Raul

I 've owned a lot of rods throughout the years, I 've only experienced 3 rod breakeages in my life, 2 were my fault, simple stupidity on my part so there was no reason for e to complain, the other one was clearly a case of bad material/defect/workmanship, the rod literally exploded into pieces ( it was one of those polymer injected tip Lightning Rods ), took it to Academy where I bought the rod and they replaced it with a new one at no cost, but heck, I didn 't abuse of it, I did take the receipt. Other than that I certainly wouldn 't demand the retailer or manufacturer for a refund if it were my fault.

is there a size limit? because i am saving. It 's automatically resized.

Well, there 'something that can stop the BaitMonkey from getting me, with the currency exchange rate dollar vs peso as it is since the past two weeks the BaitMonkey has gone into deep hibernation until further notice ( I hope it stays that way for a while ). Hard to believe but that 's how it is.

Of course you get more backlashes, while braided even at high tests is extremely limp all monofilamentous lines are stiff if compared to braided which means they overrun a lot more than braided.

Sam pretty much summed it up, lures you should have in your T-box: all of them cuz all of them catch fish one time or the other, which types, all you can get your hands on, how many and which ones, it 's personal preference, so let 's say that we are talking Topwaters, there are several types of topwaters: Walk the dog type Wobblers Chuggers & popers Prop baits You want to have at least one of each type, which ones, well I would say that for walk the dog type the Sammy is hard to beat, for wobblers the good ole Jitterbug, for chuggers you can get a Chug Bug and for poppers the ole Hula Popper, for prop baits the Heddon Torpedo is a classic. Of course there are lots of brands from where to choose, lots of names there but how many of each and which ones you choose. The same applies to cranks, they are divided in lipless lipped: flat.- super shallow, shallow, mid depth, deep depth, extra deep fat:- super shallow, shallow, mid depth, deep depth, extra deep And you can divide some more Floating Sinking Suspending With rattles Silent Worms, oh boy !, we 've got straight tail, ribbon tail, C tail, G tail, U tail, paddle tail, stickbaits, lengths from 3 to 10-12", colors ? gee wee, lots from where to choose. Spinnerbaits: by blade types.- colorado, indiana, tennessee, willow, by number of blades.- single, double, tandem, multi. And so on, all of them work, so, which ones ? all of them

Man, nobody said that fishing DURING the front was bad, it 'fishing AFTER the front when it 's bad ( fish develop shutmouthitis ), Saturay is not after the front, it 's during the front.

Yup, cast righty & crank righty.

No, it wouldn 't possibly work if the hook was longer, it will work. Yes, you 're going to miss the greaer percentage of fish that bite the bait. You wanna know how I know it ? many moons ago I was you, a beginner, not that now I 'm an "expert" but you can say I 'm a beginner with a lot of experience, what you try now I tried long time ago.

The catch of a shakey head is not the weight of the jighead or how the bait is held ( attached to ) by the jighead my friend; the catch is all in the hook size. Regular jigheads have too small hooks to be an effective shakey rigging machine and if you want a bigger hook the weight of the jighead increases progressively as the hook size increases and still, even at quite large jighead weights the hook found in regular jigheads is still too small, in your pic it 's clearly seen that the hook is too small, you need a longer hook. Fortunately for you nowdays manufacturers do produce jigheads with longer hooks without them being too heavy and those are a lot cheaper than brand shakey heads with "designed" bait keepers, the expensive ones are expensive because the hook is expensive. Now, you can cut on some costs by pouring your own, I 've been pouring sinkers and jigheads for years and they cost pennies even using high quality hooks, the investment is not that great ( melting pot and mold are the greatest part of the cost ) and as we speak, Do-it molds has a shakey head mold that allows you to insert the bait holder in it so you can pour your own shakey heads with a bait holder, you can find the melting pot, mold, bait holder and hooks at BPS.

Rod sensitivity in a rod for crankbaits is not as important as it is when you fish with "feel" baits like jigs and soft plastics, any mid/mid upper end rod will do the trick. In that 100 bones budget you got I would recommend a Shimano Compre Crankbait, you get it from Tackle Warehouse and you get free shipping.

How come you know you 've been had by the chimp and still you have that big grin on your face and that sensation of achievement ? Somebody pleez explain it to me.

Gotta admit it, the scenery is beautiful, those changing colors are a true sight however I prefer where I 'm at. Back in October of 2001 I was at StLouis, traveled to several places ( Purina Farms, The School of Veterinary Medicine at the MO University ) which allowed me to travel through the country side, we were taken to a lil town called Herman to visit the winery, pretty kool place but it was windy that day ....... I returned butt frozen to the hotel .

