fishwizzard

My TW black Friday order came in this morning. Re-upped my hook supply a little and got some wacky hooks to try. I have never really given the wacky worm a fair shake, so I am going to fish it until I loose both those packs of hooks or start catching. I picked up OMDT jigs to give them a try, I picked up some of their EWG shakyhead jigs over the summer to use in a non-lead lake I fish and was impressed with them, especially for the price. Reel and treble covers, how exciting! Got some new lines to try and finally decide to try some actual leader line instead of just using left over Hybrid. I don't know why I bought so much line, all my current reels have fresh line on them..... Oh, I guess that's why. Some how some reels suck into my cart. Picked up a Ci4+ 1000 and a SV 105HS. The Ci4 is going on my finesse spinning rod and the SV on a ML casting rod I picked up last month. Already threw some YZH on both to give them a test before I spool up the fancy lines, I am thinking the Seaguar Finesse on the Ci4 and the Shooter on the SV. The 832 is going on my old finesse combo reel, which is getting bumped up to my M spinning combo. Now it just needs to stop raining!

I started fishing in general about three years ago, last spring was when I settled on bass as my specific obsession.

Almost totally finesse, one could further specify "weightless or lightly weighted small soft plastics fished with a swimming retrieve". Somehow I need 6-7 combos to fish this. I really need to branch out more.

I need to learn to slow the hell down. I can't think of a single lure I fish slow enough. I need to find a 1:1 reel or something.

Pick a local lake and fish it until I learn it. I have maybe 5-10 spots I bank fish from but I never really spend enough time at each to really know them. The spot I have in mind is close to my house and has limited allowed bank fishing but allows kayaks. So I can bank fish it a few times a week after work and try to get my kayak out there atleast twice a month. There is like 3/4 of the bank gets no pressure and there is a huge pad field I could spend days in. I have caught one pig out of there so I know there is at least one fish worth catching in there. But the point is to get better at finding patterns and learning how to find the fish. Get out in my kayak more often. I am super lazy about taking it out but there are a dozen good spots within an hour of me I never really go to. I also want to start fishing more kayak tournaments. I only managed one this year but it was a hoot. Stop buying lures, start using the ones I have. At this point I have too much stuff and not enough time to figure them all out. Each outing I am only going to bring three lures, a surface, a mid column, and a bottom. I need to spend less time fussing with tackle and more time fishing. In specific, I want to learn how to fish the following: Hard jerkbaits. I have a little collection of them and other then a pile of stocked trout, I don't have a lot of fish to show for it. I want to use small floaters for creeks and streams and start using shallow suspenders along side flukes when working weed lines in ponds and lakes. I am going to swap out to single hooks as well, which is going to add some complexity to it, but I almost never fish hard baits and want to get some proficiency with them. Senko/stickbaits. I have maybe caught a half dozen bass on senkos. I want to learn to slow down and fish them t-rigged like they are supposed to be fishes and I want to figure out wacky rigging as well. I already have a pile of worms and just bought a good supply of wacky hooks. I am going to have a few "all-senko" days until I get some confidence with them. Jigs. Small ones for smallies, big ones for largemouth. I have a plano box full of them but have maybe caught three bass on them. Practice at home. I have a long grass alley next to my house and I am going to put a hay bale with a bucket buried in it out there as a target. My casting skills, especially with a baitcaster, is not what I want it to be, so there is no excuse not to spend 15-30 min a day out there working on stuff. I also want to buy a cheap used stationary bike. I have a peddle drive kayak but lack good peddling muscles. I already have a tablet, any time wasted online could be spent paddling as well. Find some fishing buddies, especially kayak ones. None of my friend's fish and only two of them show any interest at all. I work weekends very often, so I do most of my fishing weekdays. It's nice to have spots all to myself, but some company would be nice and lord knows I could stand to learn a thing or two.

