Logan S

All the Exsence DC's are 8.0, probably a bit too fast for what you are wanting, but its a great reel! I'm shocked this didn't get snapped up quick.

I would trade this reel for a Daiwa Tatula....Pretty much any model, straight up trade. Just throwing it out out there. I'm surprised there isn't more interest at this price!

I know some people use those things, but if a Co showed up tournament morning with that I'd kindly but firmly suggest he leave it in the truck. If a boater wants to put it in for their co, fine...But I'm in and out of the back compartments (as are most boaters) enough for it to be an issue, not to mention it's another thing to make sure is secured before and during a run. My buddies and I have talked about this before and we all share the same opinion, not on our boats. Just use the space that's there on the passenger side, it doesn't need overthinking to this level.

The co's in my boat that end up with tangled rods are the ones that don't take the extra few seconds to secure and organize them throughout the day. Leaving baits hanging from the tips, not wrapping the line around the blank, chucking them down quickly, etc, etc... Obviously my boat doesn't change...But some co's have all kinds of tangled messes and others never have a single issue. It's simple, don't bring more than 5 rods and be intentional about keeping them organized. Different boats have different layouts, but the same strategy should work regardless...In smaller boats you might have to take less stuff. The #1 reason is bringing too much stuff. Too many rods, too much tackle, too much extra gear. There is also a very strong correlation between the co-anglers that pack efficiently and stay organized and success in catching fish....With the opposite of both also being strongly correlated.

I built a rod for similar baits on an MHX CB841 and it's working our very well. I built mine for finessey cranks like balsa flatsides, shad raps, Frittsides 5's, etc....Light cranks with light wire trebles.

FX-711X4 - Seven Eleven F6-611K - Mat Bucker Type-L $175 each, both for $300. Price is TYD. The 711 is a telescoping rod and has sprial wrapped guides. It has a small dent in the butt cap where the deck stabilizer from a Fortrex came down on it. It was like this when I bought it 8 or 9 years ago and hasn't moved or got worse sense, you can see it in the picture. I do not have the original rod bag for the 711 but will include one from a 7'11" Destroyer Warhammer (it's an extra). I have original bad and tag for the Mat Bucker Type-L Pics. PM your phone number for more info or pics. 711 Mat Bucker Type-L

Good condition Exsence DC right hand. I bought this new from Japan back when they were still new-ish. Box and papers included. Works perfectly fine, pricing it to sell since I'm not using it currently. $150 TYD Picture - PM me your phone number if you want any additional pics or info.

It'll be mostly prespawn with maybe an early wave of spawners if conditions are ideal. Good time to fish the Upper Bay, if you hit it right with good weather and good tides you might have to remind yourself you're in MD and not FL or TX .

It's likely there were fish in both areas, but the ones up on the flat were better suited for you to catch. Early in the prespawn there are probably less fish moved up shallow compared to what's still out on points/bluffs/etc, but the ones that are up there are probably a lot easier to catch than their counterparts still out in wintering areas. So its high percentage, low success -VS- low percentage, high success. Sounds like if you could go back in time and try again, you might have had a pretty good day targeting the shallow fish by running a lot of similar water quickly. With time, the goal would be for these things to stand out to you before the tournament day instead of after . Part of the fun of tournaments and how they help you get better.

How so? Did they illegally snag the fish? Is there any legitimate reason to call them sketchy? It's not fair cast a poor light on these anglers just because you don't like how they did it. You don't fish bass tournaments, you don't fish musky tournaments (do you even fish for musky at all?), and you don't have FFS to even have firsthand knowledge of it's usage. So how does any of this actually impact you?

Got to fish a few times with all the rods I've built so far, very happy with all of them. I think the Point Blank 7'MH/F is the most impressive of the group, it's an amazing jig rod...Power and action are perfect and the sensitivity, balance, and overall feel are the best I've ever used for how I fish a jig (lots of skipping and casting). The Point Blank 7'ML/F is also impressive but I think it's just a little more powerful than I prefer for what I built it for originally, hence the 2 builds below which are slightly lighter in power. I'll use the 7'ML/F for heavier shakeyheads and tubes. I finished two PB691MLXF spinning rods the other day. Still learning with every build, my decal troubles are behind me I think ever since I started sealing the edges with color preserver before finish. I also snagged two NFC Delta Hybrid CB blanks, the 705 and 706, to try for squarebill, lipless, and chatterbaits since they were having one of their big sales...Hopefully they don't take forever to get here, I've heard NFC shipping is questionable at best.

