Kevin22

Do you mean original floater? I took it as a floating crankbait (shad rap, scatter rap, etc). You can probably throw a #7 original floater on an ultra light.

IMO for nearly all situations you only need 3 colors of jigs. 1. Craw color. (depends on what species of craws you have locally, typically browns or greens) 2. Black (black/blue, black, or black/red) 3. White, shad, or other forage color.

I use a backpack for beating the banks. I just put in what I think I will need and have more in the truck if needed. Not a fan of carrying a bag around with me, I'd rather have it on my back so I can walk around and fish without having to set the bag down and pick it up again. I carry a leatherman in my pocket and have a rapala folding measuring board, a tape measure, and a digital scale in the bag. I did just buy a spiderwire wolf bag for a boat bag when I'm fishing with someone else, very nice bag but its the opposite of what you want. Its huge. It was $50 on amazon with free shipping.

What? You are throwing a 3/4oz football head on a 6'6 MLF premier spinning rod? A 3/4 oz jig on that rod is already loaded past max, I don't know how you could even feel anything or even cast it without breaking the rod. I tried a 5/16 round ball walleye jig once and it was way too heavy.

You might need some thicker line so it floats higher on the water. I prefer 14# when fishing sticks, but I will go down as low as 10# or as high as 17# if I have to. 10# for high pressured fish in clearer water, 17# for tossing sticks into brush.

Any weight at all and I am setting the hook. Hooksets are free. With that being said, 90% of the bites I get on a senko I can visually see. The line will jump 6" off the water or the line will just take off. Rarely do I not see a bite and then feel it on the rise. For this reason, I use mono for sticks. I tried co-poly and it sank too fast, couldn't see the bites and ended up with a lot of misses and a lot of gut hooked fish. Braid works okay too, if its 30# and higher it tends to float enough to see.

The bait was made for fishing a ML rod and 6# line, according to the big man himself. There are videos online where he shows how to use it. I tested it with a M baitcast rod and 30# braid and it swam fine, but I have heard if you use too thick of a line it will hinder the action. I don't have the confidence in myself to throw $15 lures on 6# line.

I have that rod, it has a real soft tip. Too soft for a #7 rapala. #5's work okay though. I use mine for walleye fishing with 3/32-3/16 jigs and small plastics or live bait. Works pretty good for a drop shot rod as well, with lighter weights. I also use it for a crappie rod when throwing 1/16 oz grubs. A 1/4 oz jig+3" grub overloads this rod. You are going to want braid with this rod, or you will not get many solid hooksets on bass/walleye. It doesn't get much use for me bass fishing. I like a 6'6 MXF for almost all spinning rod bass applications.

Did you buy the $9.99 ones on there? I bought one, then when I got it I went back to buy more and they were gone. Not a bait worth $15+ IMO, but for $10 it seems worth it. They are small, and they work best on light line.. but they swim great and look great! Hook is very sharp as well. Should be a solid fish catcher on slow days.

The only way to gain confidence is to catch some fish on them. Any place near you that is known for large numbers of small fish? City parks, county parks, places like that usually have large numbers of 10-13" fish. A day of catching a couple dozen of those will gain you some confidence. Take a 5" stick bait (brand doesn't matter) in green pumpkin color (black flake) and put it on a 3/0 EWG gamakatsu hook, rigged weedless (texas style) with no weight. Throw it to where you think a bass would be hiding and watch your line on the fall. Let it fall to the bottom and sit for 20 seconds. If your line twitches or takes off, slowly lift your rod and if you feel anything on the end set the hook. If you did not get a bite on the initial fall, lift the bait about a foot off the bottom and let it fall again. Wait 10 seconds, then repeat. For line, use mono in the 10-14# range so you can see it easily on the surface. For the u-tails, take a 6-8" u-tail and rig it on the same 3/0 EWG gama hook but this time put a bullet weight on it. 1/8-1/4oz depending on how deep of water you are fishing. Fish it the same way as the senko only a little bit faster, with less time between lifts. You can also drag these along the bottom, about a foot at a time. That should get you some fish.

