Preytorien

I bought a Stradic for myself in September. Best reel I've ever owned, period. It's smooth and very refined. It's the kind of reel you can use and not have to worry about. I'd spend the money and get the Stradic any day

I'd say a B. It wasn't great but not bad. Positives..... I learned new techniques and lures. I gained a couple new fishing holes. I discovered wading the river for smallmouth Negatives.... I lost a few fishing holes. Didn't really put forth effort into fishing jigs, which was my main goal in 2014 This next year should be a great year. I'm looking forward to an "A"

i get a lot of their lures in prism gill since that's a major forage here in Indiana. It's done pretty good. I have expanded my choices from them this year, including the 110SP, so I'm excited to try it out too......now if the stupid temperatures would just warm the heck up like they're supposed to!

Ha, I agree, if I won, I'd have to start looking awfully serious at a Stradic Ci4+ or Chronarch Ci4+

Oh man! I hope I win!!!

I use it in the river on my spinning reel for smallmouth. Works great.

I have one, it's my workhorse reel. It's going strong. I love em'

I know with some poppers I have, the ring is recessed enough in the "mouth" of the lure that a San Diego Jam is about the easiest to tie. Not to mention it's the knot I use the most. I really only use a palomar for topwater frogs, and that's only if I remember to. I think the SDJ is about the easiest to tie, especially if you've got a lure with lots of hooks or a large profile.

If the water's shallow, like near the shoreline, I wouldn't be too concerned about it. During the summer, especially after a rain, when there's runoff, they're deadly around drainage culverts, no matter how murky the water is.

So I often browse the BPS catalog, dreaming of one day when I can own something like a Nitro. Really any boat would do. I see they hit around $50K for a Z-9. I saw the other day though a price tag for a Ranger someone I know is looking at.....it was over $100K!!! So what makes that boat twice as much? That's a LOT of money.

Do you attach it to your line on top or underneath the blade? I can never remember

Probably one of these 3 combos.... Poison Adrena / Antares Stella / G Loomis NRX Croix Legend Extreme / Abu Revo MGXtreme Any one of those would make my day

I use braid for everything, you have to adjust your hooksets, but other than that, it seems to perform well for everything I need it for.

This is on an older Shimano Compre rod. Its not a perfect condition rod, but it does have a slightly shiny finish. I don't know much about guide installation and such, so I would hope it would look okay.

This one's for the rod builder folks.....of which I am definitely not.... I have a dedicated spinning rig that I'd like to put the microwave guides on. The rod has existing guides, which aren't in bad shape, I just look at some of the research and feedback on these odd looking guides, and a lot of folks say they're pretty effective, so I'd like to try them. My question is, can you take off old guides and put on new ones and still look good? Basically, what's expected on finish when you replace guides, is it a nice neat job? This would be something I had done, I'm not going to try it. A guy here in town builds and sells rods at our local shop and they're gorgeous. I figured I'd have him do it.

All the above do well. One thing I'd recommend, since I've had this issue..... If you retrieve the weightless fluke like a T-rig worm or something....basically anything where you are stroking the lure.....take the time every few retrieves to do a long cast and just normally retrieve the fluke. With the stroke method, you're essentially putting half your line back on the reel with tension, the other half with very little tension. This has caused me headaches in the past. You'll get some bad tangles sometimes. It drives me nuts. There are some retrieval methods that can help alleviate it, but nothing completely foolproof I've seen. Just a word to the wise....

I keep hearing that, but I'm too stubborn. All the other water near me is still frozen, the river's the only place I can get out. An older fellow told me at the shop the other day that the smallmouth position themselves facing upstream like that because the current flowing across their gills acts as a replacement for them having to swim very much, they're very lethargic. He said you've got a better chance of catching a fish in a Ramada Inn swimming pool than one of those guys. Haha, I'm beginning to think he's dead on, those fish are NOT biting anything.

I agree with much of what's been said above. Reminisce with him. Talk to him about your adventures, and listen to his. Ask him for advice, grandpas LOVE to give advice. Show him your gear, almost every man on the planet likes new fancy gear. Take pictures of your catches and give him details about how you caught it, to him it'll almost be like he was there. My grandpa's eyes light up when I tell him fishing stories. Fish places he's fished so you can tell him about "that place you told me about grandpa", he'd get a kick out of that. If you can get him out, take him to a easily accessible place, like a neighborhood retention pond. They almost always hold good numbers of fish, the banks are clean and only a slight slope. Bring along live bait to catch bluegills if the bass aren't fired up. Do a lot of letting him show you where he'd fish, kind of let him be your guide. Those guys can usually light it up, I know my grandpa can. Take pictures so you two can look back in a couple weeks/months and talk about how fun it was. Lastly, be sure to thank him for taking you. I know, you took him, but to him taking his grandson fishing is the best day of his month, possibly his year. Treat him to a burger on the way home. Enjoy the time, grandpas are wonderful.

Hm, I'll have to try these. We've got a lot of run off which has clouded the water something awful the past few days, not to mention the current has gotten much faster. Once things settle down I'll give it a shot.

