deep

Well done!

300 size. They do (or did) make a 300TE. Curado 300E/DSV or Cardiff 300 would be good too. No idea about Lews reels. No, a 6.x : 1 gear ratio is okay, just reel a little slower when you need to.

Ha! So I didn't know until now that I'm cross dominant. Right hand and left eye! (I have known about the righthandedness part for a long time.) Interesting stuff; thank you! I used to shoot airguns (rifles) back in the day, always from my right shoulder. Was pretty good though, or so I recall. As far as fishing is concerned, I prefer to cast right, except when I need to cast from my left shoulder because I'm fishing from the banks and there's no casting room. I'm accurate enough either way to get close enough to where I intend/ hope the bait to land; I think my brain rewired itself!

Went to visit a friend, and swung by a lake on the way back. Cool place, and here's my "I got skunked" pic. Just kidding. Caught a few walking the banks.

Couple decent ones and a few dinks today. Guess I could have caught some more dinks if I tried my regular baits. Didn't feel like it.

Shoreline cover is good! No need to beat the banks all around the lake though. LMB or SMB? Are there any pelagic/ offshore baitfish? Does this place get a lot of fishing pressure? Seasonal period (post-spawn/ summer)? Also, before I forget; next time you go out, mark some fish and note their depths.

Sure thing. Just trade me one of those Thai topwaters. I'll PM you my address. Size 6 Katsuage outbarb.

Tough fishing yesterday. Fishing behind a dozen other boats on a <200 acre reservoir didn't help much, and I couldn't find anything offshore either.

is a particular Vision 110+1. lol. A little backstory. I have a couple other megabass jerkbaits that I have 250+ fish on, estimated. Last fall, I posted a pic of one (on another forum) that I knew I caught 300+ fish on, and several members called BS on that. Apparently the eyes are supposed to fall off or the bait is supposed to take on water from all the hook gouges or the bill is supposed to break long before that or some stupid **** like that. So I put that one away, bought and started to fish a new one (the one in the pics), keeping track of how many fish I landed on it. Just because I wanted to see for myself what a legit 300+ bass catcher would look like. Well, this one is still going strong. 291 on it so far. Landed. If I didn't lip the fish, I didn't count it. Funny thing is I don't even fish this particular bait all that much anymore. Too valuable. Last trip, I was pitching brush with plastics most of the day. Came across a couple humps with a little grass, fished it for 30 minutes and caught 11. I think I'll retire this bait when I catch 352 on it. Aviation history enthusiasts might get that reference.

Tule Dipping: Found a lot of decent bass today hanging out under matted grass in one corner of a small cove. It's a good spot most of the time once the water warms up a bit, but today was ridiculous. Caught a couple and lost one in three casts pitching a plastic on a jighead. So I beached the yak, and decided to do a little tule dipping from the banks. You know, stealthier, and all that. Plus I needed to stretch a little anyway. It seemed like half the bass in the whole reservoir were congregated in that 20 ft X 40 ft space, and they had never seen a bait in their lives. Find a hole, drop the bait in, and if a fish didn't eat in on the fall, another would pick it up off the bottom. Think I caught about 10 in as many dips/ flips/ pitches, most of them solid 2-3 lb class fish and a couple estimated 4#. I kinda stopped taking pics after the first few and was laughing uncontrollably. Even started checking their mouths for holes from hooks because I wasn't convinced that I wasn't catching the same few fish over and over again. It was that crazy. Two guys were hiking the trails and stopped by to give me some company. Well I put on a show for them too, and caught 8 or 10 more. One of them remarked that he didn't know "fishing was so easy". I didn't tell him that I wasn't aware of that either! I picked up half a dozen more decent ones from here and there. They were biting really good. Admittedly, I didn't weigh most of the fish (measured some of them); I know I caught a 15# plus limit, probably over 17#. By far the best day I've ever had here. Called it a day an hour or two early, and as luck would have it, 5 minutes after I reach the ramp, the wind picks up and there are whitecaps all over. 10 minutes after that it starts raining hard.

Well done!!

With you.

