Acton

Alright, you guys sold me on the merits of braid. Now I'm torn between traditional neon high vis braid or the X9 crystal. Maybe I should just spool up one reel with each and see how I like it?

That's a good idea. I was thinking of just making my leaders longer too. I'm concerned about braid floating and why flouro might be better because it sinks. The visibility of braid can be mitigated several ways, but the floating/sinking issue and how it affects the lures concerns me. Pros fishing straight flouro seem to highlight its sinking properties as why they fish straight braid rather then the fact its invisible underwater. Like I said in my original post, I switched to straight flouro on my jerkbait setup for that reason. I think that's super important with suspending jerkbaits though, not sure how important it is with the finesse techniques I mentioned.

Hey guys, been doing some research on hair jigs and recently I came across Ike's video on YouTube discussing hair jigs in which he advocates for using high vis Berkley braid crystal line. Another pro who I've probably learned the most from this year overall Seth Feider also advocates for using "high vis braid" with hair jigs. Many of the pros talk about "watching the line" and "being line watchers". Last month I was throwing power pro low vis and had trouble watching the line on sunny days. I'm thinking about throwing this line on all my finesse setups. Usually those include tubes (my most productive finesse lure last year), drop shots, finesse jigs (keitech spider jigs), ned rigs and wacky rig senkos. Usually I throw 10lb low vis braid on these setups with 6-8 feet of 6-10lb flouro leaders. I lost many fish last year because I didn't manage slack in the line very well and/or didn't detect the bite. I'm thinking high vis line like this could be helpful, but I've also come across other pros talking about using only flouro for techniques like tubes, especially when you want to pendulum the lure through the water. That school of thought states that you want to use flouro over braid because flouro sinks and floats. I recently moved my jerkbait setup over to straight 10lb braid for this very reason. I'm thinking that maybe the high vis might be good for me since I'm a novice and any assistance I can get with watching the line might be good, even if I lose a few fish because of it. I caught plenty of fishing on braid to flouro last year. What do you guys think?

New to the baitcasting world, and it was suggested to me to get these four rod/reel combos to start out with. I'm going with $200 rod/reel combos, going to invest in one combo at a time with each paycheck. What do you guys think? 1. 7’6” - 8’ Heavy Fast + 7.1 casting reel with 65lb braid - flipping n pitching/ frog/punching/jigs - all the nasty stuff - Shimano Exage Casting Rod 7'6" Heavy Fast Action $99.99 - Shimano Casitas 150 Casting Reel 7.2:1 $99.99 2. 7’-7’4” Med Heavy + 7:1 casting reel with 17-20lb FC a. football jigs/t-rigs/c-rigs/jigs/worming/spinnerbaits/ chatterbaits - open water/ dock fishing/ laydowns - Dobyns Fury 733C 7 ft. 3 in. Medium Heavy Fast Action $109.99 or - Shimano Exage Casting Rod 7'2" Med Heavy Fast Action $99.99 - Shimano Casitas 150 Casting Reel 7.2:1 $99.99 3. 7’-7’6” Med Heavy Mod + 5:1 casting reel with 10-12 lb FC - cranking medium divers to deep divers - Shimano Exage Casting Rod 7'6" Heavy Moderate Action $99.99 - Abu Garcia Ora 2 Winch 5:4:1 $99.95 4. 7’ Medium Fast + 6:1 casting reel with 12lb FC - Squarebills/shallow divers/jerkbaits - Shimano Exage Casting Rod 7'2" Medium Fast Action $99.99 - Shimano CAS151 Casting Reel 6.3:1 $99.99 Thinking of getting the flipping/pitching combo first so I can practice casting in my backyard. In my area (Upstate NY), I'll probably be using the jerkbait rod and the spinnerbait rods the most, but I'll definitely be putting the other two to good use. Lots of areas to punch around here, some of my local lakes guys only do well punching, same with the Hudson River I think. Hopefully, it'll open up a lot more fishing for me!