fishwizzard

Hah, yea, the bulkhead does give it away. I wanna try to drag my kayak out there tomorrow, that place really opens up if you can fish it from the water, all those weedlines and clumps of pads are great in the later spring but should be decent by now. That place drives me nuts, it seems like there must be bass under that dock, but I have thrown everything I can think of up under there to no effect.

Snagged an Alphas Finesse Custom off of ebay for like $120 last week. The idea was to get a small, inexpensive reel to pair with a telescoping rod I picked up over the winter to be a travel combo for work and backpacking trips. But then I threw it on a CR721 to give it a try and found that I like the combo so much I think I am going to have to keep looking for a travel reel. It is incredibly smooth and slick, the spool is very easy to control, maybe even more so then my SV105. I spend the day throwing wacky senkos and super flukes and the combo handled both of them perfectly. The rod is a little light, but I was able to get a ~1.75lb bass through some moderate pads with no struggle at all, so I think it will work out if I am careful about where I use it.

Went out to a small pond this afternoon. Right under 2lbs, which is not bad for the pond he was in. It was a satisfying catch as I got him off the a very obvious bit of cover, it was nice to be rewarded for reading the water. Got him on a wacky senko. Got a dink or two the same way, then an other almost 2lb one off of a white fluke. The fluke was constantly under attatch by small, like 10-12", pickerel. I only landed a handful but they would swipe at it almost every third or fourth cast. They hit it hard too; Those Owner twistlock keepers really do the job.

I liked the sv105 enouh to buy a second one. It's a great reel and can go from casting a 1/2oz lipless to a 1/6oz inline spinner with just a brake adjustment.

I actually find them to be pretty different lures. Yea, I do think the Kietechs have a more subtle wiggle when rigged weightless/retrieved slowly, the RS is more of a rolling action and it needs a bit of weight and speed to really move well. But, the RS is wildly more durable then then FI, like I don't think I can think of more than one or two times I have had one become too ripped to use, even one with a torn nose can live again as a trailer. The Kietechs are as fragile as a senko and it's not rare to burn through an entire pack in an afternoon. So I use them for different things, the Kietechs for when I want to something weighless to run in slow, clear, and shallow water. If I need then deeper I will either add a few nailweights or a very lightly weighted hook. The Rage Swimmers get the nod as trailers for jigs and chatterbaits, rigged with a weighted swimbait hook to run through weeds/pads and use a faster search bait. They also work well t-tigged with a heavy weight and pitched into laydowns, they resist getting snagged very well and hold up pretty decently.

I have a bag or three of the Tiny Brush Hogs but have never found a hook or jighead I really liked for them. They are so thin that they seem to rip after a few casts without even a little tap or peck from a sunfish.

There is a regular at a local lake who I only ever see fishing a red shad worm. Most of the time it is a ribbon tail t-rigged with a light weight, but sometimes it's a small stickbait, also t-rigged with a small weight. It's a very pressured lake and I do notice him doing pretty well for himself. I might have to give them a try myself, assuming he isn't there that day

I have a pair of their Brewer line and, combined with thin neoprene socks, are the best wading/bank fishing footwear I have found. The shoes have amazingly grippy soles and drain fast to keep your feet light. The socks keep sand and fine grit from bugging me and add a ton of comfort. I also use them both on my kayak, which is a peddle drive, so going barefoot isnt comfortable for long periods. Plus the socks give me a super funny tan lines, by the end of the summer my ankles and feel almost glow white. The only drawback is that they are not great for more then a mile or three on a trail and maybe half that over rough ground, for those trips I fall back to hiking boots/shoes.

I would be more worried about losing the singe special jighead and then having the plastics left over. But, I do fish a lead-ban lake, so I might end up trying a pack, I have spent $6 on dumber stuff before.

Damm dude, that is some fine work. I did Swains to Pennyfield the other day and got some dinks, but nothing exciting.

I only have two days of fishing this stuff, but I am loving it so far. It's quite strong, seems to have the same amount of stretch as 12lb Invixz, and is really forgiving when it comes to working out backlashes. I have it on my light jerk/crank combo and am thinking using it on my travel combo as well.

I wish I could find some large cork knobs, like the ones on the (26/2) Fishing line of reels, that would fit Daiwa handles. The SLP ones are the wrong shape and are also like $40 per.

