Janderson45

I have a st Cruz avid with micro guides, it's got a Shimano reel spooled up with straight Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon. Love the line. Mine has 14lb test, have also used and would highly recommend their 12lb test line and 7lb test line. Haven't used other sizes but I'm sure they're very nice as well... its all personal preference, obviously as others have demonstrated here you still have the ability to use some sort of braided super line along with a leader. I do that all the time on other setups that I own, just not this specific rod with micro guides. I may experiment with it in the future, but for now I'm loving the straight Sunline sniper.

Looks like quite the gill you caught there!! Sometimes live bait fishing is nice, like you said just sit back and have a few cold ones..

Looked to be easily 6lbs, but obviously it's hard to judge based off of what I saw... I've heard numerous reports of 6+lb bass being caught here, and I believe it... Other than the fishing pressure it now receives it seems like perfect dwellings for a very large northeastern bass to me.. Personally I've only fished it a few times however, and haven't had much luck. I haven't boated a LMB over 3.5 lbs yet this year but I've probably caught a dozen smallies over that mark. Looking forward to this summer/fall transition and then fall fishing to hopefully figure out some good LMB before the season is over...

Went out at Whitehall this afternoon/evening. Got the skunk. All I managed was one overly-ambitious pumpkinseed. Didn't have my Lowrance with me or all of my rods. Tried various 1/4oz Texas rigs, 3/8oz chatterbait, and a few different hard topwater baits as the sun started to set and into the night. Didn't seem like anyone else that I saw fishing was really doing any catching either. Saw an eagle, and then later the most vicious topwater explosion I've ever witnessed. Huge largemouth annihilated a small mouse/rat that was swimming in the water about 50 feet in front of me, I think it might've been the biggest bass I've ever seen come clean out of the water like that. Spent a while fishing the area of the explosion without any luck. Oh well, I'll catch a good largemouth one of these days hopefully..,

Congrats on the PB smalljaw! Sounds like you guys had a nice day, I'm gonna have to go hit Great Herring myself soon. Ive caught more smallmouth than largemouth this year, I guess it's because I keep on finding myself in smallie waters, but it's certainly a strange feeling for me. Prior years/seasons I've always caught far more largemouth, I'm certainly not hating the change of pace though, the LMB will always be around when I want them ;).

Here's a couple smallies I worked fairly hard for today in 20+ FOW. Both caught on a 3.5" green pumpkin strike King tube dipped in Chartruese JJs Magic. 3.54 and 3.08 lbs.

What's up with that cranking stick, Looks like a broom handle! Straight glass? Nice fish! Whatever you're doing, it's certainly something right "almost like I know what I'm doing". I chuckled... I Know what you mean, sometimes it just comes together and makes you feel like years of practice and learning has finally paid off... Always room for improvement though! Just caught a few bronzebacks today matter of fact, maybe not quite as good as those but the lunker on the day was 3.54lbs, not bad for a Massachusetts fish. Am I remembering correctly that you are a Massachusetts transplant? Hit the quabbin reservoir today with pretty good success, can't imagine what I would do there with a bass boat/motor that would allow me to cover more than 7mph! Tight lines my friend!

