Airman4754

Everything except punching. Like a lot of guys have said on here I used to really dislike the technique. You have to find the equipment, the terminal tackle, the baits, and a fishing technique that makes you feel natural and makes your bait look natural while you are doing it. Once you get that down its beyond productive.

50lb Spiderwire Camo main line, 12lb CXX leader. I use steel sinkers 1/2, 3/4, or 1oz with a glass bead. For hooks its a 3/0 to 6/0 straight shank depending on bait size.

Crap, I didn't know that. Time to scrounge the interwebs and buy up everything I can.

Kicker Fish 11" ribbon tail. I don't care what hook you put in it, it stands straight up off the bottom. It's a really cool bait.

Docks aren't very wide. If they are under it and you're running close they will see it.

Nope, just drop shotting down the sides with non-finesse gear. A young gentleman from California just won an Elite event doing this very thing.

I started power shotting docks last year and haven't looked back. It's so effective.

Pretty much every body of water in this country has crawfish, shad, or some type of sun/pan fish. It's in your best interest to know what those look like in that body of water at all four seasons. If not default to green pumpkin because it doesn't really look like anything specific, but it kind of looks like everything. A basic shad color is also a good default. Water clarity isn't a big factor to me unless it's under under 2ft., then it's still not a big factor but I know I need to be right on the bank and right on structure. Water temperature tells me what pace I generally need to fish at. Cold = slow, warm = fast. That's not always true, but generally it's true. I only fish three or four colors and I match those to the ambient light situation, not the color of bottom. If I'm in shade, dusk/dawn, or overcast I'm fishing dark colors. If it's the reverse I'm fishing lighter colors. As for what bait and profile fish what you are comfortable with. For someone starting out pick four bait styles. Topwater, reaction, suspended, and bottom. It doesn't matter what they are, they all catch fish. Then fish the situation. If the bass are suspended you could use a T-rig or wacky Senko, underspin, flutter spoon, etc. Pick one, use it exclusively, get good at it. Then expand the arsenal, and that applies to the other three styles. Finally, you just have to fish a lot. The lakes you are on will change drastically through the year.

I have never kept bass but now that smallies are in all the lakes I fish and they all stunt at 10" and 2lbs I think I'm about to. The scolding of keeping fish outside of spring is silly anyways. Water can only hold so much biomass and the more predators you have the less/slower they grow. It doesn't have to be you, but someone needs to take some out of there.

I call that the mid-day motivator. You usually hook it or catch it on slow days.

Stick to the points.

Either buy an NFC blank and have someone do a custom job for you or buy a Power Tackle which uses NFC blanks. Those are/were the real Loomis blanks. From my personal experience NFC > NRX by a considerable margin.

Line watch and weigh your line every time before you pop it off bottom. Reel up your slack and slowly raise your rod, if it has weight set the hook.

Have no fear. This is the last real weekend they'll be out.

25lb CXX is insanely strong. No regular hookset by a mortal could break it. Something isn't right and it's cheap enough that I would just replace it.

Depending on the species of fish if it's 10ft or less depth I'll throw a 3/8oz lipless for spots and smallies and fish it about as fast as possible with a pause about every five seconds. I get most of my strikes right at the boat.

This last weekend I has to separate a smallie that was about 12" with about an 8" perch stuck in its mouth floating on top of the water. The smallie swam off, the perch didn't make it. RIP little buddy.

When you go to use your thumb to grab it and flip your hand over and use all four fingers instead!

I've been talking about this technique on here a lot. For me it has been so much more effective. When you fish these it literally takes zero skill. You just work your worm however you want until you feel pressure and just reel the fish in. It's that simple and it's totally weedless. I've tried tons of different hooks and I recommend the Gammy light wire worm hook in 2/0, 1, and 2 if you're going to fish those new Keitech leeches. Step 1: run down through the nose like a T-rig. Step 2: pull hook through the worm up to the eye of the hook Step 3: rotate the hook and find the place on the worm it needs to enter so it will run naturally Step 4: texpose it right to the point you just feel the hook coming through Step 5: go fishing If you run this with a 1/8oz weight you can fish it in any weeds up to the point of needing punch gear.

Yep, run it in the top 3' of the water column.

If you have a Sportman's Warehouse near you they have 400yd Zebco spools for $4. I know guys that use electrical tape as well. I wouldn't do it, but it's a one time ever thing.

False and false. I have small hands. You could only jump over the high bar head first until you couldn't. That's a 400 Calcutta with a No Ratz handle. 300E on an 8' rod, etc. People fish however they want, but the word "can't" should have been retired a long time ago.

I like a foregrip on my salmon, steelhead, and trout rods because I use it to lay back into the fish and wear them out. They are absolutely pointless with bass.

I thought I ordered one bag of plum Pit Bosses during the TW X-mas sale, but I ordered 11. That's my worst blunder so far. But really, can you have too many Pit Bosses?

I throw 6XD's on a 7'8" glass rated for 1oz which isn't too far off from the St Croix specs you are looking at and the 6XD is right at the edge of not totally wearing you out and still being able to get your hooks into the fish for the rod I have. The 10XD has way heavier gauge hooks and way larger bill. You really have to swing into it when you feel that bump. I throw them on a composite rated for 3oz and I think it's too stiff once you have the fish hooked. I just ordered a Phenix X-14. I think the 2oz rating and the glass/composit blend should get me right where I want to be. Give that St Croix a try. If it has the backbone to make good hooksets you won't pin a fish better than with glass. If it doesn't work out you can recoup a lot of your money and you'll know more of what you really want for performance.