BassB8Caster

Nice. thank you very much, greatly appreciated.

Yeah thats pretty much my thinking. Worth a try vs throwing it out. Im usually very meticulous and careful. Just a bit apprehensive with something new like this. Nothing dramatic happened with the reel so it shiuldnt be missing any parts. If there were a spring that broke, where would i get parts? Thanks guys

I have a black max reel (the first bait caster i owned) that is messing up on me. It did it once or twice last time out, but today it was several casts in a row to where i stopped using it. I would cast it out, go to engage the reel and nothing. Handle just spins. After messing with the drag/tension knob it finally engaged. But it took a while. Anyone know whats going on? No signs of any issues. Just cast it out and would not engage. I know its a cheap reel, but its been pretty good to me at the price i paid. Thanks guys.

Thanks for the input guys. Basically what i was thinking. I was just curious about too much of a rise. And the timing of the rise. Here it started raining around 4ish sunday afternoon and was done by midday monday. Some places received over 4 inches of rain. only one way to find out.

Hey guys, i looked quickly through the new threads and didnt see any discussions of the last storm here in the northeast. We got a ton of water dumped on us in a very short period of time. There is a ton of scattered flooding. Word is a dam here in Maine as well as one in NH broke. As most of us know, a rise in water level is good as the bass will check the new areas out for nood food sources. I have seen this first hand last summer. My question is, is there such thing as too much of a rise in water level? Prior to the rain, many lakes and ponds were lowered in anticipation of the rain. I fished the day before the storm thinking they would be actively feeding. The fishing was tough at best. So what do you guys think? Good fishing this weekend?

hard to argue with this. A day trip on the everglades would be pretty amazing. Peacock bass would also be a trip to remember.

Yep. That savage gear deal is until Nov 4th, if i remember correctly.

Dicks also has savage gear lures buy one get one 50% off

Thats kind of like going down to mexico to fish for those monsters. Then going back home and catching 4 to 5lbers (dinks).

I appreciate the insight

I agree with those saying a guide isnt needed. Problem is, we dont have any real criteria to base our opinions on (besides date). Are we showing up with a bass boat with good electronics? Kayak? Bank fishing. All would elicit different recommendations IMO. I currently fish out of a kayak without electronics. So if im planning this, i want a guide with a boat and electronics to put me on fish. Fishing (potentially) pressured lakes that are large is tough in a kayak or on bank. You are very limited. Hence hiring a guide would be my preference. But if i have a boat with electronics, i have great odds by myself. Bottom line is to to be able to wet your line close enough to the trophy you seek.

Kayak or canoe. Any experience or knowledge about saco river reservoir above skelton dam or wadleigh pond? Trying to be within 30 min or so from back cove area.

Good to know. Thank you for the education. They look like some stout fish either way.

wow those are some awesome fish! they have some crazy coloring. Very rainbow like. That big one would look pretty sweet mounted.

that is awesome! That must put a big bass fight to shame.

Nice. I did decent on sunday up here in Western Maine. Found all the fish in 4 to 8 feet of water in submerged hydrilla and grass. Best 2 came when ripping a spinner and lipless out of the grass. THey were all fat healthy fish from 3 to 4.5lbs. They were not as aggressive as a few weeks ago, but still hungry none the less. I just got in a 6" savage gear line thru trout that i wanted to try, but after a few pickerel followers nipping at it, i put it away. I already had a 5.8 keitech's tail bitten off after one cast. Didnt need to lose that SG to those toothy critters. I didnt have any luck on squarebills this time, but did well with lipless and spinners. Any good ponds around portland to hit up? Ive never fished down there. Brother in law lives in portland, so we may go somewhere in the area.

I went out yesterday in the same pond i have fished the last three times (3 total ever for that pond). Its around 100 acres with a shallow flat (around 7 feet) at the south end (outlet end) then has a 15' to 16' deep channel that goes up the middle of the pond. The north end has a smaller flat that goes from 2 to 7 feet before dropping off to the deeper channel in the middle. All 3 times out i found the fish in the deeper (6 to 8) flat areas, not up in the shallows that i expected. These flats have submerged weeds and vegetation that the fish are hanging in. The first two times out i did well with a Keitech impact fat 5.8 and a sexy shad square bill. Yesterday was a little tougher as we had sunny blue bird skies. Thankfully we had a decent breeze. Yesterday they hit a chrome with blue back lipless crank and a shad colored spinnerbait. First fish was caught on a small popr. All the fish were in the submerged veggies. Two (the biggest two i caught) were caught when ripping free the lipless and spinner in grass. Biggest fish was around 4.5 with another at 4.25, 2 3.5 and a 3. Also caught a few smaller bass and several (too many) small pickerel. If i had to limit my tackle to 5 lures right now, it would be a lipless crank, spinnerbait, swimbait, squarebill, and a soft plastic of choice (lizard, big worm etc). I would target any flats with 4 to 8 feet of water with submerged grass.

Thats basically what im reading. We would be better off finding a pond and target the green fish. I just got a couple new savage gear swimbaits that im can't wait to try out. Thanks for the advice

Nice healthy fish right there! Good work

Anyone have any experience fishing back cove in portland? My sister and brother in law live there and i was thinking of taking the kayak out and see if i can't hook into anything. I have ZERO ocean fishing experience.

If this was in response to my post....i want to get into bigger swimbaits. Is it possible to have one set up that will effectively fish baits from 2 to 3 oz all the way up to 8 or so oz (possibly up to 10/12 inch swimbaits). I see alot of people say that certain rod ratings are not accurate (usually handle less than what is advertised). So would it be feasible to do all this on one rod? Or better off 2 rods (one up to 5 or 6 oz and one heavier)? The rod i buy will be strictly swimbaits.

Im starting to look as well. Anyone have any experience with the daiwa dx swimbait rod? Extra heavy is 3 to 10 oz baits and extra extra heavy is 4 to 15 oz (if i remember correctly).

You do hear this alot and i agree. One other odd situation i had with color had to do with my spro rat. The morning dawn comes with a yellow tail on it with 2 purple replacements. After so many catches, my yellow tail was damaged enough to be unusable. So i put on the purple tail. I could not get any bites on it. Got some replacement yellow tails and i am back to catching them on it. An odd fluke? Probably. Slightly interesting though. But i do agree that the action of these baits is too good to not get strikes from an aggressive fish. As fishermen we can all agree how hit or miss they can be from one day to the next.

For the last 2 weeks i have found the fish to be justoffshore 30 to 50 feet from vegetation. We have had really cool nights here in Maine for weeks now. The water is cooling. My thought has been that the fish should be in the vegetation that is still alive. But im finding that to not be the case. Now i fish relatively shallow (10 feet the deepest) 100 acre ponds. There is alot of vegetation on the bottom too. Only fish up in the shallows are pickerel. I had good luck with square bills, keitech 5.8 and a couple on the spro rat. Silvery colors seemed yo be the ticket

I have a 130 in loon. Prior to buying, my research seemed to show more people had success with that color than others. So thats what i went with. I really have not had much luck with it. So.....if we go with the idea its the wrong color, what do you guys feel is throwing the fish off. We know the action and draw power of these baits. I know im around bigger fish (not that size really matters). In my head, i would think it would look like a wounded bird, rat etc that is dark colored. Am i off base? So would this suggest that fish dont want to eat a bird if they dont have to? On the other hand, i get tons of action with the spro bbz1 rat in morning dawn size 40. Anyone have more insight on the color idea?