Fishes in trees

OK, for me these are definitely two different rods - because these are two baits that I have tied on nearly all the time. I don't throw Strike King Red-eye Shads because I prefer an old half ounce Berkley Frenzy lipless crank. Weight and action of these two baits is very similar. I have a Falcon Bucco 7' Trap Caster paired with a Calcutta 250 TEGT. I love this rod. Paired with the 10 ball bearing reel, I can throw half ounce lipless cranks a long ways AND be very confident that when I get bit 10' from where the bait landed, I'm confident that I can set the hook and land the fish from 100+ feet away. Most of the square bills that I throw are around half an ounce and, once again, I'm undecided as to what rod I like better for throwing that bait. I have an old 7'4" BPS Extreme that I like quite a bit, however it doesn't fit in my inside the truck rod rack quite as well as the 7' All Star Graphite cranking rod. I have an old Bud Erhardt 7' graphite cranking rod that I'd put into the rotation in a second, if the guides weren't messed up. I got a new All Star crank rod from Academy (on close out, the purple one) and it hasn't seen water yet, got to decide what reel. Yeah, the jury is currently out again on what square bill rod is going to start next season.

These are questions that your state conservation department would answer. Find out who the guy is who is responsible for reservoir health in the neighborhood you want to fish in. (I ask this because in Missouri, there are 5 or 6 different districts and different guys in each district are asked with overseeing various different conservation lakes and strip pits in their region. I know that if you can catch these guys at their desk, on a day when they aren't out in the field, they will talk your arm off about lake health, and you'll never go to a lake again without noticing different things. Water clarity, depth and vegetation are just a part of it, there is quite a bit more. Me, I don't fish strip pits that often, primarily because they seldom have decent ramps, but I feel if you've fished one, you've fished most of them. It makes a difference if they are fed by streams, from ground water percolating from beneath, or just watersheds, filled from collecting rain water. Really deep strip pits have virtually no life beyond a certain depth, mostly due to dissolved oxygen levels in the water. Most strip pits have a thermocline and fishing beneath the thermocline seldom is productive. When strip pits were built, they had to have a way to get the machines in and out. That is the key - find that ledge that was previously a ramp and that is your path way from shallow water to deep water. The way it was explained to me in the late 70's - early 80's at the old Bass Fishing Institute seminars was to think of strip pits a miniature canyon reservoirs - actual fish holding structure will be limited - moreso in watersheds that aren't refreshed by a stream in-flow. There is a whole lot more to figuring out if a strip pit is worth your time fishing, the easiest way is to call the Conservation department and ask.

Unless it is going to be a furniture piece in your man cave I wouldn't bother to clean it up. Go to a fabric store or a hobby store like Michaels or Hobby Lobby, get some felt and a hot clue gun. Felt come in different thicknesses. Probably have to experiment to get the correct thickness of felt. Looking at the design, is it a rod only rack or a rack for rod & reel combos? Picture looks like it is catching the rod right where the reel would hang. Are the rods supposed to go inside or outside the brace? Anyway, looks to me like it would be a rod only rack. Option B might be to screw little eye rings into the supports, at the level of the notches and use a small bungee to keep the rods upright. I guess it depends on ho you're going to use it and how often you'll be pulling rods out or putting rods in the rack. I'm one to talk, rod storage in my fishing shed it a mess, on my list to improve this winter, no clue as to if it will get done or not.

Good luck. I haven't seen any decent used Express boats in Missouri. Seems to me that most of the guys who buy that boat like it and keep it.

Lots of guys have different ideas on what constitutes a decent spinnerbait rod. If it works for you, that's all that matters.

The rule of thumb for purchasing bait casting reels is to buy the best quality that you can afford. For bait casters, I'm a Shimano guy, so I'll tell you to buy Shimano. Diawa guys and Lew's guys will tell you different. Main thing is what are you going to use it for. Are you going to throw reaction baits, like spinner baits, crank baits, chatter baits, etc? Are you going to throw "feel baits" like soft plastics & jigs? I like my Curado 50 and Chronarch 50 for throwing soft plastics & jigs. I'd never use them for throwing reaction baits, not enough line capacity. By the same token, I'd never use my Curado D for jigs & worms, because that reel holds more line that I need for those techniques. Figure out what you're going use your bait caster for and that will make it easier to figure out which one to get.

How deep are your pockets? Go over to tin boats.com and ask this same question. Get ready to spend some money. You can spend some money and have a serviceable electric lake only boat. You can spend a lot of money and have the coolest electric only boat on the lake. How do you like to fish? Are you one of those guys who will pick apart a small area prior to moving on? Do you like to move and fish different spots? Once you find a pattern do you fish it til it stops or do you move around the lake, trying to replicate it elsewhere? Answering these questions about how you prefer to fish will help some to determine how you need to rig your boat. For instance, if you like to run & gun, and you only got 12 volt power, you're going to get bugged sooner or later about how long it takes to get from place to place.

trying to feel your pain, but just can't - I just can't make myself buy a rod over the internet. I have to go to the store and touch and feel it. I realize that this means that there are some brands of rods that I will never have access to. Oh well, life goes on. I understand that if I live somewhere that had much more limited access to fishing gear at brick & mortar stores than I do I'd probably change my tune. But I don't so I'll live with my internet rod purchase phobia.

