got the hook out, it wasn't until I got her up for the picture that I noticed she had started to bleed so the picture turned out bad. Got her back in the water until the bleeding slowed, then got a weight and sat with her in the water until the bleeding stopped and she had a strong release. Both of the big lipless fish made strong runs and multiple jumps and stayed pegged. I don't want to jinx it, but I think I've finally got my lipless setup dialed in to maximize my landing ratio (as much as I can, at least). Star of the show tonight was this lipless, 3/4 oz Thunderhawk Sergeant in the new Shad color. Ended with 9 total, those were the only ones worth weighing, plus a few 1 pounders. Puts my 5 fish bag at roughly 23.6lbs for the evening.

I logged on last night intending on writing up a depressing report detailing how, despite having a great year overall, I haven’t seen a bass since early October. Zero bass all November and the last trip out my fishing buddy pulled up a nice two pounder on a Ned rig in 30ft but I had no such luck. A handful of pickerel and a rock bass was all I had to show for almost two months of effort. While cruising the site I started looking into cold water tactics and found a Mike Bucca article about float n’ fly rigs and thought maybe I could piece something together and get out one last time. I really just wanted one more bass to close out a great year on a high note. I woke up this morning to 23 degrees and quickly changed my mind, accepting that the season was over and I’d be better off using the day to start packing up my fishing gear for winter. I don’t know why by right around noon while pulling out tackle boxes something inside told me this was my last chance and to just suck it up and go catch one more bass. So I got permission from my wife who thought I was crazy, told my fishing buddy who also thought I was crazy, grabbed some gear, and made for a favorite spot that I know well. I was on the water around 1:30pm with water temps 40-41 degrees, air temp a balmy 35 and a stiff 12mph wind. I had with me a piecemeal float n’ fly rig that never touched the water because my other rod had a blade bait and it turns out that’s all I needed. I fished for just shy of three hours before sunset timed me out but in that time I had the best fishing of my entire life. I ended with 11 largemouth totaling 31.68lbs and a new personal best 4.38lbs. Two over 4lbs and three over 3lbs. I started the day throwing the blade bait into deep water off a point and jigging it back but had no luck. However, as I was quickly blown towards shore I tossed it shallow to a spot I’d been successful with spinnerbaits earlier in the year and that’s when I hooked up my first. I spent the rest of the day fishing that blade bait the same way I had been throwing spinnerbaits all year and into the same spots, throwing shallow and pulling it back out deep with a medium/slow straight retrieve that just ticked the bottom. I can’t believe how successful I was today. At times I was hooking up to bass one cast after another and they just seemed to keep getting bigger. I thought I had to be dreaming. I’ve had an incredible year and started 2024 at this same lake back in early March and caught a personal best 3.31lb largemouth only to beat that three more times and end in the same place I started, and to think that less than 24hrs ago I was ready to pack up and admit defeat. The wife and I have our second due late May so I know next year won’t be the same, in fact it’ll be quite some time before I spend as much time on the water as I did this past year making today even more special.

Great job! I love a blade bait in cold water. It is a great slow but fast bait. Fast spurts but isn't really moving very far very fast. I think of them as vertical jerk baits.

It’s not too late to post yourself on the flea market.

With a JB, I want a quick, sharp action. A M Fast with a qucik recovering tip is generally what you want, although some people have different preferences towards action, power and length. The 6'10 expride has a great action for JBs and twitch baits. Its pretty much ideal, until you get a better feel for JBs and know what if you prefer a faster or slower action. A faster action takes less pressure to twicth, but sometimes they don't cast as well and can overwork a bait if youre not careful, MF and regular actions load really well, but can be more fatiguing if you use them all day, its all preference. Every JB is different, some are more aggressive and take more pressure to work, some are sensitive to pressure. 110s are more delicate and don't need much tension at all to work and too much will blow them out. You want to be working slack or semi slack line, only coming into contact with the bait at the end of the twitch. As soon as you feel the bait you put slack back into the line by pointing the tip at the bait, reel in some slack and either twitch again or let it sit. Most of the time the fish will hit the bait with slack in the line. You might not feel it, but you can usually see the line jump or the fish will knock more slack into the line. Since you are relying on the fish to hook themselves, quality hooks and hook caps to keep them sharp are a must IMO. If the hooks stay sharp, the fish will hook himself as he tries to blow the bait out of their mouth.

