Sphynx

If you have a roof rack, you can cap a large diameter PVC tube on one end permanently and thread the other end, number of rods you'll be able to take being determined by the diameter of the tube you get, best part is it takes about 5 minutes to attach and you don't have to keep it there full time if you prefer not to...I'd advise an 8.5 or so foot piece, but obviously if you mess with those 9 ft swimbait rods go bigger, just make sure your diameter is large enough to fit your hand in and grab rods if you go 9 or 10ft tube.

LOL...I see, I don't keep up with professional fishing very often, most of those guys are contractually obligated to present a certain message whether it's honest or not, it's a super high pressure environment and I do not envy them a bit in that regard, I'm sure most of them are really decent people at heart, they just happen to be in a business that isn't nearly profitable enough to support all the people who want (and are trying) to earn a living at it, and the basic laws of economics apply, lots of competitors perfectly willing to say they caught the winning fish on their sponsors lure whether it's true or not, and those who aren't pushing products generally aren't going to make it very long, tournament winnings aren't even close to being enough for most of those guys to survive on.

Lol, I don't especially want to start foul hooking fish, but I may check those videos out just for fun.

Intentionally hooking a fish outside of the mouth...either you fellas all have vastly superior eyes to mine, or you all know something I do not...I may occasionally see a fish following my lure right when I pull it out, or if I put a stalk on him in spring, but I never see fish other than those two times, and how a fish interacts with my lure is up to him, I have no say in it...it may occasionally work out that I foul hook one on a treble hook bait, but I couldn't claim Intentionally having done so...

I don't do doctor visits, haven't been in over a decade with the exception of DOT physicals so I won't comment on how PT works etc, I can offer this however, pitching is best learned with a spinning rod in my experience, you won't blow the reel up nearly as often and it isn't as infuriating...secondly, the last time I DID go to the doctor, I was told that due to my experiences last trip over to the Afghan mountains, my back was FUBAR, I can't run without losing feeling below the waist and all that fun stuff, lots of pain, but as long as I don't do anything too stupid, and I take frequent breaks, I have no issue getting through a day of fishing, it just may not be as vigorous as many other folks' day of fishing.

Anyone who has spent any time as an NCO in a line Infantry platoon has most likely got an overdeveloped reserve of humorous, crude and often insulting sayings, terms, and acronyms...perks of the job I suppose.

Least I can do, many of your posts have had similar effects on me, and many others have changed the way I see our sport.

Well, after finally getting a chance to read through this, I have to say that it's applicable to fishermen in general, my story isn't horrifyingly different, switch bass out for trout as a kid, the bike out for my good old Chevrolegs, the coast guard out for the Army (No, bass fishing prospects generally aren't much better for ground pounders either) and your story might have been about me, I think that each phase might be better be represented laterally, you don't necessarily pass through 1 to get to 2, 2 to 3 etc, for me it really depends, by winter's end, I'm in the first stage, just gotta get my string pulled and get my first fix of the year, after that really just depends where I am, got a trip planned for prespawn yo my buddy in Alabama's place, legit opportunities for 10-15 lb largemouth, so you can count that as a stage 3 emergency, any time we spend fishing I will be exclusively targeting the largest prespawn females I can find, other places I am either in stage 2, or occasionally I get that stage 4 bug, I think you'd rather scratch a bears butt with a barbed wire glove and get away clean than take a frog rod out of my hands when the fit is on me, but all of those pale in comparison to stage 5 for me, give me the opportunity to take one of my nieces or nephews out and I'd drop everything else where it lies, d**n the consequences, any opportunity to feed anything that keeps those kids away from political extremism, drugs, or bad life choices in general is an obligatory requirement the way I see the world, enough bad influences on them will come that each opportunity to be the opposite is important...plus I truly enjoy spending time with the lions share of my family.

I guess it depends on the weight your using, I could grab a 12 weight designed for offshore fishing and horse any bass in the world out of any laydown with impunity, of I could use a 4 or 5 weight and force myself to play that fish out, not especially different to using traditional tackle I guess, but you do have to invest in the appropriate gear if horsing fish our of cover is your game, your average 7 or 8 weight rod is not going to be suited to that, 9+ probably could do just as good at it as any standard 7ft MHF rod though...depending on rod composition etc.

Oh man, I know I can't be the only one who checks the forum, sees @A-Jay has written a book and can't wait to find time to read it, like a kid on Christmas eve wanting into his or her toys, I think this anticipation should keep me motivated through the remainder of the days drudgery.

Interesting enough I find casting a fly rod less complicated than dealing with a baitcaster, don't mistake me for saying that you can look like one of the real artists of the sport after a couple outings, but you'll certainly be good enough to cast a popper or clouser minnow out there and hook a bass, I also don't really think your much disadvantaged by use of a fly rod either, on a river or stream wading I think fly gear is just the right tool for the job, it does have its limitations though.

Taking bass on the fly is great, among my favorite ways to take any kind of fish, but I generally consider it a river only activity, I find that deep, still water is not at all conducive to using fly gear, and conventional tackle works far more efficiently for that, I think just like with conventional gear, topwater is my favorite way to get them, poppers, deer hair, sneaky Pete's, mice, all great, if you have to go subsurface I like tossing clouser minnows and I am still playing with a few other designs for streamers, and one of these days I'll get around to figuring out craw flies. As far as tournaments for fly fishing for bass, it's evidently popular enough that St. Croix designed the mojo bass fly rods to be within tournament specs for rod length, and they are still available which means somebody is buying a rod that is much shorter than average, can't understand why you'd do that unless you had a situation where you couldn't use a 9ft rod because of rules, or because you live in an area that is extremely difficult to cast in on account of vegetation.

