Bluebasser86

I'm a big fan of the SV Tatulas personally but I don't have any experience with the others. That's mostly what I use on my rods I use in my kayak. There's plenty of ways to prevent losing gear while kayak fishing also, it doesn't just have to be a thing you accept as part of it.

The Gantarel Jr was one of the more disappointing swimbaits I've owned. Wasn't overly impressed with the action and it wasn't a producer for me. I've had more luck with soft gills or waking gill baits that swimmers and gliding gills though.

Yes. I've seen more smallmouth do it than largemouth but they will all do it. It breaks the current and allows the baitfish a place to gather out of the current and the bass follow.

Quail are surprisingly loud when you get a covey of them walking through crispy leaves, so are turkeys. Wasn't unexplainable, know exactly what it was, but I'll tell a story on myself. My buddy, his stepson, and I were fishing Lake of the Ozarks several springs ago and had just got back to the ramp as it was getting dark. We were bass fishing but had also caught several crappie and a keeper walleye that Jon wanted to eat, so I filleted them at the ramp and was cleaning my board and knife when something across the small cove started to crack limbs and rustle leaves in a slow but deliberate walk through the trees. I had a flashlight but it wasn't strong enough to quite see across the cove completely, but it did catch a large, dark figure moving through the trees coming down towards the water and us. My first though was it was a black bear. I am terrified of bears. I'd say irrationally but I'm not sure that it's irrational to be scared of something that can and will eat you. Jon likes to tell it as "If you've ever seen the older cartoons when someone takes off and everything they were holding hangs in the air for a second before falling but meanwhile they're long gone, that's what happened next". I don't really remember, all I know is next thing I was 200 yards up the hill in the parking lot in the back of my truck. Turned out it was a beaver dragging a sizeable tree branch down to the water that had a bunch of brown leaves on it still.

My buddy caught a spotted bass through the loop of a premade leader like the Eagle claw hooks you buy in the plastic packs at Wal-Mart. We assume it tried to eat his bait but all his crankbait hooks got was the loop of mono you're supposed to tie your line to.

If it sounds too good to be true....

They push bait up onto those sandbars and bait feeds on the sandbars.

That's odd, the one I have cast like a bullet. 2.5" 1/2oz with hardly any bill shouldn't be an issue to cast.

They're serious fish catchers, especially in colder water. I've had some issues with bills breaking on a few but it seems like it either happens quickly after I start fishing one, or it isn't a problem and the bait catches fish until I lose it to a snag.

Some of my favorites; https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Big_Bite_Baits_Salt_Tube_35/descpage-BBBTUBE.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Strike_King_Coffee_Tube_35_Pro-Model_8pk/descpage-SKCTP.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/VM_Smallie_Tube_8pk/descpage-VMSMALL.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Xzone_Lures_X-Tubes/descpage-XZTUB.html

Braid for frogs. 4 carrier is more coarse so it saws through grass better. For fishing over pads, you can pull it over the pads and walk it in the open spaces.

Fished Truman Lake in Missouri for the first time in almost a decade in preparation for a kayak tournament later this month. It was, not great, but I would have had a decent limit and I figured out a little bit of a pattern in one area and didn't try to milk it so who knows how that would have turned out if I'd really tried to hammer on them.

Welcome!

Video from yesterday. @HaydenS took that rod for one last spin before it's yours. Video proof it'll handle fishing a jig ? https://youtu.be/bX7Oi0K3qP4

Something about fish that don't get fished for often, they're just wilder when they bite and get stuck.

Both my big fish catches from yesterday were pretty entertaining.

My solution is easy, I don't eat any of the fish I catch ? That wouldn't be the case if I had access to saltwater fish like you though.

I was way up a feeder creek for those fish. The big shad have moved into them, and the big bass follow. Both those fish puked up 6-8 inch shad during the fight and the bigger fish coughed up an additional 6" bluegill as well. They had their feedbags on.

Never would have touched my biggest fish this morning if I wasn't using 20lb InvisX. She was all kinds of wrapped up in a nasty logjam, line squeaking and straining, I could hear her thumping around and my jig clacking off the wood. I'll have to look at the time of the video but I bet she was hung like that for close to minute before finally popping free.

Threw one quite a bit this morning, a KVD 2.5 wake. Conditions seemed perfect with clouds and slick calm water, the fish did not agree with me.

What lures are you using? A lot of trout lures cause lots of line twist and could be contributing to your issues if you're not doing something to solve the line twist like using a swivel.

Making long cast and burning a jigging spoon ?

Welcome!

If you have a soft bottom you can dig in, cut just the very top off a gallon milk jug and bury it up to the opening in the mud with a rope attached to the handle. Put pieces of fish, bacon, hotdogs, whatever you want for bait in it. The craws climb inside to get the bait but can't climb back up the smooth sides and it's very difficult for them to swim back out the small opening. We use to use them a lot when I was a kid.

My comparison has been if you had the choice between a cheeseburger, or a cheeseburger with glass shards in it, which would you choose? Bass learn which types of food are easier to catch and swallow and surely favor them if they get the option. I was fishing a big, shad profile glide bait in a pond with no shad last Saturday, didn't stop the fish from eating it. Bluegills and crappie move shallow in the fall, so if those are the primary forage in your lake, the bass will follow.