Fishes in trees

Forty one pounds of spare plastics isn't really all that much. The way to look at it is either it is a testimony to poor soft plastic choices, and that is why they are still sitting around, OR it is a testimony to your foresight and wisdom, accumulating forty one pounds of spare soft plastics that you use frequently, thus immunizing yourself, kinda, from any future soft plastic droughts or close outs. Now, don't think about yourself. What about all the soft plastic companies, who are duty bound to continue to churn out more soft plastic fish bait. Consider it your duty to purchase some of those soft plastics. A couple of reasons - 1 - the newer plastics might be a unique design that will help you catch more fish and - 2- you're doing your part to keep the soft plastics industry afloat in these trying times.

I'm not certain what a "calories" rig is. Do you mean Carolina rig?

How else are you going to know how a reel feels on any particular rod?

Just an aside to the prior poster who couldn't catch a cold using a spinner bait or chatter bait. You're not doing it right. The way to catch a cold while throwing a spinner bait is to not wear enough warm/windproof clothes and then go throw the spinner bait in 45 degree weather. If you just od that one thing, you'll catch a cold nearly every time..

I have a Curado E. I don't use it very often but I like it. I have a 7'9" Fenwick AETOS rod that I use to throw A-Rigs with. I don't have any experience with the Diawa reel so I can't speak to that. I imagine it is a pretty good reel. Most of the DIawa reels I've handled have been pretty good reels. I've just been a Shimano guy for the past couple of decades ( at least as far as bait casters are concerned ) and that's unlikely to change. If it is in any way possible/fiscally sensible to upgrade to the TranX - I'd do that.

I'm not a big fan of designating a rig " multi purpose". Here's my take - let the rigs you already got be your " multi-purpose" rigs. What is your favorite way to fish? Jigs/soft plastics? Reaction Baits? The point here is that $300 more or less , is a nice chunk of change to get a good rig. Spend that on your strength - on how you like to fish the best. If you like "feel" baits, like jigs & soft plastics you could do worse than the advice a few posts earlier. The Falcon Amistad is a great rod and I want one, in my case other boat issues are going to come first this year. By the way, should your Falcon rod break after the warranty period is over, they have a very fair replacement rod policy that I've taken advantage of several times, when their rods have broken due to operator error. My point is don't get a rig that will kinda do a bunch of chores ok - get a rig that will do how you like to fish the best very well. You 'll be happier in the long run. Next year get another one, then on down the road - get more. Take care of your stuff and sooner or later you'll have a kit of excellent rods - without any compromise on " multi-purpose". This doesn't always have to cost a bunch of money, either. I came across my current favorite chatter bait rod in a pawn shop in Warsaw, MO - I stop by that store maybe every other year. I came across my current favorite pitching rod in the close out rack at Academy Sports - $50 more or less. For me - rod bargains happen much more frequently than reel bargains. Seems like I never come across reel close outs at a significant savings, but that addiction is a different story . . .

This is why I can't buy rods over the internet, unless I'm replacing one, or getting another one like I've already got. I feel the need to handle and touch the different rods, just to try and figure out where it will fit in the scheme of things within the rod collection. I've never spend more than $200 for a rod, that being said, should my fiscal situation change for the much better, I'd have an arsenal of ultra high end Loomis, Megabass, St Croix, etc. Being vigilant, I check bargain bins quite a bit and I've found some treasures there. I won't drive by a pawn shop without sticking my face in and seeing what kind of tackle is available. My most recent "find" was when the local Dick's store in Liberty decided to get out of the tackle business for ever and ever. There was a 7' MH Field & Stream rod with a $10 sticker on it. Liked the action and how light the rod was, but didn't like the handle.. For $10 I thought I could get to like the handle so I got it. At least maybe I had a back up rod, something to trade. One day sitting in the shop, it occurred to me that I could "fix " it, so I cut 6" or so off the handle, now that rod is my current favorite wacky senko rod. Action wise, I haven't found any rod that is similar. Cutting off 6" of the handle turned it from a clunker into a sweet handling rod that packs well in my Ford Explorer. It just "skips good" and with this rig I'm just confident that I can skip a bait pretty much where ever I want to.

I think it just makes sense to take care of your gear and not torture it unnecessarily. I want my fishing rods to be happy, to want to serve, when I call them into action to help me catch a fish. Being kind of a junk fisherman, who mostly fishes by myself, I generally carry many different rigs 15 to 20, mostly rigs to cover a certain circumstance that I might encounter. I worry about my rods not getting used enough. Overall, on a good year I won't break any rods. I've had several of those years. On worse years, I might break a rod or two or three. Pretty much every time it is operator error, don't think that I've ever had a rod break due to any manufacturing defect.

