flyfisher

My advice will be get the most you can afford and the largest screen, especially if you go with Side Imaging, which I personally wouldn't even consider a unit without it at this point. Go to the store, check out which ones have the interface you like the most because to be honest, they are all good out there really. It is nit picking for the most part or brand preference when people compare and say one unit is so much better than the other. Another consideration is how you are going to mount it on your kayak. Are you going to need an arm over the side, do you have an electronics pod or are you going to rig up something else. My last kayak purchase a large factor was having an electronics pod because I absolutely hated having an arm over the side but at the same time, I know many that it doesn't bother them.

Looks great. I am getting ready to start doing some more tying to fill up the fly box for next year. I went through some game changers last year for sure. I had a few get snagged and a few get tore up after catching a bunch of fish and a few get bitten off by bowfin or pickerel. I have a couple other patterns i want to add to the arsenal next season too.

Not having money a kayak will be a better choice. There is no upkeep, registration etc...A kayak you get and it is what it is. now depending on your upgraded kayak you may be able to get a jon boat for a similar price. For what I spent on my kayak and trailer i could have bought a jon boat but it isn't what i wanted for the aforementioned reasons. Ultimately its up to you an what you want to do...

Not sure as the most expensive rod I have fished with as far as conventional gear goes is around 250 and I wouldn't spend the extra over the fury to get it.

Not sure what you want to know exactly but I have 5, i think Fury rods, all bait casters. I picked up one MH to try out and liked them enough to get some more. I have 2MHF, 1 HF, 1 Mag Heavy and their M crabkbait rod. All perform well for what I want them to do. One of the MH is dedicated to being a jig rod and the H is pretty much a dedicated frog rod. The Mag Heavy i throw big boot tail swimbaits mostly. The crankbait rod is pretty self explanatory and the other MH i use an all around rod that I throw pretty much anything on. I have tried lots of rods in the price range of the Fury and I think they are top of the heap.

If you are looking for more detail you will want a larger screen. For me in my kayak I have a Helix 5 and next time I am going at least 7 or 9 if my budget will allow for it

As far as transport you have everything that helps there. I have an ATAK140 which is in the 100lb range and it is good on most types of water except fast moving small streams. Everywhere else it does well. One advantage of a longer boat is shallower draft. I’ll take stability and paddle ability as top priority for me.

I'd save up a little more and get a used kayak and then you won't need to cast as far as you think.

For transport?

I primarily fly fish and I tie 99% of my flies.

I would be curious how you are going to get a pedal or motor driven kayak for a grand. I have been fishing out of a kayak for a very long time and the new kayaks are great. I have a bad back, fractured when i was 19, and I am ok out there all day long. Of course my kayak has a raised seat, most fishing ones do now, and i can stand up pretty easily. I chose a kayak because in my area the number of electric only or HP limited lakes are probably 15:1 over non restricted. Easy decision really. All that being said, I don't have a motor on mine and would really like one for the river so I can do a motor up and float back on my own. As far as winter goes, all the advice is good. I use a breathable wader, PFD and semi dry top. I don't use a wading belt and have never had water get in when testing. I don't think in still water you would get much if any water in but you definitely could in moving water. That is where it pays to practice getting out of your waders and what it will feel like wearing them.

rig it straight and don't go too far into the nose or it will change the action. Also certain fluke colors have different plastics which impacts sink rate. The more soft and not rubbery type plastics, green, browns etc...sink more than the more rubbery types. Also have standard and heavy hooks on hand to adjust the fall rate. Going with a master style hook adds enough weight to make most of them sink. If you really want the best fluke, get the yamamoto. that thing is money in the bank....

I have a pork butt in a cooler right now that I am about to start pulling actually..... Glad you enjoyed the shredded beef....one of my favorites for sure.

I will be putting a pork butt on around midnight tonight so it should be ready tomorrow around noon. I have couple chuck roasts i was gonna make shredded beef with but i think i will hold off on that one. I am hoping to go fishing this afternoon though....

I am an elementary school teacher and my district is all virtual and I will be teaching from home. My son is going into 5th and he will be doing virtual classes and my wife is working from home as well. My 4 year old daughter just started back to daycare full time last week. Our house will be crazy but we will get through it and learn a lot in the process. I am hoping that these online learning/teaching opportunities create a new realm if you will for mainstream school systems to utilize so that they can better service the students. I could see this being the norm in certain instances aka no more snow days which could potentially shorten the length of the school year as around here, they build snow days into the schedule.

So you are going to limit your success on baits that you deem as cheap because of the unknown? Seems like you could be potentially making a good place not so good by doing so. I don't care what kind of place I am fishing, new or old, I am throwing what i think will work and I have confidence based the conditions presented.

You can definitely do a lot with foam and while i love a pretty deer hair fly and I can do them reasonably well, the trade off in time isn't usually worth it for me. I have been messing with the double barrel popper heads and they have done well for me and are pretty easy to tie. I can tie all the tails on a bunch of hooks and then glue al the heads on in very little time. those are some good looking dragon flies as well.

lures are tied on and placed in the ski racks on my kayak trailer just prior to leaving.

One fly rod does the trick for me.

This is just a 75-100 acre lake that is man made. Nothing swampy about it really. The base has about 12 ponds/lakes you can fish but only two are accessible without going through the base gates so I rarely fish inside the actual base. It is a hassle to go through security lol I get my permit every year and it is worth the $20

Yeah this lake has really dark fish, even the ones that are caught "deeper" which here is like 8-10'. They remind me of the bass I catch in a river/swamp around here that are almost completely black.

Had some stuff to do yesterday morning so I waited till around 2 to load up the kayak and head up to a local military base that has a bunch of lakes to fish. I debated on going with conventional gear or fly rod and decided to go all fly rod. While I have been using the fly rod this year probably 9 to 1, most of it has been on the rivers. Anyways, i get up there and the lake is up a few feet but visibility is solid. I rigged up my standard starting file...topwater and two streamers of various types to see what they prefer. Picked up a few on the topwater but a lot of misses too so I switched over to the streamers and it seemed to be the ticket. I ended up catching 12 total with the majority being on various streamers. The bite was solid so I figured I would experiment on different colors to see if it mattered. I was fishing mostly bluegill patterns so i switched over to both white and black base color streamers. They got some hits but it wasn't till I switched back the bluegill colors did the action pick up. The one downfall of the trip was I ended up setting the hook and my fly rod snapped. This is a rod I have had since probably 2002 or so and it has caught me hundreds if not thousands of fish, ranging from largemouth, to brown trout to seat trout and even a redfish. When it broke it sounded like gunshots and made me duck...they were shooting artillery on the base that day too so that didn't help. The rod has a lifetime warranty so we will see what they say as far as repairing it. I don't want to replace it with something else though but maybe they will give me a good deal on a new rod and i can keep the bottom section since I got it as payment for guiding and it has my name on it from the factory. No real dinks caught but nothing huge either. it was probably my best day on this lake using just the fly rod. Last pic is the one i broke my rod on so i was able to land him at least.

I don't fish toads too often but i do fish hollow frogs a lot and i am probably at 75%. If i miss a fish i usually try and mix up something to get a better chance at a hookup

Haven't been to Bass Pro lately but green tops seemed to be well stocked. I was primarily looking at fly fishing stuff but I did walk by the conventional stuff and it didn't seem empty. Majority of the traffic in that store is at the gun counter and that line will wrap around the store.