bulldog1935

That's the SGN - holds a bit over 400 yds 30-lb Seaguar braid, and I have it topped with 25-yds 30-lb Blue label fluoro. My rod is TackleDirect house-brand Platinum, 7' e-glass, rated 20-50 lbs. Their house brand are all very well made rods. Also have their 15-30-lb e-glass offshore spinner for throwing topwater plugs, and my 3-pc back-up inshore is their Silver spinner, IM6.

not sure I want to know, but it's modest compared to many I regularly fish between 4 baitcasters, the reels swapped between niche rods, and 8 spinning reels, and most of the spinners are UL for our standing winter night fishing trips, where rigged change-up is a big advantage. Fly tackle is where it gets busy, but most of that has been paid by speculating well and antique reel repair hobby business. When I was younger, I fished fewer, and trips to the surf would use my inshore tackle, and I fished through reels by outclassing them. I love tinkering tackle and building great rigs - here's my surf lure rig, a pair of custom Abu CT's I tinkered - this will cast 1/4 oz an honest 100 yds. Since I'm not too many years from retiring, I'll get there well-armed.

here's my surf spiinner - has a 76-mm dia spool and 46 mm stroke but my little offshore lever drag has 3x the drag - the drag and the multiplier is the only mechanism in this reel

good manual bail technique is nearly the same thing as thumbing a baitcaster, but not quite. My new b/c small game rig casts lighter lures farther and more daring into the far grass than the spinning small game rig I had in this niche. (3 g vs. 5 g) @Bass_Fishing_Socal break in the rain here, got the back acre mowed late yesterday, and we're a couple of hours from 24 hours of flash flooding. But from that window, I just stepped inside from first cast on the 6'7" Valleyhill rod. Took me a couple of casts to get aiming the short rod after fishing the 8'2" rod last week. But I duplicated 3-in-a-row 100' casts with 2-g jighead, so it's mostly in the reel, great mag brake and the 6-g spool.

Spinning advantages are light lures and casting without lure-cast visibility (night fishing) Can't get the accuracy or instant retrieve with spinning though easier to learn to use than baitcasting I just recently set up and fished a b/c that reliably casts 1/16 oz to 100'... but for daytime use. And yes, it was intentionally spendy...

here's the place to get the answer, the NLFCC public forum

if you catch and release, all those knots and hard line aren't good to the fish. Your net will scratch through their protective slime coating, through their scales, and into their skin to cause infection. You can buy nice replacement bags, rubber, or knotless and rubber coated, that will fit just about any net frame. then if you want to get salty with twine, work on your net bag lacing or rope-end seizing If you're making a wall decoration, knock your lights out, as they say. but I'd still use good sailmaking twine rather than fishing line. ahoy.

I that really bothers you, set the hook with thumb on b/c spool, or index finger on spinning spool. I do this when fishing Trout Support Lure, because getting a solid hook set is important on the big swimbait hook.

tell me you bought a boat - - never mind, pretty house, though My buddy married into a very nice uptown house, so when he sold his house, he built this with it... we call it the man cathedral. there's a modeling machine shop in the far end. He also loans it for traveling RV repairs. He worked on the house, also, combining the dining room and great room into a billiards room, gutted the kitchen and breakfast nook for a chef's kitchen.

we always like the kayaking and company as priority, and fish are gravy.

well that's certainly misquoting me out of context I promise I'll never do that to you. If you want something to worry, it's brown recluse. I passed out riding a bicycle one day, woke up in the hospital, and I believe it's because of a brown recluse bite I found on my arm. In a year of monitoring, a cardiologist couldn't duplicate the skipped heartbeats found in the hospital - he finally told me to go away. Same thing happened to a friend just weeks ago. First qualification of humor is that it be humorous.

@Bluegillslayer much better company than the brown recluse he'll eat, but if I found him in the house, or even a wolf spider, I'd move them outside

a welcome guest who's been hanging out in my garage for a few days (shot offhand w/o flash) kept these as pets when I was a kid edit - I still can't believe all these men are afraid of a little spider - - ok, it's a major spider, but I used to let them run up and down my arms.

@Chaos10691 for me shock load is snook, but yes, setting the hook - even that 1/4 weakest link may be too much to prevent break-off or even rod break if you high-stick a set at the same time a really big fish explodes.

Johnson's Sprite was my go-to spoon, both for bass and fall jetty Spanish Macks. When I was 12, walked up to Lake of the Ozarks, cast the sprite across a log, skittered it across the top of the log, let it drop, and caught a 3-1/2-lb smallie. That's when my dad bought a semi-vee to take me fishing. I've seen flats wizards imitate crabs with a black-nickel Johnson Silver Spoon. Kastmaster is in my surf box.

