Hey everyone. I have a $20 off coupon from dicks, so I’m thinking this is a good paddle for me to get for $100. I’m brand new to pickleball, but I am a tennis player. Is this a solid paddle or should I go for something newer? Want something that plays like a racket.
The girlfriend and I finally tried pickleball for the first time today after wanting to get into it for a while. We both had a blast. I played varsity tennis in high school and also play a lot of ping pong, so some of the skills transferred over pretty quickly. My girlfriend has never really played sports before though, so we’re both starting from square one with the actual pickleball side of things.
We bought the cheap Franklin Jet pack with 2 paddles and balls just to see if we’d enjoy it before spending more money. Figured we could always upgrade later and keep these as spare paddles for friends.
A couple questions for you guys:
Does anyone know any good YouTube channels/videos for complete beginners? Most of the videos we found weren’t super helpful. I’m mainly looking for videos that teach proper paddle swing mechanics and basic fundamentals. Right now we’re mostly just trying to consistently hit the ball back and forth over the net and did this by hitting soft lobs that landed in front of each other.
Also, I already broke my paddle. My girlfriend hit a ball I had to run way in on, and it was one of those plays where you drag your paddle on the ground and fully extend to hit the ball, well I guess I put a little too much weight on my paddle, and it is now bent. I’m only about a 175 pounder too. I’m looking to get more seriously into this sport so would love to hear recommendations on really good paddles.
Pre spawn bite is hot in the northern states right now. Been waiting for exactly this moment! All caught on wacky rigs. The spot I’m fishing right now has some really big ones, seems like every 10-20 minutes a huge bass is breaking water feeding. This spot is fun to fish because I’m wearing waders and literally standing in the bog. It kind of reminds me of the moon shoes from when I was a kid.
Been experimenting with some more natural patterns lately. Pretty happy with how these koi and rainbow trout swimbaits turned out
Are you trying to get wacky with it? I made these worms that are specifically designed to be rigged wacky. Because of the 3 color sections, they take 3x as long to make than a single color or laminate colored worm. I inject my molds with blue or chartreuse plastic, then I take the worms out and cut the tail off to a little over 1 inch. I individually place the tails back into the molds, and then I shoot my base color of plastic into the molds, black with blue flake and green pumpkin. This bonds the tail to the rest of the worm body you just injected. You could stop there, and get a worm with a different colored tip. But to get a wacko worm, cut another a little over an inch section off of the very top of the worm, and then place the larger section back into the molds. Finally inject the molds again with your tail color. These work so well for a wacky rig and are extremely unique. I hope you guys enjoyed seeing these.
In the northern US we are still waiting for the spawn and are really not even in pre spawn in many lakes yet. I’ve been doing a lot of casting, not a lot of catching. Unfortunately the pesky pike is the only thing that has been biting my lures up to this point. The pike start biting a few weeks before the bass get hot. I’ve been bank fishing throughout this month and last week for the first time I finally noticed the bait fish and minnows coming into the shallow water. All the good signs are finally coming together, and after probably 10 hours of fishing this spot, I finally got this massive guy. Well worth it and I’ll be back!