Mastermarsh

Been using the P5 Landsat for a few months now, and it's easily the most balanced & comfortable DSR rod I've used, and prefer it over my NRX 822. The USA destroyers are sold out most places, I have an addermine I use for DS with heavier weights (3/8 +) & bigger/weedless rigged baits. If you wanna drop the cash get the P5, On the cheaper side you can go with the orochii XX whipsnake, it's an awesome Ned/ DS rod with a similar action to the landsat.

Recently purchased the Expride 68MXF and have it paired with a Stradic 2500 Ci4. It's sole function is senko fishing and I couldn't be happier. Feels great in hand, It has enough backbone to pull bigger fish out from under docks, and a fast enough tip to accurately skip senkos a mile. Have used the adrena, but not the new zodias. Still think the expride is best suited for what you want.

I have never had anything but wonderful experiences with SC and their warranty and customer service. I've had rods replaced for free because of defects & broken tips, in fact they are sending me a free replacement mojo bass that was out of warranty today. I also had an eyelet replaced on a legend X this past week, & it only cost 10 dollars. I feel like there has to be more damage to your rod than just a missing eye insert, especially if they are sending you a complete replacement.

On top of what was mentioned above, a shorter rod will make it easier for you to get the proper skipping motion. Using a pegged texas rigged flat plastic creature bait is the easiest to learn with, a 3/8 jig with the same trailer is also a good bait to learn on. Or you could just buy a Tatula SV TW, it has become my dedicated skipping reel. It's basically skipping for dummies.

I was considering the size medium for my terminal tackle in the kayak. While messing around with it at BPS I noticed the clasps on the medium boxes were really easy to flip open, which was consistent across the three they had for sale. I tested the clasps on the larger size and they were much more difficult to open, more akin to all the other boxes on the market. My question is if anyone has experience with the medium size of these boxes, if so how do the clasps feel compared to your other boxes. I want to know if the ones at BPS were lemons before I order them on TW. Thanks

Personally I fish spybaits the entire year on LSC. I will fish them in 18-19 foot in the summer, and in 8-10 foot in the spring slow rolled along the rock reefs scattered across the mile roads. I have caught them on it in 4 foot waves and slick calm, but it's much easier to fish it correctly in calm water. In terms of colors I tend to have the most frequent success on any of the great lakes series colors, and I usually throw the g-fix 80. Most throw megabass vision 110s and its variations 60 % of the time, typically in a shad, ghost, or perch colors. Also the LC pointer & flash pointer have produced very well for me in certain situations, you can never go wrong with the ghost minnow color.

River Smallies- Black Bitsy Bug w/ a black grub trailer will catch good numbers and size of fish all year long. Lake Smallies- Swimbaits or Dropshot can be utilized the entire year and I'll typically have them tied on at all times while fishing for smallmouth.

A blade bait is a quite a bit more subtle than a lipless it has a tight wobble and doesn't have rattles, I find it works way better than a lipless in the super early spring. I do the best hopping it them off bottom a few inches and letting it sit a few seconds, usually the next time I lift theres a fish on it. Plain Silver and Gold are the best two colors for me in 1/2 oz, they also double as a good ice fishing bait for walleye. Those spots wouldn't be terrible ice fishing spots, point with the big flat in the north end of the lake is where I would try ice fishing first. Also depends on what you're targeting, but perch and walleye might be all over those deeper flats. But I will admit, I'm not the best ice fisherman so take that with a grain of salt.

Focus on primary points & secondary points for ice out Smallies & largemouth. Ideally ones next to deep water and that are adjacent to shallower flats, the ones that are rocky are going to be money for smallmouth. The first things I would be throwing if the water is around 40 are blade baits, Jerkbaits, finesse jig, or keitech easy shiner. Look on the Navionics webapp to get a better idea of the areas I marked on the map, those are the first places I'de look for winter/early pre-spawn fish.

For your first time to LSC stick to the area between 9 mile road to the 400 club or in front of the Metropark, mostly target the 6-10 foot range from April to the spawn in June. They are super aggressive during that time, so if you cover water you will find the fish. Be cautious of the weather as well, the waves pick up quickly with an east wind. Don't overlook the phenomenal largemouth fishing in the canals that time of year if the weather/wind isn't cooperating. I caught my Michigan PB largemouth (6.11) and smallmouth (7.4) on the same day last spring. Tube, Jerkbait, Lipless crank, DT6, or swimbaits are my goto for finding em.

