stk44

That sounds alright to me, but it's your rod & reel.

Cool thanks!

Thank you sir! Will any auto parts store carry said "marine goop"?

I'm guessing they will all involve drilling? It's not the drilling part I have an issue with, it's the drilling into a water tight capsule that I don't like the idea of.

And the kayak has been leak free?

It would depend on what weight spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, and jigs, etc. you are using. But....without knowing that, I would recommend the MF. I have the MLXF avid x and can comfortably handle up to 3/8 oz. I believe it is even rated to 1/2 oz, but that seems a bit overkill IMO.

I have a predator MX SOT kayak. I love it, but am in need of a good anchor trolley system. Can anyone recommend a reputable anchor trolley? I would also prefer it not require drilling into my $1300 kayak...

In the winter areas, I'm guessing they wouldn't be in the main channel then if there is nothing to break up the current. I know... I'm kinda going off on a tangent here... I will try getting some small 1/4 oz jigs and fish them on my ML st croix XF. It's rated up to 1/2 oz. I will either bring either a lite or a ml spinning for smaller crank baits. I'm confused as to why they didn't hit any shad style cranks as often. Thanks for the tips. I'm going to check some of those videos out on YouTube now.

My designated jig rod which I use for largemouth is a dobyns champ 705 mag heavy. Which is basically just a heavy powered rod with a fast action. I usually run 50 lb braid on it with a 16 lb flouro leader. I'm sure I could drop down to a 12lb flouro leader for river fishing. I don't have any jigs under 3/8, so maybe I'll have to hit TW again and buy some smaller jigs(my wife is going to kill me.) The current breaks make perfect sense. This is probably a stupid question, but what is the benefit of being near the deeper water? Most of the bait fish I see this time of the year are in the shallows. I have a hard time figuring out exactly what the bass are doing, and maybe that's part of the problem. I assume they are cruising the shallow flats preparing to spawn and some are already spawning I'm sure. But do they stay shallow, go into deep water, and keep transitioning or do they stay in relatively the same place? Do the bass like deeper water access in case of a cold front, predators, etc?

I would say that's a pretty solid defense.

Also, would these jigs work well for small mouth?

Thanks! I only had two rods with me. A medium moderate St. Croix bait caster and a ML XF avid X spinning. Once I switched to the small minnow crank, I could only cast it with the ML, and the 7'4" glass cranking rod wasn't going to cut it with a 7/16 finesse jig. I didn't get a good feel of the bottom other than my crank grinding the rocks, gravel, etc. I don't have an anchor trolley, I'll have to get one, because anchoring is a pain in a kayak. Are you recommending the first screenshot because the island's are on a bend? Also, I'm curious if the bass would be more likely to be relating to the islands or to the actual mainland shore. It would obviously depend on bottom composition, but would a shallow flat have to be present for the fish to relate to one side or the other?

Another question. Does anyone know what this bait dives to? I'm guessing 5-7 feet, and probably more like 7 feet on my 8 lb flouro.

OK, here are some other screen shots, the first one ( deer creek) is productive at the mouth, and bass spawn there but its a small area and 1 person with a lounge chair and live bait can take up the whole spot, so I tend to avoid it. There 2 other pictures upstream of sycamore. I've included the sycamore screen shot again, and also 2 screen shots downstream. The flat sided bomber in baby bass color caught 2 bass in about 6-8 feet of water between sycamore and shore. It was in a current seam but not very visible other than my kayak would keep getting pushed to this spot. Boat control was difficult and couldn't get many follow-up casts in the same area. Bottom composition had some rocks, but I don't get much detail nor am great at reading my garmin echo 150. When fishing along shore, I would position my kayak in about 8-9 feet of water and cast to the bank. The current was pretty slow, all fish caught were associated with some sort of cover in the area, laydowns, overhanging trees, a branch sticking out of the water, etc. The bottom composition was a semi-firm muddy bottom with a descent bit of gravel, ranging from pea to grape sized.

Thank you sir! I always thought of this as a dinky lure that would never catch fish. After throwing typical shad/ crawfish profile crankbaits for 4 hours and only catching two smallmouth, I'm glad I tried it. I put another 5-7 in the kayak in about 30 minutes.

Nice! I'll take the $1.99 Walmart special that catches fish any day! It had pretty good action too, I was pretty impressed. I'll have to see if they are still made. Thanks!

Nice, I'll give them a try the next time I do a TW order.

It sure does. I used shad raps, square bills, and a flat sided crank and only caught 2 fish on the flat crank. I saw the bait fish were slender and minnow like, so I switched to this and crushed the smallmouth.

Ok. I was looking on the Rapala website at the minnow rap and figured that looked the closest. I'm pretty sure it was a rapala but maybe not.. I'm sure a minnow rap would be a good substitute

I know the brand is rapala but what model is it?

No. I don't think rapala did that on all of the lures back then. This could be close to 10 years old. I never really used it before, but this matched the hatch perfectly today, so I figured I would try to see if someone could ID it.

Is this a minnow rap? I bought it years ago and it was very productive today and want more.

My buddy and I went out today. We fished about 8 hours-first full fishing trip this year. We caught close to 20 fish total and lost probably 10 more including one musky that I lost on 8lb test. Only had 3 fish around the islands. Went to a different shoreline close to the island where my buddy caught three fish when switching to a minnow style crank. Once I switched to a minnow rap, I hooked a Muskie on the first cast and caught maybe 6 or 7 more smallmouth. Lost a couple that looked to be 12-14 inchers. It was a great day! The bass were mostly around 10 inches. They looked to have little guts on them like they had eggs? The water temp was between 56-58. Degrees, could they be spawning? They were caught in 6-10 feet of water.

I haven't been out yet. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend.

That is unreal. My biggest smallie is around 3 lbs. what's that like 6?