I wouldn't burden the child with sub par gear. Buy the spinning rod that you'd buy for yourself. On the subject of reels, nothing wrong with 1000 size reels. I'm gradually going back to that side and away from the 2000 and 4000 sizes. They are just lighter and easier to fish with. I've never felt over matched when I've stuck fish using my 1000 size mid to low price range. ($50 to $110 or so ) Shimano and Pflueger reels. Get a decent spinning rig & take care of it and it will last a long time. Get one that you can borrow from him, if you need/want to..

My Christmas present to myself last year was a Curado 150 DC. Due to circumstances not worth mentioning here, I didn't get to fish with it this past season as much as I would have liked to. I bought it to throw half ounce spinner baits. Previous reels that I've used to throw spinner baits would include a regular Calcutta, a Calcutta 250 TEGT, Curado 200 E, the wider spool Curado D and a Calais. I've got to say that I get significantly better distance with the Curado DC. Not the 30 to 40 feet that some reviews hype, but a solid 15 to 20 feet further, with no extra "oomph" on my part. Not sure if I'll get another one soon or not, but that reel has helped out my spinner bait game. As a frame of reference, I've owned bait casters since the mid 80's, in the late 90's I settled on Shimano, mostly.

Currently, my choice for walking baits like Spooke & Sammies is a 6' Medium Action, straight cork handle, extra fast tip All Star rod that I got on sale at Academy. I like shorter rods for this bait, so that I can kinda snap the rod tip straight down and not smack it on the side of the boat.

When I got seriously into bass fishing ( mid 70's - post college - when I had a modest amount of disposable income to play with), I knew about plastic worms, tried them now and again, but just couldn't get bit on them regularly ( 99% farm pound fishing ). The bait that got me addicted, that convinced me that I could go get dinner out of nearly any farm pond my truck could get to, was a pork bait. The #11 pork frog, split tail eel, twin tail, later the flipping frog, these were the baits that worked for me. At the time, MUCH more consistent action than any soft plastic I was aware of. I used them mostly as swim baits fishing them deep enough that I occasionally touched the bottom, but not so slow and deep that I got hung up. It was later, when Fishing Facts magazine finally convinced me to try Brewer Slider worms, that I got into soft plastics. Baitcasters and serious gear addiction came a few years after that, once I got consistent access to a boat.

For a number of reasons, I ain't a fan of throwing jerk baits with bait casters, however I you're going to try it I'd pop for a Curado 150 DC, which is a little more than your stated budget, but reels last for a long time and over that longer time, that $50 or so extra becomes negligible.

Sure, why not? I've done this, on occasion, during the winter, when there is little else to do. In my mind I think that the plastic coated craft wire that you get from Michaels or Hobby Lobby is better, because it maybe is less likely to rust, but I don't know that. I also know that there isn't any plastic coating on the end of the wire where I cut it, so why wouldn't it rust there. Various plastic coated wire colors are available, so if you wanted to use a disguised color that option is available and if you wanted a spot of color, like red or orange, that option is available also.

Regarding the suggestion of the 10 mg of Valium - I'd suggest something more herbal. On the need to go slow, I'd say maybe yes, maybe no. I remember back in my bank bound meat fishing days, late into the fall and very early spring, right after ice out - speed was often the ticket. My plan was to be as close to the bottom as possible without getting hung up in the muck & stuff that likely was present. A Mann's Little George worked sometimes - take that half ounce chunk of lead with the tail spinner - chuck it as far as you could & bring it back as fast as you could, keeping it as deep as you could without getting hung up. Sometimes a 1/4 or 3/8 oz ball head jig with a 3" curly tail grub - white or purple or chartreuse worked better. Or you could try "polishing the bottom" with a Brewer Slider head.

Not a clue - never seen anything even similar - very cool looking lures though. I'd never fish them, they belong in a display box somewhere

Begging the question, casting what? Believe it or don't but different rods cast different weights and different baits differently. Leading off, those are both similar rods from good companies, question is what do you want it to do AND how much money you got AND what kind of reel are you planning to put on it. Are you throwing reaction baits or "feel" baits? By feel baits, I mean baits that you don't just cast & retrieve, more of a cast and "feel" bait back to the boat, counting on the information that the rod sends you when & if to set the hook. Good feel rods will tell you quite a bit about the quality & contents of the bottom once you learn how to interpret. How heavy are the intended baits? Some rods handle lighter baits better than others. Falcon, for instance, makes several different 7' rods, that are all kinda MH, with different tip actions, lust in the low rider series alone. Seems to me that Fenwick does also. I think that setting some parameters on what you'd like the rod to do will let you make a more informed choice. If cost is an issue, I think that Fenwick rods, comparing the HMG line to the Lowrider line, will be a little less expensive and probably weigh a little bit more. Maybe rod weight is an issue for you, maybe not. It is always an issue for me. The weight of the reel that you're going to put on this rod makes a difference also. The weight of the reel will seriously effect the balance of the rod, again, which might make a difference or might not.