So even though I said I wouldn't for a while, I fished the Quabbin Reservoir again today with my girlfriend. Had the day off from work, looked at weather conditions and I just couldn't stay away. We launched in a rental at 7 AM from boat launch 2. Headed south for a mile and a half before I set up the Lowrance and started looking for fish... Despite receiving 3" of rain in the past week (more than that region has had in over six weeks) water levels were still down nearly 8' from typical levels this time of year... I was rather disappointed to learn this upon arrival as I was thinking 3" of rain in a short time would make a big difference in this body of water... I was wrong. Took us a little while to get on them but once we did we hit them hard... I caught 11 SMB while losing 5!!!! (?) she caught 3 and lost 1. Biggest of the day was 3.54 lbs, although to be completely honest I need to invest in a pair of boga grips or something because this fish looked 4+ lbs and I don't trust my cheap digital scale.... When I got a look at it I could've sworn it was a 4lber, it was 20.5" long. It weighed 3.54. In total I caught 3 SMB that my scale registered at 3+ lbs, but to be fair the other 2 were 3.12 and 3.02 lbs respectively. One of the fish that I lost on a dropshot was significantly bigger than the 3.54 I landed, easily 4+.... Wrapped itself around my anchor line and shook free. All the others shook free while going airborne, they were all good fish as well. I did catch two dinks on the drop shot as well, but after losing a really good bass in front of my eyes on a drop shot (along with a relatively slow bite) I made the switch to a 3.5" green pumpkin tube (tentacles dipped in chartreuse JJ's) on a 3/8ths tungsten tube head, it was the right choice. Boated all 3 of the 3lb + SMB on the tube. I targeted 16-28 FOW all day on the Lowrance, and nearly every place I marked a small pod of predator/game fish (smallmouth?) I almost instantly hooked up on the tube (it took a bit more dedication on the dropshot to get bites). I'm new to fishing tubes and I was stunned how big SMB would crush a nearly dead sticked tube. Twice during conversation with the girlfriend and I a Good SMB took the tube while it was sitting dead still and took off with it (thanks HI-VIS yellow braid)... See the line running off?? Reel up slack, feel the weight, set the hook. I wish I could say it was angler imparted magic but this is how I caught the big fish of the day... water temp at 7AM from fishing area 2 was 74.x degrees, as we worked our way south and the sun came up temps warmed to 80+ degrees in the shallows. Didn't catch a single fish in less than 15' of water. She fished a Ned rig all day for her 3 keepers and had a drop shot fish came unbuttoned on her. I fished dropshot, a tube, soft plastic swim baits, floating balsa jerksbaits, deep diving cranks, lipless cranks, and a spinner bait. All the bites came on the dropshot and tube, other than spawning conditions and immediately post spawn conditions I can't buy a bite at the Q on horizontally presented baits (even though I see fish clearly suspended at 15' or so) , any advice on this? I get that they're harder to catch than fish relating to points and ledges, but I have trouble even attempting to target them. I met an older gentleman at one of the beaching/portable restroom areas around 10AM before I had managed a bite, said he caught a 22" pickerel.. I was surprised to say the least, I've only caught SMB and seldom LMB on the eastern side of the Quabbin, never even seen a pickerel... I would've been interested to hear what he caught it on but he wasn't sharing. Tight lines friends. Heres the 3.02 and then the 3.54. Both caught at the same location in roughly 22' on the green pumpkin/chart dipped tube.

That's a really nice looking rainbow Mike! Did you get a weight on it by chance? Gotta best 3lbs to get a state pin for a rainbow, I'd guess that one is very close..? Glad you enjoyed the Chu, love it out there!

Thanks for the help everyone! I guess I'm so used to being able to find everything on the web that it rarely dawns on me to call places... Would be nice if some company made it one stop shopping but I understand why that's not entirely plausible.

Apologies as I'm sure this has been covered, but I'm having trouble coming up with a solution... Are there any easy options for ordering spare/replacement parts for bait casting reels? I have a line-up that consists of Shimano, Lews, and BPS reels. I'm looking to get spare spool assemblies for most if not all of them. My thoughts are that I can keep spare spools in a tackle box and when I want to switch lines on a setup it's as easy as swapping out spools and stringing up the rod.. I know I've wasted probably hundreds of dollars the past few years because I wanted to change lines out on a reel and had nothing to do with the "still good" line that I'm stripping off of my reels. Im also looking for replacement spool tension knobs on BPS reels.. If I went to a retail store would they have this part available? Seems plausible, but a lot of times when I show up at basspro with a question instead of just wanting to make a purchase I get met with a lot of blank stares.. Sorry for the relatively simple questions, but I've had a fair deal of trouble trying to find parts/answers from searching google.. Does anyone else do this with spare spools? Any drawbacks to it that I'm not seeing?

I need exactly that for the Quabbin, I've never had a trolling motor out there but have always wished that I did. My fish finder is the Lowrance portable one that mounts with a suction cup. Serves its purpose but mounting on a trolling motor would be even more ideal! Sounds like you guys made the best of ever increasingly tough fishing out there... Im going to try to hit either Great Herring or Whitehall in my kayak this weekend if either of you are interested in meeting up. -Joel

Love the Q, but fishing it right now under current conditions is tough. Did you rig up a fish finder in the rental? Id be lost out there without it... Been twice this year and first trip we killed them on small floating rapalas, 2nd time out we did not quite as well, but still had a very productive day fishing drop shots rigged with 4.5" biospawn plasma tail, fished in 16-22'. Not sure if maybe just venturing further into the dog days of summer has them taking baits more apprehensively, but both of my quabbin outings this year there was no doubt every time they hit a bait. I plan on fishing it twice more this season likely. Early to mid September, then again late September/October before they close it up.... They really close up shop too quickly out there most years.

