MassYak85

I also go with a straight shank either 4/0 or 5/0 on these.

Not to turn this into a "bash TW" discussion but I have not been pleased with them in recent years since Covid. From their $5 2-day shipping deal disappearing to just longer shipping delays in general, to their sales getting worse every year, and TBH I don't like their new website design. I still order from them but it used to be they were by far the most convenient option and that is no longer the case. It used to be I would go fishing on a Sunday, decide I need a few things or restock on a few things, place an order by Tuesday, get the baits on a Friday and be set for the following weekend. That said they still get the majority of my business because I've shifted more to seasonal restocks than impulsive weekly purchases. Their wish lists are nice to do those with.

If it's a planned fishing day and not a spur of the moment thing, usually 6-10 hours on the water. 6 hours of beating my head against the wall is usually enough for me to call it on a bad bite. If it's a really good day I'll stretch it to 10-12. I think my record is like 14 or 15 hours, sunrise to sunset in the middle of the summer in a kayak.

I'm not sure the actual differences but I had one reel with a thick aluminum washer in the drag stack and after several years it started pitting and corroding kind of bad. This is what I use, someone on a different forum recommended it. I dilute it just to save money and don't feel you need the full strength to cut through standard grease. Another thing I'd recommend since it seems like you've started to tinker and upgrade, is to buy quality bearings if your replacing them or upgrading them. Some reels have plastic bushings to support the levelwind or the handle knobs. You can upgrade them to bearings to get some extra smoothness. But any time you do that you're introducing one more component that can rust and fail. I thought I was being slick by buying super cheap RC bearings in bulk and swapped all my reels and I've slowly swapped back to the plastic because for workhorse reels I want them to be as pain-free and worry-free as possible. If you fish in the rain at all or get the reel wet those levelwind bearings will be the first ones to corrode if you aren't careful. Those levelwinds a lot of times are aluminum to save weight, and when you have dissimilar metals and moisture thrown into the mix they do NOT play nice. It is very difficult to separate them when that happens and you will most likely end up buying a new worm gar after prying on them. If you know the gear is steel you can play around with it but otherwise I would not do it.

I've been doing it religiously for years but slacked on it this past winter and one of my reels the levelwind bearings corroded and froze up the whole assembly. My main tips are to take a picture of everything as you do it if you don't have experience. At this point I could strip a reel to the frame, mix all the parts in a box, and confidently put it back together but that took a while. Buy a small cheap jewelry ultrasonic cleaner online. Some Simple Green diluted in water is my main cleaner (I use the "aircraft" grade one that is safer on aluminum). For bearings I use Acetone in small jars that I then put in the ultrasonic bath. Be careful to make sure your bearings are steel and do not have nylon cages or you'll be buying new bearings. DO NOT PUT ANTI-REVERSE BEARINGS IN ACETONE! lol. I like microfiber cloths to do most of the cleaning. Not every piece needs to get deep cleaned and dried off. A quick wipe on most components is fine. The clean/rinse/dry portion is the real time sink. If I'm just wiping off old grease/grime and the part is otherwise not corroded or very dirty I'm not wasting the time to soak it in cleaner. Get a decent set of screwdrivers. Nothing sucks more than a stripped screw head and a reel that is out of commission for two weeks because you're waiting on a part, so use the right sizes. The tiny flatheads are also great for removing those C-clips. For the re-lube/re-grease at the end. Less is more. Too much oil in your bearings will slow them down considerably, and too much grease on your gears will just end up sprayed everywhere inside the reel and make things feel slower. If you're fishing salt that's a different story. On your dragstack I cannot emphasize enough LESS LESS LESS. Some guys run them dry, which I don't like to, but you don't need a lot.

Interesting I'll have to check these out when my current stash runs low haha. I always thought the way the "other one" attached the blade to the bait was patent protected so I wonder how they got away with making these so similarly.

Haven't been out but saw some bass on beds at a pond in Andover this past week. Once we get into post spawn I usually get out the big 10" curly tail worms which is one of my favorite bites throughout the year.

I definitely went through a stretch when I was starting out of trying so many lures, and also looking for diamonds in the rough of good value baits. Ultimately at this point I know what I like and why I like it and I mostly just restock. I like to see what new things come out but unless they're unique or intriguing my temptation to buy them is not what it used to be.

The only time I don't is using 65lb braid on my frog rod. Otherwise I have some dirt cheap 12lb mono from walmart I use.

It's about to be hiking season for me so the fishing will take a back seat this summer unfortunately. Still got a couple rods in my car for "unplanned emergencies" though 😉

That's always tough setting out with high hopes and leaving with more questions than answers. New and big lakes for me can be tough because while I still have my confidence baits I feel more compelled to experiment until something works when sometimes I would have just been better off sticking to the basics and trying more spots. And even then some days the bite just sucks lol. But at the same time what keeps me fishing is the "mystery" of it so I think it's good to try new places occasionally even if they don't work out.

