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Ahhh, Prize money contributors, the other white meat... Tournament (or any other competition) is not the time to try new things and experiment. Fish what you know and have confidence in, no matter how modest those may be. Also if you are co angling with someone you know, the path should be pretty clear, you for the most part gotta follow his lead. No one here can tell you what will work for you with any level of accuracy. Good luck all the same.

I blame Nassau county's School system...

I fish chatters with 15 or 20 lb BG. For 1/4 and 3/8, I go with a MH Fast leaning towards Medium and Moderate. For Heavier ones I like a MH Moderate leaning towards Heavy. In either case, I don't want quick recovery, high modulus blanks, YMMVBIW.

Wax on, wax off...

Welcome back. Don't know how BG Solar looks under water, but I've never seen a line shy bass, so....

Yup. "To peg or not to peg C rigs?"....

You say you catch them on a jig. Grab your favorite jig (the one you have the most confidence in). Take the trailer off it and T-rig it with a skirted worm weight of the same weight and color as the jig. Fish that with the same setup you fish the jig (when you would fish the jig) rinse and repeat. Sounds like a confidence thing at this point rather than something you are doing wrong. I am available for adult bike riding lessons...

Hey, you mess with my adoptive dad, you mess with me!...

Staples/Office Max

"We're gonna need a bigger boat"

I'm sure if fish ever started buying tackle, they would market to them hard.

That's ancient Alien technology for sure....

I was killing some time at a BPS a couple of months ago, and there was an end cap with the Covert spinnerbaits display. I laughed out loud when I saw the "match the conditions" manual at the base of it. Reminded me of the windshield wiper and oil filter ones they used to have at the auto parts store, had to thumb through it, "let's see now, windy, overcast, 2 feet of vis, late prespawn...... booklet says"...

I've heard of cats with six toes....

The SLX combos are a great deal as others have mentioned. I would recommend staying away from the longer more powerful rods, they just don't balance well with the SLX reel. Kinda like Ketchup and ice cream, I like both a lot, but not together.

Fuego/Aird-X. Sub a Black Max if you want to save some $. The Silver Max is not a good reel.

That there is no standard or consistency, so the labeling is a broad guideline at best. I'd bet that you can find a rod labeled MH Fast that actually fishes slower than the Falcon you mentioned above.

In no particular order, and dependent on where and when: Swim jig Spinnerbait popper Trick worm T-rig UV Speed Craw I could always tie on a Senko or one of it's clones and catch bass nearly every time out, but I just dislike fishing them.

Nope, but I do use a big swivel sometimes 6-12" ahead of plastic in lieu of a weight for a split shot/mojo effect.

After they are done with the impeachment, they are going to repeal all laws against changing out blades and skirts...

Same, one rod. Fished Jamaica Bay for striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, porgies and anything else that showed up and then headed to LI to catch bass, white perch and eels, all with the same 6' spinning rod and 8-12 lb mono.

In aviation they say any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, and I guess any fish that you land is the same, but similar to some above, I'd suggest reeling down and a firmer hookset, how much depending on whether using braid or mono. As far as fighting the fish, keep your rod elbow on your side, or close to it with the motion coming from your elbow on down, and pivoting at the waist as required while applying pressure and reeling in the line as you gain it with the rod, visualize pumping the rod while keeping the same bend in it. N/A for bass, but if the fish exceeds the max pressure of the tackle, let it do it's thing, and resume as soon as it lets up.

This happens with some BCs and braid often when trying to launch big baits a ways. I have had it mostly with round reels in the salt. It is the combination of the start of a backlash and the line digging in. Tighten the brakes slightly and smooth out your casts a bit, until you get the right combination. going up in lb test will help as well.

The longer the rod, the more leverage,.... for the fish. What you gain with a longer rod (in addition to the casting distance thing) is the ability to move line with less motion on your part at the expense of the required force, similar to speed vs torque with reels. Longer rods is the trend right now driven in large part by marketing. There are several disadvantages to longer rods in many applications, sure if you are chucking large lures, flipping or deep cranking a longer rod makes sense.

I gotta disagree. Have had it happen too many times for it to be a fluke or one off. I've had 6-9 lb bass either race 6-15 feet like a rocket and crash a lure, as well as lazily come up behind it and floow it for several feet before comitting. I'm not saying that targeting cover isn't the way to go, just that there are other options.