Loop_Dad

I have an inflatable raft and I can share some of my thoughts. Pros: You can deflate and put it in a car. No trailer needed. You can sit on a chair. I use cooler box. You can stand on it and do jumping jacks. I put a hardwood floor made out of plywood. You are not forced to sit L-shaped like with Kayak. I have bad back Pretty stable with wide width. This was one of my concern with tiny aluminum boat or anything narrow, due to wakeboarders in the water I fish. Cons: Too much work setting up every time. I knew when I bought this, but after a year and a half, I am really getting tired of this. If you are planning on using trailer, this is not an issue. Gets blown by wind easily. With hand controlled trolling motor, it is not easy to concentrate on fishing when wind blows. I had to use my anchor often so that I can fish. And as others said, you need to know the limit of your boat and carry all the safety equipments. I watch weather and pick the day and place based on the forecast. Was it a good idea for me to buy this? Totally yes! This allowed me to be off from the shore and fish wherever I want (well almost). Do I want to keep doing this forever? No. This was (and still is) meant to be temporary gap measure until I can have a boat that requires a trailer. Hope this helps.

Obviously quality. But I'll be honest. When the going is tough, I'll switch to quantity mode to make sure I don't get skunked, then back to quality mode. That's how I roll it.

My personal 'very limited' test, Shaw G > Pitzen > SD Jam. But they were pretty close I though.

I fish from bank and boat. My current system is like this... When I fish from boat I use BPS's tackle bag. I was looking for good bank fishing backpack for while, but I couldn't find any. I was looking for something with flat even bottom, so that it stands itself, and with a deep side pocket to put extra rod. I ended up buying a military style back pack. It has lots of straps around where you can add-on things. I attached a 1ft piece of PVC pipe to the side of my backpack, so that I can carry an extra rod and I can switch rods quickly. BPS bag is a lot bigger than my backpack. I had to re-organize things so that I can quickly transfer from one bag to the other. I trimmed down to 3x large plano box and one small one. It is tight, but I managed to put my essentials. So when I am switching from boat bag to backpack, I move 4 plan boxes, move the contents of one of the side pocket (tools etc) and I am done.

Have you tried Pitzen knot? Shw g knot is double version of this knot. Depending on how many wrap you do, you might save some line.

With fluorocarbon, if you don't tie a good knot it breaks. Not wetting the knot while you tie one is a big no-no with fluorocarbon. I check my knot by visually inspecting and by giving a good pull after I tie one. If all of these are too much, then you are probably not ready for fluorocarbon yet. Stick with mono for now.

I just walked into a store and picked a couple spool of Vanish about a year ago. I used it for while and didn't have any problem with them. I really didn't get why people dislike it so much on this forum. I went all braid since then, except for on one reel. It had mono, but I think I spooled the Vanish on this reel this spring. Probably used only twice. Last week I used this reel for the third time. The secon cast of the day with my lipless crank, I caught a fish. Good start I thought. While I was unhooking, the lure came off from the fish and the line. I didn't think much of it, retied and gave a pull. It broke. Hum, I retired again, gave a pull it broke again! Crazy. I set the reel (and the rod) away the rest of the day. I decided never to use Vanish ever. My thinking was somehow, this line is fine when it is new, but got deteriorated very fast. I wonder if other people who hate this line had similar experience or not.

Yup, Raul gave you the best advice. There are more to it than, using the same lure and watching the save video.

In addition to above advices, one thing I can think of is jigs you are using are too big for the fish you are catching. (I notice your PB is 1-2 lbs) They can have the bulk even if they are shorter than worms. Try smaller jigs. Also what set up do you use? It is possible you are missing jib bites due to your set up (or some other reason). Fish tend to hang on to the plastic longer therefore easier to feel the bite, while they can be quick to spit out jigs.

Where you do tournaments and where you do bank fishing, they are different places correct? Can you go back to the place where you had tournaments (and successes) and bank fish? Or people who go out to the same pond, do you know them or is there anyway you can fish with them? If you only know them from some online forum, there's a chance you only here when they catch something, but they might be 'putting time' there that you don't hear about. What am I getting at is, the place might be tough place to fish. It's better to find places with lots of fish, even you only get dinks, when you are starting out.

If you go to a doctor and tell him that your arm hurts if you do like this. Then he will tell you don't do like this. It's just like that, if you loose the same kind of lures that fast, don't do that any more. Or at least you might want to stop and think about something else. One rock wall in my local lake eats anything with weight very quickly. However, certain baits survives better than others.