The manufacture recommends adding a split shot or two a foot or so up so the lure can move across the bottom, but I have almost as much, if not more luck letting it make a slow gliding fall into holes.

I have allways ment to give back reeling a try, but never remembered to in the heat if the moment. Question, are the drags on casting reels more effective then the ones on spinning reels? I have never read of anyone worrying about loosing control of a fish on a casting reel when it pulls drag. Or is it a finction of generaly lighter line being used on spinning reels?

When I first got into fishing those Trout Magnets were my bread and butter lure. I really need to leave the bass rods at home and have a panfish day soon. Have you ever used the slightly larger Trout Slayer lures? They look like tiny craws and I found that the small increase in weight really helped casting distance and accuray in mild winds.

Yeah, between the trout and the pickerel that are everywhere around here, I am becoming very anti-trebles. The small ones (#6-2) also really seem to cause a ton of damage when a dink just smashes them. I am gonna pick up some jdm barbless trebles to try on my jerks, but I really wish manufactures would list the weight on the package so I just buy the right ones without a bunch of trial and error.

I am sure someone will trade you two Premiers for a new LT.

I only care so much that I fish braid/leader for a lot of weightless soft plastics, so I am line-watching a lot of the time and my preference is for as bright a chartreuse line as I can get.

Rage Menace on a 3/0 Owner Straight Shank. I like them a lot weightless but if I need to rip them through weeds or pads I add a 1/16oz steel weight infront. They are almost a perfect fit and act like a protective nose-cone and really prolongs the life of the plastic.

I have already moved all my perch/panfish lures from trebels to single hooks and I think by this time next year I will have all my bass ones as well. I might end up just moving to barbless hooks on my jerkbaits if I can't get single hooks to suspend well enough, but I hope to make it work. This last fall I had a very bad moment when a very green stocker rainbow managed to pin himself, my hand, and my pant leg, all together in a snarl. "Fortunately" the trout gave a mighty thrash and ripped the hook out of my hand before it got too worked in there, but the treble was so worked into my pants that I had to cut the hooks past the barb to get them out. I am very willing to miss the odd fish to help lower the odds of this happening again.

Flukes are about my favorite bait to fish, good to hear they are working already. Spent this afternoon farting around Northwest Branch near TP. The last two years I have been pleasantly surprised with the numbers of small bass I have managed to pull out of there. While I got a couple today, there was no where near the action I was getting last spring. If any of you all care, the white perch seem to be about to hit full swing. I am taking my bfs trout combo out tomorrow to see how it works for them.

When out to a brackish pond by my house to test out some new lures. Kept getting bumped on like every retrieve so I hiked back to the car and retrieved the single inline spinner I had with me. Caught about 24 white perch, maybe eight of which were around this size. and maybe ten slightly smaller like him; The rest were super small dinks that I am always amazed can even get the hook in their mouths. There were a bunch of guys fishing for them with bait on the other side of the pond and having little luck. One of them wandered over after seeing me land like 3 in 4 casts with a 5 gallon bucket in one hand and two tallboys of Highlife in the other. A deal was struck and everyone walked away happy. While getting rid of the Highlife back in the woods, I ran across these guys; The pond is full of carp, so I assume that is what they are from? A buddy of mine is a biologist and always appreciates it when I bring him dead stuff from the woods, so they are now proudly on display in my yard until he picks them up.

It was my first BFS rod and while I really liked it, I though something shorter and faster would suite my needs more, so I picked up the CR721 when they went on 33% off. I was dead wrong though, I can't do nearly as much with sub 5/16oz plastics with the loomis as I can with the Phenix. The Loomis seems to only really get great at like the 3/8oz level. I'm rambelng here, but BFS and light casting rigs in general are always on my mind of late.

Oh man I cannot wait for the RH version to come out. I have one on preorder at Japantackle and am waiting for that email. I was going to put it on a Phenix Recon 682L, but I put a sv105 on it and really like the combo. I have a PX68 w/ some upgrades on a UL rod as well as a cr721 IMX that needs a reel, so I need to do a cast-off to see what reel works best on what rod. Please let let us know what rod you pick. Nice lookig combos, refreshing to see stuff posted with the handles on the correct side.

I had never really noticed the Tiny Paca Chunk before. I really like the looks of it, both as a trailer and rigged alone on like a 1/8 Draggin head.