Some years ago I went to Academy for a 3 gal gas tank for my tub, in theory that was the only thing I was going to purchase .... later I found myself at the parking lot with a 3 gal gas tank, several packs of baits and a Calais 100A reel ........ how did that happen ? , still a mystery.

I like hook keepers, I prefer the one found in rods like Kistlers than the one found in other brands like GLoomis or Shimano ( instead of inserting the hook you slide it underneath ).

Muddy, you just ain 't right.

Big bites hurt some more don 't you think ? but lil bites are more bothering, big bite leaves you in pain and you are out of the tackle junkiness for a while, lil bites on the other hand are like mosquito bites, you just gotta scratch them over and over again and it ain 't only one mosquito bite. Well, I took a "break" in my purchases this year, I 'm just waiting for them Curado Es to appear at the mexican on-line stores to purchase me a couple, ya know, I just gotta have at least a couple, not that I need them, I want them, I said to myself: " NO MORE TACKLE !", thought that my will was going to be strong enough to fight the addiction ...... yeah right ! : Had recently purchased some Zoom Shakey Tail worms, not a lot, only a couple of packs ( that was last month, oh yeah 16 days ago, what an achievement ). I was looking at one of my t-bags and ........ I 'm out of 5/0 hooks , not that I have a lot of them, only a couple of bags, I don 't use them much anyways but I still like to have a few for rigging large baits like Brush Hogs and lizards. So ya know, you begin hearing voices like ....... all friggin day long >, BaitMonkey logic: you got to visit clients, right ? well, between client X and client Y you can drive a couple of blocks to Poncho 's place and get them hooks, it won 't take you long, it 's a 2 min drive, 5 mins while you get the hooks and 2 mins drive to get back in route. Sounds reasonable don 't you think ? 9 min, ok, make it 10 min. Gentlemen, let me tell you, it only take the BaitMonkey 10 min to give you a lil bite , yeah I got the hooks, plus a pack of 100 1/8 oz bullet sinkers, 4 packs of SS U-tale worms, 2 packs of Finesse worms a pack of 4 inch .... senko 's ? ( how come I got senkos when I don 't fish with them ? , go figure) and dropped 40 bones at Poncho 's place. So what 's it gonna be, big bite or lil bite ?

Dude, an in-line buzzer ain 't the same as an in-line spinner. In-line Buzzer:

Ain 't you just a lucky dawg, you got 2 ft more of boat than I do ! , hmmm, now let 's see that forecast .......... oh boy, cloudy on Saurday and partially cloudy on Sunday, heck, what are we waiting for ????? Alright, it 's gonna be chilly, well, that 's what jackets and sweaters are for. : , BTW, it 's better when the front is passing, aftwards, like Monday, nah, I don 't think I 'd bet on that one. :-?, besides, let 's see them physics again, water is 850 TIMES denser than air so a drop in air temperature ain 't gonna have much effect on water temp.

Well, I 'm pretty shure that the BaitMonkey would have jumped on them 16 dollars if it were me.

Course there is, it 's that dirt road that passes right there at the right side of the MacAllister 's farm dude !

Good point! How many people do you see holding a spinning reel upside down, reeling backwards I 've seen them, at first it 's one of those things that you look but you don 't see and the image stays there in your brain, since it don 't make no sense you can 't process it right away and then -------> ah !

My wife is my best fishing partner, she don 't like fishing nor the outdoorsy kinda activities we cave men like so I just fill in the minimum courtesy of asking if she wanna join me, since she gonna say NO, THANK YOU I can go with a clean concience. I take the kid, we do have a lotta fun, drink sodas and burp out loudly, fart loudly and stinky, eat pork rinds with chili sauce n 'such without having nobody giving us THE LOOK.

Nope, God ain 't got sense of humor, God is a bass fisherman and God makes weather s*ty during the weekends cuz God knows that s*ty weekend weather not only makes better fishin, it also scares away all them picnickers, pleasure boaters, water skiers n ' jet skiers and we bass fishermen have all the lake for ourselves cuz the weather is "s*ty". I 'm grateful to God .... but I have to admit that sometimes he puts too much "spirit" into the s*ty weather thing and even we die hard bass fisherman have to pack our bags n 'go home. Man, it was really windy last Sunday down here.

Right ---> handle on the right side Left ---> handle on the left Nowhere it says with which hand you have to crank the handle.

Some Abu round reels have centrifugal brakes, others don 't, you control the spool rotation with the tension knob and ----> it 's all in the thumb.