Yeah, definitely mono if this is your first rodeo with a baitcaster, you'll probably end up cutting the line out a few times as you get to grips with it, once you learn how to pick out backlashes and stop blowing up reels bad enough to cut off the whole spool of line you can transition to braid...if/when you make that transition is something you can debate as long as you feel like discussing it, and somebody still won't agree, but depending on what you end up using the reel for will determine whether or not you should throw braid on it in the end or not.

Bell was one, the AT&T T Mobile merger was next, Facebook is under fire about some acquisitions of late, these things get filtered through...eventually...I just don't enjoy the nature of corporate mentality and the overall world it is creating, I have some other serious gripes with things that are becoming normal these days too, but these positions are inflammatory to many and are not helpful to the discussion of this topic, give it time, you may be surprised what the feds have to say about this

Trout grilled with onions and lemon pepper is a meal not to be missed, fried catfish or crappie is a fine meal too, salmon/steelhead make exceptional eating too, I generally refrain from eating bass, unless it gets gut hooked and I feel like it, otherwise it gets left to fulfill its destiny at the hands of the birds or whichever other critter grabs it, got a buddy who likes to do bluegill too, I will eat them if he wants to bother with preparing them, otherwise they go either on a hook as bait or back in the water to catch another day.

Lol...have we discovered the longest running sentiment in human history on the BR forums? Might have to add a philosophy subforum

A MUST as in non negotiable? No technique falls under that heading for me, I fished monofilament for years as a main line, could do it again too, and catch fish even shockingly, as to where I prefer it? Gin clear water, on a finesse rod as a leader more often than not, I will spool up a reel with FC as a main for some crankbaits, namely deep diving ones because it lets me get down there faster, and I have been known to throw jerkbaits on 10# FC, but I would consider it preferable only in gin clear water or where it gets me deeper faster when it matters, like deep cranking...in nearly every other application I prefer braid to mono, FC has too many downsides and is too much trouble to be a good option for a main line in my experience and opinion.

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That saying has been around since at least Victorian times, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used it in one of his Sherlock Holmes short stories, I believe it was "A Study in Scarlet" but don't quote me, I have not read it in years, "There is nothing new under the sun, it has all been done before."

I wouldn't be surprised to see an antitrust lawsuit filed on account of this merger, I used to spend a fortune at Cabelas and BPS, but as things have continued to nosedive in the quality department my spending has dropped in proportion...I do not know how we can have an antitrust law and yet allow one corporation to buy up the two largest competitors in their sector...ridiculous development.

Trout at a trout farm with my maternal grandfather in diapers to hear my folks tell it, grandpa was proud as a Peacock in full strut, as to the nuts and bolts it hardly matters,, I have seen fish at that exact same place munch a bare bait holder on braid, that led to summers mostly spent camping and chasing rainbow colored fish for the next couple of decades, bass didn't become a thing until my late teens when my brother from Bama used to drag me all over Ft. Hood in his Ford 500 "Pickup" chasing largemouth, camping, and consuming beverages that will remain nameless for legal reasons in perhaps the best few years of my life, not that I knew it at the time, it wasn't until after the Army that bass became an addiction.

I used to stop by the local golf course for a bucket of balls and about half an hour on the putting green before work every day, the biggest thing I found is that becoming confident in my long game allowed me to relax and not worry about distance, the putting shaved more strokes than the long game by far, probably averaging 10 strokes a game being capable of consistently sinking puts from much further out than I was before I did that.

I have lived, been stationed, or spent a significant amount of time for one reason or another in every major region of this country, I would be open to living in multiple areas of the country, the NE and California are just too dang overpopulated and I would never be ok with the lifestyles there, but I enjoy the south, the Midwest, southwest, the north, but my favorite region is what I call the "western 11" region" with the notable exception of California, they have the widest diversity of fish and game species, the second best migratory fly way, incredible diversity of geography, countless cultural and social and economic activities to keep a person interested for a lifetime, I don't care for much of the political landscape in the region, but that is easily the most likely to change with the times as it always does...overall this region is still my favorite.

Yes, as in the Pacific Northwest, if it weren't for mostly man made issues, it would be a paradise on earth.

No experience with the rod, but you should be just fine with the reel. As far as catching big smallmouth on light line, it's absolutely possible, and honestly it's done a lot, you'll have to learn how to get a feel for the relationship between setting your drag tight enough to get hook penetration but not so tight that the line will break before the drag starts giving line, key points here are going to be using light wire hooks, they are much less thick and will penetrate with less force, as long as they are sharp, which is the other big thing here, make sure you keep those hooks ultra, ultra sharp, and you shouldn't have too much difficulty adjusting from there. I use a St. Croix Mojo Bass medium spinning rod for my finesse stuff, it does the job fine, but basically your going to want as sensitive a rod as you can get, while still having a tip that is conducive to imparting the action you need on the presentations you use with it.