MassYak85

I leave it on and assess in the spring. Braid I have no worries about being stored and mono/fluoro can usually be re-tamed with some line conditioner and a few hooked fish the first time out to provide some tension. My swimbait setup I will definitely change though, it's a few bucks worth of line on the spool (CXX) vs the cost of a 20-30 dollar swimbait. I look to save money with most things but that is not one of them.

I'm probably in the minority but I like braid for my moving baits, I tried using Yozuri Hybrid for spinnerbaits this year and while I liked the line I missed the direct contact and sensitivity of braid and the stretch in the line I felt cost me a few fish on the hooksets when they didn't fully grab it. If you decide to go braid I'd recommend stepping up to 30lb as your mainline if you are using leaders that heavy. 20lb braid to a 15lb leader is a pretty big difference in line diameters.

I had the same thing happen to me haha. I was fishing from shore at my home lake and I look over and see two what I assumed to be muskrats at first swimming. When I looked over again it was quite clear they were not muskrats but I had never seen an otter in the wild in my entire life to that point so I just stared at them for a minute to make sure I wasn't going crazy.

Same, I was eyeing the 5.5 Zillion to start to put together a cranking setup given how it would have been 100 bucks with the added discount. I had some gift cards I was going to burn but I think I'm going to save them for a bigger purchase next year instead. I kind of want the Muse "Noir" Swimbait rod and an A3 reel but I'm not paying retail for that setup. Might wait until the next Black Friday sale and use the gift cards then to minimize the out of pocket cost.

Lethal Weapon IV swim jig and a kietech 3.8 trailer.

Now that's the kind of mindset to have if you want to accomplish something

Get a good summer Co-op and continue to better myself overall As far as fishing I'm going to make it a goal to land two fish over 6 this year (current PB is 5.4)

I don't have the self control to leave lures unopened when I get them but I also am not buying so many that I have 3 spares either haha

Personally I don't palm reels like some guys like to do so the slightly bulkier frames don't concern me. I'll probably end up picking up the 5.5 ratio for a cranking set up and the sale price is there. Also I don't own any but the Tatulas don't have the free floating spool do they? I have to imagine that gives some edge even if it is minimal. Edit* I read the TT comparison between the Zillion TWS and the Tatula's and to be fair the Zillion is very similar but I see nothing negative about the differences that do exist, an upgraded (however minimally) Tatula for around 100 bucks...I don't see how you could go wrong. Seeing the differences the original 300 dollar price tag is not justified but when dropped down into the price range of the Tatula it seems like a no-brainer.

To be fair it seemed the things TT had issues with were more less-critical things and more to do with how it compared to the rest of the Diawa line before it. Internally and functionally they didn't really say much bad about it.

I'll just speak to the Bassmaster magazine aspect of this. Do I like the fact they have tobacco advertisements? No. But any literate human being should be able to look at the ad and see in the 32 size bolded font "MAY CAUSE CANCER" and come to a reasonable conclusion about the risks of using said product. If you think it warrants canceling the subscription to show you displeasure, that's fine, I don't blame you. BUT, canceling your subscription alone is not going to get that message across. Sure, you hit them where it hurts, there wallets...but all they see is a loss of subscriptions for some unknown reason. They aren't going to assume it's because of the ads, most likely they will assume they need to make a change in the contents of the magazine to attract more people. So if the reason you canceled is the ads you need to write or email them and tell them that, otherwise your canceled subscription does nothing to further the cause you are trying to support.

Honestly I was more scared of the chiefs and Pittsburgh before Carr broke his leg. This season they got pretty lucky with the easy schedule but they've shown plenty of times they don't need the easy schedule to win.

I have two of the regular president and love them, and I can't imagine the XT could possibly be any worse....so I'd buy it if I were you.

I was eyeing the "Zako" color for a bluegill imitation since it has the light blue flake in it. There's 4 or 5 colors I think could be used for bluegill imitations though. The watermelon, the two green pumpkin variations, and maybe even the copper one if the bluegill in your area have really colorful throats.

Also OP, are you dead set on a sit on top? I know I'm in the minority on this one but I feel for the lower price range of kayaks a sit-in can potentially be better suited for fishing than the lower end sit on tops.

I'm not sure how much interest this will have on this forum but I figured I'd try it out. This type of thread was done in another forum I'm on and it was pretty interesting. Basically each person listens to and rates out of 10 the song posted above them and then posts a song they enjoy. It can be as simple as "8/10 here's my song:" or you can go into more depth about why you rated it the way you did. It lets people share their musical interests and also might expose people to stuff they have not heard before. The only rule is you should ideally listen to the entirety of the song you are rating. I'll start and we can see if you guys like the thread enough to keep it going.

Thanks guys, now I just need some hooks for it

Fishing from shore this season I found this little guy hanging in a tree. It's a pretty small crankbait, possibly intended for crappie fishing but I had never seen one like it before, I cut the hooks and split rings off because they were totally rusted and broken. Has anyone ever seen one of these?

Larger surface lures or a frog gets the blood pumping the most. My second favorite is wacky rig.

Couldn't pass up the lucky craft sale on TW huh @ethan-333? Haha. I almost got some too but decided against it and that I have enough cranks to do what I want next season.

What I liked to throw on cloudy/windy days this year were spinnerbaits, what the fish liked me to throw this year on cloudy/windy days was a whopper plopper... I used to hate the wind because starting out bass fishing I pretty much exclusively fished weightless worms on braid, so it was important to be able to see the line on top of the water to see twitches and bites. Basically any wind made this very difficult and so I grew to despise fishing in the wind. Fishing out of a kayak in the wind is also difficult, and can severely limit what you can do so that didn't help. That being said the last couple years I have grown to see the wind as a good thing, in fact there were a couple of occasions the last couple years that I specifically went out on days with 20+mph winds and they paid off with some nice fish. For me the fish seem a little more predictable and active when the wind is kicking so long as other factors aren't in play to negate it.

I'll echo the Pflueger President in the 30 size for a spinning reel. I have 2 and both still function flawlessly

Oh man that 5.5:1 Zillion is tempting since I don't have a crankbait setup at the moment, especially if the 25% off sale items applies to that as well. 300 dollar reel for 100 bucks...we'll see if I can bring myself to it. Of course that would mean I would need a rod too Bait Monkey looks like he may get the last laugh I also have a gift card that would pretty much cover the reel... this thread is dangerous

Man that rod looks beautiful

I took the roof racks off my car but this storm is going to destroy whatever ice we have left around here so if a warm day pops up I might be tempted to launch.