finatic

Hey guys, I recently got a GoPro and started my own YouTube channel. I've never done this before so I wanted to share one of the videos I did here and get everyone's feedback.

Thanks for tips. I'll have to try some of the road runners with hair and also try different trailers. I have a big asst of panfish grubs and jig bodies.

I went back to Dunhams yesterday to get some more road runners. Asst colors and sizes - couple 1/16 and 1/8. The smaller ones (1/16) were working great with the bluegill. The 1/8 will probably work great for the crappie, although they are harder to locate than the other panfish.

I have a story to tell, which all began a couple years ago. I was out fishing one day with a Keitech minnow on a Vtec jighead. All of a sudden I started catching crappie, each one bigger than my foot (I wear a size 13). I caught about six of these slabs and then they stopped. It was enough to get me hooked on pan fishing again, which I haven't done a lot of since I was a kid. Anyway, so I started chatting about this with some fishing buddies and they told me I should use something called a road runner. They said it was the cadillac of crappie baits. I searched high and low for these road runners and couldn't find anyone locally who carried them. I didn't even have any success looking online. So now let's fast forward to a couple days ago. I was at the tackle shop looking for an ultra light setup, because I was getting that urge again to fight some fish on a smaller setup. The tackle guy suggested this combo, which he said he used himself. The rod was really nice, but it had one of those cheap crappy reels on it. I found a Lew's Speed Spool 1000, which of course was more than the combo, but I knew it would go great on the rod that had that crappy reel on it. The guy took the combo down and was saying how great that reel was, then I handed him the Lew's and said 'try that.' He did and his eyes kind of lit up. He said 'wow'. Yeah, wow. So I bought the combo in order to get the rod. The next day I had to work so I'm driving around with the windows open. It was a windy day and as I was driving to another store (I'm a vendor) I rolled up the back windows and heard this crunch. I looked back and saw the end of the rod had been sticking out the window and was now just hanging there. I was devastated especially since now I couldn't take the rod back because the night before I had sold that crappy little reel to someone. Now I had to find another ultra light rod. Since I drive around the area a lot for my job I started looking for places I could find fishing rods. Meijer sucks for fishing stuff, so I tried Walmart, which is only a little better than Meijer. Unfortunately I don't live in an area that has great tackle shops like Cabela's or Bass Pro, so finally I saw a Dunhams Sport shop and pulled in there. I was shocked at the huge selection of fishing rods they had there. I searched through all of them and the only one that grabbed my eye was this ultra light Berkley Cherrywood. Now I'm not a big fan of two piece fishing rods, especially two piece ultra light fishing rods, but then this one was only twenty bucks so I thought what the heck. I was checking the guides to make sure they were all lined up and not bent or anything when I saw them.....road runners! There was one entire section of road runners on the opposite wall. I almost dropped the rod I was so shocked to see them. I'd looked high and low all over the place and here they were. It was almost like everything that happened that morning was leading me to them. Ha ha! I didn't go overboard, although I wanted to buy them all, so I just bought one to try it out and see if it was as great as everyone told me they were. That evening I picked up my buddy and we took the new setup out to the park. I told him the whole story and he said 'well, it sounds like fate'. I don't know about that, because I had no great confidence in the rod, or even the line (I was using 6lb Sufix Elite low vis green). I relayed all these misgivings to my buddy as I made the first cast and was reeling and giving the road runner little twitches then BAM! It was a four pound largemouth. He fought and pulled and jumped a couple times and then I lipped him out of the water and while we were both oogling his beautiful greeness I was honestly amazed how well the gear had performed. Next cast BAM! this time it was a 3 1/2 pound smallie. After fighting and a couple acrobatics I lipped him and now I was truly amazed. After that a huge slabsize sunfish and then a decent size rock bass. I was like, what the heck is going on, I'm catching one of each species - and large ones, too (large by ultra light standards anyway). After all this I reminisced about the day and how I had ended up here. Obviously the hype about the road runner was certainly true, but I was more amazed by how the rod and line had performed. Of course there's more fishing to come and only time will tell if these things hold up, but for right now I'm content and willing to give quarter to seemingly cheap two piece rods and line. Now if I can just remember to bring the dang GoPro next time....

I agree I got to get that scale calibrated but I guarantee you they were more than three or four pounds

Went out on Easter Sunday and caught these two beauties. First one was 8 lbs the second was 6 lbs. These are the biggest bass I've ever caught especially for Smallmouth. Caught these on my new Lew's spinning combo. The combo was only a hundred bucks and I wasn't too sure how it would perform because I have never spent money on a combo before. It seemed to handle these hawgs just fine. Time will tell of course.