This is the first year I have seriously gone after bass and here is what seems to have worked best. 1) Ned Rig, assorted plastics and jigheads, but mostly a half zinker on a zman 1/20oz jig or Owner 1/16 Ultrahead. Never really found a pattern in respect to color other than some days they wanted "natural" and some days "loud". The Ned was my go to smallmouth lure and despite building a little collection of tubes I never managed to catch much on them. Going to give tubes and short stickbaits a good try this season before I give up and go all Ned. 2) Rage Menace grub, t-rigged with either a 3/0 Owner Straight Shank or an Owner 2/0 Twistlock. Better hookups on the former, easier time fishing cover/weeds on the latter. Most of the time I fished it weightless but started using a 1/16th steel weight as sort of a nose-cone to protect the plastic and let me run it fast just subsurface. I have also used it as a trailer, a pitching bait, and on a small shaky head jig. It caught me some of my biggest bass of the year. 3) Flukes/soft jerkbaits. Love these things, they work great for bank fishing and and are great for covering water quickly. I fish them across pads a lot as well, letting them drop into holes. I tried to get proficient with senkos this year but I can't resist fishing them too fast and usualy ended up putting a fluke on the line in short order.

I wanted to replace the bearings in a Lew's LFS reel that I have. I have never been happy with how it casts and figured it was worth giving new bearings a shot. I got the Hedgehog Air Ceramics and in my limited yard-test, I am impressed. I did some casting and pitching before the switch and marked my average distances and tested again afterwards. Casting was improved easily 10-15' doing just a light flick of the wrist cast. Pitching was less improved, but it was super windy out and I hope I can improve on it with time. I also wanted to investigate a sticking handle knob on my PX68. Unfortunately, tearing it down reviled a lot of light rust on all four bearings and a slight burr on the offending shaft. I cleaned and lightly oiled everything, but there was little improvement. I guess I am going to replace them as well.

Yep, worked for a Dawia reel as well. I now have casting combos at L through MH and spinning from UL to M. Surely I can stop buying gear now. I didn't buy a single lure either, just dull stuff like treble caps and reel covers.

Just called and confirmed, everything but gift-cards get the 20% so said the guy on the phone.

Gonna be an expensive Friday I guess, thanks!

Hold on, does that work for all of their brands not included in the online sale?

Yea, no idea how I misread the diameter so badly. Even while spooling it on I knew it wouldn't work I am pigheaded so I went ahead with it. Only lost about 100' max before I gave up and stuck in on my UL combo. But man, on the few clean casts, that stuff would let a ned rig sail clear over the horizon.

Willy Nelson fans might disagree.... But I have always liked the hippy side of country, Gram Parsons is an eternal favorite:

I am also looking for an F150 as I finally realized I did not want to pay what a used Tacoma sells for. The problem is, I cannot find one without a ton of rust. I am fine with replacing an engine or trans, but I shudder at the thought of endlessly chasing rust. I keep going to see trucks from CL and keep finding rusted out junk when the sellers always assure me that there is only "a little peeling paint". Such a waste of time for eveyone.

I am leaning towards picking on of these up on BF to go with a ML rod rated for 1/8-1/2oz. It seems like a perfect match.

I got a PX68 off of ebay for around $200 and I am really happy with it. The non-clicking drag does drive me crazy but it is a simple sounding fix.

In a pinch the nail file on a small swiss army knife works very well, it's thin, strong, and dull enough not to draw blood when you jam it into your palm.

I use the 1/0 sized Owner Ultra Heads on the 3.8" Keitechs and it puts the hook right at the end of the slot, which I feel is ideal to keep the action at low speeds. I have also used the VMC Rugby heads in 2/0 and they put the hook in almost the same spot. I feel like with jigheads, there is even less consistency across brands then with hooks and you have to look at each different one to see where it puts the hook in relation to the plastic. But I suspect that you want to start looking in the #1 to 2/0 range.

