Raul

My dear friend, those "only 3 inches" in the real world is the difference between a lipped crankbait running well or rolling on it 's side and not working properly, I don 't mean running to one side ( which is one of the ways you can tune the bait to do, run "wrong" ), I mean rolling on it 's side, then rolling to the other. Or viceversa, having to crank in like mad to maintain a buzzbait buzzing on top of the water.

Uhhhh..........both, it was more of a matter of which one would be first.

Exactly, two different animals, I don 't have a reel with twitching bar ( another thing that can break ), besides I don 't think a Viento is going to outcast my TDZs. Got reels with flipping switch, my old Abus have it, in the more than two decades I 've owned them I must have turned on the switch perhaps ....... 20 times. :-? ( and I flip a lot ).

Oh boy, I wish I could give an answer but your winter may not be like my winter ( you 're from the South but how south to the south ? ) have to admit though that unless I fish up in the sierra ( which I don 't do during this time of the year cuz it 's too danged cold for these old bones ) I don 't fish "cold" water, "cold" being 15°C ( kinda like your summer water temps ), that being saud I fish a jig in the "winter" pretty much like Catt and Bantam do.

But of course you do, you 'll also need rods for cloudy days, those can be divided in rods for cloudy windy days and cloudy calm days; you 'll also need rods for sunny days, those can also be divided in sunny and windy or sunny and calm, you get the picture.

Not entirely accurate, I 'd say that most bc reels are offered in both versions, there are companies like Shimano that may not offer lefty versions in some models, but most BCs are offered in both versions, the reatailer may only offer righty versions, but that is not the companie 's fault, it 's the retailer 's fault. One thing I don 't get is why Shimano doesn 't offer lefty versions for certain models when you can find the lefty version in JDM, an example of that is the Calais 100A, it 's only offered in righty but the JMD Antares 100AR ( the same reel with different name ) is offered in both versions. :-?, of course somebody is going to tell me that lefty reels don 't sell as much as righties, or that it 's a matter of investing in tooling n 'such, I would understand it if for example the reel is being developed or so, but hey, Calais ' are made in Japan, how come Japan has the lefty version ? they already got the tools, all they need is to print the box CALAIS 101 and that 's it.

Obsesive compulsive behavior, if tackle oriented check ---> BaitMonkeyitis.

No, lines are tools, you choose what does a better job for the conditions and what you find to like best or suits your needs best, most of my fishing is done with nylon, but that doesn 't mean that I limit my universe of lines to just nylon, from the nylons my personal favorite is Trilene Big Game, I like it 's properties ( stretch, abrassion resistance, handling, memory ), then comes XL ( like the way it handles but I know that it may not be the best for high abrassion environments ), at the bottom of my favorite ylon lines comes XT ( very good for high abrassion environments but handles like crap ). I do fish with fluorocarbon, it stretches as much as highly abrassion resistant nylon, handles pretty much like it, better vibration transmitting properties than nylon, not the material I like the most for main line but it does have a place, the only drawback it has for me is that I can 't see the line against the background. Copoly, oh boy talk about strong, gotta understand that copoly is not like pure nylon or pure fluoro, you don 't "need" to go heavy in the lb test to do what heavy fluoro or heavy nylon do, some copoly are so strong that in the lower lb test ( 6-8 lb ) they do the job of thicker lines. Ging thin on copoly eliminates most of the undesirable handling properties heavier line has. Braided, oh yeah I do have some reels spooled with braided, there are times I need it even though it 's not my everyday line. Bradided doesn 't do well everywhere specially if you are fishing chunk rock.

Kool gadget but with a lot of limitations, very useful if in your neck of the woods the water is crystal clear other than that just add a little turbidity and you can only see what the turbidity allows.

The only time I think you would need a leader would be if where you fish there are teethy toothy critters like pike or pickerel, other than that you don 't need a leader.

My friend Moises fishes soft plastics about 95% of the time, hardly ever seen him tie a crank of a spinnerbait and after watching a person like him catching lots of fish with soft plastics I 'd say that you can reduce your arsenal to soft plastics only, but there 's a catch, it 's the way he fishes the soft plastics what makes him catch lots of fish with them.

Sensitivity, interesting subject, what we all call "sensitvity" are actually the physical properties of the material from which the rod is made that allows it to transmit vibration, those can be measured, sensitivity is truely the capability of the NSC to detect the vibrations transmitted by the material, that capability is determined by many anatomical and physiological functions and those anatomical and physiological functions vary from one individual to another, in other words what you "feel" is completely different from what another person "feels". The physical properties that alow the material of the blank to transmit vibration ( "sensitivity" ) are independent from the power ( ammount of energy required to bend the blank ).

