islandbass

Thought it was just me as well. Snails come to mind or watching paint dry, lol.

They’re clearly nested, so to speak. Spend 10 minutes to see if you can undo it if you want to save the line. Personally, I’d replace the line of both because I have no way of knowing the condition of the line. I have to respectfully disagree with my bass angling brethren on the difficulty of clearing a nest being harder because of the line. That is more the result of how bad the birds nest is, i.e., user error than the line type. All lines can get kinked too so take good care to not add more by yanking on the line when the frustration builds when you’re undoing a doozy, lol.

Not bad at all! I also like your innovative substitution efforts. However, crankbaits, unlike poppers and similar baits are another ballgame altogether. You need to use something heavy like lead (I use 1/4” pencil/coil lead for the ballast. Without it, the bait will be guaranteed to list to one side as you (I discovered on my first crankbait. It was so awful, I didn’t finish it because it wasn’t worth it). The usual location is the lowest point of the bait, usually where the bottom treble goes. All you need to do is put enough lead so when you drop it into the water it will remain upright. The shape you chose is actually an excellent one to learn from. You might want to consider using a forstner bit of the same diameter as your dowel to make your next popper’s mouth. It will eliminate the sanding and shaping of the mouth and it will be practically moon-shaped and awesome. Simply fasten the dowel down and drill through on end of the dowel all the way through. The wood shop probably already has a set of forstner bits around. Thanks for posting this. It reminded me of my first tries at making poppers, prop baits, and crankbaits. I also experienced the same things with respect to the crankbait and popper being to heavy, but at least it looked great, lol.

I almost spit my coffee out laughing. I was picturing it as I read it, thinking I would have thought the same thing about reeling it back fast to get it away from the snake and not realizing that my action only brought it closer to me.

That works, but it also works with the DS weight on. I will also wrap the tag end few times if necessary around the butt of the rod and then have it held down by the velcro. The strip of velcro is long enough to wrap around the end of my rod such that all I have to do is lift off just enough to secure the line above the DS weight so any "dangling" of the weight is pretty much reduced to zero.

WARNING!!! You might get hooked, lol. crankbait making is fun and when you catch a fish on it, that feeling cannot be put into words. Good luck and get it done. ?

Man, that sucks. I HATE thieves. Just a shot in the dark, but check your local offer and Craig’s list pages. It could be there. A thief got into my daughters car and stole her backpack. The thief put it on offer up and I almost got it back. I would have pounded him to pieces and kicked his arse and taken it back but someone bought it. Ding dang tweakers.

I almost always have some in my bag, particularly homemade ones. Chuck and wind is mighty fine when it slays as you experienced. There can be more to these heavily underrated lures, especially in rivers with current. One awesome method is to let the current “swing” the lure into potential spots that hold fish. Depth and current speed can become factors and this is no longer mindless. Nothing wrong with mindless when it’s catching fish. Glad you “rediscovered” one of the truly universal fish catching lures. ??

No self-respecting bass angler would ever do that! ??

True and well said.

Just check with the airline On this first. For example, Alaska Airlines, a local carrier in the pacific nw, will allow you to take your 2-piece 6’6” rod as a carry on item to Mexico. However the converse was not true for me. Check in luggage only coming back stateside. Good news was that I had a sister-in-law to give it to because it was too late to put it in checked luggage. Bad news was it got lost anyway in her house and I never saw my 2-piece Shimano casting rod ever again. To the OP: Regardless Of what we say, it would behoove you to personally check with the airline you choose for both to and from.

A new fish in’ partner! Congrats!

Dang. That looks professional. Painting is my weakness is luremaking. Hats of to you. ?

Because there are quite a few line joining knots out there that generally work well, the Albright knot is pretty much forgotten and does not appear on many people’s radar. That is unfortunate. One, it’s a kick butt knot for joining two lines and two, the kicker is that it works even when the line diameters of the two lines are on the extremes. However, you did mention vanish. You know why they call it vanish? Try the Albright knot. If the same result happens, it might sufficient to suspect the culprit is the line and not the knot. Keep us posted.