Berkeley Big Game, it is good line and inexpensive. I also use Bass pro excell when I don’t need a big spool it’s inexpensive as well and it acts like Big Game.

Congrats on the awesome day!!! Congrats on the baby on the way as well!!!

Sunline supernatural for me. Great knots, consistent diameter, low memory. I use 6 lb on a spinning rod, 10&12 for my crankbait/lighter casting rod, 14 and 16 on my medium and medium heavy rods. I considered some 20# but for what I use line that heavy for I want more abrasion resistance.

I don't think you would get in trouble in Tennessee for releasing fish into your own pond. Bob stated that he's planning to release a dozen or so bass from his pond into public waters. The authorities would frown on that because it could introduce deceases and there is also the possibility that someone might not know what species they are actually releasing.

The last rod I broke was a 2 piece, St Croix Premier spinning rod that was built in the 90’s. I was using it as a jerkbait rod. The constant jerking had, without me knowing, caused the two pieces to start separating. When there was only about a quarter inch of the top section still engaged with the lower section, and I gave the rod a jerk, which caused the end of the upper section to split. I took it to the St. Croix factory store and for $55, they replaced the 25 year old rod.

A lot of states allow you to remove fish from public water and release them in your own private waters as long as you're keeping only your limit of fish. Texas is like this for sure, Milliken has caught a number of double digits and moved them into .5 acre ponds......which I hate to see. Those DDs only become DDs because of a very specific habitat. Those fish will never get bigger, and likely will have rapid decline. Not sure about TN laws though.

I’ve broken a few including a Conquest that exploded on the hookset. Luckily G Loomis found a defect and replaced. I let someone fish with another G Loomis rod and he hung it off the back deck and it snapped when the Power Poles were raised. Most broken rods come from people high sticking.

I checked off December with a 1# perch and 3.63# Larry at one of my favorite Plymouth waters. That makes three years and 10 months consecutively catching fish in MA open water. The bass came from under the same tree I caught a 4_8 LMB a couple weeks ago. Today's bass took a 1/4 oz green/chartreuse @Siebert Outdoors finesse jig with a green/purple flake Yamamoto Flappin' Hog trailer cut down to make a smaller snack. Larry fought pretty good for 42.x* water. I found a couple bait balls in 20', but it looked like everyone was stuck to the bottom, even the pickerel that I can normally catch while trolling a crankbait. It was mostly sunny and winds were light from the NW. Air pressure was 30.2. I might get out tomorrow and target SMB.

8 lb for spinning 12 to 15 for bait caster. Big Game cause it works for me and has since it came out. Changed a few times but always go back

^ If that don't catch something in that 'pond' - there's nothing in the pond to catch.

No it’s time you enjoy what time you have with your Dad. Tom

I think part of my success comes from moving. I watch the videos where a guy will cast at one laydown for 20-30 minutes and whereas I might give a laydown five minutes, that's it. So, whereas I understand the allure and power of Spotlock, getting from one spot to another in less time appeals to me a little more.

Zoom spinnerbait trailer and cut to your desired length. Tom

Well I'm at least 1,000 miles north of you and up here once there's open water, anything below 38-ish is cold. 40-42 is cool. And 44-54 is Hammer time. In the fall the entire process goes in reverse. Polar Fleece is my friend. #dressinlayers A-Jay

This is a no brainier for me. I’d pick my Dad no matter what, even if I didn’t think we could win. My dad has dementia bad now & I haven’t been able to fish with him for a decade. I miss it terribly!!! I’d do almost anything to be able to fish with him again. You & your Dad will have an opportunity to make many memories together that you’ll cherish the rest of your life. Plus, you say he’s coachable & sounds like a decent fisherman. You’ll prob be competitive enough with him in the boat to give you a shot at winning too. Even if you have to give him a few pointers or tell him what bait to try.