fishwizzard

This fall I started dabbling in swimbaits/big baits in some smaller MD lakes and ponds. It was promising enough to get me to pick up a combo and some various lures during the BF sales. I went for the BBZ Rats, the S-Waver 168, some 68 Specials, and a few Hudd and Mattlures gills. I am going to start with them in spots I know hold bass in the 2-3lb range to see how they do. The rod I bought should handle frogging around here so I can go to that if I run out of patience with bigger baits. I will say that losing a $35 rat really harshed my mellow for the rest of the day, so I am going to stick to that as my max per-lure budget for a while.

This very thread in fact! It's s similar idea that also applied to sport shooting, keeping your arms close in and not "chicken winging". Yard casting is all I got going on right now, so anything is worth trying for half an hour. I am going to go practice casting at a frozen river later for some real excitement.

Man, I did some lawn casting with my wallet between my arm and side and it was hard as hell to cast that way. I know I have short arms (or so my tailor tells me), but the rod butt gets in the way with all but the shortest ones.

I would have thought it would be more open, the middle Pax is mostly clear at this point. Not really bass waters though.

At least you have the river, which should be moving by now, right? The stretch of canal from Swain's Lock to Seneca Creek is the one of the spots I love doing those long days at, when the water is right you can catch a ton of numbers and a few nice ones.

That was my reasoning as well, but the ones I tried, a Fishpond and a Wild River, were such spectacularly bad backpacks in term of comfort, I could not stand them. I have noticed no deformation of plastics over the course of a day's hike, but I make sure to get the tray back flat as soon as I get back to my car. I will also hike some decent distances when fishing sometimes, 6-8 miles is not uncommon. Both the fishing backpacks I had would have been fine for just working a mile or so of shoreline from my car, but both were awful for longer hikes and days.

The Ospery Talon 22 is the best light duty hiking/fishing pack I have ever found. It's incredibly comfortable up to about 15 pounds of weight and not too bad above that. It will easily hold two 3600 boxes plus a basic first aid/comfort kit and a spare layer or two. https://www.rei.com/product/111296/osprey-talon-22-pack-mens it's always on sale somewhere online and could be had for under 100 bucks pretty easily if you don't care about the color. I've tried a couple "fishing" backpacks and while they all had neat features, they all suffered at being a comfortable backpack first and foremost. I have a fly fishing sling that I use for spots where I'm never more than a half mile from my car, but I'm going to either the Talon 22 or a smaller Talon 11 whenever I am going much farther than that.

I keep a leash on my paddle and a knife in my pocket and another one lashed to my pfd. I am more worried about losing my paddle and getting swept away from shore then getting wrapped in the leash. But for rods I just use foam floats or hope that the cork handles will be buoyant enough.

Yea, I hit one the other day right as they were pulling the stock. I was strong and walked out with just the bell sinkers I walked in for, but I did leave a nice tidy pile of senkos on top of the bargain bin for the next guy. They were marked down to like $6.30 per pack and I had about five of them in my hand before I ran away.

The Kastking one is crazy sturdy. It takes a ton of force to even get it to lean a little and it holds the rods really securely, enough so that I want to stick mine on wheels so I can get to the back more easily.

Fishing Reel Line Tracking Chart.xlsx Here is what I have so far, as you can see I have been slack about filling it out. I am trying to get down to using as few different lines as possible so I can buy bulk spools, but sitting down to type this all out has show me that I am not 100% clear on what line is on what spool right now. I also am trying to find a way to label my spools, I have a a pair of stock Alphas sv spools and a pair of 1016 sv spools and I know I am going to mix them up at some point.

Don't pay MSRP for the Loomis Classic rods without giving American Legacy a call, they had them on sale for like $190 a few times last year.

I have one of these on it's way to me here any day now. I picked it up as a possible replacement for the CR721 IMX, which did not work out as well for jerkbaits and poppers as I had hoped it would. I am excited to get my hands on it, assuming the ice ever melts.

In addition to thin mono, I have found that plumbing tape works pretty well to take up space on a spinning reel. I was spooling a new reel one evening and found that I didn't have any thin mono on hand, but I did have an old roll of plumbers tape. I took the spool off and wrapped the tape as carefully as I could until the spool was about half full. When I tied the braid on top it bit deeply into the tape and does not feel like it is going anywhere. I only have a few trips on it, but at $1.50 a roll, the tape will back two small reels and still have enough left over to replace my shower head a dozen times.

Susquehanna Fishing Tackle still has a couple of them, but still at full price.

Yep, I have a pair of them, a 721 and a 723 IMX. I like them both, but the 723 is the standout, it is a really versatile rod and has fished everything I have thrown with it pretty well at the worst. The 721 I am less excited about and have not found a good use for it yet. Even onsale they are closer to $200 then $100, but are great rods if one wants to commit to a 6' rod.

So you are sitting in your kayak, and it seems so natural to just keep rising that rod to get the fish right next to you. At the same time, you don't want to lean too far out, so it's a balance. Also, if you want to carry more than one rod, spend the time to rig your yak in the yard and sit in there and cast for a while. It is kinda weird to cast sitting at first and backlashes and snagged rods are a lot more fun to sort out in the lawn then when floating over 15' of water.

This is the best picture I could fine, but the idea is that as the rod gets closer to 90, the pressure on it becomes more focused on a smaller section of it, leading to snapping. A stiffer/faster rod is going to suffer worse than a softer/slower one.

My shallowest local pond still has an ice covering as of 230pm today, but it was thin and starting to melt back from the banks. I am heading out tomorrow to hit a few others to see how they are progressing, but I expect to be disappointed. High hopes for Friday though. Before the ice up I was having very little luck, with only a small dropshoted worm, very slowly dragged was producing any hits. Even the Ned failed me. Assuming I can find wet water, I am going for a three-pronged approach. The aforementioned DS, a suspending jekbait, and ~6" soft swimnbaits, fished as slow as I can stand it.

I actually pulled my seat and PFD out, it does not hit as badly as I though it did, but I have to consciously adjust myself to get my back flat. In any case, back to offering the OP some advice. Other then agreeing with the "start out empty, add to as needed", I will also caution that in my experience fishing from a yak makes it extremely easy to high stick a rod. I feel like it's because you can bring the fish over to your hand, which can get the rod pointed straight up. When fishing on my feel I will kneel/squat to get my hand on the fish and choke up on the rod to do so, in the yak my instinct is to just keep lifting that tip up until the fish is right at boatside.

I would love to read a longform article about the effect those things had of the international bering business. That was a crazy amount of demand that seemed to sprout up overnight.

I know, right? I got to try one on and it is very very comfortable, the pockets are easy to reach and open, and they stay out of the way pretty well, even with my wallet, phone, wife's phone, her wallet, my keys, and my pocket knife in one of them. Astral Ronny Fisher Fishing PFD: $160 Embarrassing your wife at an hiking store: Priceless.

I have a Slayer 10 and am about 5' 10-11". I try to keep the seat pretty upright and try to sit straight up in it. The bottom of the foam on my current PDF (and NRS Chinook) hits the top of the seat by maybe an 3/4-1". I am also interested in the Ronny due to the flip down pockets/trays. I want to do more wading on the Potomac this season and I feel like I should start wearing a PFD more in general when wading. The pocket/trays are amazing for retying lures or general fussing when standing up.

I might be the one weird guy who does not like high backed PDFs. I have an NRS with a pack like the one Turtle135 posted and I feel like it keeps me pushed away from the seat and kills my lower back. I am going to replace it this year with an Astral Ronny Fisher, which has a thin, even back, like this;

Oh dude no The hotdogs I will eat all day, but those are some sad burgers.