ww2farmer

That's not why you had zero hits.

We had or year end classic today, and finished 2nd...................to the dastardly wnybassman LOL. Who should have gone perch fishing today. It was a fun, and busy season. I took over running the Thursday night tournaments from wnybassman who decided it was better to just take our money at the end of the night then at the beginning. I also stepped in to fill the void of Sunday open team tournaments left by the former York bass club, in addition to my aluminum boat only tournaments. I fished 15 tournaments this year, running 13 of them. I am glad it's over, but I look forward to next year. Anyways, here is how I(and my partners did) did this year Oak Orchard opening day tournament: 4th place SLBC fathers day open: 4th place SLBC July open: 4th place AAU Poor Boy: .........bombed LOL SLBC Aug. open.....2nd place SLBC Sept. open....1st place SLBC Classic....2nd place SLBC Thursday nighters: 6-27-13.....1st place, and lunker 7-11-13....6th place 7-25-13.....12th place 8-8-13....9th place 8-22-13.....5th place 9-5-13.....tied for 1st place SLBC Aluminum only tournaments 6-30-13....2nd place 7-28-13....2nd place

They are made by Daiwa.

I make my own with components bought from TW, I use the Outkast swim jig heads, and the Zman chatterbait skirts. Those are the same skirts SK uses on the tour grade, and Hack attack swim jigs, and the Outkast heads are great, they have a better hook and weed guard than the tour grade SK, AND I can make two jigs for the price of one Hack attack.

My only time off is when I am waiting for safe ice to form in the winter, and waiting for the unsafe ice to melt in the spring. I usually ice fish once a week, during the winter. As for bass fishing, I usually fish 3 nights a week after work, and one full day on the weekend. If it's been raining a lot and too wet to work, or were slow at work between crop seasons, I go fishing, sometimes it's 2-3 days in a row IN ADDITION to my usual time on the water. This time of year is when I usually have the longest time between days on the water. It's getting too dark too early to go after work anymore, and were busy with our fall work on the farm, so unless it's raining and/or too wet from the rain, I usually only get out on sunday. I average about 125-130 trips to the water a season (late march/early april - mid/late nov.) So I get out plenty. About the only thing I do besides fish, is work, and spend time with my kids.

I have the same Vendetta..........I don't care for it for cranking at all. It's a pretty stout and stiff M powered rod.............IDK where they get the "mod. fast" rating from, because IMHO it's a fast to Xfast rod all the way. For my shallow, mid-depth, and lipless cranking I use a Veritas 7' M Winch. Unless I am needing to rip baits out of thick grass, then I go with a 7'MH Berkley Lightning rod shock, that has just enough tip for cranking, but doesn't just load up when the bait hangs in heavy thick grass like it does with the M Veritas. I used to have a 7' M BPS cranking stick, and IIRC it was pretty similar to the 7' Veritas Winch, I used it for the same things, but also swapped it out for another rod for ripping heavy grass. Yes your 7:1 reel will be fine for frogging and pitching, that's what I use and prefer. I use 6'9" and 7'3" MH rods for pitching, and a 7' for frogging, but that's just what I prefer. If I had to pick one rod out of the three to do both.......it would probably be the 7'3".

Thanks for the kind words all, it's a fish I soon won't forget. J Francho, rmcguirk, or any other WNY BR member......anytime any of you want to go let me know.......I could always use an excuse to get over there and get more time in on that lake. I have fished there on average 4-5 times a year for the past 10 years, The first few years were not pretty, and I struggled.......a lot. But the last few years have been good almost every time, right place right time I am sure. Plus I decided to just fish my strengths and what I am comfortable/confident in when I go there, and take the little curve balls a new/unfamiliar lake gives and apply it to my style of fishing. I am ALMOST gaining enough confidence in myself on that lake to go start donating money on a regular basis on the open tournament scene there, and it's surely on the schedule for the tournaments I run next year.

Didn't think I would be posting in this thread again so soon. Caught today on Conesus lake, 7lbs 1oz. on a jig. Rod was a 7'6" H Abu Vendetta, reel was a gen1 Abu Revo STX (thanks for the good luck Shane!!), 50lb power pro braid, 20lb Seaguar red label fluoro leader.

Decided (later than I wanted) to hit Conesus today, since my home lake (Silver) sucked for me last weekend. I wasn't expecting much with high skies/post frontal conditions. Morning bite was unspectacular, but actually better than I thought, I put about 8 small keepers up to 2lbs , and a pair clone of 3.5 lbers in the boat by lunch time. Took a lunch break back at the truck, and headed back out. Ran some new water that I didn't fish in the morning, and the better fish seemed to have the feed bag on in the afternoon. I caught 18 fish over three lbs between 3-6pm, with my best five being a 3-12, a 4-3, a 4-4, a 5-3...............AND a new personal Conesus best, heck best anywhere, 7-1 SLOB!!! That beats the pair of 6-10's tied for first since last Aug. That's three years in row I have tied or beat my PB, but I think this one might stand for a while.