Years ago, I had something similar happen at a couple of different early spring tournaments, early in the morning. Reel magic stops that. Liberally spray the guides & the line and that makes it less likely to ice over. Not 100% guaranteed but it worked for me. The only reason it worked for me was a guy at the tournament meeting the night before told me " Your guides might ice up tomorrow morning and if you spray them down with reel magic it helps " I never would have thought of it.

Going fishing with just 2 jigs - you're either supremely confident or just misguided. Leading off, have at least 6 or 12 of each color. The basic rule of thumb is that when you've got many jigs, they tend to last and should you lose one, you're not out much. If you only have a few jigs, or just one, it is pretty much a guarantee that the lake bottom/structure/cover will know that and will eat it.

For me, what color jig depends on what kind of jig and how deep is the water and how deep are you planning on fishing. Football head? Finesse jig? Swim jig? Arky style pitching jig? Some other style pitching/dragging jig? Biffle Bug jig head & soft plastic? Some other jig head with soft plastic tx rigged? Is a jika rig a jig or does it. have its own category? I was going to write about color selection and having a common reference about water color and how water color might or might not affect color selection and that is why everyone should carry a secchi disc. But it is 11am and I just got up and I'm getting ready to go to work and this seems like at least a 2 IPA project and that ain't happening now. Maybe later. Anyway, the first paragraph is how I generally start my musings about what color to throw today. Secchi discs are relatively easy to come by. You can either buy one or make one. I made mine & it works fine.

I remember seeing them and I probably would have bought some if they came in smaller sizes at the time. Remembering seeing these baits in fishing shops reminds me that I was toward the end of my meat fishing bush hippie period. I threw Brewer Slider worms 90% of the time and the rest of the time I threw a 1/8 oz crappie jig with a #11 pork frog - either brown or black or green & white spots. At the time it never would have occurred to me to buy the electric blue worms and cut them down. I never did think that electric blue was a particularly good color and at the time I didn't really believe the guys who said that it was. Even now, I carry many different colors of soft plastics, in a variety of shapes, and there are lots of different colors & shapes I will try before I try that electric blue color.

If you're aware of a hit when you're fishing braid on a slack or semi-slack line, does it matter if you felt it or saw it? No, seriously folks, I've always thought that part of the charm of braid is that when you let the line go slack/semi-slack, was that you saw the strike/ line move much sooner than you felt it through the rod. Kinda like using a strike indicator when you're trout fishing. I can't count the number of times I've thrown a jerk bait 80 to 100 feet - jerk, jerk, her, - stop. At that point the bait is maybe 6 feet closer to you and the line is slack/semi-slack. But all the braid is underwater, except where it exits the water close to your rod tip. At that point, you don't wait to feel any bite, you just look at the line and any twitch or anything unnatural - you just tighten up and drive the hooks home. To me, that's sensitive line because I saw bite indication prior to feeling it.

Looks like I use more than a few old lures. It has been at least ten years since I've bought any shad raps or shallow shad raps, but I keep a kit of a dozen or so of each in the boat. I have 10 pre- Rapala Wiggle Warts in a different box. In my top water box I have a 4 Sammies and a couple of clear spooks. The Sammies date to 2008 or so and the clear spooks date to a decade or so before that. I still have some titanium frame Terminators and they've been discontinued for a while now. How long has Berkley Powerbait been on the market? I still use the Berkley Powerbait 6" & 10" worms. It has been at least 5 years since I've bought any jerk baits, but I have around a hundred in reserve so I'm good on those for a while, it appears. So the only new thing I'm going to need right now is some line. No new rods are on the horizon - if I have a "poor me" moment, maybe another Curado 150 DC is in my future Looks like I will be using baits from the archives for the next couple of years - right now I have different fishing needs and new baits aren't a priority. This spring new trolling motor, new trolling motor batteries, maybe a new on board charger, maybe a new bow depth finder, total re-wiring on the boat trailer are current priorities.

3/4 oz weight and 10 lb line - Do you really have to go so light one your line? Seems to me like you're just asking to break your main line on the hook set going to light. If you're needing that light of a line to get bit, why not just go 10 lb fluorocarbon from swivel to bait? I've done that, but my main line, from reel to where the weight/swivel is more like 17 to 20 lb. 17 or 20 stand up better to the sturdy lob cast that will be needed to get reasonable distance better too.

