bulldog1935

Even most good fluoro today is two polymers with different properties extruded together. Usually harder surface and tougher core. Newer, better nylon monos are also made this way. Keep in mind that all monos are stiff - limp is a relative term - all have some annoying memory - it likes to coil - you have to decide what you can live with. General rule, stiffer mono has lower memory, so limp mono isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'll put in a plug for Sunline mono and fluoro. Copolymer mixes fluorocarbon and nylon. The best copolymer I ever used for small diameter, excellent toughness, low memory, good limpness, and hard surface was Kamikaze from Australia - I fished it in salt XUL, where it was intended. It hasn't been easy to buy in about 10 years. YoZuri hybrid is pretty good, limp, fairly low memory, and great for the price. It is larger diameter for the test, but at 8-lb, you probably won't care, though I would be tempted to drop it down to 6. It has Very Good knot strength. IMO, the only way to fish braid is on shallow spools made just for braid. But the newest braids are pretty remarkable. All of the strength is in a center strand, and the outer strands are for abrasion resistance - the strands are fused together, so the best new lines are perfectly round and perfectly hard. Eight-lb braid now is barely over 0.1 mm diameter. The beauty of braid is it doesn't drag through the water, is 100% limp, has Zero memory, and casts out of sight. My brands are Duel and YGK from Japan. Braid has almost no elastic stretch - it just breaks, so you have to deal with mono and fluoro leaders to add some shock resistance.

Had a trout wizard buddy who once made $50k annually on the side selling tuna at the dock. (he was a sonar signal engineer in FL then). Along with two others, made a couple of trips together zig-zagging the CO-NM border. We randomly arrived together at the Devil's River this same weekend - great minds, etc.

Can't go wrong.

How about JP UL rockfish rod? These have progressive taper (like fly rod), cast down to sub-gram, cast 1/8 oz like a rocketship, and have fish-turning butt. Length begins about 7'6" - here are the markings on my highest-grade and longest 8'3" Yamaga Blanks small game rod. a very cost-effective rod series, NS Black Hole Dark Horse, is made in Korea and sold by a very reliable ebay seller Mine go back a dozen years to very cost-effective Takamiya, and have landed doubles with mixed redfish, snook, and seatrout. Also search for Major Craft tubular-tip UL rockfish. I would advise against solid-tip rods unless you're planning to fish sub-gram. Another very good light-lure rod is my 7'7" 13Fishing Omen Green ML. These are very fast rods, and all the light is in the tip.

Wading a gravel bar just below a prime pinch point during a peak white bass and shad run, I caught the same largemouth 7 times in one morning. Couldn't miss him, because he had a scar on his head. The flagstone strata was black with tiny shad, and every step you took, a white footprint would open up for you. Also caught a 20" male white bass that day - 4-y-o, they're kind of rare - I've only caught five of them in my life.

I took up finesse fishing with baitcaster this year, and it's far superior to spinning. Properly set up, a good BFS casting reel will out cast and out fish comparable spinning tackle. In the exact same tide pass as above, below I was casting 3-g plug farther and much more accurately than 5-g plug on spinning tackle above. Both with same diameter braid, and 8' small game rods with the same ratings. Tide pass fishing, btw is all about current, and much more like river fishing than you might imagine. I use the same reel on a 6'7" all-range BFS bass rod with about the same results. It's also a hoot to accelerate a BFS spool to blinding speed. Spinning reels are not without their niche - they're no-brainer for fishing in the dark.

sorry I'm late... Think I'd be using Gulp Saltwater shrimp or curly tail. These are apparently so tasty, little torn chunks are the choice bait all winter for pompano in the surf, which their main food is sea lice. It's reported when the pomps are in, even bull redfish will reject live mullet to pick up Gulp pieces. (redfish are notorious for following other fish and eating the fallout they kick up) The trick with most saltwater fish is getting them to hang on, since tasting the steel in the salt is a strong reality. The real goal of bait scents has nothing to do with attracting, but masking the smell of us and masking the taste of steel and lead.

I always use moleskin on reel feet that need shimming or to protect a fancy wood reel seat insert.

I filmed an episode of KT Diaries on Texas endemic bass. Same episode, KT visited the state hatchery and eyed alligator gar in one of their ponds. Not being able to resist, the kid in him grabbed his 5-wt fly rod, a clauser, and filmed hooking up three 100-150-lb'ers. Of course he landed none of them, and intentionally broke off the one that didn't break off by itself. But it made a great intermission in the bass fishing. Me showing how to prospect a chute. trolling a Teeny sinking line in the current seam.

