PNWdude

Wow! Quite an impressive haul you scrounged up this year!

Yup, when water levels drop you're almost guaranteed to find stuff. An old fishing friend would do the same as you and go out solely to hunt for lures when the water was low and his collection of found items was HUGE of both old and new lures.

Haha, I can assure you I'm not holding anyone up for fishing tackle. I just constantly look out for stuff. Mainly when I'm walking to new spots since I need to have my head down jumping around rocks and what not.

Nice find! I'd love to find a Spro lure of any kind.

This year was the best ever for me in terms of the quality of found items while I was out fishing. I didn't get my fishing kayak until October, so I primarily shore fished all year. Being stuck on the shore can still have its perks . I'll list them in the order I found them. 1. From what I can tell, this is a Storm Wildeye Perch swimbait. The only thing wrong with this were the dull hooks so I sharpened them up and now it's good to go! 2. River2Sea Biggie Smalls BR found in some rocks. It's in really good shape. The bill doesn't even have any damage so I think it was probably dropped. Does anyone know what color this is? I think it might be discontinued since when I tried searching I couldn't find anything close to it. 3. The most expensive item found was this Quantum Teton Trout 4'6" rod/reel combo lying on the shore. I went to the lake one morning before work and almost walked right by it. No one was there that morning and it had a lot of water moisture on it like it had been sitting there over night. It even had, what looked like, brand new line on it! Looks brand new. 4. Rapala Original Floater in bleeding pearl, size 07. I had my kayak by this point and found it stuck to a log that I had just gotten snagged on . Looks like they upgraded the hooks as well. 5. Strike King KVD square bill silent crankbait, 1.5, I'm pretty sure this is an older chili craw color. I found this one in some rocks along the shore as well. Probably dropped. So how about you guys/gals? Anything cool to share?

If you prefer EVA grips over cork I'd recommend trying out a Falcon BuCoo rod. They even have a micro-guide option if you're interested. I have a 6'10" MHF and am super happy with it. I used it for everything this year, from topwater baits to weightless plastics, t-rigs, c-rigs, jigs, spinnerbaits, squarebills, lipless cranks. I never felt like it didn't have enough power to get things done and it's really light. Made in the USA and has a limited lifetime warranty.

I'm going to try and focus more on top water baits.. frogs, poppers, spooks, wake baits, etc. I only caught one frog fish this year, but since getting a new fishing kayak I think I'll have more favorable opportunities to get it done and grow some confidence in those type of baits. It's tough to keep throwing something you don't have a lot of confidence and/or experience with.

Quantum Hot Sauce oil and grease. I plan on trying out the Shimano reel grease next cleaning season though.

I found TackleJunky81's video guides on YouTube very informative and helpful. He has a ton of great tips and really goes in depth on the cleaning. Also, he demonstrates on a Bass Pro Shops reel, but I was able to follow along on my Quantum reel pretty easily. Here's a link to his reel maintenance/upgrade playlist on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLbuPgIHYhs051QVzARStn0xyad9YA3Jg The video I'd start with is

Were those clearance smoke reels in the bargain cave section of the store? I'm gonna have to check my local Cabelas out.