I'd better not break any rods for a while. Thinking about rods has suddenly gotten too complicated. I just go by whether it feels good to me or not. Sometimes it feels good to me at the point of purchase and then later not so much. Since some of my rods have been purchased as close outs, I wonder how much the close out tag effects my momentary notion of sensitivity. Obviously it effects it some or I wouldn't have the supply of "spare" rods that I do. But then I consider some of my extra rods "trading stock". I've often swapped spare rods for different stuff with fishing buddies.. That is how the carb on my chipper shredder got fixed, i.e. I swapped a couple of fishing rods for a new carb and the knowledge to install it. Both sides felt like they made out. The young man who installed the carb has 4 little girls between the ages of 9 and 4. He ain't getting any new fishing rods any other way.

I use mono for top water baits like Sammies & poppers & buzz baits. I've been told that should you use braid on walking baits that the braid tends to catch the front treble while you're walking the bait and that fouls the cast. I don't know for certain because I haven't gotten around to trying braid in that capacity.

I throw 20 lb line on chatter baits mostly because I often throw the bait into gnarly stuff and I want to get my bait back.

There are more rod companies than Dobyns. Where I look for & buy fishing rods, Dobyns hasn't seen fit to enter the market, so I can't speak to any particular qualities of any Dobyns rod. However, there are times in the season when throwing frogs is a high percentage deal, so I've given some thought to what is necessary in a frog rod. While most of the frogs in my frog box are around half an ounce, plus or minus, they don' necessarily throw great. Wind can catch them in the air and the frog doesn't always land exactly where you want it to. So you got to make a choice, i.e. do you want a rod that makes it easier to throw frogs or do you want a rod that makes it a little easier to get them out of the slop should you get bit? Choose accordingly. In the lakes that I'm likely to throw floating frogs, I don't think that extra long casts are really necessary. Therefore I'm likely to use a rod with an action that increases my chance of getting the fish out once the hook up happens. One of these rods is a 7'3" Fenwick HMG MH/ex fast tip that is on the heavy side of MH. I think a sturdy reel is important in this situation so I use a Calcutta TEGT with 65 lb braid. I've landed fish up to 21" long with this rig and it seems to keep them close to the surface once they've bit and if I get them on top of the mat I can generally water ski them right into the boat. (The 21" fish didn't want to be skied back to the boat, had other ideas, but I eventually got it into the boat). Option #B is the same reel paired with an older All Star 6'10" Super Jig rod. Rod has very similar action the Fenwick, however it is telescopic and stores better in the fishing truck. So - there you got it - my thoughts on frog rods.

Not a buzz bait, but the old Heddon Moss Boss was a plastic spoon that had a unique action when walked through pads & surface vegetation. Some of those popper type floating frogs might be an option. I've not had much success working a buzz bait blade through & over surface vegetation. Now if you can fish close to surface vegetation, and by close I mean a foot or less from the outside edge of the floating vegetation, then that is sometimes a very different story. If you absolutely have to throw a buzz bait through & over floating vegetation, my experiences have been that a floating buzz bait, with the side by side blades (whopper popper makes one, Accent baits makes one, pretty sure other makes are available ) comes through that stuff better than a single buzz bait blade or a double in-line buzz bait blade.

Most of the time I use the Brush hogs on my home made jika rigs. If I want to change something up and still stay in creature bait mode - I've had some success with the Netbait Mad Paca and the Berkley Power Bait Power Hawg.

I have a number of old lures, some dating back to the 70's and many dating from the 80's & 90's. Vintage baits didn't get to be vintage by letting some fisherman tie them to a line and throwing them out and getting wet. All the old baits that I have, there was something about them that made me not want to use that particular bait. While they are nice to have and pretty to look at I don't have much confidence in vintage baits. Whatever it was that made me not want to use them then, more or less applies not. In my fishing boxes, very few baits get "retired" after many seasons of successful dedicated service. Rather, they stay in service till they get lost or go MIA.

Avoid scales at all costs. Scales lie. I don't know how many times a scale has turned a 6 lb fish into a 4 and a half pound fish. Three and a half pound fish commonly weigh a little over two pounds when put on a scale. If you're in a tournament and have to use a scale - use their scale. At least it is lying more or less the same for everyone. Even the so-called "accurate" scales, the ones that weigh a 5 lb exercise weight accurately, once you put a fish on that same scale, it is programmed to lie, it can't help it, it is in its nature. I won't have a scale in my boat, mostly because in the past it has proven detrimental to my self esteem. If you have to carry something to "rate" your fish, carry a ruler. It is harder for rulers to lie.

I like a braid to fluorocarbon set up on spinning gear to throw jerk baits.

It has been a while, but I broke a couple of their rods, long out of warranty and for what seemed to me to be a reasonable cost I got two very similar rods back.