the reel ess

I have an older 7' MH combo with braid that I threw it on. I just kinda lobbed it instead of trying to force a long cast. It still spins a little at the end of the cast and it's not ideal. There are people catching fish with it on YouTube and they all are at ponds, so there's something to it. The spawn has to be a good time to swim it fast past the beds.

Here are my reel/line rules of thumb and some will disagree: BC trebles, incl cranks and topwaters: Mono BC spinner/buzzbaits: Mono BC single hooks (T-rigs, weightless Senkos, etc.) 30# Braid BC frogs: 30# braid, min. 50 lb. braid is what I currently have on. Spinning: 20# braid for everything. I will use the M/Mod rod for smaller trebles because the action is quite moderate. I'll use the MH for weightless Trick Worms and light T rigs, etc. The reason for braid on spinning is the lack of line twist. Braid on a spinning reel will last longer than you want it to and will almost never twist if you remember to flip the bail up by hand. You'll be coloring the end of it with Sharpies to make less visible.

I have one and also have never caught anything on it. Ditto all the above issues and I'll add that it sinks too fast so you can't really swim it slowly. Sure, you can, but it looks like the nose it pointed up unnaturally. I agree with how hard it is to cast so I used it on MH spinning gear. I'm sure there's a good time to use it and I haven't found it yet. I also haven't used it in a place where bluegill would be the primary forage (a small pond).

Craigslist, LetGo, etc. Honestly, if you go too cheap, you'll regret it. I spent $550 on the Pescador new about 6 years ago and now I'd like to upgrade for a more stable kayak with stadium seat.

Your post reminds me I caught a turtle lsat summer. Not really unusual on live bait, but this was on the back hook of a Spook. This is one of my favorite topwaters, so I tried hard to get the hook back but it broke that prong of the trebles off and I dropped the turtle.

Expecting to get fed probably.

I dig your point, and I can agree to an extent, but a 25 acre manmade "lake" with a spillway is a lot different from a manmade hydroelectric lake in terms of tactics. I fish a reservoir that's big for a "pond" and I had to change a lot of my thinking to have success there. There's rarely a noticeable current there. It's big enough to have structure and different things bass can be doing at any given time, but small enough that you know you've drug a bait by a bunch of fish in the course of a day. Bass on that hydro power lake can get away from you.

Ascend from BPS and the Perception Pescador Pro are a couple that come to mind. I have the previous Pescador and it has served me well. But the seat just puts kills the behind after a couple hours. I even have to move my legs a little to keep my feet from going to sleep if I fish a long time, and I usually do. Both of the options I mentioned have a stadium type seat and come in under your budget new. The seat is more comfy and keeps your butt out of the water. Well, I just checked on the Pescador Pro and I have to say that one's $729 new. It didn't start there, so it must be selling well. I have the Pescador 12 Angler, which Academy sells for $529.

I did that a lot as a kid, especially when the lake was in winter drawdown. I still have some of those in the box.

Does that happen a lot that you catch big bass while musky fishing? It seems like the same type baits, just bigger.

Booyah, Strike King, War Eagle should cover all the bases. My favorites are old Uncle Bucks from BPS that I bought for maybe $1.50 more than a decade ago. They discontinued them I guess to sell more expensive options, but they flat caught fish. I caught my PB on one last fall. Something else they had that you don't see as much these days is hammered blades. They put off more vibration and look like fish scales. I still have several that I keep replacing skirts on. The last two fish I caught on spinnerbaits were on the trailer hook, including the aforementioned PB. Even some tourney pros will tell you forget the trailer hook. I simply can't understand this. They will say they don't miss many short strikes, but they can't possibly know how many they're missing. And a trailer hook can keep a bass hooked if it comes off the main hook. I use trailer hooks on all buzzbaits as well. I never use a trailer per se. But I will use a fluke or even a grub that I think matches the forage well. Fish will bite it. You can even buy some now with a swimbait body. I have one for redfish I'm going to give a try. I look for gold blades because there are gold shiners where I fish most of the time. But the PB came on tandem nickel with white skirt. Go figure. You can do most of what you need to do with chartreuse and/or white spinnerbaits in 1/2 oz. I'd start there in willow leaf blades unless you want to use in cold or dirty water. Indiana blades are a good compromise, but harder to find for me. Or if you're fishing at night or really dirty or cold water, black/Colorado blades is the ticket. So just a few models for starters then branch out for specific purposes and conditions. Search videos by Jimmy Houston and Hank Parker. They've made careers on spinnerbaits. I haven't come up with a good way to fit spinnerbaits in a flat package so I'll take the ones I think will work with me on the kayak. I use them on 15 lb Big Game mono. Bump into cover you can see. That triggers strikes.