I agree it looks low. I do what hammer does but more to the extreme. I will remove line closer having only maybe 20 yards or so left. This is my “semi-permanent base that is left on until the spool is just about empty. This 20 yards or so is so deep into the spool it never comes into play until I deem it necessary to change the line on top. I would do as Hammer does but I am a shore angler and am forced many times to break off that I can quickly get to the 100 yard mark rather quickly so tying the base line to the line is delayed much deeper into the spool. If I fished from a boat where I have a better chance of lessening breakoffs in general, the 100 yard mark would be fine. When the spool is as low as shown the reel’s casting distance if it is a desired trait is diminished and the line recovery rate is also impacted. If your spool picks up 31” of line, it probably is picking up a little less. Fortunately for you, it is NOT hard to add new line. The uni knot is good but I can never ever remember it outside of going to *** so when I’m fishing I never get to use it. ? Luckily for me, I know how to tie the Albright knot to join lines.

I don’t believe “that guy” ? one bit, but tell him to send me couple so that I can prove or disprove them being the worst, lol. I have some cohos, kings and steelies in my neck of the woods. My address is...lol I recall seeing a guy fish with a quantum pt bc reel maybe 10 years or more ago targeting salmon on the puyallup river. It was effortlessly casting his rig 2 country miles. I was impressed. Just never seen them in my area locally so it’s a bit of a show stopper. Good on KVD.

That’s a former case for me. I started realizing what baits and colors were more effective and stuck with those but I do keep the occasional odd color or bait for those desperate times. It felt good to lose that weight lure wise. If only losing body weight was just as easy lol. The downside is that it this minimal approach does contradict my other philosophy... It is better to have and not need than to need and not have. Go figure.

Very true. I’d triple the laughing emoticon if I could. Dare I say I’ve dropshotted with nightcrawlers (live), squid and shrimp (bait but not live). The horror!

This. It’s what I did when my son was about that age. Depending on how Gung ho he is, he can quickly outgrow it so have on of your spinning rigs ready for him. My my daughter at age 7 was already able to use my curado 201bsf. She’ll be 20 next month. ?

I think it’s Plano who makes a rod carrier. I have one and I think it can handle 7’ rods. It’s an older model made way back when 6’6” was standard and 7’ was considered “long” for a bass rod. You can even secure it with the padlock ? of your choice too. Rods only. Reels have to taken off.

Not necessarily. While both stretch, generally speaking, mono is more resilient compared to fc. In other words, mono is more prone to rebound back to its original length before stretching while fc generally does not bounce back but tends to remain deformed (ie, still stretched out) afterward. Now, I imagine that there might be some fc lines out there that might have better resiliency than other fcs, but that’s not the topic. FC for me is extremely limited to 6# sea guar invisx, if and only if I feel like splurging on it for drop shotting. It used to be $12 but now it’s $22.99 now. 6# mono is also pretty darn good too for finesse and as a result, I use this over fc most of the time.

You can handle 20# braid and I too can handle it. However, not everyone can and from what the OP is describing, it sure sounds like line dig. @Brody Wilsonfrom what you describe, I would guess you're dealing with line dig. Braid at 20# or less is quite susceptible to having it "dig" into itself on a casting reel. Some people like Scott and me can handle it and therefore "get away with it" but others cannot. It can happen when you try to free a stuck lure and you pull hard enough to make the line dig into itself on the spool. It happens less the heavier the lure because the lure's heavy weight can "bust through" the line dug in such a way you might not even notice. Then, if you switch to a lighter lure with some line dig in place, it might not have the mass to "break free" the lure stops in mid flight and if you're not fast enough to react, you might get some overrun, but it is usually minor. Stepping up to 30# would greatly lessen the opportunity for line dig and it is still thin enough to make really long casts.

Nice report! I enjoyed every word. If you start throwing spinnerbaits please share that experience. Spinnerbaits can be notoriously lacking in the aerodynamics department when the wind becomes an influencing factor. I’m curious to see how the DC system handles them. Thanks.

The octos are close enough to use if you’re out of DS specific hooks if you can’t return them. I’ve been using a barbless version to make cnr easier when drop shotting. I use mostly owner mosquito or gammy split shot/drop shot hooks because they are excellent but also because they’re pretty much what is available locally.

Thanks! Little by little you and others here are inching more toward really them there st croixs ?