Nebraska Bassin

My Chronarch was a bit of an impulse purchase. I planned all along to pick up a Revo STX, had it in my mind that I'd be an Abu Garcia guy from now on, took a look at a Chronarch, and grabbed it. I have a bad tendency to do that. I'll plan to pick up one thing (right now I'm thinking my next rod will be a Loomis GL2), see something else, and for no reason whatsoever buy that instead (watch me end up with a St. Croix or Dobyns now LOL).

That's similar to how I tie mine. Main line first until snug, then tag, then I'll pull on both just to make sure. I leave almost no tag on mine and I've never had one pull off. I use Sufix Performance Braid.

That's awesome! Above all else, just try not to make him look too bad on his own show. J/K

I had that happen on one particular cast over the weekend. We were fishing Lake Sharpe over the weekend, I was throwing a perch colored Frenzy and wasn't having much luck. Had a bad cast and got an overrun, and had a smallmouth hammer it while I was bailing the line out. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to set the hook so the bass got away. I tried letting it sink awhile a few more times but never got another strike on the Frenzy.

I never use a leader, but I do use the Alberto knot to tie mono backing to braid, and it works very well.

I've probably been fishing off and on for about 20 years now, and I'm 25. This is the first season in which I've really taken fishing seriously though.

Better give 'er one more try.

Congrats, guys!

Agreed. Wonder how long it'll be before "Huck the Fuskers" shirts are available in Ohio like they used to be in Colorado back when we owned the Buffs. Seriously, though, helluva catch! Here's to many more like that one.

X2 I actually enjoy fishing new lakes just because it's fun to find out where the bass are (or aren't, as the case may be ).

I have a Cabela's Denny Brauer bag that I use now, it has several two-compartment zippered bags that I put my plastics in (I leave them in the original package and just pull the package out when I'm using that particular bait) and several one-compartment bags in the back that I use for spinnerbaits. Nice bag back in the day, but time has taken its toll on it, I had to do some work to keep the binder rings from coming apart, and some of the zippers on the dual-compartment bags came apart. Good tackle bag if you can find one and take care of it, though.

I saw an ad for the Micro Magic on Tackle Warehouse's website and thought it looked like a pretty nice rod for the price. I'm thinking that if I find a good reel to pair up with my Loomis rod, I might get a mid-level (price-wise) rod to pair up with my Rojo, and the Duckett Micro Magic caught my attention. It will be used for pretty much everything, since I plan to use that rig for everything but T-rigging when I'm fishing for the big bass, but it'll be my go-to combo if I go farm pond hopping for smaller bass, too. I'd be using 14 pound mono on it, with a pretty wide variety of lure weights (as low as 1/8oz. for Texas rigging, but I'd throw heavier cranks with it if I had to). Does anyone have any reviews of the rod in general and/or know if it would provide a good application for what I'd be doing with it, or should I look elsewhere?

All-Star makes some pretty nice rods that can be found at that price, if you don't mind going used.

Caught the bass in my avatar on a t-rigged tequila sunrise colored Cabela's AquaGlow beaver tail grub. Second biggest catch (same lake, in fact very close to the same location as the one in my avatar, and exactly one year to the day before I caught that one) was on a t-rigged purple original Zipper worm. Didn't get an opportunity to weigh either of them, but judging from a similar-sized fish that my brother caught, I'd estimate the one in my avatar at about 5 1/4 to 5 1/2 pounds. Second biggest just a shade under 5.

Sam, if you have a moment to forward it my way, I'd love to read it as well.

A Symetre or Stradic FI would be a good choice if you want a good reel but don't want to spend too much. If you have around $200 to spend, look into the Stadic CI4, I guarantee you wouldn't be disappointed in that reel.

You guys keep this up, and you're going to convince me to save up for a Core. I don't know what's worse... the bait monkey, or you guys and your fancy equipment.

If I have a good time, it was a successful day. Catching fish is just a bonus. 8-) Bass_Ackwards, while I understand what you're saying, you have to remember that "success" is a relative term. Obviously anyone's main goal in fishing is to catch fish, but unless you're fishing a tournament and need to head back to the boat ramp with several good-sized fish to place, your main reason for wanting to catch fish is to have a good time, right? If you can have a good time without catching fish, I don't think it's anyone else's business to tell you that you weren't successful. Maybe you weren't as successful as you hoped you'd be, but if you can hop in the truck and say to yourself, "I didn't catch anything, but I still had a good time", I say more power to ya. Like I said before, catching fish is the bonus part of it when I'm just out on the lake fishing for fun.

Sounds like a great way to go to me. As for tackle, my first $100 would probably be spent on 1 pack of 1/8 oz. and 1 pack of 1/4 oz. tungsten bullet weights, a couple packs apiece of 3/0 and 4/0 Gamakatsu G-Lock hooks, and from then on I'd go crazy on plastics. I'd probably get a few packs of Netbait Paca Craws, Reaction Innovations Sweet Beavers, and Senkos, and if there's any left over, I'd probably spend it on some Zoom lizards. Most soft plastics are cheap, so you could get a pretty good variety of colors. If I had to spend an entire day fishing with only one type of bait, I'd always take soft plastics. Next time I had some money available to satisfy the bait monkey, I'd look into a few different types of spinnerbaits and some Lucky Craft Pointers.

A boat is definitely the way to go. Like Redsyn said, that way you and your dad can take it out and really start catching the fish.

I'm really tempted to give a Core a try. I'll have to save up a little more for one, but if it's noticeably better than the Curado, it'd be worth it.

I think you'll be happy with that Sahara. For the most part, you can't go wrong with Shimano. I've been happy with my Symetre so far.

The Loomis is a Bronzeback, 6'6" M/F. I'm pretty sure it's an older SMR-series Bronzeback, but I'm not positive about that. I T-rig at 1/8-1/4oz., so far I've been using 1/8oz. more, but if I start tournament fishing with my brother I'll probably be going to 1/4oz. more often since I'll probably be fishing deeper waters. Also, I forgot to mention it in my first post, but I might also be doing some drop-shotting, but I still expect to be doing a lot more Texas rigging than anything else. I'll probably keep my Procaster, and I have a cheaper Shimano rod that I could pair it up with if I do. If I do that, I might save it for the spinnerbait/crankbait duty, but it'd be nice to have a reel that's capable of also fishing those baits on a limited basis just in case. I doubt I'll be going much heavier than 1/4 oz. I generally use 14lb. test mono, I have a spool of Sufix 40lb. Performance Braid but I'm not sure that I'm sold on it yet. Line capacity isn't a big deal, if I had to throw out a number I'd say 150 yards would be plenty. Hope this helps... I'm just starting to really get into fishing, so there are a few things that I'm still trying to get figured out, but I do know that Texas rigging works well in a lot of situations, so it's what I have the most confidence in right now.

Tough call... the Curado really sounds like a great reel, and I could save quite a bit of money by going that route. I'd like to be able to pony up a little more money and get a Core, but I'm just not sure that funding will allow that, which is why I compromised and looked at the Zillion. Sounds like either way I couldn't go wrong, I'd just have to sink a little more money into the Zillion.

Thanks for the feedback. Getting back into differences between submodels, what's the difference between the base model Zillion and the Coastal?