Hooligan

Contrary to popular opinion a longer rod does not make an advantage in landing and fighting fish. A shorter rod gives you more leverage against a fish in straight line pull. A longer rod gives the fish more leverage to fight against you. Just food for thought.

$200 reel marker the Chronarch is one of the best there is. Excellent stock bearings, decent drag, extremely durable. The STX is a good reel as well, but has some issues being talked about regarding spool bearings and pinion gear durability. I have seen no issues personally. Another good reel in that category is the Lews Tournament Pro. I've had very, very good results with this reel, and can easily recommend it as a good alternative to the Chronarch if you don't want to go the Shimano route. I personally have about a dozen of the E series Chronarch and would say that it's the best reel n its class.

I don't think that a 3/4 ounce rig is pushing the limits with the rod. It performs well up to a 3/4 football jig with a big trailer on it- easily the weight that you're going to hit with a rig. For instance, I fish a C-rigged Eeliminator or a smoking Rooster on a 3/4 ounce rig with that rod. It handles it fine. Where's the sweet spot? 1/2 ounce football jig with a rage lobster with one tail section off.

I have one with a Chronarch 51 MG and one with a Curado 200 on it, the Curado definitely balances the rod a bit better. I don't really get that it's tip heavy, don't feel that way at all.

Love the cumulus. It has a wonderful feel and is extremely light in hand. It is extremely powerful and fishes more like a heavy than a MH in that sense, but can cover a much wider range of baits than a H. The two are very similar in terms of sensitivity, I'd call it pretty much a dead match. The cumulus is a bit faster than the NRX, but not by much.

I disagree, which is why it's important to look at the actual properties. There are a multitude of examples that one could show that explain exactly why it's a misnomer.

I see a tremendous people describing the preferred action and power of a rod, and it would appear they really don't know what they are looking for. We will look at that here. When it comes to the power of a rod, be it medium, light, heavy, or any; the easiest way to think of it is the lifting strength, or deflection of the rod. It is not where that rod deflects, but the amount of weight, or force, it takes to make the rod bend. The second aspect of a rod is the taper of the blank. It is not the taper of the tip alone, as some would say, but the entire rod from butt to tip. The taper of a rod is most often described in terms of moderate, moderate fast, fast, and extra fast. To break it down in very simple terms, it is the speed of that taper that earns the blank its designation. To say a rod is an extra fast tip is completely arbitrary, a moderate fast rod can have a comparably Xfast tip, which means nothing if you do not consider the overall taper of the rod. Another way to consider the speed of the rod is the rate at which the rod recovers from deflection to being completely stable once again. A moderate rod will continue to waver far longer than will a fast. These two can be broken down even further, into mag classifications, and by various manufacturer standards. Also, in comparing one brand to another you will very often notice a tremendous difference between the two designations of power and taper. Other than those two major pieces of information, the suggested weights and lengths are very much self explanatory.

Ichiban Tackle usually has it in stock, Hi's sometimes does, too.

Oddly enough, it's happened to me more in tournaments more than any other situation. One time I was fishing an FLW event and had done quite well the first three days. I was fishing an area that relatively isolated, and there were no other boats within a mile of me. Day four had me in third place at the start, and running for the lead, as I hadn't exhausted the fish supply in the area. I felt really comfortable with where I was, and what I could do with it. Upon pulling in to the spot, I was barely trolling motor down, and had a fairly large named pro, whom will remain nameless here, pull 30 yards in front of me, drop the motor and started going to town. Literally. He pulled 19 pounds that day, moved up from 7th place to win, and I dropped to 9th as the two other spots that I had that were very similar just didn't have the fish. I brought it to the attention of the tournament director, and he questioned the validity of the argument, and only after verifying both our GPS tracks did he see JUST how close he was to me, also, he saw that this was his first trip into the water that was there, whereas I'd been fishing it consistently, you could tell from the tracks alone. The director said that it was suspicious, but as there was no other witness, the distance couldn't be verified from GPS alone. He did say that, unofficially, what the pro did was total and complete crap. It ended up costing me $10,000. Funny thing is, I've talked to the pro many times, he's never said word one about it. He acts like it never happened, just that we were fishing the same water. It shows the kind of guy he really is...

Went to the lake today and, oh how it was gorgeous... Funny thing happened at the ramp, though. Pull up to the ramp to launch, ready to dump in. Pull the clips, undo the buckles, undo the winch strap, dump 'er in and in all of a minute and a half we're clear of the ramp. Park the truck, and walking back down, this guy starts just RIPPIN' me about cutting in line to launch, he was giving me all sorts of he*l. I politely pointed out that he was in the rigging lane, and didn't have his boat even remotely ready to launch, so I just went ahead and dumped in. He was furious that I had the nerve to put the boat in before he did. When I asked him if he was ready to launch before I was, he said that, "That doesn't matter, it's the principle of it." At this point, I was already back to the dock, and Jeeves was ready to chauffeur me on to the fish. I told him what had happened, and we both had a pretty good laugh. We ended up marking a TON of fish on a channel swing that was relatively close to the ramp, in hearing distance, even. Skip forward about half an hour and a dozen green fish. We hear the guy at the ramp screaming bloody murder than not only did we cut him off, but now we were catching his fish. This is comedy GOLD, now. It's getting to the point that we're both just laughing our butts off about it. Neither of us know the guy, but we've both seen the boat on the lake an awful lot. It's usually either within 10 yards of shore, or tied off to trees jerkin perch; so it's pretty hilarious that we're catching his fish now. Well, apparently, the guy was so frustrated that he couldn't even launch his boat. We moved on to another couple spots, only planning on fishing for a handful of hours. We wanted to cover some water and see what we could make happen in short time. Skip ahead to 1:00, when we're ready to head back to the launch. We get back to the launch and find that the entire ramp (I failed to mention it's a three wide ramp) is blocked by this guys van and his 18' Lund- IN THE WATER! Have NO idea what the guy did to manage it, but he had the boat floating the trailer, he hadn't removed the tie downs, and the van was in the water up to the drivers side door mirror. I figured the thing would have floated away, but it didn't. I figured there was enough room that I could back down close to the dock between where his rig was, and the wall. I made it in, loaded, and out in about 60 seconds. Before pulling all the way up the ramp, I asked the guy, being nice as possible, not even remotely condescending, if he'd like me to pull him out. Boy did I get an earful! He proceeded to blame the whole mishap on me, which I thought was hilarious. I figured it best not to take pictures, and just get out of there before it got ugly. So today, I'm thankful that I know I can launch and load the boat in under three minutes. It sure saves headaches at the ramp.