Interesting thread...I honestly thought more of you do sweeping hook set.

When bank fishing it takes more time before and after actual tying. (Finding a spot to put the back pack down, putting the back pack down, putting the rod down, getting the pair of scissors out ...and reverse of everything. ) It probably don't take much time if you actually time it with stop watch, but if you rotate enough baits, you become tired of it and eventuality get lazy about changing the baits. At least that's what happened to me. When fishing from a boat with lots of rods, this is not much of an issue. I fish both from bank and from a boat.

My rotation keep involving and I like that way. I get bored doing the same thing over and over. To me changing up is a big part of the fun of fishing. Anyhow, I agree with many of you here that everything is based on conditions and the fish's activity level I suspect that day. I too start with fast moving bait in general (not always, again it depends on the conditions and suspected activity level). I use lots of puddle tail with good chunk of weight these days, which is good for covering both horizontal and vertical areas. If the first moving lures not working well or stopped working, I start throwing slower baits. Sometime this can happen pretty early in the morning, as I do not want to miss the best time of day using wrong kind of lures. Some days nothing seems to work, then I keep rotating all kind of lures all day. On plastic, I rotate colors pretty frequently. The rotated colors are chosen based on the water color and amount of light.

I agree with Jolly Green about different people have different ideas about personal space. Further more, depending on how you fish, all you need is 2-3 feet wide space in front of you, like night crawler and bobber. I can understand how some people might get mad, if someone is not sharing 20 feet of space. However, the attitude and language of the guy sounds totally crazy and he is doing this in front of his family. Personally when I am fishing, I do not like others to be around. I loose my concentration and I end up paying more attention to them than to the fish. Fishing to me is about me feeling good. So I usually just move on (bank or boat ).

When you said it failed, did it break and slipped? I had problem with Albright when I started using braid with leader, but never failed once since I switched to Alberto.

I use regular bullet weight, keel weighted hooks and owner sled head type of hooks. For keel weighted, I use both twist lock type and EWG type hooks. They all have a little bit of differences which makes them better choice for certain situations than others. When I read your post saying you get hang up on almost every cast with t-rig, I got the impression you are talking about getting hang up on the rocks, not the weeds. Am I correct? In the case, lightest keel weighted hook (or even weightless) might work as bait moves more horizontal than vertical. EWG type have less of hook sticking out from the bait, so times that makes a difference.

Where is the current don't throw list? I think you might be on to something. Maybe many people believed the magazine and stopped throwing them, therefore it worked for you (and the editor of the magazine )

Like others says, you need to ask your doctor. Having said that, you probably posted to hear others' experience. I have bad back. I get this episode now and then. Mine happened gradually, not like yours. Also it sounds like your condition is a lot serious than mine is. So maybe there's no comparison here. The best thing I did for me was that I read books and learned about it. I've learned from books that being active actually helps get better and keep it better. Stay home and being stationary is the worst thing to do. My layman's understanding is moderate exercise will actually drive the blood and oxygen into the area which helps to heal. A couple of books I liked: Back In Shape by Stephen Hochschuler (Texas Back Institute) and Framework by Nicholas DiNubile. I also rented video from library. It was Yoga video specifically designed for back problems. It feels so good to do these Yoga. Again like some said, each one of us is different. My comment above is not an advice, just sharing my experience. Talking to doctor is very important.

When I hear "rules" I want to know why of it. Then I make my own theory and try it out. If it works, great. If not, try something else. And I enjoy this process. One rule I do not really believe is darker lure for low light condition. I don't think that's that simple. If the lure is above the fish and then the fish see silhouette. The color should not matter as long as it is not a transparent lure. If the lure is below the fish the fish is seeing reflection of the what ever low light there is, so brighter color should be more visible. However more visible does not necessary mean more fish. I also learned that red and yellow goes through the most in the water. So my thing now is a bit of yellow/chart on my lure in darker condition to help fish notice my lure passing by.

dodgeguy, I've been skipping reading your posts because of the font. Something tells me I am not the minority here.

I threw while plastic in hard to see conditions. I have had okay success. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work at all for me.

Here in Northern California, we had rain pouring so hard on the first day of the fall. The air temp is in mid 70's. It feels like fall. I'm heading out soon so hopefully the bite is good.

Nice fish! 4ish sounds about right to me. (But the fish looks smaller on the send photo...)

I agree with what Raul said. I made a mistake on my Saros 2500. One size bigger would have been a better combo with my 7'6" M. (I mean 2500 is still okay...)