MassYak85

I fished A1 again today. Thankfully the temps dipped down and touched freezing so all the slushy ice from saturday froze again. It was still pretty sketchy though. There was like 6 inches total of ice. About 4 of crappy white ice full of air bubbles, and about 2 on the bottom of clear, but heavily fractured ice. We managed about 5 bass and 5 pickerel. I managed a pickerel jigging too. Biggest bass was 2.4lbs. Action was slow, the fish we did get came in short bursts of two or three at a time and then about an hour of waiting. It was an absolutely beautiful day though. It was overcast in the morning but we watched a clearly defined edge in the clouds move over us and the sun came out and dare I say, dressed in all black, that it was hot. I got a slight sunburn from the last two days. I'm not sure if you guys have ever experienced this but when the ice is melting fast, you can hear it. The air bubbles frozen in the ice get released as the layers start to melt and it almost sounds like a tiny stream is flowing underneath your feet. Cool and a little scary at the same time. We walked on the ice around 8:30 and it was frozen solid, when we walked back to the ramp around 1:00 there was about half an inch of water on the entire pond. Season's over at least in my area. Only got out 3 times but I'm ready for spring. Daytime temps stabilizing in the 40's and 50's this week, one day of 60, and a weekend of 50 degree rain. I think the week after that is supposed to get cold again but it would take a serious cold snap to even lock places up again, never mind get them safe enough to fish again.

Even dinks can potentially swallow something like a hudd 68. Last fish I caught in the fall was on a hudd 68 and only weighed about 2lbs, not what I would consider a dink but it still had plenty of room left in it's mouth.

Fished A1 today for about 5 hours. The action was really strange. We'd wait around for an hour and then have two flags go up at once...then wait an hour, have two flags go off within 2 minutes. In total we got 5 pickerel and 4 bass, biggest being about 2 lbs. I'll be fishing somewhere again tomorrow but this looks to be my last weekend ice fishing. Weather this week looks nothing short of murder for ice. I wouldn't be surprised if I could launch a kayak on A1 next Sunday after the really high temps this week and the rain we're supposed to get Saturday. Wouldn't that be something, ice fishing one weekend and kayak fishing the next...on the same lake.

It's weird I was the exact opposite. Had multiple Uni to Uni's snap on hooksets and now use Albright's with no issues. Just goes to show with all the info we share sometimes you've just got to see what works best for you.

then get another coin and decide between 10 or 15lb and you should be all set

Giving the new Waver a go I see

Tackle tour put a review up recently for them, check it out! http://www.tackletour.com/reviewlivetargetswimbait.html

You should be fine using straight braid when bed fishing. They are mainly hitting it out of aggression and just don't want the bait near their bed. That being said what was your leader setup (knot, what lb braid to what lb leader)?

I like the stuff, I really can't say that's it's better than power pro but I can't really say it's worse either. Only complaint I have about either of them is that 832's green color bleeds more than power pro but that's really a non-issue in my book.

Less buoyant as in it sinks, or do you want something about neutral?

I guess I could see the confusion since actual PTFE has a density about twice that of water and would in fact sink, I'm not sure if 832 just blends some PTFE fibers into it or is mainly made of the stuff, but whatever the reason it does in fact float.

I probably wouldn't throw really light baits ( < 1/4) on mine regardless of the rod. I'm sure if you really got the reel dialed in you might be able to with a good thumb but for stuff that light I just use my spinning setup.

For heavier jerkbaits I use a 7' MF casting, for tiny ones I use my ML 6'10" MLXF spinning (like a pointer 65).

I'm willing to bet it comes form the exact same mold as the S-Waver and they just painted it differently and added cheap hardware. One thing to consider with brand name swimbaits (by brand name I mean the popular ones not the knock offs) is resale value. People will buy used S-Wavers for a decent percentage of what you paid for it....this no one is going to want once the first glimpse of hook rash starts.

I was out last weekend on A1 (Westborough) with about 3 - 4" of white ice and about 2" of clear underneath. I heard a report online that someone fished in Hopkinton today and had 8" of ice. With the past two storms most of the ice will be snow that melted into slush and then froze. Temps are supposed to touch 20 tonight and tomorrow night and should refreeze any melting that occurred this week. It really depends on the lake though. A1 always seems to melt the snow it gets very quick, I saw other lakes the same day that looked like a slush pit. And just because there is slush on top doesn't mean they aren't safe but obviously be very careful. Late season ice is about as sketchy as it gets. That's one of the reasons I fish A1 so much is I feel relatively comfortable with how it acts during the winter. For example a few weekends ago I was looking at another pond about 5 minutes from there and there was about 2" on that pond, but about a 50 foot section filled with geese that was open water. Fast forward a week and I'm sure that spot probably froze. Had someone tested at the ramp and found 4" then walked over to that spot unknowingly, I would think they would go through. It always amazes me during the winter that our tiny little state has such varying micro-climates. The Cape might never freeze some winters, meanwhile some winters central MA might only see a month of safe ice, and northern and western might get 4 months of safe ice.

I have no complaints with my Diawa Tatula 7'2" HF. And you can find them for 100 too. If you're looking to spend closer to 200 though I'm sure there are much nicer rods out there.

I've kind of toyed with this idea myself but I'm not going to be buying a rod specifically for it anytime soon. Mainly because my jig rod is the only one I own that can handle the weight of my whopper plopper 130 besides my swimbait rod, but it's sweet spot is more in the 2-3 ounce range. Ideally I'd like something like a 7'9" Heavy Mod-Fast. Something stout but can load a little deeper into the blank. Because a lot of the lures you describe are treble hook baits so you're going to want some flex to absorb the head shakes. I've said it before on here but I used my HF jig rod for my 130 plopper this season and I caught plenty, but also lost plenty. Not the right action for the lure IMO.

x2 For my jig/t-rig reel I have two spools. One with 40lb braid, the other with 16lb Sniper Fluoro. I can switch them out on the go depending on the conditions I run into.

In theory I guess this makes sense but my 40lb came back dripping when I was using it.

I'm planning to ice fish at least twice this 3 day weekend. Day temps look like they are stabilizing in the 40's after that and we might start to see a thaw. Fine by me, as long as I can put a line in the water and not be in the water myself I'm happy.

x2 I use it a lot for leaders on my spinning rods for drop shots, shakey heads, finesse worm presentations. I tried spooling up 12lb but didn't really like it a whole lot for that. More of a personal preference thing for me since I'm used to braid mainline and didn't like the stretch I was getting on hooksets.

It floats, I've used it in 40 and 65 lb and would second everything @fishnkamp said.

Sniper is the only fluoro I've tried and I have no reason to switch other than cost. But I feel this is one area where you truly do get what you pay for.

Another for the thunderspin. Haven't caught a lot on it yet but it fishes nicely.

The lower bearing reels are usually opting to not put them in places like the handle. Some of these 10 bearing reels have 4 handle knob bearings, which do absolutely nothing as far as casting performance. Another thing is quality. You can add a ball bearing to every piece of the reel that spins but if they are crap bearings it isn't going to matter as far as how well the reel performs.