This is a fact on rising water levels. Especially channel cats graze the new wet bank for insects, etc. the same way redfish graze the rising tide for crustaceans

If hoarding is a tendency for you, don't ever take up fly fishing and fly tying. I always point to my buddy Mick, who had over 100 graphite fly rods before he ever got the bug for split cane - glad there's someone I can point to - besides, Mick is secure in life and doesn't mind being picked on. The day he decided to take up fly tying, he spent $1500. At the river with his first box of flies, he mused over the fact that each fly cost him $106. This problem I don't have - I'm a hand-to-mouth fly tier - I don't tie for fun, only to put flies in a box when I'm going to need them tomorrow. But on any fly fishing forum, you find people who tie for fun and relaxation, (I hate the cutesey names they gives to fly patterns worse than the handles they give to lure colors these days). But using Mick again, he has a wall of filled fly boxes he will never open. The longer you do this, should find yourself fishing fewer and fewer patterns, better and better - I'm good with 6 in coldwater, 3 in warmwater, and 3 in the salt. BTW, I used to hoard Fly Tier magazine, along with catalogs, FR&R, Gray's Sporting Journal, etc. Wish I had the old catalogs, but found myself never opening the old magazines a second time.

I probably don't have any other use for one, but there are still privately published phone books delivered every year in my semi-rural county. What makes braid difficult is the way braid backlashes. The backlash loops fold deep into the line stack, and tighten to 180-degree flat loops when you're working out backlash, making them difficult to even find. This is because of the total limpness of braid compared to the minimum stiffness of mono - you can always find mono backlash loops.

The small, tight plastic clips work best for braid how to get it there? Guide it into the trough with fingernail. Newer Tica and Daiwa (at least surf) reels use this spring loaded round metal clip that sucks for braid, but works great with mono/leader. Amazon sells electronic cable wrap velcro tape - really soft, and works great for spool keeper.

@BassWhole! especially red ear hens - they're so territorial, you can go back and catch them again. We caught this girl in the same spot 6 years in a row. When you released her, she would hang at your feet to keep an eye on you until you waded out of her turf.

@TnRiver46 I hope you took a photo in your dream

on seatrout, at least, I've had really good results pushing this device down their gullet to remove the hook MadBite Lighted Fish Hook Remover Added | The Ultimate Bass Fishing Resource Guide® LLC (bassresource.com) Don't know that I've ever gulleted a bass, but hate it when I gill-hook them.

Recent rigging example - 27-lb X-braid with 15-lb hard fluoro leader (inshore ML). Really smooth transition, and you can't notice a thickness change, though the fluoro is PE#3 diameter, while the braid is PE#1.2 ................fluoro...........................................................................................................braid

I put this hen back because 2006 record would have required killing her for a liver biopsy to prove she was not a smallie hybrid. The other choice was giving her to a state hatchery. A perfect Guadalupe hen living at a bat cave vent, and got to this size eating the baby bats that fell in. Go breed, girl. She's also my screen saver. and since I'm here, A-strain endemic bass at Cibolo Creek headwaters, isolated from genetic pollution by aquifer recharge - the creek disappears into the ground and re-emerges 30 miles away in the coastal plain. One of only two A-strains that remain wild. I've released 4 other would-be state record fish without thinking about it - rainbow trout (though I know 2 people who have beaten mine), green sunfish, redbreast sunfish, and redear sunfish. May have eaten the fly-rod king mackerel record, and possibly used the bluefish record for snapper cut-bait. If you really want records, take a fly rod offshore - a couple of friends set 6 records between them in one day.

and that one fished the salt and surf for 30 years Just retired this one 2 years ago, and it still looks like this - but it feels tired compared to newer reels - still casts forever.

My guide buddy out of Lamar fished his Penn's hard and put them away wet - he never even rinsed one. He bought a used Lew's and killed the frame in a year, but his Penn's just kept going. Shimano, Daiwa, I have a 2019 Shimano parts catalog that shows they don't support reels older than about 5 or 6 years. I kept my old Lew's baitcasters going because Roy's Bait & Tackle in Corpus bought up the spares inventory. I know I replaced a handle and 3 anti-reverse dogs.

Casting Rods | Favorite Fishing (favoriteusa.com) fwiw, the only item on their website stated as MUSA is their blankets, but that's expected in modern fishing tackle. The splash on their rod pages looks like they use similar Toray graphite blanks to 13Fishing - - however, 13Fishing are pretty good rods for the price, and excellent warranty.

After a summer of monsoon floods - actually the day they dropped dam release to search for a missing canoe'er. 5-wt glass rod and Hardy Bougle, swinging streamers to check for holdover rainbows, instead landed two stripers - it was manly sport. came back later into the fall, targeted and harvested 5 more stripers - with the correct gear

I'm awful glad this thread premise isn't reality. Well crap, it would be a fly rod - Vince Cummings Water Witch and Hardy JLH Ultralite. Hondo Creek sight-fished PB on the same rod - not really showing off, but going after my cat's whisker Upper Sabinal closer in line with the OP's purpose, would have to say my Valleyhill all-range BFS rod with Steez SV TW and a range of spools.

same with nylon rope on trailer winches

after half a day on the smoker, it's all good This happens to be venison flanks and backstrap, but I've eaten javelina from the smoker that will make your drool.