MassYak85

Yea I would second what ClackerBuzz said as well. I don't wear them when I'm not out on the water for the reasons he stated, but that's what I bought them for so not a huge deal for me.

I'm thinking of doing that actually. I got some carbontex material to replace the drag in my aging Pro Qualifier (It's my frog reel and the drag is in rough shape). If that goes well (not sure why it wouldn't) I might end up doing the same with the Cardiff. It's not that I can't get enough drag out of it but I feel like there is a very small difference as far as turning the drag star between really heavy and not much at all.

Don't get me wrong they are fun to catch but when you hook into a 28 - 30" pickerel and are expecting to see a 5-6lb bass on the end of your line it's a little disappointing. Those suckers fight hard. That being said if a 3 or 4 lb pickerel follows a bait back to me I'm going to put in a little bit of effort to catch it if I know it's in the area. It was strange though, during the spring I couldn't keep the pickerel off my line but come summer I'm not even sure if I caught 1.

I took my pro qualifier apart last month and I believe they do just snap in. Rather loosely at that, I remember having issues keeping both in place when putting the clutch bar back in.

Another vote for the cardiff. Personally i don't like the drag on it very much but other than that it's a great reel for the price.

I have one and the pickerel absolutely kill it but I haven't had a whole lot of luck for bass yet. Haven't fished it a whole lot though.

They look decent enough to buy. I do really like their interactive jig customization thing on their website.

I was honestly even a little hesitant about spending even that much given how much mine usually get crushed in a backpack or something but they come with a decent case, cleaning cloth, and they also have a $20 no questions asked replacement policy I believe.

@WI_Angler1989 I bought a pair of eye surrender glasses last year. I've never owned anything high end (nor can I really afford them) so I can't compare them but I am very happy with them. They are polarized and they do a great job at letting you see into the water. I'd see something like a snapping turtle and point it out to my dad and he'd say "where, I don't see it" and I'd forget the only reason I could see it was because I was wearing the sunglasses, so they do what you would expect polarized glasses to do. Not sure if it was intentional but they also seem to make colors more vibrant. I take them off and everything looks dull. I haven't had any issue with breakage or scratching, they don't feel like they're super durable if you abuse your gear, but I can't complain either yet.

For the braid I got a line counter, but for the mono the best thing would probably be to do what bigturtle said and just do the braid first of the desired length you want it, then spool the rest with mono strip it off, and then spool it all back on in reverse. I've heard of guys calculating it, but I don't really trust the reel specs when they say "holds X amount of 12lb line" as the diameter of that 12lb line can vary depending what they used as their benchmark, and then the calculation get thrown off.

signed. I've always wanted to go there being relatively close. My local lake got sprayed a couple years back and it killed off a lot of the weedlines so some of the spots, especially from shore just don't produce anymore unfortunately.

Or "SizeMatters"

8

You get better sensitivity with the braid mainline, better line management, and spooling up with straight fluoro might be more expensive depending on the brands. Plus if you decide you need to downsize/upsize your fluorocarbon on the fly for whatever reason you are trashing a 10 foot piece and not an entire spool of it.

Size 2 and 3 owner hyper wires are what I use

Could you...sure. Should you...no.

Usually if I'm in my kayak I just bring snacks. Granola bars, nuts etc. If I plan to be out on a boat where I can bring a cooler I might bring a couple sandwiches. I try to avoid bringing drinks other than water when I'm in the kayak, for obvious reasons. Sometimes my water bottle has to take one for the team.

@SemperFishing All great advice. I make it a point once the water drops into the lower 50's to always have my outriggers attached just to eliminate the risk of a tip. Doesn't mean I can't get dangerously wet but I won't be swimming. As for my gear, thankfully I've never tipped but I have made bungee leashes for most of my rods and tackle. Each rod can be bungee strapped into it's holder and all my boxes are in a milk crate with a bungee going across the top to hold them in, plus the crate itself is bungeed in. Stuff that I keep in the cockpit like pliers, scale, etc. would be lost but compared to the rest of my stuff it wouldn't be a huge deal. *not sure why it won't let me delete the second picture

That's a good point, ice vs plastic hull would probably end badly

I've been holding off the bait monkey but the reel monkey is tugging on my arm. Carbontex sheet to make some drag washers and a second spool for my Cardiff came a couple days ago.

I wouldn't really compare the two in any way other than that they are both topwaters and both pretty popular. IMO they are worth it though. I have the 40 size rat in brown and the 130 size whopper plopper in perch. Think of them as tools though, they aren't going to magically catch fish. The whopper plopper has it's advantages over something like a buzzbait in that it puts out more commotion (I found this was good on really windy days where most other topwaters would have gotten swallowed in the waves), and can be paused on the retrieve when you get to a prime spot. I had some good blowups fishing it right along a dock and the killing it right at the last piling. But on days where they want a more subtle presentation it might not be the answer. The rat got me my third biggest fish this year, not saying I wouldn't have caught it otherwise but it was the right tool for that situation. I really like to cast near pieces of cover and just walk it. It has a great ability to do a 180 turn in place and you can keep it in the strike zone a long time and it stays in a very tight spot, it doesn't have the wide gliding action of say a spook, which when I am casting into a small hole in the lily pads is something I definitely don't want. Then I let the fish tell me how long they want it paused after a series of twitches. The biggest fish I got on it ignored it the first two casts (I didn't know it was there but the spot looked a little "too perfect") so I slowed down. It finally bit after about a 15 second pause. Whether they were worth the money is something I think only you can answer. I know I've gotten and will continue to get my money's worth out of them but I also know people on here have gave the whopper plopper a fair shot and never caught a fish on it.

I'm currently studying plastics engineering myself (in a way it's a hybrid of the molecular knowledge of chemical and the large scale design and manufacturing of mechanical). It would be cool to one day work in the fishing industry and it's definitely at the back of my mind as I go through school and look for jobs but I don't know if it's something I'll ever seriously pursue. We'll see where life takes me though.

The weather is testing my sanity. last weekend I was half tempted to launch my kayak at A1 and break through the skim ice to get to the open part of it.

With circle hooks all you need to do is take up the slack and then maintain constant pressure as the bass is running, they will hook themselves, DO NOT SET THE HOOK. You will rip it right out of their mouths before it gets to the corner (where the hooks are designed to hook them) and your hookup rate will be awful. With 3-4 inch bluegills any decent bass should be able to just inhale them. Make sure they have it of course but when they start running that's when you want to start applying pressure. It should be a very smooth operation. You might already know all this but that's some of the stuff people just starting to use circle's often don't do.