Team9nine

If depth isn’t a concern, drop the plate all the way down on take-off and see if that helps, then lift as you run. It should. Also make sure you are completely trimmed under to start. As for other options, I’d pass on the hydrofoils in your case and look into swapping props instead. Probably need to come back 2” (e.g., 22” pitch to a 20” pitch) and/or go with a 4-blade prop. On my last setup like yours, I did both and just lived with the slight decrease on top end...but my hole shot rocked ?

Decided to walk the bank today. Majority of the bass are post-spawn here, with many cruising the shallows and the bluegill bedding areas. Pulled out the spinning rod and went wacky - same setup I’ve described in recent threads. Picked off 16 total, all on a single bait I was still throwing when I left. Should be good for at least that many more ?

Yeah, carbon fibre is what all us hip young kids are using these days ?

One of about 8 or 9 I landed yesterday. It was the largest of the trip, and a “keeper,” but it was the method/technique that I used that made these fish special. I was using my “Tenkara” rod, which is actually a slightly heavier “Keiryu” (bait/nymph) rod, the Daiwa Kiyose 36S-F. It’s a collapsable 11’10” rod weighing less than 3 oz. that you fish without a reel, the fixed length line being attached to a small lanyard at the very tip of the pole. Line was 2.5# fluoro “level line” paired with a couple different 1/32 oz jigs. No real casting involved, more like swing pitching/flipping. No reel also means all lure retrieve and action is control by how you manipulate the rod. Takes some getting used to, but it is a blast, especially the ‘no reel’ fighting and landing technique.

This one was fun on the light tackle gear. A 6’6” ML spinning rod, 4# braid to 6# leader using FG connecting knot.

I usually think of cuts as small “washes” or “hollows,” active or non-active creeks, and often small enough that they don’t contain secondary points. Just indents in the bank, maybe 1-5 boat lengths long, like a “micro-cove” - lol

Was just out two days ago to one of the sub ponds picking off bass on an HJ fished ‘old school’ floating minnow-like. A favorite for me all through spring.

Indiana - a lot of our reservoirs used to be filled with milfoil, and a few still have it. Got used to fishing it when it was so prevalent. Coontail is still around here and there, too. I almost won a state Federation tournament (got 2nd) years back when I found some submerged coontail with my depthfinder in a creek that wasn't visible. Never had much in the way of pads, but we had lotus in our largest reservoir which is almost identical. Great summer pattern. Water willow is the other veggie we see a lot of here. It's emergent, but very fun to fish also. And cattail is also found on a few of our reservoirs.

Ditto - “fully-scaled mirror”

Yeah, every water is different, but we do really well around here flipping the milfoil once it has matted over (on the few lakes that have it left - they like to treat it heavily). It is typically a post spawn/early summer through fall deal. We do Traps and spinnerbaits slow rolled early over the grass as it starts greening in the spring...oh, and some lakes here are great frog lakes over shallow thick milfoil.

Flip/pitch/punch right into the stuff. Bass will sit right down in the shade/holes on sunny days. Will just take a couple of bites to open your eyes and make you a believer ?

Live by the Senko - die by the Senko (or at least your wallet will). Haven’t bought or thrown a Senko in about 20 years. I’m with Catt and now go “jighead wacky” or “flick-shake” most of the time, and weightless trick worm (weedless) the rest. I use Zman Finesse worms that start out at half the price of Senkos, then average 25 bass per worm after that. Between the money I save going that route, along with switching my insurance to GEICO, I was able to retire early last year ? ?

Slide over to RichZ’s bass blog, type your lakes into the search bar, then read and study ?

I’ll try and find out where they stay and launch out of...but not certain any of them use guides. I’ll ask though. Yep - depth and speed control. There are some days you simply can’t reel fast enough to trigger much of a bite compared to the speed you can generate trolling.

We call it Spoonplugging - classic Buck Perry stuff...troll until you locate the school, then cast for the big catch. A bit more technical than it sounds, but very methodical and effective. We have a group of guys that hit St. Clair every spring for smallies. They just got back last week. Using a combination of trolling and casting, they again caught several hundred fish over the 4-5 days including numerous 5s, several 6s and two over 7 this year.

Midsouth Super Jigs (tubes) Kalin Triple Threat Grub (curlytails) Big Diddy Pintails (shad style) Bobby Garland Baby Shad (shad style)

Offshore Angler is the saltwater house brand rod from BPS, and that matches the "OA" designation shown in this pic and online with other vintage Stu Apte rods from that lineup; "C" = casting. I know it breaks a little with the Arkansas link, but I've seen it mentioned numerous times on several different forums that the saltwater line of rods around that time frame was made by Star. A different company makes them now (Blackfin?). Star Fishing Tackle, 158 Little Nine Road, Morehead City, North Carolina 28557

Congrats! Sounds like a great trip. This is turning out to be the best year in a long time up there for some reason. Have had several friends up there already this year, and every single one of them set new PBs this year, with a couple fish topping the 7 lb. mark. Almost makes me want to go - lol.

Yeah, not your job to tell a fish where he’s supposed to be. Yours is to systematically fish and eliminate the alternatives until he tells you, “here I am” ?

Yep - mark everything you find, no matter depth or location. Develop a waypoint or icon system that makes sense to you. You can always delete them later for whatever reason if necessary.

Just my opinion, but graph the entire lake to understand what it would look like if drained. Once you understand and interpret the bottom, it makes fishing the lake much easier. Most days, I’d rather stay off spots and just fish them and not risk spooking fish by driving over the spot to see if I see anything. Easier to do when you know exactly what’s down there and what specifically should be the key spots on a structure. Deeper fish it might not matter as much, but a lot depends on the exact lake and time of year.

"Wind" in general - all of the above. "...certain wind directions" like N/S/E/W,if that's what you meant - it doesn't, other than dictating what lake I might fish based on what topographies and structures are affected, or how safely I can launch and move about.

I've played with lighter just because I like to see what you can and can't get away with, but overall, I go only as light as necessary because I'm more interested in landing the fish efficiently while still generating as many bites as possible. I've played with line as light as JDM 2.5# fluoro, but you really have to have a more specialized setup and play the fish differently to be successful with it a majority of the time, which can be a big challenge if you are around a lot of cover, which is where I found it to be particularly troublesome. I pretty much only use braid on spinning gear, primarily for the handling aspects, but also because of things like strength to diameter ratio. I'm almost always shooting for the thinnest diameter that will still accomplish what I want it to easily.

I always carry the lighter gear with me. Last year I caught 2200+ largemouth and another 1800+ crappie, and a whole bunch of those came on ML spinning gear with 4#-10# braid. I never go lighter than that for either species. Baits for the light stuff: Crappie stuff was traditional small soft plastics on jigheads. Bass were a mix of small swimbaits, Neds, wacky, finesse worms and small jerkbaits.

THIS ^^ Running a Schumacher SC1279 on my batteries since last year without any issues. If uncapped, you will see bubbling and hear "fizzing" for lack of a more scientific term - lol. Perfectly normal in my experience. You'll know real quick if anything was actually "fried" the next time you take the boat out and run off the battery(s). If you ruined something, you won't go far, but would guess you are just fine and have nothing to worry about.