You're taking it way too literally... It just means that many people without FFS tend to over-exaggerate how 'easy' it is to catch bass with it...It's more of a joke or shot at the people that act like it takes the skill out of bass fishing. It is accurate though

They also use a lot of flourocarbon...To quote @Team9nine, but if you’ve read these forums long enough… There was the fuzzy cube lure in the spotlight just recently though, sooooo....

This is the most accurate statement in the thread. And on the topic of screen/tech restrictions...I think it's a self-limiting issue. There's only so much real estate available on the bow and console to cram screens in and guys are maxing out right now. Also, when FFS was limited to only Garmin... having that extra 3rd screen up front was 'necessary' for anyone that didn't run a Garmin ecosystem. Now that all 3 major brands have a version of FFS it's not really needed anymore and IMO is overkill. I bet you actually start seeing the pros start going back to 2+2 again instead of the 5 unit setups. It's just not worth the added expense, management, power draw, etc. I think the whole for/against argument around FFS is like some of the other 'hot button' topics in bass fishing, in that it exists 1000% more on the internet than it does in real life. When you show up to a tournament, no one cares who has what on their boat...They just show up and fish. In the big picture of tournament bass fishing (at any level), the expense of adding FFS is really not THAT much. So anyone that truly believes they are being held back by not having it yet should just bite the bullet and invest in it...and be ready to realize it ain't as magic as you thought it was .

If it's stuck back there and you do happen to free it up, it's likely to just get stuck again. The plastic can swell if they get really hot and it probably swelled in that channel for the weight transfer causing it to get stuck in the first place. If so, it'll probably just get stuck again and again. I had one do this to me, I could smack it back into place, but it'd get re-stuck every 2 or 3 casts. It's a freebie you found floating...Would be cool if it worked out, but I wouldn't put the effort into it. Karma questions aside, MB might replace it - but if there's rust inside they might deny the claim (they are all fisherman too, they will probably know a found lure when they see it). How much is your time and effort worth? Just go grab a new one if you are deadset on having one. Then you can pick your own color and know that the hooks are the right ones .

It's supposed to sit nose-down diagonally (I guess at like 45 degrees?) when 'in-action'. After a cast, when the weights are in the tail from the cast, it will sit nose-up almost vertical...But as soon as you start moving the bait the weights will roll into the correct position and it will sit nose-down as it's supposed to. Sometimes the weights can get stuck in the tail causing it to sit nose up all the time...A good tap or two will unfreeze them (if not, send it back to MB for a replacement). There are no magnets in a Vision 110. The weights roll back and forth with gravity. The Vision 110 has 2 ball bearings for the weight transfer, not 1. I don't know of a 110 off the top of my head with a single ball for weigh transfer...Jr, +1, and FX are all two, the ITO Shiner is 3. #6 Katsuge Oubarbs are the direct replacement for a standard 110. #5 G-Finesse have been said to be a very good alternative...However I prefer the factory outbarbs.

I was actually there last Sunday as well, I think I saw your boat out there (not to many out). I was solo in a black Skeeter. Was my once a year day trip to the hotside. I had tons of followers on FFS but nothing ever committed so I quit....Went up shallow and sight fished for cruisers and did pretty well. Nothing huge, but lots of a fish if you could hit them with a cast before they saw you. Only reason I have 2 in hand is because I saw both at the same time - caught one, flipped it in the boat and then picked up another rod and fired at the second fish and caught him too .

For Pointer 65's specifically - #8 round bend lightwire trebles, I prefer VMC for the brand. I personally don't like EWG's or short-shanks on jerkbaits, but others do. #6's and #4s will cover probably 75% of your typical hardbaits. Add in some #2's for the larger baits and #8's for the smaller ones and you'll have 99% of it covered. If you use short-shank EWG's you can usually go up by 1 size on most baits if you wanted a little more hook...But a lot of it is preference. EWG's scratch the bait a little more and as a result, the points dull a little faster (just my experience/opinion).

