WIGuide

That equipment might work for you depending on how "heavy" the cover is and the size bass you're trying to pull from it. Being that you mentioned walleye fishing I'm under the assumption that you're from north of the mason dixon line and you might be able to get away with it with that gear. A heavy powered would be better suited for it though.

Congrats on the upgrade!

There are a lot of variables that go along with a spinnerbait. It's possible you could have been throwing or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. For instance the day your chatterbait was killing it, I would be guessing is a day they wanted more vibration, if you were throwing a spinnerbait with willowleaf blades, you're going for flash and hardly any vibration. Spinnerbaits will catch fish, but you will have the best luck with whatever you have most confidence in.

I hear ya, fluoro has a tendency to dig into itself more so to combat that, try working the knot down some by hand before you try tightening it up, and again wet it well and pull it tight smooth and slow. If that still doesn't work for you, then I guess you'll have to find a new knot. There really isn't a right knot, just one that works for you!

Yep there's no reason not to. I prefer a shorter rod as it gives me a leg up on accuracy, but if you feel comfortable with that it'll work!

Practice with the polomar a little more, there's no reason it should be fraying or binding. Make sure you wet your knot before you sinch it down, and make sure when you tie it to keep the double lines running parallel so they aren't twisted together.

Spinnerbait, squarebill, swimbait, jig or creature bait to flip, and a worm/senko style bait. On a lake like that where everything is the same, look for something that's different. Some of the stuff has already been said, try to find a channel or a small point or hump, but even just in the stumps themselves maybe you can find a few that are grouped closer together, or it might be that there are a few really big stumps scattered on a flat with a bunch of little stumps covering the rest of the flat. Try paying closer attention to the big ones and see if you can develop a pattern from something like that.

12:01am to as late as you can get away with haha. Around first light should be good though. What lake is this tourney on?

Congrats on the new rig.

Rippin's idea looks pretty promising, otherwise you could make some sort of rack out of PVC that would work for you

Are you burnt under the wife beater too....oh wait.... haha. That is an epic burn. I've done that a time or two. I don't get the blisters that bad though. My last mistake that bad was when I went down to OK to fish in the Oakley Big Bass Tour even on Grand Lake. Being hot, I threw on a cutoff not thinking that since it was early on in the summer I hadn't gone suns out guns out yet. We scouted for about 3 hours and the poor white skin on my biceps and especially the top of my shoulders that had been living in the dark for roughly 7 months didn't fair so well. I burn easily anyway, but that time I burnt BAD! The skin on towards the tops of my shoulders turned almost leathery and it was pretty painful.

Buy the SV spool for your 103, and then buy a Pixy to compare. +1 to bait monkey for outside the box thinking, +1 bait monkey for enabling Pixy fantasy +2>0 Therefore this is the best option haha

If you're comparing how a reel cast from rod to rod, that's like comparing apples to oranges. Like roadworrior said length plays a big role in distance, so does action of the rod as it effects how the rod loads. The only way to see any true comparison would be to measure casting distance with braid, and then switch line with everything else staying the same.

If it were me, it would depend on what technique I was planning to do more. I'm sure you can frog with a 7'11, but it's going to be tougher with a longer rod like that. If you go down to the Mojo Frog and Slop rod it'll make froggin' easier and even though you might lose just a little distance on your flip/pitch it's more of an all around rod. If you mostly flip/pitch/punch you might want to go with the 7'11" instead, but if it's anything around that 60/40 split of flip/pitch/punch to frogin' ratio, I'd be looking at the shorter rod.

What motor do you have?

It's a nice little bait. It walks/glides a lot more than the original Bronzeye frog. Like lecisnith said, it's more of an open water bait for working the outside edges of cover, or skipping docks.

See if you can get some 50 lb test Berkley profesional grade braid. Any line that sinks isn't good for topwater applications especially for froggin'. Also, you're experiencing the nature of the topwater beast. There's days they will choke it, and there's days you get their attention, but they won't commit. When they do that, you can try changing something: a color change, change profile either by changing size or trimming legs, change retrieve (faster, slower, adding pauses). Sometimes that'll help other times they are still going to be fickle. Stick with it though as frogs are great big bass producers.

Yep they work just fine that way.

From the sounds of what you want it to do, I think a rod in an extra fast action will work well for you.

Simple question, but are your speed readings coming from a GPS or the old school speedo? The reason I ask is because although the spedo will give you a ballpark on your speed they aren't very accurate at all. Your 3 blade Raker is going to be a faster prop. You will probably lose a little on your hole shot. 4 blade props are usually a little slower top end unless they are on the right boat. They offer better grip, that equates to better handling and better takeoff, as well as usually providing more lift and lower planing speed. Your prop to pad measurement is the vertical measurement between the pad and the center of the prop shaft.

I use 12 lb Berkley 100% Fluroro and and I tie a Polamar knot with it. I use it because I have zero issues with it, and that combo works very well with one another as far as not breaking.

I'd probably just go with one like they have on the back deck. The adjustable kind as I would think that aircraft carrier size deck you've got on the 522 should have plenty of room to get around it.

Just curious, what's wrong with stock? I thought the S posts were to help make space in smaller boats so your seat wasn't always bumping you in the back of the legs.

Sweet ride! Congrats on the new rig!

I used to use both depending on situation. Back in the day the XT stood for Xtra tough, and XL was for Xtra limp. XT was designed to be used on a baitcasting reel as it was more abrasion resistant, but that came at a trade off that it had more memory. XL was a limper line designed for use on spinning reels and is a good line, but it doesn't have the same abrasion resistance that XT has. Before I started using fluoro, I would use them both the way they were intended.