SirSnookalot

Thanks for the well wishes Have had back issues for 40 years, never in the hip area. I stretch daily, my doc thinks it may be an age issue, parts wear out, finally found a dr I have faith in.

The one nice thing about a 10# bass is it's a rare catch. When I fish I want the biggest fish I can catch, I don't have pike down here but I have species I target that go well over 40". A lot of people down here fish for cuda because they are so good on the plate and pretty easy to catch the smaller ones. I don't keep them so I only target ones that have good chance of hitting that 50" mark, it doesn't happen all the time. If I want a real fight, not that cuda is a pansy I'm gong after kingfish and wahoo.

Mine too.

No knot is perfect, tie them enough and somewhere down the line it will fail, but it's rare. I happen to fish saltwater, have never seen anyone use the FG. Not debating whether it's a good knot, but it's not a practical knot for me. IMO it would take too much time and effort to tie it in the dark or on a boat being bounced around. The Albright/Alberto can easily be tied in those conditions. I don't need the strongest knot, I only need a knot that holds. My Albright seems to hold tarpon and big jacks just fine, especially for bass fishing the FG would be way over kill for me.

In my entire working career I have never taken 1 day off due to an injury. I have played golf on crutches, bowled after being run over by an outdoor tandem hi-lo, and have gone fishing when I could barely walk. It's been a week since I've had a rod in my hand, or been out of the house except to see the doctor. Started off 3 weeks ago, I went to Arizona/California/Mexico, actually was feeling better then did some striper fishing in the Colorado River. Fell down on the tram in the Dallas airport on the way back home, my lower back has been in pain since then. I did fish everyday once I got home for a couple of hours until about a week ago, caught a few nice snook. Pain has not subsided but I'm starting to get little flexibility, hope to be back in action by the end of the week, if my wife doesn't kill me first.

Never saw that program, I like to watch Naked and Afraid. Would I do it, haha not a chance in the world.

I'm from Michigan, spent a few years at school in Kentucky, hard to believe those people could understand each other. After a couple of years I picked up that drawl, now I sounded like an idiot spewing out those ridiculous y'awls. Once I got back to civilization attending the Univ. Of Mich, my speech returned back to normalcy........happy days here again. Think a muskie has teeth, try a kingfish or wahoo.

Not a bad product at all.

As long as the spoon goes thru the water clean with out picking up vegetation, it can be used any time on any body of water.

None really. All that's needed is tape on the spool to prevent slipping, backing is fine if the objective is to use less braid as the man line.

We call those little ones peanut dolphin, they're a lot of fun.

Many of the knot threads deal with diameter and strength of joining knots. Don't notice knots like a palomar, loopknot, clinch and improved clinch giving people near as many fits. The improved clinch knot in the video didn't appear to be tied all that well. One reason people use FC is for stealth, the weld didn't look to be very stealthy. Takes but a few seconds to crimp line, the welder even at the speed of an eye blink time saved is minimal. I will say different line sizes requires different crimping sleeves, I'll give the welder a slight nod. However is the welder going to work with wire leaders, as no mention was made probably not. Fish are caught from less than pound to well over a 100 using nothing but an ordinary clinch to attach a hook or lure, pull thru is rare and simply singeing the tag end is a good preventative. The bass fisherman in the video addresses the issue of tying many knots, lots of bass fisherman have a bevy of rods already tied up, when they change lures quite often are using something like a duolock. It's a cute little toy but that's all it is, a toy. Well tied knots already have a proven track record, if the item is still around in a couple of years (which I doubt) I'll check it out then. In the meantime I'm not loosing any fish because my hook or lure knot is failing.

Buy one now, in 6 months they will be out of business.

I have an older Clarus, fishes much lighter than it's rated. Not a bad thing as long as I know how it fishes, one of my favorite bass rods.

If one has never been cut off one is not doing very much fishing and has been pretty lucky. I get cut off all the time, I generally don't use wire as I feel I get way less strikes.

Heavier or stronger? 15# braid is lighter than a 20# leader but every bit as strong if not stronger. 1 reason I use a heavier leader is when bank fishing, it's much easier to drag, flip or pick up a heavy fish with a stronger leader. That applies to saltwater as well. Landing a fish from a boat IMO is easier, I'm pulling fish out of cover not into thicker cover and ground brush. I have the luxury of running the fish down with the boat, or approaching where the fish is wrapped around something, can't do that from the bank, I probably have a net with me on the boat. I unlodge some of my snags by snapping the bow, I'm going to have less lure break offs with a stronger leader. With age knots become more difficult to tie with a thinner leader.

If I had pike and muskie is South Florida you bet I'd be targeting them, I like catching all kinds of fish. I have a good variety down here.

