the reel ess

Ford F350 dually towing the DuraCraft 15' aluminum 2-seater crappie boat.

Guys who wear those hats with bills flat as a mortar board with the stickers still on them and tuck their ears under the hat. GAH!

I work at home as well. Bad fuel economy doesn't matter nearly as much if you don't commute in it.

I've had a truck of some kind since about 2000. I inherited a 2013 Jeep Wrangler when my dad died. My wife asked if I was going to sell my truck, which is paid for with 100K miles. I said "Why?" If you have a Jeep you still need a truck. All the truck requires now is for me to pay the taxes and drive it every now and then. It's how I transport my kayak. I used it to haul my bud's 14' jonboat in the bed before. Once you get a truck, you'll always want one. There are two kinds of guys in this world. Ones with trucks and ones that have to ask to borrow their friends' trucks.

I don't know. But I have heard it said, and I believe it, that time you spend fishing does not get deducted from you life. It sure feels that way anyway. I was at the local service station getting oil changed when a guy I know stopped by bragging about his 8 lb bass he had in the cooler. I had to see that. He pulled it out and asked me what i thought it weighed. I told him 6 lbs max. It hurt his feelings. I hope he paid to have it mounted because he killed a nice fish with some room to grow. He went on his way and weighed it on someone's accurate scale. I saw him again later and asked what it weighed. He told me 5-10. Kudos to him because he could've lied, but I wouldn't have believed more than 6-8. I told him that fishing with my buddy who weighs everything over 3 taught me I was always overestimating fish weights. An 8 lb bass has a bucket for a mouth and eyes bugged out the size of golfballs. Or did I just exaggerate?

Sounds like she grew up in England. I'm (obviously) from the south and I say "reckon" a lot. I'm hanging on to it because it really is a proper word, unlike y'all or y'uns.

I watched an episode of BD where he used a jointed Rebel minnow hardbait on a C Rig. He just reeled so slowly that the bait floated up a little. This seems like a good way to target some big gals. That's a big bait. The original swimbait, perhaps. I went through my late father's tackle a while back and he had a Lindy C Rig kit. It seems this kind of sinker would do best at not getting snagged. You don't want to be throwing away Rebel plugs all day.

I have to agree with the nose-hook method if you're in water that isn't just choked with weeds. I used a 2/0 Gama finesse hook. It works great and hooksets are easy. Just tighten the line and reel up. You get a lot more action out of the bait because you didn't stick a hook through half the body. If you buy Mann's Hardnose flukes you won't need any other rigging besides the hook and one will last all day.

Limits in a big lake are maximums. Limits in a pond are minimums.

Even harder if you have none. OP said there are 9" bluegills. That's enormous. You won't grow many, if any big bass if they're competing with 12" bass and 9" bluegill for only minnows. There probably aren't any big bass. Even if there are, your odds of catching one are quite slim if most of the population is under 12". They stay stunted. They might be 4 years old and only 12". Too many mouths to feed. You have to take lots of little bass and big bluegills out or the problem will persist forever. Eventually, the big bass will die out, leaving only stunted dinks. Persecute the babies. My friend and I have discussed shocking up mass quantities of fish to remove some of the dinks in his pond. I watched YouTube videos of homemade shocking devices.I'd really like to give it a try. https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/lake-limits-fish.html

You need to look up YouTube videos by Pond Boss. He has a PhD in biology, specializing in fisheries. I have a friend with a pond full of similarly stunted bass. His bass are small, his bluegill are too large for small bass to eat and they're competing for the same prey. We keep EVERYTHING we catch there and I've hardly caught a bass over 12" in 10 years there. Years ago, my PB came from there, but that's over now. The best balance would be to have a lot of smaller bluegill for the bass to supplement their diet of minnows. PB would recommend feeding your gills so they spawn more times in a summer. Apparently that happens when they're well-nourished. Ideally, you and others could catch enough small bass to make a difference, but that's usually impossible with one person. You could pay someone to come shock up a lot of bass and and larger bream take them out of the food chain as predators. After that you might be able maintain the new balance. You could also introduce another food source that's too big for bream and not for bass, like threadfin shad. But I'd talk to someone in the know about that before you do it. Bass might just gobble them all up or they might die off if the pond gets too cold and they're stuck shallow. Maybe there are other types of forage you could stock. I have another friend who has a pond with a concrete spillway (not a pipe) and during times of heavy rain, it overflows like crazy and every time that happens, his fish grow bigger for a while. For what that's worth. Honestly, he probably doesn't need to target the big bass, if there are any. They aren't the problem. He needs to target the big bream and the small bass. They're in direct competition.

