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I do some weedless guards with thread and hard as nails. Epoxy will work great, but a bit of over kill I think. I'm not a fan of superglue, but it will work. If you are really getting into doing a bunch of baits, the uv curing glues are awesome.

Una cana de "surf" entre siete y ocho pies de largo. Me gustan las Saint Croix, Tzunami y Daiwa, pero casi todas las marcas tienen buenas y de dos piezas. Invitame a pescar!...

3/8 oz (and 6" JB) I too also fished small lures for pickerel until not too long ago, but I've seen the light. It also was too windy to fish small lures. There was one guy fly fishing (trying to fly fish actually) who almost strangled himself with a WF 7 wt.

Get a room! (And maybe Netflix an academy award winning movie about getting intimate with a fish while you're in there..)

As if that were possible... Brings up an interesting issue for proponents of technique theory. As you can see from the original question and subsequent responses many confuse, or inter mingle technique with lure(s), as if they existed in exclusion of other possible combinations. I like to look at it as a continiuum rather than discreet independant items. But hey, whatever works.

The fish want lipless, give them lipless. JBs, squarebills, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, swim jigs, and plastics all have their place, depending on water temperature and conditions. I always like to start with a moving bait, and go to soaking plastic only if the fish want that. Its important to keep in mind that conditions can change quickly from day to day (and even hour to hour) so stay flexible. "Fish the fronts" was some of the best advise I was given a long time ago. In the early portion of the pre spawn fish often will be found in bunches or pockets, so you may need to look around, and then hunker down. This is one of my favorite times to fish.

Got out yesterday afternoon, and it was still pretty windy, but managed 6 big pickerel and one fat almost 4 lb LMB on a spinnerbait and JB, so that's good. I feel some big fish in the next couple of weeks, it's coming together nicely.

Always. I usually replace the skirt (or cut off the built in trailer strands) and wire it on, and add a rat tail (like a bass assasin) salt water 5"-7" trailer.

Adams class? Thank you for your service. Chipped and painted on 2 Spruance Class destroyers myself.

I haven't met anyone who's been happy with any of those combos, but that might just be because of the Mandela effect, or the flat earth...

All good advise above. The line and the rod are going to be key, the reel just needs to function. You can get a reel on Fleabay for very little money. Cabelas puts their rods and combos on sale quite often and are a good value, as are some of the BPS ones. A 6 wt is probably your best bet, but you can go up or down one wt depending on what flies you are casting most often. I have an old Abu 8 1/2 ft rod rated 5/6, that I really like using for trout, crappie, and the such, and I try to get out with it during the shell cracker spawn, that's really a goof.

I don't fish it for bass, but we use something like the OP is describing for other things. It's called a daisy chain, its just a bunch of hooks palomared or short dropper looped in a row, they can be from 6" to 12" (or so) apart, and you can optionally weigh either the first or last one.

This ^. I do my AR bearings like I do my rum and Cokes, The absolute minimum amount of ultra light coke, I mean oil.

Skunk, AND a limit. So I figured I would head out yesterday before this wind storm to catch a couple, and decided on a small pond not too far from me that I hadn't fished in a while, but has always been good. Well, I spent the better part of three hours without even the hint of a fish, not even a follow, wake, water bulge, nothing. I can't remember that ever happening there. There are pickerel, bass and crappie in there, so I weighed staying there a bit longer, but decided to head to another spot about 5 miles away. I hadn't planned on staying long, so I tied on a JB and a finesse spinnerbait, and I managed to catch 6 in about an hour, nothing big, but at least got an idea as to what was going on. Now I'm going back to the first place after this wind dies down, and Pepe Le Pew is in trouble. It's personal now.

I pack bearings with grease because I'm really bad with maintenance, and like that buttery solid feel rather than the hollow skateboard bearing feel, AND have the tools to pack and flush from the bike biz. spool bearings get crazy light oil of course. Even with salt water reels, I only do them every 3 years or so.

frogs 50 (at least), the other two 40.

It really depends on preference, and specific situations, there is no right or wrong rod. I use 6'6" through 7' most of the time for most things, but I always fish a popper with a 6' rod, a JB with a 6'6" to 6'9", and chuck and wind with a 7'. Larger baits, flipping and if I'm really looking to launch things, a 7'6". I'm only 5'8", and I always lean to the shorter rod for the job, and work my way longer as required by the situation.

Almost 4, or 12...

7' MH fast, 6'6" Med fast, 6'3'', spinning med fast. You can fish 95% of bass baits with these 3 or something similar.

A bunch of commercial blackfish (tautog) fishermen (and recs that want to look the part) from NY and NJ still use a sidewinder. These were the reel of choice in head boats in the north east from about the turn of the century to almost WW II. zero maintenance, or parts to fail.

Not sure what you have in mind, but "landing" a fish can mean a bunch of different things depending on the angler, the fish and the location. But to answer your question, taking a hand off the reel (or rod for that matter) isn't the cause of not landing fish in any significant way.

When I tell people I sell bikes, they get all excited and ask Harleys or crotch rockets?, so it's a thing in our industry. Oh, JB bite has been really good last few days, getting a bout a dozen a day in a couple of hours. Haven't found any real ones though.

No anti-reverse. The gears are always meshed, the spool turns, the handle turns, in either direction. Some of these type of reels had a leather pad to thumb the spool as a "drag".

Where will you be fishing, and what are you trying to catch?

Try not to hit any cyclists as you careen down the path on that Harley.