Loop_Dad

Exactly, Bo, however I think the belly would be bigger with braid. Like this diagram: When you are casting far from bank, the difference might be big enough to make a difference in detecting subtle bites during the drop. I'm planning on experimenting more with flouro and braid.

Oh one more, Chris. I think you are saying you lock your reel when you are casting from your boat to shore. That makes sense because the chances are there are not much depth there. I guess I wasn't clear when I said "casting". I meant casting from bank to deeper side of the lake.

Chris, one of the reason I am using braid is I find it it easier to break off when snagged. I fish jig from banks (no boat on lakes in winter) and with braid I rarely loose jig. I like mono least because I feel a lot less than fluorocarbon or braid. roadwarrior, I am liking braid once the jig hit the bottom and start working, but when jig is initially falling, so much line is floating creating extra slack compare to fluoro. That got me thinking maybe I am missing bites. I don't know.

Great thread. To those of you fish jigs deep by casting (not pitching/flipping)...what kind of line you favor? I've switched from Fluorocarbon to braid, but starting to think I might be missing some strike on semi-slack line.

I try to buy some from local shops to keep their business going as much as I can. They are handy when I need to buy something little quick. At this one closest to me, the folks work there are generally friendly, except for this one woman. The price is not so bad, actually found some of them are cheaper the BPS, but of course the selection is limited. If I were running the store, I would see if there's any way to increase the lure selections. Not sure if they have sophisticated inventory system there or not. They have three locations in northern California I think. Other than that, I think they are good as is. Online stores are good, but when you buy little bit at a time, shipping will kill the benefit. And TW being California, I don't have a benefit from buying them for tax free like many of you folks enjoy, which could have offset the shipping cost.

Is there any braid known to sink faster than the others? Thanks!

Never mind about this. It turned out that the sales clerk at the BPS was incorrect about the coverage of the map chip.

Yesterday I picked up Lowrance Elite-4 combo with Lowrance Lake Insight Pro 2012. I am playing with the unit at home to get familiar with the menus. I realized that when I go to Chart and cursor to the lakes near by, I do not see any bottom contour of the lake which I supposed to with the map chip. I went to setting for Chart Data. It had two options, Lowrance and Navionics. I tried both but made not difference. Does this sound like something is broken? I thought about calling Lowrance, but figure they are closed today.

I don't remember if I read here or some other forum, but one guy's idea was to display big pirates flag with skeleton to keep rude people away including none fishermen. Anyone else got any other idea for visual deterrent? Edit -> Something like this for $25.

What is some good Fishfinder / GPS combo around $300 or less? If you have any recommendation, please do tell. I was saving up to buy a unit with side scanning from Hummingbird, but decided "Cant wait no more!" So I am to just get something less expensive so that I can have something now. I set my budget to be $300, but I have a bit of flexibility. This will be used on my inflatable boat. I'll be fishing California Delta and lakes in Northern California. I have been looking Lowrance Elite-4 combo with base map. Then I came across someone commenting the base map is basically useless . Elite-4 has a package comes with 'Gold map', but some says even that's just okay for navigation, but not for fishing. Anybody here has experience with these unit/map? If you have to buy separate map chip, that alone will be another $150 and all of the sudden it will be way over my budget. I wonder if map comes with Hummingbird's are any better. Not sure which ones are equivalent to Elite-4 combo.

I've been around and fishing for a while. Years ago, I used to use Carolina Rig a lot more than Texas. Now these days, I don't use C-rig much. Part of it is I got lazy and the most of times T-rig feels good enough. I was wondering how others are doing in terms of using C-rig and T-rig and what strategies are used.

Perfect! Thank you, Tom.

How do you find out if the fall turnover had already occurred or not in a lake you are not familiar with?

If you want to call what I feel about this an attitude, I don't care. I admit that I don't know much about what happened before and after re: western bass. I feel different between man-made lakes having bunch of bass vs. a natural lake with over 1000 years of history and culture around it (Biwa Lake) being dramatically changed by foreign species' total domination in last 20-30 years which won't get the things back to the way it once was.

If I am not mistaken, Lake Biwa is the biggest lake in Japan. Unfortunately Lake Biwa is one of the many lakes in Japan foreign species totally altered the natural order of native species. Ayu and Funa are eaten by bass right and left. Bass have lots of food to grow big. There are fisherman who make living catching those native fish. Traditional way of living for people around there are effected. The prefecture where Lake Biwa has ordinance that catch and release of bass or bluegill is illegal. But I don't think that's making any dent. This is very sad situation if you think about the nature, land and way of life. And fish like this feels so unnatural to me.

The scale is in metric, but the number doesn't mean meter, but 10cm. So that fish is like 72-73cm. The "5m" in the middle is misleading. It supposed to be 0.5m which 50cm.

=+1

Tom, actually I am not sure if this is the case. (Of course, only Gary Yamamoto knows how he named it.) You are think in terms of "Sink-O", right? Senko in Japanese means incense stick. So if something is called like senko, that implies something long and straight. Just a fun fact.

I do remember and when I saw that on BPS catalog, it brought back the memories...I meant to get some but haven't gotten to it yet. I used to like the purple one. Put some Smucker's to entice more bites, jk

Congrats! I have wally world's 3 pack spinner bait. That's probably the same thing. I haven't tossed them much. This is a good confidence booster.

ClackerBuzz, I might make this one! So you need some chain, the quick clip thingy and...is that a treble hook? Why do you need the hook?

I used to fish from shore and lost fair share of the lures. My .02 below. I didn't read all the advices above, so sorry if there are duplicates. 1. Have a good set up that you can feel what's going on down there. If you are using mono, switching to floro will give you much better feedback from the bottom. This will help you distinguishing bites and snags. 2. If you feel potential bite, keep the tension on the line and pose for just a second. If it is fish, you will feel the fish, then set the hook. 3. Use lighter weight to reduce the chance of weight getting caught. If you go too light, then you lose some of the sensitivity. You have to find the good balance for you. 4. Pegging the weight on t-rig might help. 5. Try different way of retrieving. (less jerking) Hope this helps.

Nice! I too experiment and recycle and have fun doing it. My fish appear to be not very picky.

Sounds like folks are more careful than me about buying rods. I don't have a big store near by. Out of 4 rods I bought this year, only one was from the local store. I have checked rods upon receipt and they all looked fine (so far ). One of them broke when I was fishing. There was a BPS near where I was fishing, so I stopped by on the way back home, only to find out that they do not honor Shimano's over the counter replacement warranty, which was a surprise. I went to the local store and they replaced it with no hassle. The rod broken happened to be the one I bought from them, but they didn't even ask for the receipt.

X2.