GOOCHY

Thanks for the insight, guys. If anybody else has any other recommendations around Crofton/Odenton/Bowie/Annapolis I'm all ears.

Do you guys have any input on fishing for smallmouth in the Little Patuxent? I read somewhere that there's a pretty good pool up near the Old Savage Mill. Really trying to stake out a few spots that I can fish from land until I can find room for a kayak.

Nice!! I have to admit that the thought crossed my mind. Is that like a three mile walk from the entrance? That's pretty much what I'm seeing here. Never been over... https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_5/NWRS/South_Zone/Patuxent_Research_Refuge/NorthTractTrailsBrochure.pdf

Hi all, I'm just getting back into bass fishing after a couple of years away from the hobby. We moved from the Midwest to Maryland back in 2015 and I'm just now scoping out some freshwater spots to drop a line. Last weekend, I stopped at Walking Fish Pond over in Crofton and didn't come away with anything. One little bump and that was about it over two hours of poking around over there. Any other suggestions in the Crofton/Odenton/Bowie/Annapolis area? I saw a guy on another forum recommend Blue Heron Pond over in the Patuxent Research Refuge. Thought I might take a hike over there next weekend to scope that out. Thanks!

I'm going with the Jackson Big Rig this Spring. Might as well go all-in.

Great forum with a lot of really informative posters!

I have a Tourney Pro and the older Speed Spool on a cheaper rod. Both are rock solid reels that cast a mile. The Tourney Pro is quite a bit lighter.

They're definitely a couple of companies who "get it". The rods themselves are really great too. The *** *** rod is probably the best bang for the buck rod out there right now. At $100 it's really not that far off in trim, finish, and feel from my Recon. Now, there is a difference - the Recon has some really great sensitivity and is just built better. Both rods have that somewhat parabolic action to them which I tend to like. The Recon is my go-to all purpose daily fisher from spinnerbaits to weightless Senkos. That C714 can do it all admirably.

Tackle Warehouse carries both brands but you can find them elsewhere (I know Scheels carries ***, among others...), that's just where I bought mine.

I just wanted to follow up on this post to give credit where credit is due. After an extended period of these rods sitting on the work bench in my garage and making my heart hurt every time I looked at them I decided to go ahead and get with the respective companies - *** and Phenix - to get the information about warranty replacement ("Oops", in *** nomenclature). I called both companies and both were extremely responsive, understood the problem, and instructed me to go ahead and cut the rods down to lower the shipping cost, and ship them back for warranty replacement. No RMA numbers, no nothing, just ship 'em back and we'll take care of you. Easy peasy... or so I thought. I went to The UPS Store with both rods in hand, pre-packaged in rod tubes, and ready to ship. They did the typical measuring out, weighing, etc. and quoted me the price to ship both rods. We clarified which rod was destined for which destination, I paid, took my receipt, and headed home happy to have them shipped off and eager to find new replacement rods on my doorstep in the next few weeks. Early in the morning on Monday, Ricky from *** called and left a voicemail on my phone. He had a rod, but it was a Phenix Recon and he was wondering what he was supposed do with it. I just shook my head - The UPS Store had placed the wrong labels on the tubes and shipped them out to the wrong manufacturers. As luck would have it, just when I got done listening to Ricky's voicemail the "GMail" app on my smartphone went off notifying me that I had a new email. It was the UPS shipping notification that a rod had arrived at Phenix, in California. They undoubtedly were going to open that tube and see the *** *** rod in there. I called Ricky at *** back and explained what probably had happened with the mistaken shipping. He was completely understanding about it and said that while it wasn't typically their policy that he would ship me out a new rod to replace the old one if I could provide the receipt for it. A few minutes later I had the email receipt from TW in his email inbox and he replied that he'd have a new rod shipped out, ASAP. Think about that, he's shipping me a brand new rod without any proof that I have a broken rod out there somewhere! That is serious customer service! His only request was that I ship them the broken *** rod once I received it back from Phenix. The next step was to call Phenix and explain the issue to them. Alex with Phenix answered and was also totally understanding of the problem. He actually got a good laugh at my expense when I recounted the story of the door slamming shut on two of my sticks. He said he would have probably just crawled into a corner and cried. I agreed that that seemed like the best course of action at the time. Alex with Phenix actually offered to not only replace my rod under their warranty policy but to ship the mistakenly shipped *** rod directly to *** instead of shipping it back to me, then me shipping it to ***. Totally, totally awesome. It's just another sign that these guys are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty for their customers. In the end, it's pretty much like I said in the OP. It's a little over $100 out of my pocket since it was my fault they were broken (plus cost to ship there and back...) and both *** and Phenix went way, way above the call of duty to ship me replacement rods. Neither company even has their own broken rod in-hand and they both were willing to trust me and take care of me. Now I have a Phenix Recon C714 and a *** 7'1" M inbound to my door step! Both *** and Phenix have earned a customer for life. My next rod acquisitions are going to be a Phenix M1 and a *** ***, later on this year. I just wanted to update this post to let everybody know what kind of customer service these guys are putting out there. It's top level, and these guys really deserve a look if you haven't already tried them out.

You'll have to go weightless or throw top water lures. I have a pond that I fish that is like this. To look at it, you'd think that it would be the greatest top water pond of all time. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's great fishing early in the season before the algae blooms but once it takes over it's slow going over there.

Walking out the door this morning to head out to fish. I have my Phenix Recon C714 and 7'1" M *** Black in my hand. I trip as I'm going out the door and the screen door slams on the tip of both rods. *snap* Both of them got severed about 7 inches down from the tip. I wanted to throw up... So now it sounds like GOOCHY is going to have to use the "Oops!" replacement warranty with *** and a similar one with Phenix. A $100+ dollar mistake when you pay for replacement plus shipping. Ouch, ouch, ouch!! I should note that I grabbed my wife's 6'6" Carrot Stix and very carefully made my way out the door and had a great day of fishing. It definitely started out crappy though. A dozen or so bass and one big chunk bluegill later and it was time to go back home.

Another vote for Cavitron 3/8 oz. black on black

You should check out the *** *** series of rods if you're looking in that $100-ish range. IMO, they're easily as good if not better than anything that's been suggested in here.

Ice out just happened a few days ago so they're not too shallow yet here in Eastern Iowa. Should be pretty soon, though.

I have a 6'6" MH for my frog rod. Picked it up on sale last year at Gander Mountain. It's pretty much a pool cue.

I like a medium heavy/fast action rod for the 3/8 oz. size I normally throw.

I've been trying this over the past couple of days with no luck. Water temp is below 40 right now. Going to keep at it this week...

I got a bunch of Cotton Cordell and Bombers the other night. There were still some real nice ones in there.

There's a bunch of good ones - Strike King, Terminator, Megastrike, the list goes on and on. 3/8 oz. in white or white/chart with a willow blade and you're off and running. The old saying, "You can fish any spinnerbait color you want as long as it's white." holds true.

I'm also going to fish more swim jigs with a swimbait trailer. Been seeing some guys on youtube doing that and it looks deadly.

I think I'm going to work lipless cranks and squarebills a little more than I usually do this year. I never really give them a fair shake so it's time to really dig in and learn how to produce with these baits.

The water is still mostly hard here with some of it starting to break up. It snowed another couple of inches last night.

You'll know. It's that tell tale *bumpbump* of a fish inhaling it.