Junk Fisherman

Was there an air vent or something that he thought was the gas intake? Where was the gas nozzle? Did the same thing a couple years ago. Thankfully it was at daylight and no one was around.

There is no question that I prefer to fish out of my boat over my kayak. Like others have said, cost of boat ownership is substantially more than owning a kayak. Hell, I spend nearly $500 a year on insurance and trailer registration alone. But kayak fishing for me is just playing around at the local lake while fishing out of my boat is what I daydream about. Unless money is the issue, I would definitely get a bassboat over a kayak.

I think it all just depends. I have seen a storm completely shut things down and the opposite as well. I had a memorable morning once throwing a shakey head on a weedline just crushing 3-5 lb bass. A storm moved in and I had to tie up to a dock and sit through all sorts of thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. Once the storm was over I went back out to where I was fishing and slammed them the rest of the day.

Hey Megastink. Definitely not an expert but I have watched the Seth Feider videos on this technique and have picked up the Outkast Maribou jigs in black and brown. I have used them a couple times and caught fish with them. It's a do-nothing technique in which a slow, steady retrieve is all that is recommended. The biggest issue I found has been casting distance. I added a small piece of dense worm (remember the Berkley heavyweight worms?) that added enough weight so the jig weighed as much as a Ned Rig. That really helped with casting distance.

I'll give that a shot. Thanks. I will say that on a slow day, I didn't catch a single smallmouth on a traditional jighead and swimbait while I instantly got bit on the Okashira/Sparkshad and ended up catching a couple decent fish.

I will start mine in the driveway with muffs and water flowing early in the season if the boat has sat for a couple months. But during the season, I never start it until I get to the lake. Now, my 9.9 that I use a couple times a year I will start it up the day before a trip to make sure it is running well.

I used these with a Spark Shad for the first time yesterday and was very impressed. The only problem was I lost way too many baits from fish grabbing the tail. Any solution to this? I glue my swimbaits to the jig head but you can’t do this with the screwhead. The only thing holding the bait on is a small keeper. Any thoughts are appreciated.

This is the one I have my eye on. I have a Wilderness Systerm Ride 115 that I am going to sell this fall or spring. The pedal drive looks great with the 5-year warranty. So often you have that slight breeze where you don't want to anchor but you have to keep touching up with the paddle. Those are the times I want the pedal drive for. I was considering the Hobie under 2k but the fact that you can't pedal backwards is a deal breaker. Hope you like it. Please post a review in the future.

The newer Tacomas get better MPGs and a similar towing capacity compared to the older model Tacomas. Some Tacoma enthusiasts complain because the 3.4 L Tacoma is not as peppy as the older model 4.0 L. I have a 2008 Tacoma V6 and I can tell you that its mileage sucks and I would take the tradeoff to the 3.4 L. Overall, it has been a great truck It has a 6500 lb towing capacity and my boat is around 3500 lbs. It does fine towing but I definitely feel it back there. Something to keep in mind about the Tacoma is that their resale value is incredibly high. So while you would pay more upfront, you will get a higher percentage of that back when you sell it and it will be an in-demand vehicle. I can see that you are concerned about keeping the price in a certain range. Think about how long you are going to keep the vehicle. If you are gonna keep it 10 years, then the additional cost now will not be as great when you average it over the life of the vehicle. Several times, I have bought big ticket items and wished later I had spent more. You get that vehicle or boat paid off in a couple years and wish you had bought more initially. Just a thought. Good luck.

Hello Matt. Welcome. What part of IL are you from? Where do you fish? I'm a Braidwood, Lake Michigan, Cal Sag guy. Used to wade the Kankakee a lot.

Joining a club is the least expensive way to learn a lot about bass fishing both with techniques and areas to fish. I fished as a nonboater for a few years and learned quite a bit from the boaters. I learned a lot of little things like how to run a boat, how to work an area with a trolling motor, strategy, organization, ect. You learn a lot more being a nonboater since you can observe what each boater does and learn both positives and negatives. And all you're really doing is just splitting expenses. It is a great deal IMO for nonboaters. You get to learn a lot, fish in nice boats, and hopefully make some friends.

The modified V will give you the better fishing platform for bass fishing. You'll be closer to the water which makes skipping docks, pitching wood and weeds, and netting fish easier. You'll be completely safe unless you are fishing Great Lakes or large inland lakes and the wind gets up. I fish the Great Lakes often and I wouldn't hesitate to fish out of a modified V. You just have to play it smart. But if I was buying a boat for inland lakes in Wisconsin, I would get an aluminum modified V.

While I don't have any good advice, I gotta say that I really enjoyed your post. Getting a guide for learning purposes is something I have done a couple times and it greatly helped. And I love reading about your struggle with shallow confidence fishing versus fishing deep structure where you don't have the confidence but your instinct is that it's where you need to fish to be most successful. This is the type of strategic thinking and self-awareness that I love about bass fishing. Good luck.

This is a very good point. Multiple times I have bought a rod for one purpose and then ended up using that rod for something else. For example, I thought my 7'9" ML Dobyns Champion rod would be great for throwing tubes for smallies in open water. It might be but it is perfect for throwing 3"-4" swimbaits which is one of my confidence techniques so that rod is my dedicated finesse swimbait rig. I thought my 7'4" ML Dobyns Champion rod would be that tube rod but it is lighter than I thought and it is ideal for Ned rigs or light dropshot. So I ended up using my 7' ML Champion for lighter tubes and I bought a 7'6" medium action Dobyns Champion for 1/2-3/4 oz tubes. It wasn't until multiple outings using different rods for different applications that I found out what I like best.