Senkos, ned rigs, small crankbaits. I thought a size 2500 Stradic might cover it. They do have a smaller 1000 size but I'm thinking that might be too small.

Summer is coming and i'm getting a nice size income tax check, so I'm thinking of getting a couple new rigs. For the first one I was thinking of a Stradic for maybe ultra light or smaller plastics, jigs and such. What size would be good for this? Also, can you reccomend a good pole to go with this reel for my purposes? I already have a baitcast rig in mind - Daiwa Tatula SV TW 6:3 paired with a 7' 3" Daiwa Arid X rod.

Had a much better day fishing. Went out and bought some z-man turds and some ned heads then went to my favorite fishing hole. The first one I dropped in was taken immediately by some toothy critter, but I didn't despair. I rigged up and went back in and caught several bass, including a nice pike. Unfortunately this toothy critter didn't have any of my baits hanging out of his maw.

Yes. In the last couple weeks I have had these monstrous swirls right next to me, some big fish just churning the water. The first time I saw one of these I was out at this local park fishing on the dock. I threw in a crankbait and in the blink of an eye the line stopped, the pole bent, and then nothing - I was left with just the line and no lure (this was fifty pound power pro). I've caught a couple bass but it's been pretty dead otherwise. I know it's late in the season and the conditions are changing, but I don't have enough fish knowledge to know where they may be. I've tried jigs, chatterbaits, spinners, tubes, but not getting much.

I always check the guides at the store before I buy anything. The guides on the lite pro were nice and straight, none of them were bent or wonky. I don't know what the issues with it was. I do know that whenever I casted I could feel the line kind of clunking through the guides, which is a bit odd.

I have always loved ugly stiks myself. Now I do have a nice Ugly Stik GX2 which I use for catfishing and that rod has been awesome. Have it paired with an old Okuma FINA. Maybe I just got a bad rod with the lite pro. I'll have to shop around and see what I can find.

True, but the Sufix is better than any of the fluoro I've used (no twisting or knots). I have spent almost thirty bucks on a spool of Seaguar Invizx and it has horrible memory, knotting, etc. I had a lightning rod and it was pretty good. Right now I have the President XT on a twenty dollar Shimano Stimula (I took the ugly stik back). I'll just use it for jigging plastics, tubes and such. I see your point about not needing hugely expensive gear, except of course when it comes to the baitcasters (the Okuma Epixor XT was only sixty bucks and it's a great reel).

A bit of a rant about my past month of fishing and learning certain things. I have been having a bad time recently fishing. Line snaps, snags, one unknown mammoth fish just chomping a twenty dollar lure right off my line (and it was 40lb power pro, too). Add to that the other day I bought a craw colored KVD squarebill and while reeling it in it would swim off to the right or left. I thought the lure was defective so I took it back and got another one, and that one also swam funky. Then I had an idea - the rig I was fishing the lure on was a Ugly Stick Lite Pro rod and a President XT spinning reel. I though maybe it might just be the rig, so I attached the lure to my Field & Stream Tech Spec black and Okuma Epixor XT spinning reel and it swam perfectly straight. I never thought that the rod and reel would make a difference how a bait ran, but I guess in this case it did. I'd been having a rough time recently with a lot of fishing trips just turning out to be aggravating because of line, lure and rod and reel issues. I guess there's a lot to be said for spending the extra money on better gear, whether or not that would have changed my recent experiences I don't know, but at least with the crankbait it proved to be true. I'm wondering if any of you guys have had this type of experience, learning that your low end cheap gear isn't really doing the job that a more expensive setup might do. The Ugly Stik rod was clearance at walmart for $30 bucks, and the President XT spinning reel while a nice reel was still on the cheap end. Pairing them together obviously caused issues with how certain lures behaved. Then I used my Tec Spec (a go-to rod choice of mine for the past few years, because of the amazing quality) and the Okuma Epixor XT spinning reel (an amazing reel with some great performance) and everything just behaved better. Also, I have been having issues with the line I've been using. I've always been a braid guy, but sometimes it's nice to have some clear line in the water when fishing certain baits. I have had terrible luck with fluorocarbon (Seaguar, P-Line, Sunline, etc.) so I started using monofilament, preferably Sufix Siege (12lb smoke green) which I never had any trouble with. Seems odd that so many guys recommend fluoro but in my experience it's crappy line with horrible memory and twisting/knotting issues. The mono I use doesn't have any of those problems. Anyway, for me this has made an impression. From now on I will spend the extra money for better fishing gear - as well as line and lures.

They're not in my hands yet, but my new rig is the Daiwa Tatula SV TW (7:3) paired with a Johnny Morris platinum signature casting rod (the red one shown below, 7' 1" MHF). I thought this would make an awesome combo, plus they look great together.