Jrob78

We've been in a world wide pandemic since ICAST 2019, hopefully things will pick back up this year.

I really love glass or composite for sq bills. I have 2 rods I throw sq bills with, one is glass and one is composite, about 2/3's of the rod in the butt section is graphite and the last 1/3 at the tip is glass. Neither are rods that are available today but plenty of companies make 7' Med glass and those should be awesome for 1.5 size sq bills and so much fun to fish.

I have the 7'3" MH Adrena but I don't have a ton of time with it yet. In my short use I find it to be a very versatile rod. I've used it for lighter t-rigs, Flukes and Senkos, it's fast enough to handle those but I don't think this rod would be great for anything very heavy, like jigs. I also feel like the mod fast action would be awesome for chatterbaits, spinnerbaits and traps but I haven't tried those yet. Overall the rod is light and sensitive and I'm happy with the purchase.

The X-Bites is a true bottom contact rod. It's fast, light and very sensitive. To me a 1/4oz t-rig to a 3/8oz jig and trailer are in it's wheelhouse. I haven't used it with anything heavier than that but it doesn't do well going much lighter. It is definitely not a moving bait rod. I haven't fished that particular Expride but I would imagine the X-Bites is faster and more powerful. If you need a true MH bottom contact rod the X-Bites is a great choice.

The original meaning of OG is original gangster. These days in this context it just means the original or first in a line of something.

I've got several OG Zillions, an OG Fuego, a Sol, a couple of Alphas, and Curado D's and E's still in my lineup. Those reels work just as well now as they did then if taken care of. Love that Coastal! I never had one of those.

I've been carrying a knife everyday since I was 16 or 17. I'm a big Spyderco fan, lately I've been carrying a Chaparral but I have a pretty large rotation.

I use Bass Assassin Shad Assassin and Flukes for fishing fast close to the surface and D Shad or Caffeine Shad for dead sticking and fishing deeper.

I would go with the 5.8 or the Curado 300k in 6.6

The 1 in Shimano model numbers indicate left hand retrieve. RH is 300, LH is 301.

I love fluoro for all bottom contact baits and a few other random techniques and I use braid for topwaters, pitching/punching vegetation and frogs. There is no way I would use either for big swimbaits. 20-30lb mono or copoly will give you the least amount of trouble and the lowest chance for random break offs.

The term "BFS" refers to casting gear only. What's your budget? There are several ways you can go at different price points. You can use a bfs specific reel or use a drop in spool for non bfs reels. The rod may be more important than the reel though. Without the proper rod your reel won't make much difference.

I can't help you with why it's happening but if anyone finds it happening a lot you can always smash down the barb and keep needle nose pliers close by. Learn the "through the gill" method and hopefully you can release some of those fish back relatively unharmed.

Same for me. If I fish a reel faster than a 6 for moving baits it's harder for me to keep it as slow as I need to go. Speeding up is easy, slowing down is tougher for me. I do fish 7's and 8's for bottom contact baits, pitching, frogs, etc.

This is what they mean in this case. What everyone has said about the actions, lengths and powers of JDM rods is 100% dead on but I think the appearance is generally what they mean in this context, especially in lower tier rods. Fancy reel seats, locking nuts, grips, winding checks and woven carbon fiber on the blank are generally "JDM style."

Yep, JDM is the only way to go right now.

The HD is next on my list but I need to make sure I can swap gears for a slower ratio. If not a 7:1 will do.

That's crazy, I didn't know they did that anywhere when these mag capacity laws went into effect. Oh well, at least you can sleep easier at night knowing criminals in NY don't have high cap mags now. ? I live in TX so my outlook on things is definitely a little different than yours, which is a shame.

I do throw all of those baits and weights on casting gear. I'm not missing out on any techniques by not using spinning gear.

I won't comment on the political side of this but if they impose a magazine capacity limit it will be on new magazines going forward. All old magazines will still be legal and grandfathered in. I have a lot of magazines for everything I own but I'm thinking about stocking up now for guns I don't own yet but might buy in the future.

I have a bunch of newer reels but my favorite is still probably the OG Zillion. I have several and I love using them. The new Zillion is definitely moving up the list though, awesome reels.

I usually use 20lb fluoro mainline to 12-16lb mono leader.

The Hook Up Tackle actually commented on one of their Sleeper Gill videos, in the comment section, that they wouldn't get more until fall and a tackle reviewer on YT said the same, although who knows where he heard it. Thanks for the heads up @RDB

I'm hearing they did one big run of Sleeper Gills and there won't be any more until the fall. If you find some, buy them!

I don't know why people get so defensive about this specific topic, happens every time. I only fish for fun and spinning gear just isn't that fun to me, so I don't use it. There aren't any techniques that I can't comfortably fish with the casting gear I own. I also wouldn't tell anyone my way is the right way, it's just the way I like to do it. Use what works for you.