Chris at Tech

Is there anything fishing-related that you DO NOT know? ?

If it concerns you, two easy fixes to give you confidence. First, color the last ~10 ft of braid with a black marker. Secondly, use a leader of decent length.

Generally Shimano is not too generous with the quality of drag washers they include in Stradics. Did you catch any drag screamers in the saltwater? If you did, there's a chance the crappy stock drag washers were damaged.

No complaints. Give me just enough grip especially with sweaty, mid-summer hands.

Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I wanted to share a 2020 family pic. First off, the inshore saltwater gear. Left to right we have: St Croix Avid Inshore 7’ ML/F w/ Shimano Stradic 2500 FK St Croix Tidemaster 7’ ML/F w/ Shimano Stradic 2500 FJ St Croix Tidemaster 7’ M/F w/ Shimano Stradic 4000 FK Shimano Teramar 7’6” MH/F St Croix Tidemaster 7’6” MH/F w/ Daiwa BG 4000 Next we have the freshwater spinning gear. Left to right we have: Kistler KLX 6’6” ML/MF w/ Shimano Stradic 2500 FJ St Croix Avid 6’9” ML/XF w/ Shimano Stradic 2500 FJ Kistler KLX 6’9” M/F w/ Shimano Stradic 2500 FK G. Loomis GLX 7’1” M/XF w/ Shimano Stradic 2500 FK Daiwa Tatula Elite AGS 7’4” M/F w/ Daiwa Tatula LT 3000D-CXH Lastly, the baitcasters. Left to right we have: Kistler Helium 3 7’ LMH/F w/ Daiwa Tatula SV HSL G. Loomis GLX 7’1” MH/XF w/ Daiwa Tatula SV HSL Kistler Helium 3 7’1” MH/XF w/ Daiwa SV103 XSL Kistler Helium 3 7’3” H/XF w/ Daiwa SV103 XSL Kistler KLX 6’9” M/MF w/ Abu Garcia Revo Premier Kistler KLX 6’9” MH/MF w/ Abu Garcia Revo Premier Dobyns Champion 7’ H/F w/ Daiwa Zillion HLA Dobyns Champion 7’3” H/F w/ Daiwa Zillion SHLA Dobyns Champion Extreme 7’4” H/F w/ Daiwa Tatula 100 HSL Dobyns Champion 7’3” MH/XF w/ Daiwa Zillion HLA Kistler KLX 7’3” H/MF w/ Daiwa Tatula 150 HSL Dobyns Champion 7’ MH/MF Crankbait w/ Abu Garcia Revo STX BPS Crankin’ Stick 7’6” MH/MF w/ Abu Garcia Revo Winch Dobyns Fury 7’9” Swimbait MH/F w/ Daiwa Tatula 200 HL

Just a joke! To me, the picture you posted of your friend has a very strong resemblance to actor Wilford Brimley. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000979/

You got to fish with Wilford Brimley?!? Lucky! ?

College athletic associations are generally separate entities from the colleges themselves these days. Up until this point, I've not seen indications that any issues on the athletic side are endangering the academic institutions themselves.

Bait Monkey, is that you?

That's certainly a very unfortunate result of this pandemic, but I think college sports has needed a "market correction" for a long time. Maybe that could be a small silver lining to this thing.

In these interesting times, the are daily questions on what constitutes an "essential business". I won't wade into that debate here, but I will say that my trip with Jimbo on Lanier yesterday was "essential" for this fisherman's mental health. With overnight temps dropping into the 30s, we made the wise decision to get a later start, so at 8:30 we were idling to our first stop. After Jimbo picked up an early taker on a fluke, it took a little while to get into a rhythm. A few spots later, we saw some surface activity and I picked up two solid spots on a McStick. After that, it was run and gun to points, sandbars, blow-throughs, marina walls, docks and some sandy areas. We didn't knock their lights out but we picked up about 15 primarily power fishing jerkbaits, flukes, keitechs and spinnnerbaits including my PB spot we guesstimated around 4 lbs. We ended the day by picking up a few on docks with a worm. All in all, another good day with Jimbo!

50-lb Daiwa J-braid x8 in chartreuse

I'd also kinda in the same boat and I'm trying to keep things relatively simple... Glide baits: one shad profile, one bluegill profile Options include S-Wavers, Ima Glide Flukes, Jackal Gantarel, Savage Gear and Storm offerings Jointed baits: one shad profile, one bluegill profile Options include: Bull shads, 6th Sense and Savage Gear offerings Softbody baits: one shad profile, one bluegill profile Options include: Megabass Magdrafts, Huddlestons, Jerry Rago, Storm/Berkley prerigged, Mattlures, etc

So uh, @Bluebasser86 - your post made me chuckle a bit. In your experience as the guide customer, it seems you didn't like the guide giving his advice on what to do or not do based on the conditions. In your experience as the guide, you don't like it when people don't listen to the guide. So, which is it? I'm sure there was some nuance between the two where it's not nearly as simplistic as I summarized above, but I think this also neatly summarizes the daily difficulties a professional guide will face ?

I book guides pretty frequently and I've had a wide range of experience, but here's my input. My overall experience with a guide does not start and end on the day of fishing. Rather it all starts with communication beforehand. Were you able to easily communicate with the guide via email, phone or text? Was the guide receptive to hearing what your expectations of the trip are? Does the guide have an online presence where you can get a recent look into his results? Then the day of the trips arrives. Was the guide on time? Is the equipment and boat in good shape? Was the guide enjoyable to spend time with on the boat? Did you lean something? Did the guide work hard? Did you get results? For a guide, I tend to think that one of the hardest aspects of their job on a daily basis is having no idea who the hell is getting into their boat that day. Are they experienced fisherman who know what to expect? Are they total rookies who just booked a trip on a whim to have some fun? A guide needs to be prepared to service any and all comers. There are times when you need to go soak bait for whatever bites to keep the kids entertained, and then there are times when you can do the high risk/high reward trips with more seasoned customers. Unfortunately for guides, I think there is some segment of their customer base whose expectations are a bit too high. Even despite a guide's best efforts, some things are not in their control. There is one guide I've built such a good relationship with, that I'm closing in on trip #40 with him. He was one of the first guides I'd ever chartered, and he saw the bar awfully on the entire experience. I have a few other guides I'm closing on on trip #10 with, and then I have a few guides I stopped using after the first or second trip.

I'm you're throwing those baits into any type of cover, I'd consider stepping up to the MH. More specifically, I'd suggest the one of the MH/XF models.

If it's me, I'm replacing the leader every time I go fishing. In my experience, some wear and tear on the leader knot is inevitable so I try to take that variable out of the equation as much as I'm able to.

paddletail swimbaits, soft plastic jerkbaits, bucktail jigs, topwater plugs, twitch baits, spoons, spinnerbaits, hard jerkbaits...

For me, I’d feel comfortable using a 4-in on this rod. I believe the 5-in is a bit too heavy for my preferences.

Two suggestions... First, bring the battery to an auto parts store or a place like a Batteries Plus. Generally those places will test batteries for free. Secondly, get in the habit of checking the water levels in your batteries a few times a year, and top them off if needed.

I know what you mean in saying this, but yes you really should want to buy another battery before you go out again. If that voltage reading was correct, then you're likely looking at a battery that's damaged beyond repair. Look at it this way -- if you *DON'T* get a new battery before you go out again, you're risking a day on the water without a working trolling motor. Not sure what that would mean to your day of fishing, but it would ruin/shorten mine.

30 lb braid

Didn’t seem to be