Almost every pond around here look like what you described. I use a frog and a weightless Trick Worm around the edges. I bought an XH/F combo just for frogs and it always has one tied on. Straight braid is a wise choice. If it's not completely matted I'd probably throw a weighted T rig out beyond the mat.

I like the evenings when it gets really warm. I also happen to love topwater fishing so that's a good match. My next favorite time is early morning. I love catching the sunrise. But as Bill Dance once said "The best time to go fishing is when you can."

I picked one up in Dick's yesterday but I put it back when I saw the Sprinker Frog.

Sometimes it's just like that. Some days, bass will just pick it up and swim around with it. I'm no jig expert either, but I know a way you can increase your bites. I rig a plain 3/16 oz. weedless black Arky jighead with a Berkley Chigger Craw-any craw will suffice really, I just love this one because fish will hold onto it a long time. I get some bites on this bait almost every time out and big fish will smash it as well. It will do wonders for your jig confidence and give you good practice. And the craw will last a lot longer on a jighead than it will T rigged. The Yamamoto Hula Grub is another great bait for this rig but fish will yank the curly tails off it more easily.

How about people that worship the bass as a sacred animal, but take home the limit of crappie every time they go. Why is a bass more valuable than a crappie?

That's also a pet peeve of mine with people I'm fishing with. I don't want to hear a radio. I even had one friend pull out his phone and start streaming. He asked me what I wanted to hear. I said "What I was hearing before you started streaming music." Can't you ever just have silence? It's not uncomfortable with me.

i prefer to have a matching number of rods and reels. But I do like to keep some slightly mismatched combos so I always have an excuse to buy another. I pared them down to only the ones I used a while back. But I still have an UL reel on a light rod. Hmmm...

I think that's the issue

People yelling at me when I'm fishing and expecting me to answer. I'M FISHING, DUDE!!! I try to use sign language. This happens to me when I fish a friend's pond. He'll yell at me from his house asking questions. I can't be rude because he lets me fish there. But he demands silence while we ride his golf cart around the property checking hog traps and hoping to sneak up one some to kill. Well, it's his place. And he'll routinely drive down to the pond and toss me a beer while I paddle the kayak around. Bassboats with out of state numbers that feel the need to fish ahead of you or between you and your target or fish their way into a cove then blast all the way out of it past everyone. or motor around you using their electronics. Other humans in general

Well, if you thought you might want a truck, you could buy one and put in the bed to haul. But I guess a trailer is cheaper.

Fish will still bite the Pop R and you can almost get two for $10. I'd probably get the silver/black and baby bass colors. I actually have the bone and silver/black now. I doubt fish care much about the color. I was just noticing the same bait. It has all 5* ratings on the site.

All the same stuff I use all the time. I catch dinks on everything I use. I even catch dinks at my buddy's pond on the SPRO Rat. But for numbers, Ned, small stick worm, 4" Zoom Finesse Worm and Rooster Tail will get 'er done. At that same buddy's pond, I'll sometimes tie on a tandem rig of a plain crappie jig in front and a Beetle Spin in back on my ultralight combo and try for bream and bass. It keeps you busy.

I accidentally caught some bass on a curly tail grub in crappie size when I was young. A nightcrawler might move them from panfish to bass/catfish. But catfish are a hassle for little kids to get off the hook. I think my first casting bait was a Mepp's Comet or a Roostertail. These catch everything and are some of the most likely baits to keep a kid's interest. If they're cathing nothing, they're still gaining skills by chunking and winding. Put a quality swivel on them because they twist line like nobody's business. The aforementioned Beetle Spin is another. Most kids at that age just don't usually have the manual dexterity to detect a bite on a soft plastic and react in a way that ensures a good hookset. One of my earliest bass-specific lures was a Rebel Deep Wee R crankbait. It enabled me to catch bass without a good hookset, but it will also get hung up a good bit. Maybe start with a medium or shallow runner. Understand I probably never even cast a reel until I was about 7. I really didn't get fanatical until I was about 10. God made bluegill and crickets for little kids to cut their fishing teeth on.

It sounds like you've decided you need a different kayak for fishing. If I may make a suggestion, don't go too cheap. I bought one for $500 that has served me well and i still use it. But I can see the need for a better quality one next time. I'd like a stadium seat and an all-around more stable kayak. I wouldn't dare stand in mine (Pescador 120-not the PRO). I tried to use one of those seats you take to FB games and even it sat too high to be stable. The Pescador mold is the old Wilderness Systems Tarpon mold. It will do the job, but technology has passed it by.