Spinning- 6 Baitcasting- 8 Go to rigs: 741 Dobyns Champion HP/ 2500 Daiwa Procyon: Ned rigs 792 Dobyns Champion XP/ 2500 Daiwa Tatula: small swimbaits 843 Loomis GLX/ Daiwa Zillion: Pitching plastics and finesse jigs St Croix Legend Tournament 7 MH moderate fast action/Daiwa Tatula SV TW: bladed jigs, swimjigs

I use a longer rod but ML action with 10 lb braid/fluoro is the way to go. You will definitely bend and break Z-Man hooks which is why I make my own with either Owner or Mustad hooks. I can still bend them but I haven't broken any of them. In terms of the weight, I notice a significant difference in getting weeds using 1/15th oz instead of 1/10. A lot more weeds with 1/10th oz. My standard is 1/15 but I like to use 1/10 if I am dragging and hopping it over rocks especially for smallies. In terms of the retrieves, there are a lot of different styles of retrieves. I do lots of hops and falls, shake it, and swim it a little. It's a do-nothing bait so just having it fall and glide is very effective.

Use a 1/15th oz jig and a #2 hook. I have started to experiment with a #4 hook to see if my hookup/land percentage remains the same as using a #2 or #1 hook. The bait is surprisingly weedless as long as it is 1/15 with the small hook. Like someone mentioned, when you get to a bigger weight and hook it is more of a shakey head than a Ned rig. I fish a very weedy lake and have learned over the last month how truly weedless it is. You can ****** the bait from weed stalks often and still have a clean retrieve. With the 1/15th weight you can work it a little faster and keep it off the bottom as well. Sometimes you get snagged or bring back weeds but the more I fish it, the less it happens. Having a light, sensitive rod and using braid/fluoro is key to knowing what exactly is happening with you bait. While I haven't used them a lot, I did buy some Owner 1/16 oz #1 EWG jigs with Ned in mind but I didn't like how the hook was coming through the TRD. I tried it once and missed a couple fish and immediately went back to my standard rig. Good luck.

The SE Sport 400 helped my hole shot tremendously and reduce porpoising. I had people recommending going with a different prop but I thought I would try the $100 solution first. I am not a prop/boat setup purist. I am fine with a band-aid.

Not that old. I did that but I didn’t take the reel completely apart. I’ll have to look into it more. Thanks.

I have a Daiwa Procyon 2500 that intermittently is tough to start reeling. I close the bale by hand and it is tough to start reeling. Once it starts the reel is smooth. And it doesn't do it all the time but definitely enough that I want to get it repaired. It is not the handle or the spool. I swapped handles with another reel and it still happened plus the other reel with the Procyon handle was fine. I took off the spool and it still happened. Any ideas? Thanks for any tips.

I have heard really good things about Dutchman but have never fished it. Heard the frog fishing can be fantastic.

Thanks for the tips Angus. What lakes were you fishing in So IL? My dad has a home in Cave in Rock and I have fished some of the lakes in Shawnee National Forest. Fished Glenn Jones Lake a couple weeks ago when I visited. Hiked Garden of the Gods too. That place is fantastic. In terms of my day, I was unprepared. I hadn't fished the lake in several years and it was much weedier than I thought. I only had one baitcaster with fluoro and that doesn't work for fishing frogs. Being in my kayak I pretty much decide how I am going to fish before I go to the lake and I take very little tackle. I would definitely fish different techniques if I was going back there today. The pattern you discussed is how I did catch my bass at Shabonna and Glen Jones Lake over the last couple weeks and those lakes are 300+ miles apart. Both were on rocky shorelines with light vegetation. Actually, it was the success I had at Glenn Jones that made me focus on the spot at Shabbona where I ended up taking 2nd out of 26 in a tournament. I was definitely looking for spots like that yesterday but it was very weedy everywhere. Good fishing.

Decided to do something different today and fished Whalen Lake which I hadn't fished in a couple years. TOUGH One 16" bass on a Ned Rig in 5 hours of fishing. Didn't have another hit all morning. Water was 78 to 82 with nice clarity. I figured it wouldn't be great fishing with the big storms that moved through yesterday and the east winds and high pressure but I thought I would at least catch some small ones on finesse stuff. Need to start carrying sunscreen in my kayak. Fried my legs.

This is a great topic and some very thoughtful posts have been made. My answer is I am never waiting to set the hook on a Texas-rigged plastic. There are times when I stop to see if I have a bite. Like others have said, you don't want to drive your plastic into a brushpile or wedge it into rocks thus ruining the spot and potentially losing your bait. But I also realize that hooksets are free so if I am truly in doubt after a couple seconds I tend to set it. With experience and high-end equipment bite detection gets easier however you are still going to run into those times where you don't know. The hardest is when the bass inhales it and doesn't move especially on the fall of your cast. This is when it seems like people are waiting but it is bite detection. And I don't use a lot of 10" worms, is it common for bass to bite the back half of the worm and then take another bite getting the hook? That would change my approach but 95% of all the plastics I throw are 5" or less and keeper bass inhale it all at once.

I too used to be a 1-spinning rig guy especially as a nonboater. But nowadays I have a boat big enough to carry a lot of tackle and I fish for smallmouth about 50% of time. I now have 5 spinning combos. 702 Dobyns Champ old edition- shakey, light tubes up to 3/16 oz, Neko, dropshot 741 Dobyns Champ Extreme- Ned and hair jigs 742 Dobyns Champ Extreme- dropshot, Ned 763 Dobyns Champ XP- 1/2 oz tubes and stupid tubes; heavy dropshot Anything too heavy for this rod goes on a baitcaster. 792 Dobyns Champ XP- small swimbaits- love this long rod for its casting distance and ability to handle fish. The 2 power for Dobyns is very versatile and would cover most bass fisherman's needs.