Lurking

I picked up one of these "Bass Pro Shops® Wally Marshall Pro Spinning Rod and Reel Combos" back in the spring when it was on sale. It's listed as $49, I think I paid $39. Its a nice little combo. The rod is very good for this price. I wasn't trilled with the reel at first, it worked fine, but just wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. This was easily resolved with a few drops of oil. After proper lubrication the reel worked much better and I still use it several times a week. I have been using this rig for lightweight lures (grubs, jigs, tubes, small flukes, etc) in pursuit of smallmouth in a stream close to my house. I have taken several smallies on it, most in the 14"-18" range and one that was almost 3 lbs. I use 20# power pro (6# dia) line. This is a fun way to fish man...good stuff and very addictive. Catching those stream smallies on lightweight gear is awesome. Overall I have been very satisfied and for the price I think it's an excellent value. I wasn't able to hyperlink it due to forum restrictions, but you can go to the basspro web site and put 38-951-926-00 into the search box. The result will be the combo that I am referring to in my post.

I use pretty much the same colors that I always use for bass fishing. For the jigs - white, chartreuse, black, blue and crawdad colors. For the trailers - green pumpkin, dark blue, shad and perl. This time of year in Kentucky with average water clarity or better I start with the redish-orange and black crawdad colored jigs with a dark blue glitter spec trailer. In muddier water I start out with a jig that is primarily white or chartreuse and a trailer that is perl or silver shad...

Your self control is to be commended...For some reason I spend $40 "just looking" in BPS. The checkbook really hates it when I make a planned trip where I actually NEED something. :-) I noticed your location is Indiana. Did you happen to go to the Clarksville (southern Indiana) store close to Louisville? There are some good bass fisherman working in the fishing section there. I spend far too many lunches in that store...

You have a good point about gear ratios and I agree with you that gear ratios are primarily used to sell more reels (this has been the trend). Gotta have that high speed reel! (at least this is what the marketing folks want you to think) When evaluating line retrieval rates of different models of reels, be sure to account for differences in listed line size and capacity. In the case of the Curado E5 and E7 spool capacity is listed as 10 lb./155 yd for both models. And according to Shimano the E5 will pickup 21" per handle turn whereas the E7 will pickup 30" per handle turn. So the E7 picks up roughly 30% more line per crank than the E5. Therefore the decision between the E5 and E7 should be based on the buyers intended usage of the reel in relation to line retrieval rates. Did you have a specific purpose in mind for this reel? In a perfect world I'd have a specific rod/reel combo for each type of technique/presentation that I was using. For example an E5 for cranking and an E7 for Senkos... If I had to choose just one of the two for all around use it would be the E7 for the reasons that I listed in my previous post. The fast line retrieval is great for fishing plastics and jigs. Also I can still use the reel for slower cranking (it's just a little tougher to maintain the slower reeling pace). Overall the E7 just has more versatility for my tastes... Either way you'll have a fine reel that will serve you well and provide plenty of fishing enjoyment.

Yup, what he said. I don't have the good fortune of being able to fish the great state of FL as often as I'd like, but in KY I've had luck using similar methods. Hookem' wacky style using o-ring (weightless), cast it out let it fall (twitch it if you like on the fall...or better yet have your wife call your cell phone, answer it and start a conversation during the initial fall, this is guaranteed to generate a strike, lol), once the lure hits bottom use the rod to move it along a few feet at a time, if you can get on top of some brush or foliage leave it for a while and twitch the heck out of it just like he said. Try to keep the Senko over underwater cover areas and experiment with the bait, slight raise/fall, twitch, jerk, etc (twitchin works best for me). I just use the normal dark colors such as green pumkin, motor oil, or black. Keep at it...you'll catch 'em!

definitely stock up on the BPS hooks (for example you can get 20-25 BPS hooks for $5-7 as opposed to 5-6 similar Gamy's for $3-5) ... I like BPS reels and rods as well...I like the Extreme reels and I really like the Pro Qualifier reels (those are some good reels). Also I use the Micro Lite rods (these are the most affordable rods I have found for light weight lures), the Extreme rods, the Graphite Series rods, and the Pro Qualifier rods. I always look through the BPS branded gear when shopping, if it looks to be good quality or similar to what I was shopping for I'll give it a try. More often than not I am pleasantly surprised with my purchases. I don't like the Stiko worms however, never caught a fish on one. I can be lightin' 'em up with a Senko, hook on a similar Stik-o and nothing. The Senkos feel softer and more fragile...also seems like they move a little different in the water. It's probably me and my lack of confidence in the bait more than anything as I know a lot of people have good luck with them. I wouldn't say I'm a BPS junkie or anything, I definitely love my Curado, my Ambassadeurs, my Berkley plastics, my Zoom plastics, my Rapalas and even my ugly stik rods (etc, etc, etc), but it seems like I end up spending more time than I should in that store. And as a result I talk myself into buying or trying various products. If nothing else stock up on some BPS hooks, you'll save some coin there.

I used to spend a lot of time thinking about this question. I have caught many fish on mono and many fish on braid w/fluro leaders, and many fish on straight braid. The best bass man I know fishes straight braid all the time no exceptions and this man always catches fish. Honestly I don't think it's ever made much difference which line config I've used. I decided to go with braided line w/mono leaders (of similar diameter) a while back and I've stuck with that decision. One of the main reasons I wanted mono was in case I needed to break the line. Breaking 30# braid is no fun...I keep a breaker handy to wrap the line around in case I need to break off, even with that the process can be downright dangerous. I always look down and try to protect the main areas, but a 1/4 oz. spinnerbait sizzling past your head at high speed makes me think twice about straight braid. My buddy that uses braid only just cuts line out when he's hung up like that. That defeats one of the main reasons I like the braids so much, it lasts a long time. So I use braid with clear mono leaders. Works for me...I don't worry about the line and focus on my techniques. I've seen the most improvements this way - from my improving my techniques, than from line.

e7 If you are fishing plastics for any extended time periods you'll appreciate the ability to take up slack in a hurry without working too hard. You can always slow it down if need be...just figure a cadence and pay attention to stick to it. Hard to beat that speedy line retrieve when fishing plastics though. Makes fishing plastics with slower reels undesirable...spoils a man that way.

Flukes, Senkos, Craws... And lately the smallies here have been crushing the little 2" tube baits. Got the tip from an older fellow in the WalMart fishing isle. Right before he left he said, "you know what really works good...these little tubes like this right here, this blue and white is a good color." It was a small 8 pack of 2" maxi-tails I think they were called, bright blue with white sparkle tails. I bought the little pack he had picked up and went to try them out that day. Rigged it up with a plain lead jig head. Second cast pulled in a 1.5# smallie... That was last Thursday and I thats the only bait I've used since :-). Getting lots of action on it...