55-60 water temp I'm slow rolling a spinnerbait or slow cranking a thin profile crank (rapala shad rap, flicker shad, smash shad, etc). 40-50 water temp is jerkbait time. By 55 they should be in pre-spawn and plenty active enough to chase and hit a moving bait.

Power pro and sufix 832 for braid. I watch for deals online and buy powerpro at $11/150yd or less and sufix at $15/150 or less. Seaguar red label for fluoro Sufix seige for mono yo-zuri hybrid for co-poly

I put a feathered treble on all of my jerks. I tie my own so there is really no cost at all for me to take the treble off and dress it and then put it back on. I only fish jerks early in the spring and real late in the fall so I like the slower action the feathered treble gives it. In the summer time you will want it plain. Not that it makes too big of a difference in # of fish, more so that the panfish and tiny bass will be hitting that feathered treble and driving you nuts!

Get yourself a lightweight backpack and a plano 3700 box. Put the baits you plan on using in the box and go, leave the rest locked in your car/truck in case you need them. For the hooks. I like #2 X-short shanks for the 1/2 and #4 x-short for the 1/4. For regular trebles you will want #4 for the 1/2 and #6 for the 1/4.

Find some holes where it gets down to 6-8 feet and toss a shakey head in there. I fish a large creek (would be called a river most places) and the deeper holes hold the better fish. If I can get down in there with a shakey head and trick worm it usually gets bit. When the water is high enough that I cannot accurately fish the shakey head I go to the smallest size rapala x-rap in the olive color. Come summer they will hit anything that goes past or falls in front of their faces.

I don't even want to know. Wild guess would be probably 200lbs.

Not a fluoro pro, but I set the hook the same with all lines. Proper rod, proper knot, and proper hook will hold up to any hookset you can think of. Myself, I'm a lean back into the fish kind of guy.

I prefer hammered blades for dirty water. Make sure you look at http://www.hagensfish.com/ They have awesome prices and about every blade you can think of. There is a minimum order, but i think its only a $1 charge if you are under it if I remember correctly.

It will last as long as you need it to is my guess. I wouldn't worry about that when purchasing line. By the time it goes bad there will be so many new lines on the market that you will want to switch anyways.

Make sure your connections are not corroded. If so, then take it back. It should last A LOT longer than that. They will load test it for you and see if it is good.

How did you store it over winter? could have went bad on you if you did not keep it topped off and on a trickle.

If only we lived in a perfect world.

They do not charge anything for return shipping on a warranty replacement. They just charge a $20 processing fee to pay for the guy who inspects the rod and mails out another. Hard to believe it would cost you less than $20 to get half the rod replaced. You didn't tell them the guide broke it did you? that voids your warranty with them!!! If your warranty is void from someone else breaking it or you slamming a rod in a car door you can pay the $50-75 depending on the model and have a new rod shipped to your door.

I broke a st. croix eyecon. Was not my fault at all, I set the hook on a 12" walleye and it broke right at the transition from tip to backbone. I used their warranty program ($10 shipping label printed online + $20 check) and sent it in. The next day I got a call from their head service guy telling me that they were going to cover it under warranty. Then tried to upgrade me, which was nice, but I declined. I asked if it was possible to switch to a premier for my replacement rod instead of the eyecon (same retail price, but 5 year warranty instead of 2yr) he said sure and 2 days later I got a band new premier rod. For $30 it wasn't a bad deal. They are not the worst out there. I've used st. croix, daiwa, and abu garcia over the years and all have been great. Daiwa experience was the best. I had a iaconelli rod break, I paid $75 for it at TW on sale. I sent the rod in and got an email a few days later telling me that they no longer make that rod and do not have any to send me. They asked if they could upgrade me to the next model that has the same power and action rod (6'6 MXF spinning). I said that would be okay and about a week later a rod tube showed up. Was a team daiwa fuego spinning rod, MSRP $250. So for the $15 or whatever it was to send in the rod I got a $175 upgrade. Abu garcia was great as well. They did not require me to send the rod in, just send them a picture with my receipt next to the broken rod. A few days later I Got a new rod in the mail at no charge.

What happened to that ppmb sponsor that was here? Are they still here? They did some shady things... running that contest and then extending the end date to try and get more views, then splitting before it was up.