Personally I always run 10-15lb braid to a leader on my spinning reels, and braid to leader on half of my casting setups. All of my specialty rods have the line paired with the technique/rod action. Braid behaves differently on baitcasters due to line diameter. Also your difficulty of casting those two baits in the wind are related to their weight and wind resistance, not necessarily the line type you're using.

Thanks A-Jay, I can't believe I never knew about that website, It has a bunch of other colors of the 110 JR I have been trying to find for some time. Once this hardwater were experiencing thaws out I'll give them a try and let you know what I think. Bret

Well considering my favorite jerkbait is a vision 110 those are a nice price drop. Those are the exact ones I have been looking at, but they are on constant back order in the 110 size on TW. And I can't seem to find the 95 size anywhere. Anyone know where I can find them?

Hey guys, Can you guys recommend a shallow water suspending jerkbait? I'm looking for something that will run around the 1-2 foot depth range so I can work over early weed growth in the spring, as well as work over flooded timber without getting hung up every cast. I have had decent success with the shadow rap, but the action leaves something to be desired when trying to cover larger flats. Thanks

Tie on some corkland tooth critters, after losing 50 dollars work of jerksbaits and chatterbaits I decided to never fish kensington without it. It's much more limber than a standard wire leader, and hardly affects the baits action.

Welcome fellow A2 resident. Go Blue!

Most of those are the spots that you can access the best bass fishing water from this time of year, most of it is around shallow bays so it's the first to warm up. But typically I see people fishing at those spots every-time I'm out. The pike are getting super aggressive in the shallower water, I lost two chatterbaits, a shadow rap, and two jigs yesterday. Won't forget steel leaders again.

I marked up a map for you of where I tend to see people fishing from shore having the most luck, now that the water is steadily going up all the bays with shore access should be better fishing. The big red circle has a bunch of different areas you can fish from shore and have seen those guys doing the best. Has anyone noticed that a lot of the seaweed around the lake didn't die off over the winter? Last year I was dragging a football head around some of the bays, this year they are already up near the surface in some spots.

I went out again yesterday, water is still quite low. Water temp ranged from 49-57 depending on what part of the lake you were fishing. Caught a few nice 4-6 pounders, Jigs, Chatterbaits, Jerkbaits, the normal prespawn stuff.

I was out last sunday, and caught a fair number of bass and a nice five pounder. The water level is still really low so I opted to take the kayak out, although there were some guys in boats out there.

I had 20lb super slick 8 on my 70 and switched to 30 because the line was digging in, since switching I haven't had any problems.

I have both models and each has their benefits, If given the option I would choose the 70 over the 200. The 70 is much smaller and very easily palmable and really excels when throwing lighter baits, but also performs well throwing jerkbait. That said I think the 70 is a huge improvement over the 200i for any application you would want to use it for.

This year I spent most of the season throwing different styles of jerkbaits (hard, soft, suspending, floating, different sizes & color patterns) I set out to be able to recognize which jerkbaits & retrieves are most effective at different water temperatures, water clarities, and learning high percentage areas where I can go on a new lake and always catch a few jerkbait fish. I also spent a lot of time on learning the art flipping and pitching into heavy cover and how to recognize potential areas that bass may be lurking among cover to maximize my time on the water.

For an all around rod the 7'1 is going to feel more balanced with the 3000 sized reel, plus the length and slower action is going to allow you to fish a wider variety of baits. I have a 6'8 Legend tournament and while I love the rod for everything I use it for sometimes I prefer to finesse baits on my 7'1 mojo because I can cast further and feel like I can play the fish more. If you can try your reel on both of them at a store and see which one feels more comfortable.

Tubes are always a good bet in a 3/16 or 1/4 oz with internally weighted jig head depending on the cover, if you pop it off the bottom and let it spiral back down you're sure to get it. It covers a lot more ground than a dropshot and fishes the same area of the water column. You could also try any variety of jerkbaits although deeper diving ones might produce better. Also a lipless crank bait might be able to trigger some reaction bites, but depending on your bottom cover that might be a nightmare waiting to happen.