Op, if you want to carry that much stuff, look at at hiking daypacks, not fishing stuff. Most fishing bags that I have handled are very bad at being an actual "pack" in terms of comfort with a decent load. Osprey makes some great great bags, I have a Talon 22L and a 11L and use them as my general day hike bags and they will each carry a good amount of tackle for their sizes very comfortably. The REI house brand is also very good and can be found on sale for great prices. I have gone towards as small a bag as I can stand for a pure fishing trip if I am only going a mile or three from my car. I have a small [url=http://fishpondusa.com/product/detail/medicine-bow-chest-pack/2125] Fishpond Chest Pack[/url] that I use when wading. It holds all my MWF tackle and a small assortment of hard baits and has enough left over room for small tools and other supplies. It is small enough that I can stuff it into a real pack if I am doing a longer hike in and want/need more cargo capacity. For my main fishing pack and the one that I use for like 80% of my outings is an other Fishpond pack, the Summit Sling. It's main pocket can hold (just barely though) a single 3600 box and like 3-4 bags of plastics. The smaller pocket will hold maybe 6 more bags of plastics or smaller planos and there is a very small pocket that will fit a mini-first aid kit and a few snacks. I can fit a 1l bottle of water in the holder and it has points to strap a jacket onto the bottom. The real prize is the workshelf in front. It is amazing for tying on lures and works great as a spot to dry baits before reboxing them. There are some small pockets in the shelf for glue, scent, or small boxes of terminal tackle. It is really a great bag if you like to travel light but still want some comforts.

I went out the other day and fished the combo for any hour or three with the 150' of 10lb Sufix 832 I spooled up. It was a decently windy day, but the spot I was working was pretty sheltered and I was never casting directly into the wind. I really liked how the 832 worked! It cast well, though not as well as the Super 8 or G-Soul, and I didn't really have much in the way of wind knots or tip-wraps. I did get a single bad backlash but I was able to pop the spool out and clear it. The loose coil issue was still present, but far less so then with the Hybrid. The coils were far easier to pull out and the "sharp" nature of the braid kept me from trying to pull too hard. As to what kind of fishing I want to use this combo for, the answer is a bit of everything. I do most of my fishing from the bank or wading and I only bring a single rod. Right now I have a ML spinning combo for streams/rivers and more open water and a M spinning combo for larger waters or more cover-filled spots. I am trying to put together a matching set of casting combos to switch out to for some variety and greater options. I run braid+leader on both of the spinning combos. I was looking to go for a co-polymer or floro on the casting combos as I really prefer it on my MH casting combo and feel that, in my experience, they both work better for pitching then braid. It looks like most of the other co-polymers that were recommended are pretty inexpensive, so I will pick a few different ones up and give them a go. I am also going to try using thinner braid without leader and coloring it black with a marker. One of the spots I wade is very shallow and very clear, but sometimes produces close to 100 bass days. Next time I am in the middle of a good bite I will cut my leader off and give the marker plan a try.

Oh, like the non-Ci4 ones. The FH, FI, FJ, FK line. They are great reels in and of themselves, but are not as light as the Ci4 ones are. I believe the gripe with them is a lack of part's availability as they get older, but the FJ's at the very least are still good to go and I have seen them go for around $100 if you get lucky.

If you just want a "normal" Stradic reel then check out ebay, a lot of the time you can find deals on the older models. I also handled a new Ci4 recently and am gunning to replace my two spinning reels with them, so I do see where you are coming from. In any case, with BF coming up it might be a good time it buy.

It is heartening to hear that other co-polymer line might work. I am going to track down the actual breaking strengths of a few and see what I can pick up during the assorted BF sales.

A pair of Lew's Pro Speed Spins, a 2000 and a 3000. Great reels, but too heavy for the short rods I have them on. I bought them last spring and didn't even look at the weights, my only other spinning reels have been 500 or 1000 sized, so I didn't realize how large and heavy they would be. Going to replace them with 1000 and 2000 Ci4s.

I am looking at buying two of the new Stradic Ci4+ spinning reels. I made the mistake of holding one and now I need to replace both of my perfectly fine reels. Someone here is going to get a good deal in a few weeks. I have been sitting on a couple of mileage reimbursement checks, so it's almost like the reels are already paid for!