For all the blunders MLF made during the transition to BPT....They really nailed their marketing campaign against traditional livewell tournaments and their fake fish care stuff. It's wild to see it still working this well even after MLF itself abandoned it. On to culling...In general and in the long run you save a lot of time by eyeballing it. MOST of the time, it's easy to tell. You just know which fish is your smallest and then cull that one when you upgrade so no need to waste time. If you've made a few culls, sometimes it helps to 'reset' and go thru your fish real quick to confirm the smallest. To do that, I throw all 5 into my net in the bottom of the boat and then pull out the obviously bigger fish leaving the smallest 2. If they're close, I'll balance beam them real quick and then I'll know which fish is my smallest again and be ready to fish again. If I'm catching all the same size fish and it's not obvious which is the smallest, I still just livewell them immediately like normal and then when I get a limit I do the same 'reset' that I described above...but I balance beam all of them, leaving the lighter fish on the beam and the heavier fish goes in the well...Whichever is left at the end is my smallest. Even doing all the fish like this, it's done in a minute or less and I'm back to fishing. I have a scale in my boat but the only time it gets used is if I want to weigh a big fish just for the heck of it...It doesn't come out during a tournament because the fish will get weighed on the tournament scale .

Hitting the lake this weekend so finally rigged some of my builds up for real... I finished my jig rod on the PB701MHF, its on the deck rigged up in the pic. I think I'll try to strip and redo the label on the shallow crank rods at some point to fit in closer with my personal style for my rods (it was one of my firsts). I've also got 2 more drying right now that I'll throw in the boat to test out. Both MHX Mag Bass models...An MB873 that will get chatterbait duty. I've seen elsewhere this blank reported to have an IP of around 750g but when I measured mine it came out to 825g...And I'm actually happy about that since I like a heavier power rod for bladed jigs. The other is an MB842 that I trimmed to 6'9" for poppers...But I'll be a while before topwater time for me so I'll fling it around this weekend with some flukes or swimbaits. I think I've turned a corner on my labels too, I tried using color preserver to seal it before the finish and it turned out really well without any fuss. I think I need to build at least one more spinning rod before April to really be set for the season and I'm leaning toward another PB701MLF. Been a busy winter getting into this...When I decided to start doing this I sold off 12 or 13 of my Megabass rods to fund the startup and first set of rods and I've just about burnt through that .

This thread is/was about a fairly specific situation - Boaters and Co-Anglers fishing in a tournament together. 2 people in a canoe is (or people just out fishing together in general in any boat) is an apples vs oranges comparison. Skipping into reeds is effective because the line angle stays low and doesn't end over over top of a reed/stalk...When you go to move your bait it stays in the water instead of having to come loop up over top of a reed that your line is laying on top of from an overhead or normal cast.

Thanks Mick, bummer about the pics not showing up...They show up OK for me, I'll try to add them manually. I do drag and drop usually, maybe that's not the best way. EDIT - I went back and fixed the pictures, should be OK now.

Got the Bushido finished up. I'm thinking that this will make for a nice lipless crank and large topwater rod...As opposed to chatterbaits that was the original intention. It's definitely not a Heavy power, more like a Medium+ with a nice mod-fast action. We'll see though, all that could change once I get to actually fish with it and try both applications, might be a case of the real world being different from specs. Either way, it should fit the bill nicely for at least one of those applications I was able to mostly save the decal by letting the finish harden without trying to 'fix' it prematurely, then gently filing down the raised portion of finish that popped up on the decal edge and applying a thicker coat of finish on top of everything. It came out nice and smooth, you can still tell the edge is there, but only if you're looking up close. It's my own rod so no big deal. The fixed decal - Not too bad...

I would think that knowing the rules that motorized vessels should be following would be a big help in ensuring a kayaker stays safe. IMO anyone using a navigable waterway should be held to the same standard, motorized or not. Similar to how cyclists on the road are SUPPOSED to follow the same rules as motorized vehicles. There are a lot of parallels between cyclists on the roads and kayaks on navigable waterways.

I have a feeling we'll see him again, he's the Tom Brady of bass fishing for sure...the GOAT, but I also think that just like Brady it'll take more than one retirement for him to be finished .