Team9nine

A rare trip for me to the local large river system yesterday afternoon. It had been many, many years since I last visited, but it is unique in its smells and scenery compared to the micro lakes and reservoirs I usually play on. As it turned out, falling and clearing water had the bigger fish turned off, but still managed 15 smaller smallmouth, along with a mixed basket of largemouth, bluegill, crappie and rock bass. Saw more turtles in one day than I’ll see all year, along with ducks, kingfishers, and two separate pairs of nesting bald eagles, not to mention all the things you only see on these old river systems, both good and bad.

Just measured mine - 16.5’ Alumacraft. Saves between 23”-24” on mine. I can gain almost another foot if I remove the motor toter when stored.

Some things never go out of style - like leather jackets and a well worn pair of jeans ?

Perfect for summer. The comfort of shorts, combined with the look of jeans. Be sure to read the fine print in my ad posts on this site: fish not included ?

Saw the first two nesters today in the shallowest micro lake I fish. The first one I spooked intentionally, and he swam to the deep weedline edge, sat for a minute, then returned. That told me he wasn’t just sunning. I let him settle back down while I finished working the rest of that bank, then switched to a soft plastic and caught him on the return. He was about 2 pounds and is the one in the pic. Another 50 ft down the bank I spotted another nester, and was able to catch it, too. That one was a little bigger, closer to 2-1/2 lbs. In total I got 20 today.

Don’t have much specific knot data on a lot of these. In general, double line knots are almost always stronger than single line knots, but the tradeoff is their bulk. One could argue going back up through the top loop strengthens knots like the clinch (vs. the improved clinch), which is similar to your situation (reverse clinch vs. SDJ). I’ve also seen strong support/data for the strength of double-line clinch knots (DLCK), double line uni, and FnF knot (single line, twice through the eye). In your case, you’re trying to solve for a specific problem, so solving that might be more important than absolute strength. Every knot out there is “strong enough” if the proper setup and drag is used ?

Luckily no - caught him right off a channel break and he just kind of bulldogged toward the bottom, right under the boat. Water temps are still on the cool side, so that probably helped a little. Surprised he didn’t pull me right into one of those channel stumps and break me off ?

“Don’t fight the bite!” ?

Change of pace today on the local reservoir. Crappie were the target species, and I caught a bunch. Still early pre-spawn, so many were pretty big-bellied. Bonus fish was a big flathead I managed to land on the crappie outfit after a pretty good fight.

Wind from the East, fish still gonna’ feast ? Finally stuck another quality fish after what has seemed like forever - lol. The best of 15 today. Probably about 5.5-ish or a bit over. Very nice pre-spawn belly on this one. The lucky jeans strike again

The struggle for a few quality bites continues, but I’ve been getting some chunky fish in the 2 - 2.75 lb. range the past few days. The 3/4 inches of rain we just got wasn’t enough to stain up the micro lakes good, so water is still somewhat clear and the snot moss is starting to take over the shallows, making presentations much more difficult. A forecasted full week of dry weather will only make water clarity and weed/algae growth a bigger issue going forward.

Sad day at the pond today. Found the resident goldfish deceased. No idea who dumped him in there, or when, but when he would lazily sun himself near the surface, you couldn’t miss him. Believe I first spotted him about 3 years ago, and I assume he was the only one in there. I had actually forgotten about him, as he didn’t make appearances often.

You’ve kind of lost me, but different knot names add to the confusion. Seems some refer to a “double” SDJ as single line twice through the eye, then a normal tie, while others mean doubled line through the entire knot as diagrammed. If you skip step 4 and just run through the hole created near the eye, you’ve basically just tied a reverse clinch knot, which isn’t appealing to me. If you skip the eye opening and just run straight through the top loop created, you’ve tied a Pitzen - a pretty decent knot. Based on what you described above, how do you end up with any tag ends going forward? Seems like there would just be the two near the bottom. The one thing you learn is that if your equipment is properly set up and adjusted, all knots work great - even “weaker” ones.