Dinkfest yesterday. Tried a lot of different locations and presentations. Nope, just caught more dinks. About 25 of them in ~6 hours.

Thought I saw a few. It was pretty windy though; and it's difficult to see much sitting so low anyway.

Dink city gave up a major non-dink this morning. Super shallow wood. Only had an hour to fish, so fished from the banks. Going to take out the yak there this evening and see if I can coax out another decent bite from one of the dozens of laydowns lining the shoreline.

I recall seeing a lot of big bass and stripers caught on them back in the swimbaitnation days- if you know/ remember what that is. I agree it seems to have fallen a little out of favor with the swimbait crowd. Heck, I haven't fished mine in years lol. EDIT: Found something I was looking for. Straight from the horse's mouth. Matt: Deep sorry for not responding. I kept meaning to but then I would forget. Anyways I designed that bait specifically for deadsticking. The tail flops around a little in the ripples and I embed the treble in the belly. I also paint the treble white. I have never used a ROF 5 Hudd so I cant comment on it. I deadstick when I have located a fish but I cant get it to bite. I like to let the wind push my bait to the target and I may let it sit out there for 20 minutes or more. It is difficult to stay ready, and it doesn't always work but it has been the only technique I have found that I have a chance at getting one of those non biters to actually bite. I have caught some huge fish doing it but it is a low percentage technique when you are targeting a single non eating bass. It DOES give you a chance. I don't do very much About the only time I twitch it is when I reel in slack.

FWIW, I've found fishing bigbaits right after to a few days after a stock to be an exercise in futility unless you can hit the bass exactly at the right time and place they're chasing the trouts on/ near the top. On to the deadstick bait. Personally I feel the deadtwitch is more versatile. Walks the dog well too. Anyway, on both the deadstick and the deadtwitch the fins will move in the slightest ripple and the bait will swim slowly with any current. The "slowly" part is important. An ROF 0 hudd will swim out of the area you're planning to soak it in. Just throw the bait out, give it a twitch or two every 5 minutes or so. Fun fact: The 13" Rago Tool was a swimming deadstick bait too. Apparently in CA you can have two baits in the water if you buy the appropriate license. So he (Jerry) would let the Tool soak while he fished another bait (more actively). Way back in 2012 (I think), Matt sent me one of the 13" deadstick version to test-fish before he released it. It was called Mrs. G back then. Mrs. Gigantoid. I caught one 4# on it, plus almost caught an osprey. I didn't get to fish it until like spawn/ post spawn though. There were no Dobyns 908s back then either, and I fished it on a musky rod that had a tiny handle and a fast action. That wasn't much fun. Still have the bait, but haven't fished it in years. Maybe I should.

Buddy took me out, and put me on this, plus a couple other fish today.

Walking the banks again earlier today. The bass weren't co-operating too well. But the trouts were. Kept my limit, and C and R-ed as least as many more. Vision 110 Type R got a workout today @A-Jay

There's power, action, and then there's what I call softness of the tip- which is not quite the same as action. I have the same M power BPS cranking stick- an older maroon blank model. The tip is pretty soft. I use it for small treble hook baits and an occasional light wire single hook moving bait, but always with braid + leader. Compare that to a *** I have; same length, same stated power and action. But the tip is a bit stiffer, and while I love fishing jerkbaits on it, it works extremely well with small plastics and jigs. I fish straight 10-12# Tatsu on it, which is a fairly stretchy line. It works much better than the cranking stick with jigs/ plastics. (The Envy is also much lighter and crisper, being a more expensive and graphite rod and all that, but that's not my point.) Then there are my Heliums and NRX's with even stiffer tips. True jig/ worm rods.

Caught a lot of fish today; most were pretty small.

Well done. Congrats!

Much better than the last couple trips. Half a dozen dinks, couple 16", and one right at 18".

Went to dink city and caught three dinks in about as many hours. Not sure why I keep going back there. I think the one pictured was the least smallest. Also met a fairly aggressive Canadian goose.

Several dink bass and couple jumbo 14"-14.5" crappies today.