Also being from WNY, I had never heard of them or tried them. Until one fateful day while randomly driving through the sticks in north Florida back in the mid 90's. I was starving, and saw an old dude selling them in brown paper bags along the road side out of the back of a van for $1 a bag..............why not??? Twas a most unwise decision on my part, to say they didn't agree with my fine northern sense of taste is an under statement. Had I know I was a mere 1.5 miles away from a waffle house, in which I destroyed the bathroom, the whole fiasco could have been avoided.

I like to slow down, roll the passenger window down, taunt and yell expletives at the offending party while giving them the finger............unless it's a serious accident.

Man.............haven't you been paying attention to these forums for like the last year, the *** is the greatest rod ever gifted apon man. If you don't believe me, ask all the experts here. In fact I personally saw, not one, BUT multiple $100 rods from other brands crumble into dust at the shear whisper of the word "***" when it was used around them. Legend has it, that the people who build Omens eat Carrot Stix for lunch, giving them super powers not seen since...............well, the Carrot Stix were the hand picked rods of the all mighty.

I use 7:1 for swim jigs, and 6:1 for spinnerbaits

I like 6'6" or 7" M power, fast action spinning rods.

Guys who are saying it's "too long" are full of non-sense. I use full size beavers as jig trailers all the time, they work, and work well. I had a 3lb smallmouth spit up a 5" long claw today....just the claw alone was 5", imagine the size of craw that it used to be attached to.

6lbs 10oz. Caught during a Thursday evening tournament last year in august, that was lunker for the tournament and part of the bag that gave wnybassman and I the win. BUT... it's only a tie for my PB, I caught another 6-10 in late October 2011

I don't like them at all. Enough so that it has turned me off on any future LTB rod purchases. I won't buy any rod that uses those reel seats. The seats I like the best are the type Abu Garcia uses on the gen2 Vendetta's, and the Veritas rods. St Croix also uses a very similar seat on the Rage rods and I like them too (too bad I don't like much else about the Rage rods). And the good old fashioned Fuji ECS is hard to beat. I don't care for the Fuji ACS much either, and got rid of any rods I had with those seats too

Here is , generally, how I do it. Backing line on every reel ( spinning and casting)..............I use the cheapo Omni-flex mono in 10lb test, after all it's just filler, no need to go crazy here. I put enough on so roughly 1/2 (75 yards) of a 150 yard spool of power pro will fill the reel up. And I use fluorocarbon leaders on just about everything except my frog rod, punching thick matted grass, topwaters, or really dirty water. On average I get two.................YES TWO seasons of use out of that 75 yards of braid. Often the only time I have to re-spool is when I have eventually used up enough of it trough re-tying/etc... that on an average cast I am down to the backing. I know of no other more cost effective line system. I pay about $13 bucks for a 150 yard spool of braid, that lasts two years, $15 for a 250 yard spool of fluorocarbon leader material, that gets used 6' at a time ( I retie my leaders after the get down to less than 2') so that lasts for at least 2 years , and $4 for a spool of backing line that lasts..........well I rarely change the backing, unless it's really nasty looking, or I am sending the reel out for service.

Given my previous comments about your recent reel buying spree bigbill, I'll do a 180 on the rod. A Lightning Rod is a good "bang for the buck" rod, all the better that you got it on sale. I own one of the Shock series Lightning rods. Funny thing is that rod sits on the deck of my boat, next to my $100, $150, and $250 rods, and puts just as many fish in the boat as the rest of them. If any one can find a better 7' MH casting rod for fishing reaction baits on braid, for the $39 I paid for it at Wal-Mart, I'll let them hit me with it..............

I have had all three. The only ones I still have are the Veritas. Each have there pluses and minuses. Shimano has the best warranty, St Croixs are the most well made, and the Veritas's are the lightest and best balanced. Sensitivity is subjective. I can feel things with $100 rods that other people seem to think you need a $400 for....

I am going to have to agree with snook on the shimano vs. Pure fishing service. The over the counter lifetime warranty on shimano rods is tough to beat, but I have had multiple terrible experiences with sending reels into shimano for warranty work. So much so, that I have and will just send them to DVT from now on even if they are under warranty. Just the opposite with pure fishing, any reel I have ever sent them came back either as good as new, or completely replaced with a new one. And there rod warranty is pretty hassle free, and has a quick turn around time.

I don't get it. With the amount of money you have spent on garbage, you could have had a couple decent reels from Abu, shimano, daiwa, etc.... It's one thing to be frugal and on a tight budget, lord knows I am, but IMHO, your being very foolish with your money, and your ramblings about the minutiae of disposable equipment make no sense to me.

If you can't get it to run true after tuning it, chances are the internal weigh broke free from it's fixed position. While not a common problem, it does happen, especially if you have been slapping your bait hard on the water to get grass off it.

Of the rods you listed, I have the Mojos and Veritas. The Veritas gets the edge for sensitivity and balance. The mojo is better built, and has a longer warranty. The veritas's, in the same power/action as Mojos are lighter too. I am slowly replacing all my Mojos with Abu rods. The vendettas are also very nice. Imho....... Vendettas are as good Mojos, veritas's are slightly better, performance wise.

Yeah............Zebra mussels are bad They have only IMPROVED the fishing on every WNY lake they found there way into. Along with gobies. The hydrilla and milfoil you probably love fishing is an invasive too.