T-Billy

I fish a lot of plastics. I go through hundreds of a few baits each year. This reminds me, the other day it occurred to me that I've been fishing the same 3/8 tungsten flippin weight since early summer. #STRAIGHTBRAIDBRIGADE!!! ?

This has been my experience as well.

I agree. Either a fast rod with mono or a Mod Fast with braid, which is what I fish 'em on as I throw 'em into thick stuff. If you can bring yourself to wait a couple seconds before setting the hook, it may help your hookup percentage as well. Rigged like this, it's a natural feeling bait to them and they'll usually hold on to it awhile. A bigger hook may help too. With a 4.75, I'd go 4/0 or maybe even 5/0. Whichever comes through the bait at the back of the hookslot.

Yup. Same blank. I have both.

Heckuva lotta rod for the money at full price, let alone the BOGO deals going on.

Thanks for making me feel better about myself fellas. ? Other than that musky and four pounder last week, it's been rough. 8 and change won the tournament on my favorite lake last Sunday.

Getting to be that time of year for me. Tubes are one of my favorite options from the mid 50's on down to ice over.

This.

Still working on it myself. Roll casting hasn't worked well for me either. Straight forehand. Keeping my elbow tight to my side helped a bunch. Senko works well. Super fluke is the easiest thing I've found to skip. Both good practice baits. Neither will clang off peoples pontoons or dock floats and won't damage anything. Both are fish catchers.

Don't put 'em down in summer. Get out there after dark and run 'em over submerged grass and along defined weedlines. When the bluegill are on beds it's prime chatterbait time at night!!! It's a multi species killer at night, and it gets big bites.

Smoooth casting stroke and follow through is the key. Baitcasters no like herky jerky.

The reel? That Fuji seat isn't the slimmest on the market. I like a small frame reel on my dobyns rods. The Lew's SLP frame, and my SLX XT150 are very comfortable on them for me. My SLX XT found it's forever home on my Kaden 744.

My favorite of my Dobyns. Awesome rod for spinnerbaits and swim jigs.

That's how I roll. Switching hands never made a lick of sense to me.

The braking systems on modern baitcasters have flattened the learning curve a great deal. I taught my wife and niece to use one this year, and they both figured it out in a matter of minutes. I think baitcasters are actually easier to use, and more efficient once you get the hang of them, which doesn't take long. The combo the OP mentioned in his first post also covers alot of bases, and is better than spinning for alot of them including the ones he mentioned.

OH isn't exactly a hotbed of world class bass fishing, but I'm blessed to live in one of the best parts of the state for it. The MWCD reservoirs are all within an hour of me. One is just down the street, and my favorite just 15 minutes away. There's also the Tuscarawas river 30min away and the OH river is an hours drive. I haven't fished the big river yet but probably will next summer.

It ain't. I throw a weightless senko or a 1/8oz Trig 100' on a 7' MH with a curado mgl and 20# braid. Much better knot and shock strength. Black or junebug worms and green pumpkin craws and creatures are all you really need.

Mexican ice fishing = Frozen margarita in one hand, fishing pole in the other?

Wabbit season, duck season, wabbit season, duck season.

Shallow bass on calm days are spooky. One of those things mounted on my aluminum hull is a no go. Thanks for your input. Saved me over 1k worth of buyers regret.

Thanks for making this point. It's something I hadn't considered. I was planning on buying an electric steer with spot lock next spring. After watching a couple videos on the subject, I'll be sticking with cable steer. I fish shallow cover way too much to use one of those noisy electric steers.

This is a great place to start. You can do alot with this combo. A good low stretch mono or co-poly like Trilene XT, Sufix Siege, or Yo Zuri Hybrid around 15# is a good place to start line wise if fishing light to moderate cover. 40# Sufix 832 braid if primarily fishing heavy cover. I MUCH prefer an 8 speed reel for these techniques. Nonsense. No harder to rig or fish than a T-rig. Both are essential IMO. May as well start gaining experience with both right from the start.

I'll fish right up till ice over or very close to it. It's big fish season. I have several nice bucks on the wall, a 6+ smallie, but not a LM or Musky. The plan is to whack a couple big does here in the next couple weeks, get meat in the freezer, then fish hard until the water's hard. Hopefully that won't be until late Dec. I don't really mind a couple months off. I use the time for gear maintenance, and lure making. The time off also gets me fired up for spring.

Same story with 40# 832. I definitely re-tie less with the braid. What I've found is that it's plenty abrasion resistant but less cut resistant. It doesn't hold up well to teeth or getting pulled tight against a sharp object.