MassYak85

First off a PFD, and some other safety stuff like a whistle and bright flag wouldn't be a bad idea either. From there I would recommend a comfortable seat (you want the fish to determine how long you stay out, not how much your back/butt hurt hurt) and a decent paddle (if you plan to fish larger lakes instead of just pond hopping). As for fishing related stuff, that's where kayaks are so great. It's all up to you! You can make it completely your own. Keep in mind how you plan to use it...How much gear are you taking?Are you the guy who brings 6 rods and enough plano boxes to fill a milk crate, or the minimalist who goes out with a few bags of worms and 1 setup?

Dang, that stinks. Very nice looking baits though, hopefully you catch some monsters. What's the sink rate on those? I'd be jumping in if there was even a slight possibility I could catch up to it before it got too deep.

^This Some swimjigs are lightwire hooks and have very flimsy weed gaurds, in which case a softer rod, more comparable to something you might fish a spinnerbait with, might be better. But some of the swimjigs like the dirty jigs california swimjig matt allen talks about in his video, use extremely heavy wire hooks, thick weed gaurds, and are heavy and bulky. You want a solid hookset. I also disagree with that article in the OP. Yes, when a fish knocks slack into your line it can be very difficult to detect the bite depending on the conditions, and I guess it could help to see the rod tip bend back. Personally when I am fishing I am not staring at my rod tip unless I'm drop shot fishing, I want to feel a swimjig bite not see it.

I do think they probably would have won with Brady, Brisett made some big mistakes, but all aspects of the team were just terrible. Special teams included which is very rare.

Patriots looking terrible in all aspects of the game, too many mistakes, flags at critical times, missed tackles, blown coverages. Bills are just executing well period.

I never lift fish over 2lbs, I know many guys do though. No sense risking it IMO. Depending on the angle of force when you were lifting it the rod might not be designed to handle it. Rods are designed to fight fish and I see a lot of guys in videos lift them with the rod almost vertical, which can snap tips off. However, where your rod broke seems very strange.

Welcome! Unfortunately not too many "Texas Sized" bass around here but some great fishing none-the-less. Definitely try some ice fishing if the conditions are safe enough this year. I personally can't wait (see profile picture) but I also don't want to start wishing the open-water season away.

It was probably my second best lure of the entire year (besides a swimjig which singlehandedly made the spring for me and got me my PB) so I would give it two thumbs up. If I hadn't seen the results firsthand I would probably be pretty skeptical as well. I had probably my best day of fishing ever earlier in the summer using it exclusively all day. About 15 fish with many more missed, all pretty good quality for my area.

I use my jig/worm rod honestly, 7'2" HF tatula. Not my ideal choice but it works fine.

It's funny how it's like that, some get bit more than others. Some days they won't bother me, other days I can't keep them off. My dad always seems to get bit. I've heard things like medication or diet can affect how much they "like" you. 100% deet sure does the job but I don't like using that stuff anymore than I have to.

I could do without the mosquitos and black flies divebombing my eyes but I do like the noise of the crickets and such.

It really depends, I could go all day and not backlash once in a few thousand casts, but it depends on the lure, reel, line and wind conditions. Heavier lures (like a whopper plopper 130) I rarely backlash with.Stuff that is more prone to catching in the wind or lighter baits I tend to backlash a fair amount until I get the reel dialed in perfectly. I tend to backlash more with fluoro/copoly/mono than braid too. The reel itself I feel plays a big part. I have a Conc. A and it takes a lot more to get that to backlash than some of my other reels. Then I have an LFS which I can dial in to cast really far but the line between backlash and a great cast is much finer and I tend to backlash more with that.

I've been liking the VMC spinshot as well

I guess the extra length would be nice for casting distance but storage is gonna be a major pain....that creates a new market for guys to "need" to start buying boats with 10' rod lockers though.

Really only the bottom color is going to matter, like others said, if you are getting two a dark one (loon) and a lighter one (bone, perch etc have white bellies) will do.

I wouldn't say I love the cold, but I do love Ice Fishing, so I guess I have to like it at least a little. I've been down to a t-shirt before while ice fishing on nice sunny days.

I draw the line for softwater season when ice starts forming on my line, strangely that didn't happen until January this winter. I was fishing from shore on christmas day in 60 degree sunshine, which for Massachusetts is ridiculous. Then it's just a wait for 3-4" of beautiful black ice.

Hit up whitehall around 6am today. Right off the bat my dad got a blow up on his whopper plopper but the fish (not sure whether it was a pickerel or bass) missed it completely. Unfortunately that was the only sign of fish we would see for about the next 4 hours...I was pretty beat and frustrated so I took a break in the back seat and began to doze off, about 20 minutes into a nap my dad sets the hook and says "got one" and I probably have never woken up faster haha. It was a nice 3.4 largemouth. I get back to fishing, and about 20 minutes later he gets another one, probably a little under 2 lbs. Clearly nothing I'm doing is working so I was switching it up between spinnerbaits, swimbaits, chatterbaits, crankbaits, topwaters....nothing. We zoomed over to the dam area and start going up one of the shores. I had a wiggle wart tied on and was trying to get it to dive just to the top of the weeds. The wind made for a few backlashes, and I never thought I would say this...but a backlash saved the day for me. I cast upwind with the wiggle wart and I backlash immediately, the thing landed about 15 feet from the boat in front of me and I spent about 20 seconds getting the backlash out. When I reeled in the line, as soon as I got tension on the lure again and it began to move, I see a bass come up and inhale it! It was so close and it startled me, we netted it pretty quick, not much of a fight given how close it was. Weighed in it 5.04, my second biggest this year! I doubt I would have caught it had I not backlashed and the lure landed where it did. With big ones in the area apparently I decided to spend some time devoted to swimbaits (8" line throught trout). I did have something follow it in and try and swipe at it as I reeled it out of the water on one cast, I didn't get a good look at it unfortunately. That was the only action on the swimbait though, around 2 we decided to call it quits.

I like to take my kayak into some really nasty places that a peddle drive would just not be able to take me. I'm sure for open water it's amazing, especially in the wind.

Yea I don't like their lyrics lately either, but like you that's not why I listen to most music. It's a bonus if I like them. As for hardwired, there's nothing unique about the riff. It's an open E gallop riff (Two 16th notes followed by an 8th, repeated as desired), it's been used by countless bands in countless songs for decades. "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden uses it, "Raining Blood" by Slayer uses a reversed version of it (one 8th followed by two 16ths),It's not that they were lazy and copied it.

Nice! You're putting us all to shame this season.

Don't forget to take into account the gravitational forces exerted by Mars on your line

I wish

I'd definitely disagree, just look at the year Matt Cassel came in, people say "Oh they still went 11-5 without Brady"....but they forget that was with the same team Brady led to an undefeated regular season, and Cassel had an easier schedule to deal with. And even now this season, sure Jimmy and Brisett are doing good, but are their QB peformances really anything "elite", I wouldn't say so.

The pats defense has got me pretty excited. I'm just sorry for whoever is a brown's fan come week 5.