MIbassyaker

That's a river and stream smallie-killer. No reason it shouldn't work just as well anywhere else for both green and brown fish.

A good one, too! congrats.

Mixed in amongst a bunch of "dinkos" (dinks-on-a-Senko), a couple of fat ones 18" and 17" this morning bright and early. On a KVD 2.5 and a...Senko:

Dividing oz by 16 to get a decimal is "much harder"? Granted, it's a little harder...

Most of the places I fish in the Grand Rapids area are spawning or post-spawn now, with temps in the mid/upper 60s, but it's still quite variable lake to lake. Three of the better ones over the last few weeks: :

I have never really gotten the hang of ripping lipless crankbaits through grass, but floating, lipped crankbaits can be worked through and over forests of cabbage, milfoil, coontail, etc. carefully through by pausing when you feel it start to hang for a second or two, then rip through, and resume the retrieve. The trick is to not keep burying it in the weeds when you feel it catch -- it's the lip or the nose that catch first, not the hooks, so the pause releases the crank from the forward pull, lets it float upward and backward slightly and then a quick rip should get it through or over. The other important thing is to choose a crankbait that will dive the proper depth. You want to keep it near the top of the weeds, not digging way down into them.

2 & a-half-er on top at a new lake:

No. 15# braid has the strength rating of 15# mono. It has the diameter of 4# mono. So you get better strength and castability in a smaller line compared to mono. 20# braid is about 6#, and 30# braid is about 8# mono, and 40# braid is about 10# mono. In diameter. and 50# braid has the diameter of about 12# mono. May I suggest something? It sounds like you are still trying to get your feet wet on some basic things, and you are planning to use spinning-only "for now". I was a spinning-only person for many years, even for punching, pitching, frogging, etc., until recently. But I also never bought expensive rods like an Avid. I have and still use a MH spinning spinning rod for some things -- it's an adequate rod (a blackout), but it's emphatically not a $200 rod. I am very glad I never spent $200 on a MH spinning rod because most of the things I used to use MH spinning for, including jigs, buzzbaits, spinnerbaits, and other heavier lures, I now use casting for. Had I bought a higher-end MH spinning rod, say, 4 years ago when I was using that sort of thing more often, by now i would certainly wish I had gotten an MHF casting rod for these presentations instead. I have no problem recommending an Avid X spinning rod --my preference is the 68MXF, but as you can see here good cases have been made for the MLXF and for the MF. But for the other, heavier things you want to throw, be very sure that 2, 3, 4 years down the road you aren't going to wish you had gotten a casting rod instead. Good, expensive rods should be things you'll be happy using a lot, for a long time. If you are dead set on getting two AVID X rods, get one spinning (ML or M) and one MH-F casting instead of two spinning, unless you have very good reason to believe you will not wish you had gotten a casting rod instead a couple years down the road. Alternatively, buy a lower end MH spinning rod ($50-$100 range) for your heavier baits to use for now, with the understanding that your tastes may change with experience, and possibly sooner than you think.

XF bends closer to the tip than a fast action, so the backbone kicks in more quickly on the hookset. Good for texas rigs, shakyheads, jigs and such. Also, it means the rod recovers faster after loading when you move the bait, so some people like XF for jerk/twitch/pop presentations as well. Not ideal for trebled baits, though, but can be fine as long as the rod's not too powerful.

I recommend the 6'8" M-XF in the Avid X spinning line for senkos, flukes, and other weightless or lightly-weighted plastics. It is just perfect. It will also handle shakyheads, tubes, grubs, jerkbaits, poppers...even a 1/4oz buzzbait in a pinch. This particular model of this particular line has a notoriously good reputation.

As of last year, I use a baitcaster for this, but before then, I used a 7' MH Fast spinnign rod with a 35 pflueger supreme reel (12# max drag, 33.8 " retrieve rate), and 30lb power pro braid for plastic toads and hollow-bodied frogs, and it worked well enough.

I'm not saying the 35 would be best, just that it's to my taste that heavier rods have heavier reels, and that longer rods have reels that take in more line on the retrieve. The 30 is in pieces right now -- here's a 35 on a 7' Fenwick Siverhawk, and size 30 Supreme XT (comparable size to a 30 president) on a 6'8" Avid X: I tend to think you could make do with a 30 on any spinning rod and not wish you had gotten the 25 or 35 instead, while a 25 may make you wish you could hold more line and retrieve faster, and a 35 may make you wish for something smaller and lighter.

I have presidents in size 25, 30 and 35. I think the 30 is the sweet spot most of the time. 35 for a M or MH rod 7' or more, for better balance and faster retrieve rate. A 25 sacrifices too much for my taste compared to the 30 in spool size and retrieve rate. I have one on a 6' ML rod, but I don't like it on anything bigger or heavier.

I had KVD and Clunn on my team as of Thursday. Swapped them out last minute for Christie and Lucas....Oops. I have two inside the cut: Klein and Lucas. Unless they improve on their current standings, this is my worst week so far....and I thought there was no way I'd do worse than last week.

A small handful of 2K Jigs from a local Mom & Pop: that's 3 Freaks, a Deposit, and 2 Deposit Jackpots:

In fact, you can get more than 25% off, if you're a vet and if you use a gift card you bought for 10% off during the Christmas sale

You're overthinking this. Those three kinds of jigs are going to fish almost identically, almost all the time, for almost anything you will do with them.

Bam. There you go. The Black/Brown/Amber is a great all-around brown. Or PBJ.

There aren't any bad colors -- a black, brown, or green jig with or without one or more highlight colors (orange, chartreuse, purple, blue) will do just fine most of the time. I am partial to the Bluegill, Bream, and Green Pumpkin/purple patterns from Siebert.

To be honest, I have never been entirely sure what is vs. is not a "casting jig"... I'd just start with a 3/8oz arky head -- you can swim, flip, cast, skip do whatever with it.

Just a little order from Siebert Outdoors in time for Memorial Day Weekend:

That's more than I caught sitting at my desk, for sure.

50 acre natural largemouth lakes in michigan -- my specialty! (err....such as it is). Cold front recipe: 4-6" worm on the bottom in the cabbage.

Pigeon lake and West Olive in Ottawa County? Muskegon lake and White lake, 30-45 min north of there, are probably the best smallmouth fisheries in the area.