I thought about the seats too. A couple things I considered. While you might have a truck or larger vehicle, once all my gear's in my car, I don't have much more room. However if you do go the seat route, it's cheaper to buy them from someplace other than Sea Eagle. They're a great company, but their seats are a bit pricey. Plus, you can buy removable brackets for the seats so you can take them off when you're done. I've seen the brackets about ~$40 online and the seats as low as $35 at my local Wal-Mart. The girlfriend will probably appreciate the carpet. I know my wife did since it makes the bottom of the boat much cleaner feeling and not so much slipping around. If you get the indoor/outdoor carpet you can just hose it off after the trip.

I think a tube or even senko would do alright, the only problem is that the river moves fast enough that pretty much anything 1/8oz or lighter is easily bounced downstream. I would've loved to dead stick it in front of a few but I couldn't keep it still. It's what also made me think twice about a jerkbait

I have an area I fish that seems to be stacked with smallmouth right now. They're holding in deeper (4-5ft) pools in the middle of the river. I only know because a covered bridge goes pretty much right over the top of them and I can see them stacked there like Lincoln Logs. There are literally hundreds. I caught one a few weeks ago, and only because I fished from the bridge and basically jigged a roadrunner in front of him till' he got mad enough to bite it. But it took a lot of work to get him reeled up the 30ft to the bridge. I have fished for 2 days straight trying to catch these guys, only to come up empty handed. I've used hair jigs, jigs, jerkbaits, lipless cranks, every kind of soft plastic imaginable. Are these guys just not catchable right now? Here in Indiana we had a warm front (50's) hit the past couple of days, but the water is still 32-34F and rising due to runoff, it's also about 2-3ft visibility. What lures/techniques would you try here?

Yea it's a great pump, and the nice thing is it runs off a battery, so you can inflate it with your car, but if you're out fishing and you need to put some more air in it, run it on the shore and pump it up some more (if you brought the pump with you) Oh yea, that stuff is TUFF. I've dropped stuff on it, dragged it across sticks, rocks, and scraped it against submerged timber. It's not like I purposely try to tear it up, but the incidents I thought would put a hole in her didn't do anything except mar the color a bit. The one and only hole I got came from the little C-clamps that are on the ends of the Minn Kota wires. I don't have a truck so I pack all that stuff in my trunk, and it must've just been positioned right that the C-clamp end stuck a hole in it and put about a ballpoint pen head-sized hole in it. The fix was easy. I got some patch kits from an outdoor store. Cleaned the area real good. Patched it like the instructions said. Works fine now. One cool thing I did..... I don' t know which setup you got, but I have the Fisherman's Dream package - transom mounts, floorboards, and seats. I bought some inexpensive grey indoor/outdoor carpet from Lowes, cut it into strips, then used floor sealing DAP and adhered it to the floorboards and bench seat (not the back since all my fishing product stickers are on it). I slightly overlapped the floorboard ones so it covers up the I-beam connector. Now the entire floor is carpeted and the front seat is too. Makes it stay a lot more stable to stand on and looks a LOT better. I noticed the finish of the floorboards scraped off when you get in with gravel covered shoes, which is common where I fish since I'm getting in via shoreline. It's a nice little boat. I don't have a truck so this was perfect for me. Fits in my trunk. The boat is surprisingly stable too. The only drawback is that if you ever have to use the oars.....good lord almighty, it's nearly impossible. The boat only drafts about 3in of water, so rowing it is tricky since any wind at all pushes you around. My next project is making some kind of shallow water stake to use instead of the anchor. One of my primary lakes I go on never gets deeper than 8ft. So a stake anchor would be great there. I'm going to make my own.

I fish with a buddy of mine who has a really nice Stratos boat. I don't get to go out with him as often as I'd like, but I'm a bit hooked on fishing from his sweet ride. I wondered though, what's the etiquette for WHERE I stand in the boat as a co-angler? I usually stand on the back casting deck, but I've seen videos of guys standing on the front casting deck, albeit several feet from the boat-owner. While that might be uncomfortable for me initially, if it's considered "allowed" based on unspoken rules I could get used to it to be able to get my lure into some premium areas. Keep in mind I'm not talking tournament time, just basic fishing, or sometimes he'll take me out while he's pre-fishing. What's your take on it?

Yea a 55lb motor will push that along quite nicely. I don't use the Minn Kota box, or any other for that matter. It just sits under the stern seat, and I run the wires through the same hole the air valve sticks up through. It's pretty tidy. I bought an Everstart Size 27 Marine battery. They're at Wal-mart. They got really good reviews.You could go the route of two batteries. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea. I use a Minn Kota Endura Max 40. It's got some kind of battery saving thing in it. Whatever it is, it works. I can run all day on a 27 battery and still have juice left over when I get home. Also, I had some trouble figuring out how much to inflate the boat. It seemed with it inflated to the point that I could indent my finger 1/2 or so seemed a bit squishy to me. So I usually inflate it a bit more. Seems to work great. I use this air pump, it's a lot better than the little one that came with mine. http://www.amazon.com/AIRHEAD-AHP-12HP-High-Pressure-Pump/dp/B000OF92KA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1423225380&sr=8-3&keywords=electric+air+pump+airhead