I think you're using good ones. I like the Booyah Pad Crashers. I haven't gotten as many bites on the popping model. I truly dislike the one that shall not be mentioned on this site that has realistic looking soft legs that come off and fills with water after a couple bites. I bought an H2O Xpress frog from Academy because the price was right, but it's difficult to walk and the plastic is harder. I caught what held as my PB for about a decade on the Snag Proof Original Frog that you see in my avatar. I have caught pond bass recently on that frog as well but it requires spinning tackle to cast it well. They now make a model for casting reels.

My family had a lake house most of my life. I started out fishing from our dock with a cane pole and walking the banks, catching bluegill and small bass. My dad bought a pontoon boat and we started fishing from crappie. Later he bought an aluminum bass boat and we took up bass. We didn't have sophisticated electronics that bass boats come with now, so it was hit and miss. Sometimes we just didn't know where they went. On the other hand, there is the added bonus of a large striper or catfish or whatever as a bycatch. When I finally had enough money to buy my own boat I ran the lake for a while. I tired of going over to the lake, putting the boat in, spending the night so i could be on the water before every one else just to discover 2 boats already where I wanted to be...on a weekday. Did they sleep in that cove??? Then I'd end up at my backup spots trying to salvage the day. I started going to our local reservoir with a friend and never looked back. The access is owned by the property owners around it so it's usually deserted. The most I've ever seen on it is three boats on July 4th. I can go with my buddy or put my big boat in. I started taking my kayak anytime it's warm enough. It's about 30 acres, with weedy and wood cover and some deeper structure so it's big enough for fish to be holding in different patterns in different places. It's just a smaller, cleaner lake. The forage is gold shiners and bluegill mas well as crawfish, I'm sure. The big bass are bigger here and less stressed. Therefore, I'm less stressed and have a better chance at a PB. In fact, this is where my PB came from last fall. I'm 46 now and I'm not looking to compete with throngs of anglers whipping the waters for smaller bass. I can't always get in the reservoir on short notice because I need a key from my buddy so I asked around for other places to fish and got permission. I have at least limited access by permission to 5 private ponds and there are a couple more I can go to anytime I like. These are nice to have when you're kayaking because you can put it in any puddle of water where often it's just too windy for a kayak on bigger waters. And the smaller the water, the more likely it is fish will be cooperative, but not always. That's a nice consolation prize. Also, I don't see fish schooling on bait in ponds in an "organized" manner as much as I do in lakes. They relate to where bait is, but don't seem to herd it to the surface. Others will disagree, but that's my experience. That's probably due to the type of bait present, not the bass since a bass is a bass, wherever you find him. I don't notice one piece of cover holding groups of bass in ponds as much either unless it's during the spawn. Bigger the bass, the more likely they're loners. In a pond, you know you'll at least drag a bait by some fish, probably some big ones, even if they don't bite. All the same baits work in ponds as lakes, but I find it a lot easier to get topwater strikes in ponds. I imagine that's because the pond is shallower, therefore easier for fish to locate topwaters and food is more limited. Just theories. That's my $0.02 in the pond vs lake topic. Some of my ideas are anecdotal and I'm sure people will have other opinions. Good luck!

