JediAmoeba

I love my type r's. I always wanted to get one if the yellow Australian ones

I am going to hold off on buying any jackhammers this year. This is just the new ones I have in the packaging. Not to mention all the ones I have opened in a few plano boxes, all the other brands and the tungsten ones. Plus all the minimaxes and other sizes. Sigh

Just started tearing all my reels down to start cleaning them. This is gonna take a while. Someone once told me to find something you like and stick to it...my answer is Daiwa. Lol

To me a loop knot is a terrible weakness I wpuld always avoid.

I would stay away from the chad shad - it sinks like a rock and isn't great for Northern LM bass. In all honesty the 2 best production baits I have found are the 6th sense draw and the newer megabass Islide 187R for the way they fish.

I used the 131 this year - I throw all my jerkbaits on casting gear, even the smaller Jr's. The 131 held up very well on my 21 daiwa zillion. I run 20 lb braid to an 10' 8# gamma, shooter or tatsu fluoro leader. I prefer the braid to leader because you get better feedback when making those short, quick snaps with the rod.

Spawn Cherry is one of my favorite colors.

Gliders - I threw gliders and other large swimbaits probably 50% of the time this year.

I barely threw a spinnerbait.

I cast all my jerkbaits on a casting reel. I rarely use spinning gear

All I know is after this year I won't fish tournaments as a coangler - so it looks like for the foreseeable future I am done tournament fishing in the club.

My year hasn't gotten much better since posting this- overall getting 1 keeper fish per 8 hours or none at all has been pretty standard for me this year with the exception being Cayuga where I had culled fish both days of our 2-day tourney and averaged over 3 lbs per fish. Cayuga is stupid easy though. So in a calendar year, excluding the 2 days at Cayuga, I have landed 4 fish I could weigh in, in 56 hours of fishing. The Boaters I am with haven't really done much better- caught 8. I have caught shorts, Perch, catfish, Pickerel though...

I throw everything except the bearings into a sonic cleaner. The bearings go into denatured or rubbing alcohol. Depending on the application you want to pack the bearings with grease.

Yeah, I have no idea what they were talking about...

Cortland Silent Flip. Stuff is amazing and only comes in 50 or 65 # test.

10-15# J-Braid or Smackdown in bright yellow!

Best Rats are probably Illude, LowBrow, Sneaky and a PB. I would get a 2 piece and a 3 piece since they swim and have different action. The best readily available one is probably the Spro Rat size 50. There are a lot of custom glides that fall in between the 175 and 250 deps - currently my favorite is a BGC Gen 3 Trout. Honestly I don't like the 175s and how they swim. You could try the milliken draw from 6th sense - it's a very good glide for being a production model. Another would be the Baitsanity Antidote. Good luck.

I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing slow load times and response to the site for the past few days. I am browsing on mobile and this is the only site I am having problems on...

A lot of swimbait heads have the same effect as a darter head, just depends where the line tie is - These are what I usually use.

This looks like a picture of the 21 Zillion. The 16 Zillion is the same frame and similar color to the older Tatula TW with an aluminum side plate. You can easily find 2016 Zillions for around a $100. I have a few and they are good but there are better options out there at this point. There are some other minor differences, like free-floating spool, drag star difference and the Tatula SV being overbraked compared to the Zillion ZV. Both are solid and I do love my 2016 Zillions I have.

We know you are probably a little burnt from your exciting trip to the Amazon!

Yes. I saved about $20 but I plan on switching a few reels over to the zillion since the one I have has proven to be pretty good.

He's looking at RODS, not a reel. Lol The Tatula XT is a $100 rod and the curado is 170. You would be better off getting a daiwa tatula rod, not the xt model, or the tatula elite. I really love my tatulas and tatula elites - I can't speak on the curado line but Shimano usually puts out a good product. Either way you go, unless you can compare them in person, you will most likely be happy.