If you're dead set on a bait casting reel - go Shimano. For a long time, back in the day, I was bank bound and I realized that bait casting reels in that situation more often were more trouble than they were worth. Per haps you're better at using your bait caster than I was at the time, but I got caught up on lots of stuff behind me as I was drawing the tip back getting ready to throw it forward. I had to buy a lot of cheap mono due to snags on the back cast. I also started carrying a machete, to cut away some of the stuff behind me prior to fishing a spot. These days, that wouldn't be as much of an issue because I know how to pitch and keep the bait & rod in front of me at all times - didn't know that then. When I was bank bound, longer 6 1/2 and 7" spinning rods (not especially common then ) allowed me to parallel the bank easier, but the best tool was a pair of hip waders, that got me off the bank and made throwing a swim jig parallel to a row of cat tails much easier. Even today, if someone told me I was going pond fishing, no boat, and could only take a few rods, I'd be grabbing spinning gear and leave the bait casting stuff on the bench. Why didn't I use a spinner bait to learn bait casting, you ask? Probably the easiest bait to learn to throw on a bait caster, outside of a lipless crank. Basically, I didn't believe in them at the time. It took getting access to a boat AND getting spanked by buddies who did understand spinner baits several times before I considered throwing them.

Hijacking the topic for a sentence or two, I feel good, that I've got more boxes of jerk baits than A-Jay does. Truth be told though, I have a strict one bait per slot rule, mostly to keep the paint jobs on the baits as pristine as possible. I don't have any problem at all buying another box whenever I need another one to accommodate my jerk bait collection. Back on topic - I haven't drank the Vision 110 Kool- Aid yet, mostly for fiscal reasons. Lucky Strike came out with some copy cat baits a few years ago and I have a dozen or so of them. I haven't gotten them wet yet, mostly because 90% of the time when I'm choosing to throw a jerk bait, I'm throwing a Lucky Craft Pointer in the Table Rock Shad color. The other 10 % of the time I might be throwing a Husky Jerk, one of the many iterations of the Rogues that are out there, maybe a Bomber Long A or a Cottom Cordell Red Fin. Fishing buddies who have drank the Kool-Aid tell me that the Megabass baits are better. This hasn't caused any major self esteem issues yet, but with winter coming on and no doubt I'll have plenty of time to think about how to upgrade my jerk bait game, I might have to buy some. Of course, I'll keep with the program of one bait - one slot, so I'll have to get more boxes as well.

Does it have to be 7'3"? A few years ago I got a 7' Medium Action Berkley Lightning Rod for $50 at Academy Sports and it is a great square bill rod. I would think that there are hundreds of rods out there that fit your needs & price range.

Dividing up your rod & reel budget is simple. Step A - buy a rod or reel that you like ( doesn't matter which comes first) Step B - buy the other part next (This step does matter, if you're looking for a reel, don't buy another rod, or visa versa) Step C - remember that you're going to have to put line on the reel and allow for that in your budget. Step D - Repeat steps A, B & C. Should it happen that you budget well runs dry for a while, stop, save up for a while and then start in again. Know that as you get a little farther along in this process, it is ok to switch steps. Should you wander into a store and they have several discounted rods that you "need", feel free to buy them all. If you come across a "bargain" reel and you don't have a rod for it right now, don't fret, go ahead and buy the reel and sooner or later a rod will come along that fits it, or fits it well enough until a better rod comes along. There you go, see how simple budgeting rod & reel finances can be? Glad I could help. Once you get to between 20 and 40 rigs, you might feel the need to quit - DON'T - always be mindful that some better stuff might be coming out next year or maybe later this year, and you will probably want to buy some.

Hey now, there are wore lines than Suffix out there. I remember the 14/40. What a genius idea, an oval line that would "lay flatter" on the spool. If only you could get a bait to never spin while you're retrieving it or spin during the cast, it would have worked perfectly. My personal nemesis is P line. I don't like anything about it, too many bad experiences with it. I wouldn't use it for anything, not even handing picture frames.

Something about putting a swivel in front of a ChatterBait,or any other bladed jig, seems like a bad idea.

Totally agree - everyone needs a set of small precision screw drivers. Might as well get a couple of sets, so that one stays at your work bench, one stays in the boat where you might need it from time to time. I keep another set in my home office desk, just so that I don't have to go looking for the set when I start to fiddle with something at my desk. While you're at it, might as well get a set of small precision pliers, both needle nose (straight and angled ), flat crimpers and so forth. Several sets, stashed next to the small drivers, will save time when you go to look for them. While you're at it, a few pairs of small vise grips come in handy from time to time, . . .. there isn't any end to how many tools you "need".

There is a time and a place for each of the three baits mentioned. I wouldn't get rid of them.