Fish are captives in their environments and can get used to anything that doesn't kill them. There's a video on YouTube of Captain Shane fishing in the Everglades as airboats go by and he continues to catch fish right where the boats passed over. I recall just slaying the bass on a bank one day as a ski boat pulled skiers through a bouy course over and over. We had a hard time keeping our distance from the bank, but it was worth it. I think about this when I see trash like chairs, sunken boats or dock parts in the water. Fish don't know that's trash. It's habitat.

I've always reeled them fast before I started fishing a local reservoir. They like them as slow as you can reel them and keep them off the grassy bottom. You have to just about put it in their mouths. But I still like a fast reel for it because it's fewer cranks per day.

Last fall I had an owl try to take my topwater bait on two consecutive casts in daylight. It flew across the cove and swooped down and landed. Then it came back the opposite way. I had to yank it away both times. If I was a Darling on The Andy Griffith Show I might have been a little superstitious about that occurrence. My dad and I caught the same fish once. It bit my worm, I let the rod tip down and set the hook. I said "I got one!" and my dad said "Me too!" We reeled up the same 1 lb bass. My buddy, who is a smallish guy, was fishing a public place when a car stopped beside the road and a big guy got out of the passenger side and the car drove off. Big Guy walked up to my buddy and asked him if he was doing any good. He said no. The guy asked my buddy if he had any money and he said no. My buddy said the guy just stood next to him for an uncomfortable length of time and finally just walked off down the road. My friend said he thought Big Guy was just standing there deciding if it was worth the trouble to try to rob him and finally thought better of it. My dad and I saw a fish basket (trap) in shallow water and went to investigate it. It took both of us to pull it up. When we did there were several dead catfish and a live softshell turtle in it. The turtle was thrashing so hard it threw dead catfish bits all over us. We stunk so bad we had to knock off fishing and head for the shower.

I got Kayak Angler mag in the digital format for a year as a Christmas gift, but it was one big ad from cover to cover with very little fishing advice I could use. Years later, they still send me emails all the time with links to free articles.

Look into the Charleston area of SC. It's a great city and there are lots of places to fish. There are plenty of lakes in SC. That number you throw out for a house on a lake is about right for Lake Wateree, near Camden.

An old, cheap BPS Uncle Buck's white double willow, hammered nickel blade spinnerbait...on the trailer hook.

I can't very well criticize the alcohol ads when I greatly enjoy a good beer or two.

I go to my primary 6 combos and rig them with what I think I'll use next time I go fishing. I usually do this three times for every time I actually go in the winter. And I order new baits so when they come in, I tie them on as well. Sometimes I go to the back porch and toss them a few times. My next door neighbor's always asking if they're biting out back.

The printed word is dying partly because everything you want to know is out there virtually free in video form. I don't read them unless I'm in a waiting room. One thing I've noticed lately is some of the mags are now down to 10 or 8 issues a year. If you subscribe to Fill-in-the-blank-Game and Fish you can save a couple years worth of mags and just re-read next year. They recycle content a lot.

Absolutely. I recall G-Man, Ike, Ish and Hackney all being reprimanded in some way (the pocketbook mostly) and they all seem to be doing alright. None of them agreed with the penalty at the time, but a person can take that punishment like a man or they can miss the point of it entirely. I still like all these guys and value their advice. But I respect G-Man most. I think he has become a better person over the last few years. And he has had a few obstacles to overcome.

As for the sinful sponsorships, where do you draw the line? There are as many people killing themselves with fat foods and baked goods as there are with alcohol. As for the bad behavior, I think BASS has done a good job not tolerating it. I recall the fight between Ish and another angler and the time Ike kicked his American flag. The federation deals harshly when its anglers embarrass them all. When the reward is high people will find themselves morally flexible. I do see guys who would run their mother over to fish a spot though. That's a gray area and has always been an issue, even before tourneys.

Neither do I. I will as well in a pinch or if I want to narrow down a color choice. I have a Trion Spinning reel and a 7' M Lightning Rod I'll sometimes use for treble lures. It's interesting to me that a M spinning rod blank would likely be a ML BC rod blank.