Different strokes for different folks ? Retired in 2020 at age 54. Not a social bug beyond forums and such, and wasn’t “in love” with my work or coworkers. Lots of people wonder what they’ll do in retirement, but sitting on my arse and going fishing, beyond routine house tasks, is perfectly fine for me. Between boat and bank, I fish between 175-200 days a year on average, so I get lots of activity and sunshine ? Don’t miss work some 3 years later, and can’t ever see going back into the job market outside of writing/contributing pieces for fishing sites, free-lance, etc., which can all be done remotely.

You were close enough He was a retired fireman (1963), and was very active with the Boy Scouts in the late 1930s-early 1940s. I have to rely on historical computer searches - you were there - that’s way cooler ?

A quick historical search through the archives turned up: Inventor: Chet Palomar Location: Pomona, California Date: 1971 DuPont, makers of Stren, tested and endorsed it, specially suited for nylon monofilament, but stated that it was equally effective for use with braid.

I went that route with an old 55# V2 MK PD and did the iPilot upgrade. Mine is not the “link” version, so possibly a bit different. I say that because I refer to mine as having “cove lock” (vs. spot lock). It won’t keep you on the spot, but it will keep you inside the cove you’re in ? Some days and conditions are better than others, but it doesn’t seem to be near as accurate and precise as the newest versions being built into today’s trolling motors. The remote is just something to get used to. It has it’s pluses and minuses, but overall is very handy and pretty responsive. Pretty nice for open water structure fishing, but not near as fun in a flooded forest of trees or shallow stumps.

Hybrids are technically not sterile, as they can backcross with their parent lineage. Doesn’t happen a lot, but enough that our DNR stopped stocking them in all the reservoirs that had naturally sustaining white bass populations. They didn’t want to risk the gene mixing possibility with the pure strain whites. They are a very strong fish, and put up a heck of a fight, often to their detriment (easily die from prolonged fights in warm water temps). A couple buddies and I have caught them to just over 18 pounds. I seriously thought I might be able to break our state record at one point (22 pounds), but the local population of big fish died before I could hit that goal…but we caught a couple dozen in that 3 year window that ranged from around 9-10 pounds up to 18+ and pushing 30 inches in length.

Can I join your guys’ party? ? It’s been 20 years since I last threw a Senko ?

Only one I fish that gets treated this heavily. It will be blue-blue for the next 6-7 months. They still bite great in that water color once they get adjusted. “Junebug” works like a charm. I’d say it’s in your head ? or it’s just a less optimal pond to begin with.

Finally, some really nice weather. Steady south wind at 8-12, occasionally gusting to 20+ with highs near 75 and pretty decent cloud cover. Made one pass on a pond and then kept hopping back and forth between the two windblown corners. Ended the afternoon with 26 fish on a small mix of baits. Supposed to be similar but a little more windy tomorrow, so hopefully another good bite if I get out. They had just treated this pond, rather indiscriminately IMO, so may need to let it rest until the compound spreads, mixes, and stabilizes more.

RkCrawler?

Yeah, given your situation, that’s about it ? Pick one and go with it. If you don’t like it, try one of the other options. You only have 3 - should be easy to test them all if you wanted…or add a 4th option and buy another outfit so you can have a cranking and a topwater setup with different line types For the record, I’d go A.) straight copoly or mono to start ?

Clouds, wind and approaching storms fired up the bite a bit as you would expect. Picked off 26 this afternoon. The fish are healthy and fight good, but I’m convinced most of these smaller waters I’m fishing have suffered some kind of setback with the better quality fish. I’m now 500 bass into the year, and can count on 1 hand the number of larger fish caught. Something ain’t right - lol. Loads of 12”-16” fish bodes well for a couple more years down the road though. Should be able to start branching out and hitting the local reservoirs this next month though, so hopefully the better fish will come soon enough.

Know someone doing their own line testing using commercially available tensile testing equipment. Still dialing everything in, but the initial test data with many popular lines is interesting, but not unexpected.