PaulVE64

Ultegra is worth the $12 difference. Personally I like stC rods and I usually upsize my reels. I also prefer braid to a mono leader But I fish for river smallies so I'm bound to have weird preferances

I have some nice resident smallies that like the warmer shallow waters in the creeks for spawning.

Nasci

Yep, both. But in a river system I also take a look at creek throats.

My marabou jig is bucktail, flash and marabou. Seems like everyone in bass fishing lumps it all together. The trout guys have names for all of them.

Thanks for posting them here for us! I like to hear from the community and learn.

Deadly black marabou jig. I throw them on a 6-6 st C Triumph Lfast but I'm thinking of upgrading to the Levante Whipsnake or the 7' Curado Lfast. A 4# river smallie will overpower that Triumph and its hard on me when I miss an early season smallie after waiting thru 4 months of ice.

A little clear silicone caulking on the leather will help. Dont get any on the fur though. Just regular 'tub and tile' silicone

Cause they grow to 5# and fight like anything

Top 5 alltime on the river. Can be popped,paused, or dragged on bottom, stroked at any speed thru the water coloum and as a weightless topwater.

Sorry, I'm no good guessing at green bass

I'm okay at guessing mine. Atleast the ones I dont weigh

I prefer beaver trailers in my late fall and spring prespawn seasons but when the water hits + 50 I start mixing in twintail grubs and rage tail grubs.

No barbs or no hooks?

I have a great tackle shop 2 minutes away.

I've been thinking about answering this thread. And I cant decide on just one because my answer is driven by the conditions I'm facing. But you can never err with a 4" G Pumpkin + black flake senko.

A Soft Tip you say? To me it could be either the fast or xfast given similar rod specs. Under testing I would see the softer tip move before the other against the lightest wt. Usually I would expect the xfast to be softer one.

Late June, almost July

What knots?

Want to try

All my reels are braid and all my leaders are (12# to 20#) mono. I use an FG knot and the leader is shorter than the rod. That said I would like to find a fluoro i liked for dropshot and neds.

When my cat was younger I would spend winter tossing a 1/16 oz lead wt with some ribbon across the basement floor. The cat would explode out of ambush to savage that thing. And it was amazing how little of it I could detect.

Fluoro + palomar = frustration for me. Its surely my fault but I'm not interested in fixing it.

Dirt is on the bottom.

I spend a lot of time looking at my river at low water levels, especially the areas that held smallies previously. I guess that would be like mapping a lake.