Figured it was something like this going on, just hadn't seen many people talking about it here or how poor it's made the fishing lately. Thanks for the info!

Just out of curiosity, why are you convinced that a 30-40 acre reservoir holds double digit bass? That's a pretty small body of water.. Not saying you're incorrect, as I know very little about bass fishing in California, but typically up here in the north east smaller bodies of water like that aren't going to produce the biggest bass unless they are literally never fished and you have a lot of luck on your hands... A couple of bass need to live and gorge themselves on forage for a very long time to grow to double digits, and on a 30-40 acre reservoir the odds that it has enough forage base for a bass to grow that large aren't very favorable in my opinion. Maybe someone with more experience fishing in California can chime in however, as I could be off base... But that's what I would tend to think until I had it on good authority that I was incorrect. Other than that, great tips listed above on how to target bigger bass in general... Plus if you pulled an 8lber out of there already perhaps you're right and bigger ones are just waiting! Man I'd love to fish in Cali.. Lol

Just a thought to all you guys chucking heavy 1.5 oz plopper 130s on braid and Casting reels.. One good backlash midway through the cast and you can probably kiss it goodbye.. Braid as you all know has no stretch, with a heavy bait and a backlash that braid will break (sounds like a gunshot almost) and your bait will go flying for miles :). Happens to inexperienced surf casters chucking heavy metal jigs or plugs all the time. Simplest solutions are to either not use braid, or if you still prefer to use braid a simple monofilament leader or "top shot" as they call them in the surf fishing community dramatically reduces this issue. On a different note, anyone noticing anything strange with ponds and smaller bodies of water around here? Lots of them seem to be taking on a very strange water clarity. I'm not sure if its lack of rain, bacteria levels exploding or what exactly is causing it, but many of the smaller bodies of water around me have taken on a very chocolate milk like color.. Visibility is like 1 foot or less, and I've never seen these ponds look this bad in the years I've been fishing them. Anyone else noticing this or have an explanation for it??

I hit Sampsons Pond in Carver, MA from 4:30p-9:30p this evening in my kayak. Managed 4 largemouth bass.. None of any noteworthy size. Biggest of the bunch probably went 1.5lbs. All 4 bass came on different techniques, I couldn't seem to figure out what they wanted to hit. First dink came on a dropshot in about 12' of water. Deepest water I could find... Second cast on the dropshot, so I fished it for a while in that location without even a nibble. Switched to a 1/2 football jig and green pumpkin/orange craw. Again caught a dink on the 2nd cast.. Fished that for a bit, but due to its weight and relatively shallow water I had to switch to a 3/16ths finesse grass jig. Caught the biggest one of the night a while later with that black finesse jig. Finished off with a whopper plopper dink around 9:00. Water temp was 82, and the water level was clearly very low for this pond. I was pretty unimpressed with what I saw here to be honest, aside from all the bass I caught being small, I didn't notice very much life at all. Didn't see a single other fish, vegetation was scant at best, water levels appeared to be down as much as 4' in places, and transparency was poor, maybe 2.5' and the water was pretty stained, tea colored. I also had one guy flood my kayak twice while I was at anchor. He whizzed around me bringing 4 young kids for a tube ride, fairly frustrating. Anyone fish here with any success? This is the pond that the supposed state record came from (at over 15lbs) ... I HIGHLY doubt a fish that large could live here, maybe it was a lot different 40 years ago..but I'm not sure I have faith in anything about that record..

