wasabi_VA

I wish Z-Man made a grub like with their super durable TRD material. I'm currently throwing Kalin's Lunker Grub in 4" for smallmouth and I like them and the colors I use but they are pretty soft and get tore up easy. Really frustrating when you put a new one on and the dang bluegill nip the tail off! Any suggestions?

I am planning to do the plumber putty mount in the kayak hull. Is this a common thing that the Striker ClearVu doesn't work that way?

OK. I am going with a RAM mount. Now I need to know where to buy the heavy duty velcro folks use to hold the battery in the waterproof box and to secure the box to the hull

After sitting in my kayak I can tell i won't be able to reach the controls very easily. Thinking I'll need something like a RAM mount on one of my closer assy rails.

Here is the hull on my 10' Pelican Catch 100. I can't decide if it paddles like a brick or if it does Ok because it's the only kayak I use. I previously had a Wilderness Ride 135 which was of course larger and more stable but I don't recall the paddle effort enough to compare. I'm curious what you think of this hull design.

I'm getting a Garmin Striker and plan to puddy-mount the transducer inside my Pelican Catch 100 hull. Probably use one of those nifty Hobie thru-hull thingies to handle the wires. I don't see any optional mounting accessories at the Garmin website. Any third party mounts I should know about? I believe the best location for me is mounted forward, up past my feet, against a wall of the upper hull where my ballcap is in the picture. I think having it on one of my accessory rails that are closer to me will be in my way. But as I type that, I guess mounting it out of the way will make it harder to use the controls. Hmmm... Suggestions on hardware?

Thank you to those who were helpful

I'm just starting to use a bobber stop to minimize the movement of a worm weight up my line. When I cut off the hook to fish another type of lure my bobber stop is still on a short length of line, but I don't have a loop in it to then transfer it to use again. I know I can be a cheap sonofagun and reuse stuff but part of it is I hate to throw away something that still seems perfectly serviceable.

My Rapala RipStop is my first jerkbait and it has really been working well for me this season. I have the 4 3/4" model which is the largest. Specs says it runs 4' to 5' although mine always seem to be about 1' down, which is fine as I'm mostly throwing it toward the bank. I want to throw more jerkbaits, perhaps something slightly larger and maybe goes down 2' to 3'? Any suggestions?

Yes, it is heavy wire so perhaps that is contributing to the issue. I did compare it to all my other worm and jig hooks and it was clearly the worst offender. I gave each a few taps with a ball peen hammer and it closed up the gap nicely. I also bought a pack of similar weight Gamagatsu hooks and those were very tight.

10 lb braid.

Today I was using these new Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp 'Jason Christie' worm hooks and twice my line slipped out from the hook eye on 2 fish. At first I assumed my line broke but each time my knot was still there when I reeled back the line. Is this a common thing, either with this brand or worm hooks in general? I'm doing a lot more worm fishing this year and it hasn't happened yet with my various other brands. Just did a close-up and I guess I have my answer. Not good.

I use camelcamelcamel to set price alerts for Amazon items I am waiting for a sale. Works great. Anybody know of a similar tool for tracking Cabelas item prices? I am interested in some of their cold weather rainwear but am not on their website daily to see sales.

I’m referring to the side markings. Why so distinct on some fish and not others?

2 different fish, same stocked 2 acre pond, likely same age fish judging by size. Why does one have such a defined lateral line and the other doesn’t??? Lateral line may not be the right term, I mean the side markings

Lately been throwing a lot of 1/8 ounce jigs / grubs for smallies on a rocky stream and the occasional bottom snag and bottom bumping is clearly dulling my hooks. I've never been a good hook sharpener so out of touch with a good product to keep handy in the kayak to quickly resharpen. Any suggestions on a product and technique? I have a very old sharpener with a groove in it, used to slide the hook point back and forth and thinking that is incorrect. Some hooks don't have clear cutting faces so not always sure which edge or method to get the point sharp. Thanks

You're really reaching with that just to make your point here....

I have one of each too, although not the same size so it is hard to compare. I have the little Legalis 1000 on an ultralight rod, the Fuego 2500 is for bass.

I've read up (a little bit) and can't find any differences between the Daiwa Legalis LT vs the slightly more expensive Fuego LT...other than the Fuego has the Magseal. i am not seven sure the magseal is important to me for freshwater? I need to pick up another 2500 series reel and trying to decide between these two. The Fuego has been great, so the Legalis should be great if they are the same reel except for magseal. Difference is around $30 right now ($70 vs $99) but periodically find one or the other at a better price on ebay. For example my Fuego LT 2500D-XH (faster reel retrieve) was $77 when I bought it 6 weeks ago. I assume prices are higher now due to fair weather fishermen buying more stuff right now.

You sir just upped the ante with the poop bag! ?

The technical term is 'pee cup.' Pee Rinse Repeat

So those areas you mentioned are the areas I fished. I guess the reduced visibility worked against me. I did switch to brighter colors to see if that would help, maybe it did a little. I think I need to get better at recognizing the water levels where this impacts the fishing and just not go. I have notes from prior trips on the water level and my better days came when the water level was lower. I was probably pushing it to go so close to the recent rains. It was murkier but not chocolate milk. Part of me wondered if I needed to switch up my tactics to adjust based upon their adjustments. I did try deeper by using a slightly heavier jig head, also switched to brighter colors. I was looking for spawning beds too...wondering if that was why he bite was off...but the water was too stained to see if any beds were anywhere. With as much flow as I saw I was wondering how the fish could even maintain a bed and stay on it, and what that means when there is so much rain in the spring when they are supposed to spawn. Maybe they just have a bad spawn if there happens to be a lot of rain some years?

I have kayak fished a small stream several times this spring. It averages around 100 cfs discharge (+/- 20) to give you a sense of size of the river. The first 2 trips I did great even though it was a little high due to spring rains. The other day it was higher than I've ever fished it, around 280 cfs, due to heavy rain a few days prior. There were still nice eddies/pools/current breaks to fish yet the fish were not active at all. There seemed to be more current in places where previously there may have been slack water which made me think the fish might readjust location to endure the higher flow...? Do they head downstream to find deep water and hang deep to avoid flow? Or maybe they just hang tighter to available current breaks and stay in the same area? Any suggestions to deal with higher water? It wasn't just the smallies - all the other fun bycatch shut down too like lgmouth and fallfish.

I just pulled a kayak out from behind the shed where it has sat for 5+ years. The accumulated leaf debris, mud splatter and even some light surface mold from last year's wet Fall made it a mess. I put some car wash soap and a splash of bleach in a bucket and used a scrub brush and hose to clean it up. It needed the scrub brush as I first tried a rag. It came out really clean and colors more vibrant when I was done. On another kayak with similar hull mess as yours I used a spray product they call hull cleaner. Don't leave it on for long but fine for long enough to spray/scrub/rinse. Works amazingly well. But for normal cleaning I have used simple green (I always dilute mine 50/50) and scrub brush and rinse with the hose.

Do bass or bluegill spawn first?