fishwizzard

I use a snell knot on straight shank hooks that don't have a keeper as the the line itself helps keep the nose of the plastic in place. I have never noticed a difference in hookups vs the Trilene knot I use for everything else.

Yea, I am looking for something that would be easy to hike with to fish shallow marshes, so short is what I am looking for. A P5 Megabass isn't going to be a super powerful rod, so long bomb casts deep aren't really going to be useful. I have been using a slower rods for frogs this past year and while it takes some adjustment to your hookset, once you have them on it's so so much easier get them landed and to keep them hooked up when they jump. A 6" senko is going to be around 1/2oz, so as long as you use a strong hook to rig them with I think a lot of rods will do what you are looking for.

https://www.megabass.co.jp/site/products/des_ch_f5-67x I have been looking at this silly rod for months but have never pulled the trigger due to the price. I think it's exactly what I am looking for in a short frog rod but I have yet to be bold enough to roll the dice.

Man, I have an FJ1000 that......has not had an easy time in life and it’s still trucking along great. I always meant to buy a few more bit never did.

Do you have a link for that holster? It’s the least bulky looking one I have ever seen. I want one for wading to hold my rod while rigging it up. So far for BF I am looking at getting a Dobyn’s dx702c and an Alphas CT. I am not 100% on either of them, it’s going to depend on the deals I can find.

That looks a lot like the 7' BPS StickO.

Lake Artemeisa drives me crazy, the best looking parks are hard/impossible to fish from the bank. I do ok there in the summer fishing the pad edges where I can get them them.

I prefer a #2 when I can find them. The small size of the lure mean that most an bass will be hooked inside the mouth and the smaller hooks snag so so much less. I have used down to #4 but you really need to pay a lot of attention to your drag with hooks that thin.

I love those little lures. They weigh right around 3/8oz and I can throw them on almost every combo I own if I need to.

That is really clever and I wish I had kept the packaging.

I actually like the PopX a lot. It’s a great little popper. I use a PopMax more often but for me it’s almost purely a walking bait, I have never been able to get it to actually pop very well. For those of you guys who really like the Dark Sleepers, how on earth are you storing them in a way that keeps the tiny little tales from permanently kinking? I’ve had decent luck with them but I find them to be impossible to store while on foot without having the tails get all mangled in very short order.

I have a pair of loomis MagL/XFast rods and love them. One I use all the time and the other I am hanging onto as a spare.

The lure I give new people is always basically the same, a curly tail/kut tail/whatever tail worm, t-rigged with a pegged weight. I try to get the total package weight to be on the heavier side of the rod's rating to help with casting. This presentation is easy to cast, very weedless, and can be successfully worked with a huge range of retrieves. Most new anglers will work it really fast, which helps with bit detection and hookups.

For me, Ned and small paddle tails is a different rod then Neko and wacky rigging senkos. For Neds and 4" Easy Shiners I use a Megabass P3 Cliffhanger and love it. There is a current version that should fish about the same. It's favors the lighter end of it's rating and has a sweet spot of around 1/4oz. It's a great caster and responds well to a slow easy sidearm. For Nekos, dropshotting, and lighter wacky rigging I use a Megabass XXX Black Themis. It favors the higher end of it's rating and has a sweet spot right around 3/8oz. It's got a very standard XF action and gives good hooksets on both tiny DS hooks and smaller "standard" wire jigs. It's not the best caster, but for me no XF rod has ever cast very well. You also might want to check out the MB Hein, it's listed as a crankbait rod but there is a lot of info about it on TT where most guys seem to use it as a general finesse rod.

Pull the weight off, stick the hook in the hook keeper, and secure the tag end with a rubberband/hair tie/velcro tie.

I pack my plastics into Plano 3600 boxed "kits" based around a specific presentation or combo. The hooks/weights go into a compartment in each kit with a rust tab or two. I replace the tabs every two years and am careful about not putting wet stuff back into the kits and have never had an issue with rust.

I have a little wooden version of that but I also have ~15lbs of fishing junk piled up in front of it.

Very clever! I keep meaning to take a jig to the hardware store to find some plastic tubing that will slide over the weedguard, but have yet to do it.

If the builder really has some old Loomis MBR blanks on hand I would just trade for one of them and find someone to build it later on.

This year I started using snaps for topwater frogs for two reasons: 1) Ease of swapping. I use different frogs for open water, pads, and mats/duckweed and will often encounter all three along a give section of bank. 2)Ease of tip-walking. I have yet to find a “perfect” frog rod but I have some that are very close, but lack a tip that lets me walk with ease. But with a snap on most any rod can walk most any frog in most any position. I have been using Decoy 70lb Egg Snaps and have been very happy with them. Easy to open but never open on their own, don’t pick up weeds, and are far stronger then the 40lb braid that I use. I did some yard-testing and the line broke before the snap deformed every time.

I am pretty sure that MD retention ponds are stocked deliberately, I have seen bass and sunfish pulled from very very young ponds.

Another summer has passed without me dragging my kayak out to Widewater. I know if I can manage the wind it will be an amazing way to fish the place, those offshore rock piles/islands call to me every time I am there.

Those are some great rods, did you buy them in North America or bring them over with you? I was looking at Jackson rods the other day, I missed out buying one of their Trickster bfs rods a few years ago when they were being discontinued and get the itch to hunt around for one occasionally.

I used to tie knots for a living and I cannot get the laces on my slip on boat shoes to stay tied for more then a day or two, next summer I am going to use fine braid to sew them knotted.

Any of the line/knot enthusiasts want to explain this failure? 12lb Invizx, newly spooled, the knot was a Trilene that was tied 5-10 casts before it broke. The lure was an old swimjig that had a dozen or more bass on it. The line broke opposite of the knot where it was doubled around the lure-eye. I was trying out a new rod at a pond that puts out mostly 2lb class bass. Got a hit, set the hook, and tried to get the bass up and out of the hydrilla but it was not working. Assuming the new rod was less powerful then rated I pulled harder. I got the bass on top at last and it was easily high-3lb or low-4lb. Got her to the bank and foolishly decided the knees of my work pants were important and tried to lift her with the line. By by bass. I have never seen a knot failure like this before. Obviously 4lb of bass and 1-2lb of weeds are asking too much of 12lb fluoro on a deadlift, but I cannot explain how the knot broke where it did.