A barrel or crane swivel is only a leader connector, they do next to nothing to reduce line twist. Strength is an issue that IMO one should not be concerned with, even small swivels are rated 40 or 50#. How many fish are that big and can pull out that kind force, not many. I tie line to leader, leader to lure which does keep me from changing my lure too often. As Rolo mentioned "For spoons that make a full revolution, which calls for a Sampo ball-bearing swivel," I 100% agree. Only 2 situations where I use swivels, no snap/swivels, both are saltwater. Briefly, when drifting offshore having an egg weight sitting on top of a swivel, then attaching a leader to hook is very common set up. Secondly I use a lure that does constantly rotate, I make the lures with a ball chain swivel the I attach the lure with a 40# BB swivel to my main line. The smaller swivel incorporated with a different braid I'm using, yields much less line twist than I used to get. I'm using the same braid (10#) for bass fishing with no swivel and again my line twist has been greatly reduced, I use a lot of in line spinners too. To answer the question, use a swivel or not, that's a personal decision.

I don't think the issue in many private lakes and ponds is C & R. Getting permission from 1 home owner to fish is fine, if it's only behind their home, other home owners may not want you behind theirs. I live in a controlled community with 6 ponds, they don't care about the fishery. What they care about is theft and it happens from time to time. It's just too easy to "case" a house out where the homeowner is on vacation or a snowbird gone for many months. We have a lot of workmen here, landscapers, cable company, utility workers, handymen and repair companies, enough to be concerned about.

I get a kick out of it too. I stated early in this thread my knot success was around 98% in SW and better in fresh, I'm not complaining. I'm not perfect and quite capable of being hasty resulting in a faulty knot. Not pitting 1 knot against another, the Alberto and Albright get tighter with more pressure like the Chinese fingercuff. One can make an argument for a thinner knot, the Albright is thin enough for me. The times when my knots unravel is usually during a cast and not with a fish on. I fish spinning, my lines and leaders for the most part are on the light side. A 5# bass is not my everyday bass, most are much smaller. I just don't see the pressure being put on lines and knots from sub 5# fish. I do target fish that are bigger that are considerably bigger than 5#, now I'm using 15 or 20# braid with 20 or 30# leader. These fish are capable of making some significant runs, as long as the fish is running and pulling line the knots will hold just fine. I don't need the strongest knot there is I just need to tie it right.

Berries............ficus I hear work very well.

I have had line get caught on the spindle quite a few times, but not with my supremes. It's happened on a couple of my Abu Sorons until I changed my casting style. It seemed to happened when I had wind in my face and the braid blew back and got caught while I started to crank. What I do now is cup the line as it's traveling out, then lift rod before cranking, eliminates loops too. The only problem I had on my 3 supremes is on just 1 of them, my 25. The line stacks low on the spool, just spool it up with less line, still have more than enough as I use braid. My most used is my 30, I keep in my car and probably use it 300 times a year, 5+ years and still going strong. Don't seem to understand the symetre's drag being underpowered. Using the same line diameter on both a supreme and symetre a drag set at 2# is 2# regardless off the reel being used. 1 reel may have a smoother drag, that doesn't make it less or more powerful. I'm not defending the symetre, I'm a Pflueger man.

Fish 300+ times a year with several rods and knot failure is going to happen. Even the most perfect looking knots sometimes loosen up, it's happened to me before and it will again. If I'm not mistaken an Alberto is wraps in both directions, an Albright is straight up and nothing down. I use 6-8 wraps up with nothing down, varies on my line and leader diameters. If I could pull a statistic out of the sky I would say my success is close 98% in saltwater and freshwater I think better. My SW set up is 15# braid/20# leader and 20# braid/30# leader, fresh 10#/ 10 or 15# leader.

My surf fishing is done south of the nipple, the waters are a bit different, don't really have breakers to speak of. I've done some bait fishing but I'm really artificial user. The trough (swash) refers to the gap between waves, fairly close in to shore. Although pompano can be caught in deeper water, generally they are pretty close to shore. Not one of your bigger fish but highly sought after for the plate, sand fleas are an excellent bait. A sand flea is a little crab, you might catch a permit IMO one the great inshore fish. Using bait off the beach you are still going to need enough lead to hold bottom, the further out the more current and deeper the water. The 10 % of the water is never constant, it changes with the tide and the bait coming into the area. I have seen differences in as little a few hundred yards on the same beach. This is one reason (other than just liking it better) that I use artificial, I'm always walking and looking for fish. People always talk structure in freshwater, it's on the beach as well, I'd really call it more contour. I like to find "pockets" of slightly deeper water, they can hold bait and fish, not constant as the tide is always moving. I know people have misconceptions about saltwater, it's not always a fish a cast, and fish aren't always big. Many species school by size, if I'm catching 1-2# fish I'm moving to find bigger fish, it does backfire sometimes I find smaller or no fish. I know you want to fish bait, I would suggest a rod spike (rod holder), bait almost always produces something.

Not uncommon to have a school of bull sharks circling a boat with a catch on, barracuda are notorious for cutting blue runners in half. We had a bonita on line, a cuda hits and a split second later a bull cuts the cuda in half. Yes it can but how long is too long. Most bass even when played are still landed well under a minute, I think they are hardier than many people give them credit. Many inshore species I catch are similar size to bass, they are landed within 60 seconds too for the most part, they swim off pretty frisky. Occasionally it takes many minutes to land a fish, sometime those fish don't fare as well. When a lengthy battle does take place horsing one in could drastically reduce the success of landing it.