So I did pretty well with the whopper plopper last night and then again this evening... Throwing it towards weed edges seemed to be the most productive for me, all of my strikes came on a very slow retrieve, not at all what I was expecting. I was fishing it fairly fast at first with no luck, then decide to fish it much slower, just retrieving it fast enough to make the prop/tail spin and create noise/commontion. Caught probably 12 or so bass on it the past two nights in fairly limited time on the water (about 3 hours last night and 2 hours tonight). As everyone has already stated, smaller bass don't shy away from the 130 size at all... Caught numerous fish 1.5-2 lbs on it. The lunker came tonight, at 3.6 lbs.. Nice fish. Sadly, I underestimated how far I could truly sling this 1.5oz bait, it wound up in a tree, and 17lb CXX wouldn't dislodge it... Very impressed with this lines breaking strength and abrasion resistant qualities, nothing that I could've done to the line while my bait was hung in the tree would broke the line... I got as close as I could to the snag and cut it. Too bad it was a 17$ bait, but at least I know it works now.. I'll likely order a few more off of *** very soon ;).

That'll be one of my main baits tonight, a whopper plopper 130 in loon, 17lb pline cxx on a 7' HF casting Rod. Thinking about trolling it around some like Grandpa recommended with the jitter bug..also casting it just because it's fun to chuck on this setup. Also recently purchased a megabass pop max that I'm interested to try out, as well as probably a swimbait, jig/craw, and a spinnerbait/chatterbait.

I'm headed out to either Sampsons pond in Carver, Billington Sea in Plymouth, or some combination of the two in the kayak tonight. Thinking I'll fish through sunrise and then beat it after that... Very calm wind with lows in the low to mid 60s early this AM-- plus lots of moonlight. Seems like a decent opportunity. If anyone is interested in meeting me shoot me a message (probably a long shot) but regardless I'll update on how I do.

I'm new to the 130 size, been throwing the 90 size with not a heck of a lot of success so far this year.. But picked up a 130 size the other day in "Loon" color because I'm trying to get used to throwing bigger baits.. I definitely noticed the very beefy trebles that come on the 130 as well... Don't have an old one to compare it to, but the 130 I just purchased recently definitely has some very serious heavy wire treble hooks on it.. any recommendations of how to fish it? I just tie it on in various situations I think top water could be effective and vary my retrieves, burning it and killing it mostly, and then sometimes just a constant steady retrieve as well. What works best for you guys with this lure? Is it better fished around vegetation and other cover or have you had more success in open/clear/deeper water ?

Thanks. I did try to move to a horizontal presentation, a soft plastic paddletail swimbait, and got a lot of follows when I was burning it, but no takers. I didn't have much different other than my sexy shad keitech to experiment with, might of been the issue.. I did think spinnerbait, especially as a few more clouds rolled in with the wind... Why I never ended up tying one on? No clue. ?

Hit the quabbin today, 6:30-3:30 in one of their rentals. Had a really nice day out there, fishing was a bit tough, but we managed to boat 9 smallmouth and 1 largemouth, a few smallies came unbuttoned as well. Figured out a good dropshot pattern at around 9:00, which unfortunately is what all of the fish came on.. I saw unfortunately because by 11:00 or so winds had picked up and scattered all the bait, making our dropshot pattern much less effective. Only managed 1 fish after 11AM... I think we would've had better success and caught a few more fish in the wind, but unfortunately my anchor got snagged and I was unable to retrieve it.. Made fishing the rest of the day a bit of a chore to say the least... anyways, it was beautiful as always, I surprised myself with how well I used my Lowrance to my advantage, and caught some decent fish. heres my biggest on the day, a 3.8lb smallmouth, caught in 24FOW. EDIT: for those who might care, water levels were down approximately 8 feet and surface water temps at noon exceeded 80 degrees! Very hot and shallow for the Q..

My trip got postponed as well, but just until tomorrow (Tuesday). Hope you guys did well at wampatuck... I broke a St Croix rage series spinning Rod in a very similar fashion a few weeks ago, was very impressed with how fairly I was treated by St Croix customer service and how quick the turn around was... I'm now the proud new owner of a St Croix Avid 6'8 MXF spinning Rod! Everyone always talks about how good St croix's customer service is, after my first experience dealing with them (and first time ever breaking a bass rod) I would echo the positive experiences. I would be interested in meeting up and doing some Kayak fishing with any of you guys if we can figure out a time/place-- Nights/Weekends are typically my availability, although if we plan it out a bit in advance I could probably get any week day off too. Let me know!

I'm fishing the Quabbin tomorrow actually, go figure. Ill let you know how we do, hit them pretty good when I was there a month ago or so.. Dropshot dropshot dropshot... oh and original floating rapalas and countdown sinking rapalas absolutely crush smallies at the quabbin under the right conditions.