Kevin22

You might want to go to walmart and buy a $10 rod to practice on. Strip the guides and re-install them so you know what you are doing before you attempt to work on the rod with such sentimental value.

If this was a serious question, you lost a lot of credibility points asking that in public!

They are very hard to hook. And hard to keep hooked. This one ran like a torpedo shot out of a submarine. 42.5". Still looking for a 4 footer.

No, not all of them. Actually very few with the exception of lakes connected to rivers. Your forage species are a bit different. Perch, tulibee, whitefish, and various minnows/shiners are the forage base. In central and southern MN Its primarily perch and panfish as forage.

Sounds like a walmart employee stepped on the handle and heard a crack then they sold it off on clearance. I'm sure they noticed the price tag on the receipt too which threw up some huge red flags. You are lucky they are warranting it.

It will slow down your reeling speed, but it will not change the IPT. It will just take you a longer amount of time to make the full rotation of the longer handle, but each full rotation is still going to spin the spool the same amount of times and pick up the same amount of line.

Only because you said frogs, I will also say that you need braid.

Thats a dual cable. Transducer/power in one. Not sure what you would need another cable for. Transducer/power up front, transducer/power on console/rear. You can hook both powers to the same battery if needed.

Man, that brings back memories. I spent a childhood fishing for carp. We used a #6 aberdeen hook, and a #5 spit shot about a foot above it. We only had 4 rods between us (me and the neighbor), 1 ultra light, 3 mediums, and 1 baitcaster. I cannot remember catching one on the baitcaster, they would always bite on the light lines. I caught quite a few on the old shakespeare 5' UL with 4# mono. They would run me almost empty and then I'd have to chase them down on shore. For bait, we used wheatie balls. Weaties.. the cereal... Take a handful and crumble them up in your hands as fine as possible, then dip your hands in the lake to moisten them. Keep doing it until you can form a small ball that will hold together (about the size of a nickel). Form the ball over the hook and lob it out. We would always catch 5 or 6 a trip. Quite a few common carp over 20# and even some big white amur that topped the 25# scale we had with ease. Lots of catfish as well, and a few big goldfish. I even caught a pacu once.

Yeah, when it first aired on their facebook page. First thing I thought was "why is he frogging with micro guides?".

Frog rod with micro guides? I surely hope not!

The rapala shad cranks (shad rap, shallow shad rap, scatter rap) are not like most baits. I can cast a 1/4 bomber, strike king, or bandit twice as far as i can a shad rap. Even with spinning gear it can be tricky if there is any sort of wind. Like I said, its like casting a balloon.

Where did you see this?

No, super flukes are fished like that. Zoom flukes were designed for jigs heads (no cuts in the body). The regular zoom fluke works great on 1/8-3/8 jig heads for every species you can think of. One year when the walleye were feeding on big shad, that is all they would hit! And we caught a lot of smallies and largemouth mixed in as well. I use the tiny fluke on 1/8 heads for walleye but its a pretty small presentation unless you are finessing.

8# mono or 30# braid. Lower than 30# digs in when you catch a fish, then your next cast could make your lure into a fly ball. I once talked to a guy who was telling me all about this new line called braid (I played along of course not to be rude) he said it has "crazy breaking strength" and that his 10# spiderwire is stronger than my 14# mono (he's right). He had a rapala clackin rap tied on, the first cast in front of me he caught a nice chunky 12"er. Second cast sent his lure 100 yards into the middle of the river. He cussed and cussed yelling that they lied and this POS line isn't strong at all. I just told him to have a nice day and wished him better luck. His new fancy $20 spool of 10# braid cost him a $12 lure on the 2nd cast. That's what happens when you go too light with braid!

#5 and #7 shad raps get thrown on a MF spinning rod for me. I dont use them for bass very often, mostly walleye. There's no way you could get any sort of distance with a casting reel. They are like throwing a balloon.

That is strange. Whatever worm you dipped in there must have had a chemical reaction! Just a FYI, don't dip the spike-it ahead of time. It only penetrates the surface of the plastic so the scent will not be as potent when you do it ahead of time. Best to be done on the water. You can dip JJs ahead of time, but it might stink up your boat. Spike-it definitely has the edge when it comes to user friendliness. You can toss that bottle wherever you want. I have a bottle thats been in the boat for at least 5 years. Summer, winter, all the time. JJ's you have to keep on ice on a hot day or it will heat up and leak all over the place. Don't leave it in the boat or your truck or you'll come back to a cracked jar and a puddle of never-ending stank. Don't get me wrong, JJs is the bomb.. just wish they could get a better way of packaging it.

No. Think of the shaft the handle is on. On a 7.1:1 reel every time that shaft rotates once it turns the spool 7 times. Doesn't matter if your handle is 3" long or 33" long.

Should work fine as long as you aren't throwing into reeds, pads, or thick weeds. Pike are worse than bass at rocketing down into the thicket stuff possible.

You answered your own question right there. If you believe it makes a difference then by all means go with what you believe. Fishing is about confidence! If you fish all day thinking the fish are seeing your line, you won't have a very productive day! Put a leader on!

I would suggest a 7'3-7'6 MH. You do not need a heavy unless you are targeting trophy fish. If you are, I would suggest you look on the lighter end of the musky rods. As for reels, you are going to need something with very good gears. Something like a lew's super duty. I would choose 50# braid. Tie in a 25# fluoro leader for your topwater and cranks. Run a 12" 40# stainless leader with anything you don't care to lose. For gear ratio, if you are planning on fishing some high-torque lures (most small musky lures) then I would suggest the 5:X:1 ratio. Otherwise you'll be fine with a 6:x:1.

On the c-rig it won't matter, just run a fluoro leader to the bait. Unless of course you are using carolina keepers, then I would suggest you run a leader attached to the braid. Braid as leader for c-rigs doesn't work well in my experience. I have fished braid in clear water, and had mixed results. One place I fish its clear, but not very pressured so the fish aren't that spooky. The other places are highly pressured and the fish will not come within 20 feet of your lure if you have braid. Switch to fluoro (or fluoro leader) and they come right over and eat it. So, if you do not want to use leaders then don't. Try straight braid for a bit and see what happens. If you don't get bit or think you should be getting bit more, try a leader and see what happens.

Pike is very good. It has a little bit of fat in it (the white streaks) which is good. Pike is awesome grilled or pan seared because of this. It is also very good fried of course, but it can get a little wet inside from the moisture in the fat. We only hook into pike here in the springtime, pretty rare to get one in the summer so it is a seasonal fish for me. Pike in the 20-30" range are fantastic eating. The higher side of that rage are easier to clean and remove the bones, but they all taste good. I'm looking forward to hooking into a few pike up north in a couple weeks.

I clean them for friends that need/want the meat. They don't seem to mind, they will take anything to help them get by.

Might want to bring a caffeine shad to the store with you. I fish zoom super flukes so I'm not sure if 4/0 would be the appropriate size for the caffeine shad. Also, make sure you get the round bend. I seem to get better hook-ups with it vs the o-shaug. 54114 is what I use.