For the swimbait guys...Bettencourt Rodent. Super unique rat bait I still have two of the smaller ones but he also made a big version that I wish I had.

I've slowly found myself trying less baits and just leaning on what has worked for me. I'd say 80% of the time I'm fishing one of these now: - 1/2oz Megabass SV3 Double Willow - bladed jig: 1/2 oz bladed jig - Beast Coast Lil Magnum w/ Yamamoto double tail grub trailer - Berkley Powerbait 10" curly tail worm - Jackal Deracoup Tailspin - Megabass Vision 110 - Monka 1pc Crawler

It depends. In my 10ft sit-in paddle kayak, yea me and the wind are not friends lol. But in a boat or from shore I usually prefer a good breeze. Whitecaps crashing into a shoreline + spinnerbait is usually a good combo for me. The more I fish the more I seek out days with increasing wind ahead of a front or look for that wind blown area.

Not what I consider "high end" with some of the rods available these days but I reeeaaaallly like the Dobyns Champion 744. They rate it as a Heavy Extra Fast but the tip is actually quite forgiving. Let's you really flick baits easily and accurately around cover and deflects as it comes over rocks and cover, but still has that solid backbone to drive home a jig hook. I'm not sure if they have an equivalent model in the Champion Extreme or Xtasy series.

I use braid to leader 90% of the time. Generally it's 40lb braid to a 16lb leader. I actually use sunline system shock leader. I think it's geared towards salt water but the bass don't seem to care lol. I'll use that for most applications and step up to 20lb when around more abrasive cover. Lighter baits like tailspins, jerkbaits, spinning gear I usually step down to 8-12lb but they don't make it that light so I use a different brand.

Oh d**n the actual line tie to hook connection snapped? I've never BB rigged a soft bait but I see guys do it that way all the time with the braid. That sucks. I need to fish soft bait more often I like the Real Prey golden shiners but just don't commit enough time to them. Feels like I lose more tails to big pickerel than I catch bass when I fish them haha.

Man that stings. What's your leader setup usually like? Most swimbaits I'm doing straight 20 or 25lb copoly but my soft bait setup is 65lb braid to a 35lb sunline shock leader.

As much as I hate the wind I can't deny howe successful I have been fishing windblown shores in absolutely miserable wind gusts haha. I think that's one of the main reasons I lean on spinnerbaits as my go-to search bait. Still being able to drive a cast through nasty wind.

I skip jigs quite a bit and for me two things are important. One, a roll cast and a jig rod with good tip action is important, and two, just accepting there will be backlashes. If I overthink it I end up screwing it up even more so it's best to just find a groove and accept not every cast will be perfect. It finally clicked for me a few summers ago and there are some days it really makes a difference. Being able to geta bait 4 feet under a dock or past the branches of a tree in closer to the base some days can be the difference between bites and no bites.

Got out on The Nip today. It was calm in the early morning and we caught the tail end of a top water bite. I got a 4-3, 3-8, and a smaller one on swimbaits quick. Once the top water bite died it was a slow day. I managed a 3-5 later in the day on a windblown shore on a spinnerbait and a 3-0 on a jig but other than that it was piecing together smaller fish here and there. The wind really picked up before we left and seemed to reignite the smaller ones but we had had enough at that point. Water temps between 61 - 65.

Slow day today only got 3 bass. Lots of activity in the shallows…just not bass haha. Tons of turtles out, I passed a huge snapper and snatched him for a closer look haha. He was pretty docile. The carp have also made their move shallow, saw some big ones roaming around.

Hit the local lake today. I ended with 10 but it felt like a grind, couldn’t really put together much of a pattern. Fish were shallow but not on beds and didn’t seem in a very active mood just kind of wandering around exploring. I didn’t catch any of much size biggest was probably 2lbs. Water temps were touching 60 on the northern shore but the main basin was 54. I got a few on spinnerbaits but very finicky reaction bites. The rest came on a jig.

Hmmm this seems likely they are just starting to come out, although I didn’t see a ton of them on the water yet

Anyone familiar with the seasonal habits of golden shiners? I’m from the Northeast and they are a pretty big forage species in a lot of our lakes and ponds. I was out earlier this week and saw activity I had never seen before. They were schooled up over a deeper hole (15ft) and were boiling at the surface almost like they were being chased but there did not seem to be any other fish on the mix. Do they do this for any reason or do you think they were actually fleeing? There were multiple groups doing this sporadically. Generally when I see golden they are schooled around weed patches but those have not grown in yet.