Quite simply, some people just don't like braid. I'm one of them and have good reason to not like it, after much experience and many hours, it just isn't for me- another post for another time... The Finesse Fluoro is a decent line, really. But that's about it, decent. It's not a particularly wonderful line in any one category other than manageability. When it comes to it, Invizx achieves the same properties in a little cheaper package. They're relatively close on stretch, diameter, and in terms of abrasion resistance. Sunline Finesse might be a little more dense, but not dramatically. If you're after a pure finesse fluorocarbon for spinning reels, you might look into Kureha R18. It's become more available and is top notch material on spinning reels. It has many of the best features of Tatsu, but is considerably softer without the stretch. I'm not terribly fond of it on casting gear, but it does well for that, too. I'm fishing it on a couple drop shot rods in 7lb, and have been very happy with it.

You guys go ahead and send me your BBZ and BBZ shads. I'll take em. Same for the swim Senko. I think the only bait in recent memory I've purchased and done no good on is the Bevy Shad. I hate that thing.

Sheesh, Glenn will let anyone in here anymore!! Good to see ya back around, even if you are a huckster that's trying to sell some mega-goop that no one should ever use regardless because it never works. Ever. Doesn't help to catch fish. At all. Don't use it. Especially if your fishing a tournament against me.

What's my specialty? Probably my most versatile tactic is a spinnerbait followed by a jig. I can do nearly everything with those two baits. Both have won a tremendous number of tournaments and a pretty fair sum of money annually.

Depends on what I'm doing, I guess. I fish jerkbaits on everything from a 6-2XF Avid or 6-3 Cumara to a 7' MH. The vast majority are on on my trusty old GLX 782 and 783 with the Cumara 6-3 Medium.

I"m tempted to agree with that. The missiles have been quite good this year. There's something to them that no other has. Color: Candy GRass and Love Bug.

Mattlures, and it's dynamite.

The one and only. That's one of my favorite WI lakes for a mixed bag of bass.

Plainly, yes they work in WI. I've had smallies eat ROF5s on many lakes. I fish a couple regionals up there every couple years, and every so often the big swimbait bite is the ticket. On lakes like Wissota and Dell's they can be dynamite.

One of finest flip sticks, better in my opinion than the option mentioned, is the Dobyns DX795. It's got all the right attributes for the perfect flip stick. I don't much like dobyns rods, but this one is done superbly well.

Superb little baits for early in the year, or late in the year when forage is around that size. They also work on smalljaws from start to finish through the year, no doubt about it.

I fish exclusively Northstar spinnerbaits for a few reasons, anymore. They're durable, they're weighted right, and they have superior components to almost all others on the market currently. Lastly, they flat catch fish. When it comes to balance on a spinnerbait, it's everything; Northstars are balanced perfectly for a vertical fall or for a glide on a slow drop. They also don't tip the hook one direction or the other when you're walking them up or down structure. They're superb for fishing drops and ledges, as well as having flexible and sturdy enough wire to fish them in heavy wood and grass. As far as colors go, the vast majority of my spinnerbait fishing is a 3/4 ounce Willow/willow Gold/gold in New Gill or Bull Gill. Those two colors account for probably 85% of my spinnerbait fish, and have won some substantial team and solo tournaments. On lakes like Table Rock and Bull Shoals, I've done extremely well on a 1/4 and half ounce bait in Smokey purple shad, but those are very specific instances, in which I am presenting them in very specific methods.

Northstar Hair and Hippy jigs are bang up for cold water. Hair jigs with or without trailers, and the Hippy with a craw. Fish them as slow as you can possible stand it and you'll catch fish.

Nope, never. I'll make the effort to fish a tactic or bait I'm not familiar or comfortable with, but I will not intentionally limit myself. By not having my tackle on the water, I may have eliminated another tactic that I'm not as good with, that fish ARE hitting.

While what I buy, and why I buy it is fairly systematic, I'm surprised from time to time at just effective a bait is after I've thrown it for a while. The Havoc line has surprised me more than any other indecent memory. It deals more with the durability of the baits than anything. Yes, the baits are effective, which is why I bought them in the first place, but wow at how many fish I can stick on a single bait. I did have a stroke of disappointment from different crank baits this year. The RCX jerkbaits have turned out to be more fragile than their genuine Megabass counterparts. The Jackall squarebill has been a bait that is incredibly hard to tune, and to have stay tuned. The last bummer I've had has been Zoom, of late. I've fished one of their works for years and years, recently, though, the worm has been very poor quality. Often deformed and with tails that pull off from the simple act of casting.