Dwight Hottle

I have a lot of jerk baits. More than @A-Jay I think. I use to store them by manufacture. Multiple 3700 boxes of the same manufacturer. At least a dozen different companies. Now I just store them by depth types. I also will store a few favorite boxes which always travel with me. The hardest job I have to deal with is selecting just four boxes to take to Erie when I fly up there which is all the time now since I reside in FL. The selection process for those 4 boxes is always fun but I labor over it for days rechecking my selections. The dilemma grows with your level of obsession.

That's not the case if your anchored in a navigable channel.

Go big or go home

Yep all the yelling in the world is not heard by the boater about to hit him. Better to stand & wave your arms.

Makes the long winter wait worth while.

@ol'crickety my wife & I watched it recently & enjoyed it. Just goes to show that fishing is a lot of different things to other people.

@Jar11591 Sorry I could not help but laugh.

Leave it to @A-Jay to come up with a better idea. Like Tom mentioned the cradle idea works well but takes two people to pull it off. We always weighed trophy pike & lake trout in a cradle held horizontally up at lake Athabasca then subtracted the cradle weight. Any large fish would benefit from the support of horizontal weighing as opposed to a vertical hold. I witnessed a 30lb+ lake trout break it's neck or spinal cord while it was flopping on a vertical held spring scale. A simple plastic grocery bag with the double handle could work well especially for fish under 30" long.

Sign up for his news blurbs & you get all his sales prices through emails.

I would go with a ML/F in a 7'6" rod of your choice. I have had good success jigging with 1/8 or 1/4 jigs & the longer rod will work well with finesse baits.

Smithwick deep diver jerk bait 6" & a Rapala deep diver husky jerk HJ14 will get you down to 15-20 feet using 10lb braid & short mono leader of 8-10lb on a long cast or longer line out strolling.

@AlabamaSpothunter X2 on the Certate.

Your going to love it.

Welcome to BR Butch.

You need to look for your self. You might learn something useful.

Rooster Tail & Mepps are good but I have found the Blue Fox vibrax to be superior especially the fire tiger color with the brass blade.

How big to you think this yote is? I saw one cross the street & walk down the side of my house in Erie Pa a few years back that had to weigh 75-80 lbs.Much bigger than my 55lb Airedale.

Lake Poinsett would probably be the closest for you. Also lake Winder before heading north to Lake George. I have fished the river just south of Lake George & done well including a DD. Unfortunately the guide I would suggest has retired because of a sight issue. Google Lake Poinsett for fishing guides & try from there.

Do you think there might be a correlation between if you can find one & the market preference to having one?

Welcome to BR.

On the Great Lakes system & other bodies of water holding gobies removing a male from the nest while he is guarding eggs allows the gobies to quickly raid the nest. So fishing for bedding bass may or may not hurt the population depending on the body of water.

Google is your friend. Start reading the first paragraph. https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/publications/coast-pilot/files/cp6/CPB6_C08_WEB.pdf

@ Reel covered it pretty good. The best time to fish for them is pre spawn April & May and early June some years based on water temps. Since your from Canada your season may vary from Michigan. The deepest water depths are probably the shipping canal.

I had a 18’ aluminum Lund and a 150 4 stoke with a single axle trailer and it worked out fine. My 20’ aluminum StarCraft with a 250 came standard with a twin axle trailer. Once you get to 18-20 feet the actual weight determines which way to go.

Almost any retrieve can lead to success when using a jerk bait. I always incorporate a slow pull then pause then another slow pull when fishing with jerk baits. That slow pull has added a lot of extra bites for me. A straight retrieve will also trigger them. The more you fish & think about what is happening or not the better you get.