fishwizzard

This drives me crazy too. If you give each one a good long stretch and lube them with a bit of megastrike they sway around nicely.

Sure, but with a spinning reel you risk the bail popping down during the cast and the same thing happening. I sent a 3oz Kastmater clear across the atlantic doing that last fall. I have seen guys who have removed the bail wire to prevent this, but I am not there yet.

I bank fished a small river this week and managed to get a few smallies by throwing a wacky 4" Ocho worm into every deep pool or cut bank I came across. I like the 4" Ocho a ton, it addition to being short it is far thinner and lighter than most other 4" stickbaits and has great action on the fall. However, the lightness does make it hard to keep it in the right spot in much current so I am going to dry to use a very light (1/16 or 1/8") drop shot rig next time to see if that helps. In the calmer pools I was able to vertically jig the worm in place and got almost half my hits that way. Some times it took like 30-45 seconds of movement to get a bass to dart up and grab it. So far I have yet to bust out the waders, but that time is coming soon. As all the bass I have caught so far are on the edges it will be great to be able to fish both sides at the same time by wading up the middle.

I only first heard of the concept of back-reeling maybe three or four months ago, somehow I never ran across a reference to it before. I don't feel confident that I am coordinated enough to pull it off, but I I plan on trying it. I have an old Okuma 500 reel with a failing drag that I use for perch fishing. I hooked a 17" striper with it this fall and it was all I could do to keep him from spooling me while I got him under control. Next time I have the rod out I am going to try back-reeling into the fish and see how it goes.

Other than small Roadrunners, I have never used a underspin jighead. But, I do have a good sized stash of these guys: I bought them during a TW sale with an eye to use them for kayak trolling for striped bass. I tried them a few times for freshwater with a Fat Impact, but they the blade would snag something fierce on any vegetation they would encounter. I was using a MH rod and could rip them out, but the blade wouldn't spin anymore until I cleared it. Is there anyway to prevent this, or just try and keep it out of the weeds?

I used to live down the street from these guys when they were at their old warehouse and while they didn't have a storefront, they would let me order stuff online and walk down to pick it up to save on shipping. Real nice bunch of dudes.

How much life do you get out of these? I have a "normal" height pair I got during a store closeout but I have not worn them enough to see how long they last for. I do a lot of hiking and almost always hike near water, which around where I live means marsh/wetlands. I keep thinking that if I had kneehigh waterproof socks I would be the king of cold weather stream crossings. But buying a $60 pair of socks is pretty intimidating. As for boots, I had a pair of lightweight North Face boots for the past two years that did ok, but the waterproofing began to fail during full submersion after maybe a year, but worked fine for wet grass and the odd "oh god that bank was a lot softer then I thought" moments until I moved them to "spare car shoe" status last week. I replaced them with a pair of Lowa backpacking boots, which are much heavier and much stiffer. I am taking them on a good 6-8 mile test hike tomorrow but have worn them around the lake bank fishing a few times this week and like them so far.

I would think that a surf rod would do it, I have a "little" one at 9' and like a 5oz max rating and have thought about giving a swimbait a go. But I don't want to fish it from shore and I don't think I could cast it from my kayak. If I ever find a friend with a boat (and they don't mind laying on the deck while I cast) I would like to try it.

Yea, most of the intel I have for over there is salt stuff, I don't know many freshwater kayakers. This past year I was obsessed with wading for smallies so my yak sat neglected for far too much of the year.

I keep meaning to drag my kayak out there, but without a GPS I am leery of waters like that. I got super turned around in Jug Bay once and even with my phone I ended up making a bunch of wrong turns on the way back to the launch. If I were smarter and could resist poking around every tiny little branch of it would help as well. I want to explore the Eastern Shore a lot more next year, I live so close to the bridge it's silly that I don't hit at least the ponds there more often.

Wow, I had never heard of this place, most fishing stores in MD are very saltwater centric so a more freshwater bass focused place is a great find. It's nice and close to Loch Raven Reservoir too.

