softwateronly

7'2 comes in 3 versions of medium; MH, MH glass, and ML. Which power are you referring to? scott

**deleted** I misread your post. scott

They are majestic when flying, but absolute pigs when eating on a giant ice table... scott

I fish braid to leader on all my rigs, and I like 8strand 50lb for general H uses. My swimbait setups have 65lb. I haven't had 50lb dig in and snap midcast yet, but I don't doubt @GreenPig's experience. scott

1: Gulls dive on shad. Loons eat anything they catch, so what water they're working usually tells me what they're hunting. Osprey hunt panfish size fish, I don't recall ever seeing them dive on shad since ours never really get more than 4". 2: I'm on a lake devoid of hard cover, so if I ever found a shell bed in deep water, I'd bet it would be holding bass. I've seen enough internet to know that FL guys/gals like to crank shell beds. 3: I've seen musk rats blown up in the shallows/first break at night. I fish those areas hard. I've also seen a baby duck not make it past the corner of a pier, though the flash looked more Northern Pike than bass. I don't have any up close experience with beavers and otters. 4: Big Northern don't seem to eat the size bass I'm looking for, so I consider them a good sign that there's bait in the area and therefore I keep fishing.....maybe with a leader. I often find bass near or under schools of crappie too. Humans, if they're panfish fisherman, I remember that spot and go looking for bigguns when it's available. scott

Wow, all those bites came from the subtle tail. Interesting bait. scott

They only come in 1/4oz, the guys that make them think it's the weight that will get snagged least. I like pb&J, GP black, and GP blue the best and use part of a straight tail worm or jackall ishad as my goby imitating trailer. scott

Nice! Grabbed a gammy B10 stinger finesse size 1 on my last order, might be perfect. scott

I fish 31st St Harbor in the Spring usually, and these jigs use to get traded around back in the day. They're mass produced and pricier now, but they get through the "Army Corps pile of junk walls" pretty well and catch smallies. I lose these way less often. Might be worth a shot for ya. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/search-tackle.html?start=0&count=20&searchtext=fireworks+jig scott

Not a jigmaster yoda or even an ewok, but I use braid to leader, 30lb & 50lb to 16lb fc shock leader. I've adopted braid as my mainline on everything. It's so much easier and cheaper for me to play around with leaders or not, than to spool up different line or buy separate spools. I've also gotten used to how my rod feels with a majority of my line as no stretch. It's a system I like and it works for me. I feel like my slack line bite detection is good. Maybe it would be better w/ straight fc, but if you follow the advise on this site about how to fish your slack on a t-rig/jig, you feel everything you need to on braid. I've spooled up mono a couple times, but everything just feels dead to me and I'd have to relearn my rods. When I fish jigs with a leader, it's fc. Height of summer, I sometimes forgo the leader to help saw through the weeds, but zebra mussels knicking my line can make me rethink it. Every year is different with the amount of zebras hanging on vertical weeds. scott

I have some of the same problems as @RipzLipz, flukes get annihilated but the class of fish is usually subpar. But I think it's about inefficient/ineffective presentation in my case. I'm hoping a 5&7" profile lightly weighted, free rigged, or carolina rigged out in 15-20' of water will change that. Large preacher jigs and swim jigs do damage out there for me, I think it would be smart to bring a "weightless" option to mix in. scott

I can't even narrow it down to 5 jigs.... scott

@T-Billy I lose too much action on a jerkbait, especially MB, with any single wire attempts. Cranks on the other hand, seem fine. scott

@Susky River Rat '24 can only get better . I'm likely to be in your position myself. I have a window Friday and Saturday with some ice melting temps to possibly make Feb work but after the 5th, I'm going to be slammed with work and out of town for weeks at a time so the end is near. scott

The PA 7'6XH is 4.9oz. The internet says the phenix feather 7'3XH is 3.8oz, if lightness is premium the 7'7XH feather has to be near the top of the list. scott

I think I used that before, does it stretch a little? I remember it working great, just the local shop stopped carrying it. scott

I believe in you! scott

And if you live in a city, they just chuck it near your apartment's address. I have great neighbors, but not everyone on the sidewalk is a neighbor. Definitely my least favorite shipping company. Now, I only let them deliver to a business affiliate and go pick it up. My TW has always been UPS in the past as well. Best of luck!

The only difference to me is, don't wait on a jig bite. You feel a thump, mush, or nothing.....reel down and swing. I also believe this for t-rigs, but I know some don't. scott ** the nothing bite is also a reason I think a slightly heavier jig is easier to start with**

I like that idea, you're referring to switching out your spybait treble hooks with single plug hooks correct? I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner. scott

My 2 favorites are the Raid liberos and the dirty jigs tb mini underspin, but these are for 2-3.5" baits. The larger ones don't produce for my waters as well, but I use dale hollow and fishhead stand up spin and like them. scott

X4. This is the first hook that has stood head and shoulders above other reputable companies to me. I barely want to type it, been perfect so far over the last 1.5years. I grabbed some ryugi infiniti and decoy kg hooks for 1/0 and smaller, but haven't fished them yet. The gamakatsu g-finesse run slightly larger. scott

I just moved to the buying side....

Neither, I gave up the gram scale in college. For other reasons. scott **I should add my exprides are all A series**

Not many of us can fish for 15lb bass and eat our bait when we're done! I think you got life set up just right. scott