Well, what were you expecting ? there 's tons of stuff to upgrade Shimanos and Daiwas ....... I wonder why there aren 't many to upgrade Quantums. I don 't think that trying to improve perfection applies to the case of Quantums.

I used lilly pad bed as an example, it don 't mean that there must be lilly pads, where I fish there are no lilly pads, but there are bullrush ( cattail/tule ) beds, the wind bends and blows down the leaves leaving them on the surface creating a mat, I wouldn 't fish a frog with a MH rod upon those either. It 's a matter of application, depending upon on what you are going to fish with the frog you may need or may not need more power, if you say you don 't necessarily need a frog rod then most likely you don 't need a frog rod.

No, I like them like as they come out of the box.

As usual, it depends ( how many times I 've said that ? :-? ), it depends on what you plan to fish with the frog, I wouldn 't go with a MH rod if I were to fish a frog, for example, upon a lilly pad bed, but I would use it if I were, for example, to fish a hydrilla bed where the weeds have barely surfaced.

Yeah, right; look who talkin '. Not bad Ghost.

If what you need is portability then the lap top is a no brainer, but that 's if you really need that kind of portability. My sister has gone through 3 laptops in 6 years, all the time something in them breaks, if it ain 't the drive it 's the laser, if it ain 't that then it 's the screen, if it ain 't the screen then it 's the screen hinges, if it ain 't the screen hinges then it 's the keyboard and so on, you would think that ok she carries them around all the time but no, she has them as desktops but hates to have all the wiring, she desn 't like desktops ( they don 't look "neat and nice" : ). I 'd better go with a good desktop that can be upgraded easily and without having to dump a truckload of money.

If you want to get a killa butt kickin combo get a Leyend Elit from Reeds and...... screw the Curado E7, get a Chronarch Mg at TW for the same price of a Curado E7 ( free shipping also ). There you have it a butt kickin killa combo at an awsom price.

Wrong approach, you don 't "move around until you find a spot that 's producing", for that matter, you would have to move around a lot every few minutes to find that "magical spot" where the fish could be or may not be biting, you can do that in a 5 acre pond but you can 't do that in a 30,000 acre lake, what you say sounds to me like: keep on buying lotto tickets very 5 minutes for the next couple of decades and maybe one day you 'll hit the jackpot, it don 't work that way. What we mean is, you get only those tickets where you are going to win. In an average day in my everyday lakes the most spots I fish in a day can be counted with the fingers of your hands, I don 't go around up and down the entire lake "looking for a spot where the fish might be ), I go to the spots where I know the fish most likely will be and I fish those, my spot productivity scale doesn 't start in zero.

Being patient does not mean trying to catch fish all day long where the fish ain 't no matter how many times you change your lure. So in the final run is how to locate the fish, that 's always been the tricky part, how to select where to fish. The most difficult thing to teach is how to locate the fish: When you go what you see ? What you see tells you what ? The conditions tell you something ? The clues are there, it 's a matter of interpretation. Terrain composition, slope ( degree ), terrain contour, those determine what the lake has, how it 's distributed tells you where the fish might be, the conditions and how they relate to the above tell you where the fish will be.

Oh boy, the world economy must be really deep down the toilet, now even HE asks for help. BTW, I just had a very unpleasant surprise with one of my CCs, it 's been a while ( 3-4 mos ? ) since I purchased anything with it, yesterday I was about to pull the trigger on a couple of reels and the transaction was declined ( I don't understand ?!? ) so I went to the ATM to check my balance and ..... my card was retained by the danged friggin bank ! >, so today I went to the bank to find out what the heck is going wrong; I 've been told that because I haven 't used my card in such a loooooong time ( since when 3 or 4 months is such a long time ? :-? my card was retained by the ATM, can you believe that crap ? S*t man, I pay on time everytime and now they come up with this BS. :-X

You guys, hasn 't anyone ever told you to never ever look them japanese baits in the eye ? : those "details" are spells put there by the BaitMonkey, now you 're charmed and ........ you 'll have to buy more.

Dude, you don 't get it, you can have one 5 mi from home, but it 's not the BPS in San Antonio, later in life when you become an old fart like me you can proudly say you have made the pilgrimage to this, that, that one and the other Meccas where the BaitMonkey is worshiped. I 've been to: BPS Houston BPS San Antonio BPS Dallas/Ft Worth BPS Sin City ( Vegas ) BPS St Louis And the holiest of holiest ---> BPS Springfield ! Of course I do need to visit some others before my time on earth has expired but so far those are the ones I 've been to.

Well, what to do in San Antonio ? let the BaitMonkey loose when you go to BPS