I have one mid-grade worm-drive Tica I bought because it was cheap, and tinkered it. The felt-composition drag washer couldn't reach the 1 kg drag they boasted. I swapped it for carbontex and instantly dialed-in the 2-1/2 lbs drag I needed. Independent of anyone's formula, a shock load is 4x to 10x the force of a static load, so if you want a formula, 4x is a good one with a basis in fact.

That red coreless paracord around my reel foot and rod has a paracord buckle... ...that clips to a bungee leash - the leash slides freely on my kayak trolley line. Any rod out of sight and out of mind is kept this way. The working rod up front doesn't need to be clipped to the leash, but still wears the rod end so I can swap it into a leash when I change rods. Here's the rod end, paracord buckle and cord lock, 650 coreless paracord ends each tied to buckle using single turn with two half hitches. Can seize the paracord tags with acrylic/PE-film tape, or get salty with twine wrap. Last time I had a bad backlash, there was a one-turn line wrap around my rod tip. I swapped the reel with my back-up. Necessity is the mother of invention, and lost rod badge is a dubious honor at best.

If 10-lb leader is your weakest link, you should be using 2-1/2-lb drag set.

my late cousin was head graphic artist and ran catalog publishing for the Commercial Appeal. One year his team won Whole Hog. When we covered it, I mentioned our chili cook-off entry, where our venison chili pot had the only line for sampling, yet someone else with some soup-looking ground beef entry won the trophy. We both agreed it's about politics. What is this sauce thing? In Luling and Lockhart, sauce is anathema.

I run Trout in the Classroom for Texas - the classrooms raise trout from eggs in refrigerated aquariums, then release them in the Guadalupe tailwater. While we have 32 tanks in that many classrooms, this year, only 7 of our schools could participate because of health restrictions. Yesterday, four HS aquatic science teachers from Houston and San Antonio brought their trout to the river, their families, and some brought friends and helpers. We met at the BBQ stand in Sattler grabbed food to go, then headed to our benefactor's beautiful home in the river bend. We also had an amazing window in the recent rains just for this. Next Thursday, two classes of fourth graders have a field trip to the river to release theirs - each kid gets to net their fish and release it in the river - always the highlight of our TIC year.

Valleyhill bass rod. Pretty remarkable wide lure range - described as RF to fish most niches, feels very fast to me, but haven't cast it yet, between fishing the salt and arriving home to rain, and a back-acre that needs mowing... a metal reel seat - haven't seen that in a long time - with a nice knurled tightening ring - in spite of that, a shocking light-in-hand rod, well-balanced, goes nicely with the magnesium-frame reel. and nice details including Ti/SiC guides I've already fished my Steez modified with Roro-X spool on my inshore small game rod. But for the wide range of this rod, will need to use a spool with the SV complication for start-up brakes on heavier lures. Planning to load a Ray's Studio honeycomb SV spool with 100 m PE#1.2 braid (27-lb), and 12-lb fluoro leader. ...break in the rain here, got the back acre mowed late yesterday, and we're about to get 24 hours of flash flooding. But the window allowed first cast of the rod with a 2-g jighead. Took me a couple of casts to get aiming the short rod, after fishing the 8'2" small game rod last week. But I was able to duplicate 3-in-a-row 100' casts with 2 g. Looks like a natural for Ned rig, and plan to put it through its full-range paces when I get to kayak our no-motors reservoir.

@galyonj I wish more of the color had come out, the fish's back was the same purple as this Z-man Purple Demon Hard to hold everything when you're trying to get the fish back into the water quickly. and why on earth would a magnesium Steez with a functioning non-linear brake that doesn't need a chip be hype, and a plastic Scorpion with a chip isn't hype. Say just once that Hagane isn't Hype.

Cats Whisker in mixed colors is about all I need for bass. ' High-stick, it's a great dragonfly nymph, and stripped as a streamer in a ball of cyprinid minnows, you can't tell the fly from the live ones.

My Lew's Super Duty G is still my longest-casting reel with 1/8 oz and up (not counting surf Abu CT's). It took this far to duplicate it with 1/16th oz. I own exactly two reels in this price range. The Steez and a Shimano Vanquish. They're both perfect for were I use them. I also enjoy the tinkering of setting up my own spools. The Steez happens to be the only salt-rated reel out of my gang of bass-size reels. I certainly wasn't making a recommendation for you other than to enjoy your light-lure fishing.

Inshore drift fishing, sitting, 7' rods pretty much across the board. Sitting with a fly rod and sight-fishing in sloughs, 7-1/2' to 8' glass is perfection. Just picked up a kayak bass rod, again sitting, and it's 6-1/2' My kayaks aren't really for standing, but for distance and wind-slick.