Oh man, I saw this guy the other day maybe 20' up a very small tree trying to retrieve a crank. He was only above like a 2-4' deep creek and I was ready to call 911 as soon as I heard the splash. When I walked back by later the crank was gone and the bank was dry, so I guess he got it.

I discovered these when reading up on striper fishing where they seem to be popular. I bought a couple and while they have great action, they don't seem to suspend at all, floating up pretty quickly. On the bright side, the aggressively ribbed bottom holds the suspend-dots very well and one or two of them seems to do the trick.

I see you are from Olney, so here is some very specific advice. Head to Trideaphia reservoir right now. The water is super super low, exposing an enormous amount of the shallow flats that are covered in the spring and summer. Take a ton of pictures of all the dips, channels, rock-piles, stumps, etc that dot it. Make sure to include enough landmarks so that you can find them all again when the water is up. Then, next spring, drag those worms around and across all that stuff. The bottom there is perfect for slider fishing and most of the bank guys I see seem to ignore the shallow flats. When I get frustrated trying to find the big kids I will anchor my kayak right at the drop offs and can usually do pretty well for small bass fishing dragging small worms across those flats.

I get a huge thrill when I find a lure, even if it is just a rusted out spinner. Today I removed a small booya frog from a tree. It took me about 15 min and I managed to slash my finger open on it, but it was still totally worth it. I fish from a kayak a lot and manage to get a ton of lost lures that way. I have a 30" telescoping magnetic pick-up tool that I keep in my yak, it has made lure harvesting much easier. I keep tying to think of a way to mount a safety cutter on it, then I can really start getting them.

I just gave them a pile of old rods that were cluttering up my little "den" and a tackle box full of random stuff I bought during my initial "fishing is awesome!" phase. Even now I cannot resist buying a ton of crap during the winter flea-markets, so it's nice that someone (other then the seller) benefits from my poor impulse control. I did slip a Clackin Crayfish into the box and I feel a little bad about that.

I was kinda weirded out by this decision too, but after thinking about it I couldn't come up with a single time I was ever like "oh thank god this reel has a reverse".

Thus far I have not caught more then a few bass on a jerkbait. I have caught a surprising number of stocked trout with them however. I am feeling the same thing, even spots where I can almost always grind out a dink or two have been barren.

I would like to pay someone to stand behind me when I am fishing a jerkbait and smack the back of my head if I don't let it sit long enough. I can pay in beer and tackle. Was at Allen Pond today. There was a steady wind with some crazy gusts every couple of minuets. I was messing around with a new reel (Dawia SV105) I bought and fishing a jerkbait. I was trying my best to let the lure sit for a solid 20 count between jerks. I was lucky to manage 5-10 seconds, but hey, I was mostly there to fuss with the reel. In any case, about an hour in I went to jerk the lure and right as I gave it a pull something smacked it. I knew he missed it, but being dumb I tried to set the hook anyway. In my haste to recast I didn't pay attention to the wind and as the lure was flying a huge gust came and just swatted it right back at me. Even the SV spool couldn't save me. The backlash killed the entire spool. Fortunately, it was only Hybrid, so I only lost a few bucks worth of line, but it was painful to loose that fish. I rarely get a bass there, but every one I have caught has been a solid fish.

What do you cut that stuff with? I finally found cutters that will cleanly cut thin braid and I am very protective of them. Will a pocket knife cut it easily?

I have messed with pitting a swivel in-front of my inlines but it is hit or miss if it kills the slow speed action. I fish them all the time for white perch and and with a spinning reel using light braid w/ leader I have never noticed any line twist to speak of. I did throw some larger inlines with a BFS combo and it got line twist very badly however. When I was messing with swivels I found that these Decoy ones worked great for attaching right to the lure. However, even the "small" isnt really that small and is too much for less then an 1/8oz spinner.

Assuming you guys have lead window weights, you would be far better off selling them to a bullet/jig caster and buying some thing cheaper to use as an anchor.

Thanks, just starting to dip my toe into this stuff and even just trying to make sense of all the Daiwa reels is confusing.

So for those of us who can't ID a reel from a single picture, what daiwa is it?

I have some questions about this, mind if I drop you a PM?