MassYak85

I am looking for a recommendation for a spinning rod for finesse applications. I will be pairing it with a pflueger supreme 30 size reel, and will probably have 10 or 15lb braid to 4-8lb fluoro leaders. I will be using it for wacky rigging smaller worms (4" senkos, 6" trick worms), fishing grubs on small jigheads, drop shotting with light wire hooks, and light shakeyhead fishing. If possible a white rod would be nice to match the reel, it's not the biggest factor obviously, as the rod needs to be functional first and foremost. Any suggestions regarding brand, action/power and model would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and also, around $100 is my budget, probably $120/$130 is max. Thanks. I'd also like to get your guys' take on whether or not a ML or a M would be better suited for these applications.

I'll just say that I really like my LFS, sweet reel for the price.

Justice and Ride are probably both in my top 5 albums (for all bands). Although I like every song on it, I feel puppets is a little overrated. I'd still give every one of their first four at least a 9/10 though.

Just stopping by to say congrats! What a beast.

I don't have a specific number, it's more of combination of quantity and size. I'd say any outing I get 3 or more 2+ pounders, or any outing I catch more than 10 less than 2 is a pretty good outings. But it also depends what I am doing. If I am fishing swimbaits then I might be satisfied with one fish. I guess my satisfaction comes more from finding a pattern that works for that day. Chancing upon one large fish and then getting none the rest of the day isn't always rewarding to me. Neither is slaying complete dinks on a ned rig and getting 30 fish sometimes. It just depends on my goals for the day. Conditions also play into it. Fishing right after ice out I might be happy with one or two fish.

I don't recommend doing it, but if I ever backlash and get a hit, I just land the fish and then peel off line by hand and deal with the backlash after I land it.

Hmm, might be more widespread than I thought then. It does seem kind of silly though, I know people who have thrown trolling motors on small paddleboats for S&G's and probably have no idea that law even exists.

I've seriously considered the possibility of adding a trolling motor to mine as well, the back of mine has a perfect space for it. Only issue is Massachusetts Taxachusetts requires you to register your kayak if you add any sort of motor to it. So that has steered me away from doing so. Odds of anyone actually fining me for it are slim to none but still, law is the law.

Weightless EWG hook, wieghted EWG hook, jighead, swimjig trailer, spinnerbait or chatterbait trailer. They are pretty versatile.

buff, sunscreen, lots of water, hat Also just wearing swim trunks and jumping in, but for you southern guys I wouldn't want to be swimming with the gators just to cool off.

No, I saw that on the news and was praying it was none of you guys. It's really unfortunate though. Do they know how the guy actually died yet? It seems like he just tipped over in deep water and didn't come up. If they are searching for his body I would guess he managed to get out of the kayak when it tipped, and just drowned somehow (maybe didn't know how to swim?). Sad reminder to wear a PFD though I guess, I know I'm guilty of not doing it sometimes.

I've been kayak fishing for probably 8-10 years now and have still yet to solve the issue of strong winds. Shallow water I can use a stake out pole. If there is standing timber I can tie my kayak to the dead trees. Deep water I have tried all sorts of homemade anchors and a few I have just bought, none have bee able to completely stop my kayak in a strong wind unfortunately.

x2 I had one spinnerbait last me the entire summer and only broke this season because I tried bending it too much.

Bluegills maybe? I tried using bluegill swimbaits today to try and mimic some of the ones that were spawning but no luck sadly.

I'm not sure if you have dedicated swimbait gear or not, but as far as some smaller swimbaits go, the 6" slow sink allows you to cover the middle to upper water column, so I would look at a top water/wake to cover the surface, a faster sink to cover the bottom of the water column, and a glide bait. I'd say S-waver 168, spro rat 40, and a fast sinking 6" trout or maybe a Hudd 68 special in a fast sink rate would be great to get you started.

SWEET! I stopped by sudbury res again and to my surprise there were still fish spawning. I saw three fish on the same bed, and if I had to guess none were under 4. Of course they weren't having anything I threw at them but it was cool to see anyways. They were right up against the shore and had their bed next to a log. Only bass I saw spawning too, a couple smaller fish followed in a swimbait but weren't interested enough to bite.

You're right, since they are just rigs and you can do them anyway you want. You can shakey head with a 1/2 ounce head and a 12" manns jelly worm, or drop shot with 50lb braid and a 4/0 flipping hook in super thick cover. And I'm sure those would catch fish, heck I'd even like to try those out sometime now that I think about it. But with the light wire spinshot hooks and 8lb line I use for dropshotting, or the tiny little heads I throw for ned rigging and shakey head fishing, a mh works, but I'd rather fish with a medium or medium light with that tackle. So let me rephrase my earlier comment, FOR ME, a medium heavy is not ideal for those techniques and how I rig them.

I drop shot/wacky worm/shakey head on a mh 7' spinning rod. Is it ideal? No. But until I can justify getting a new rod it works just fine. For the baitcaster I would just take a look at what techniques you think you will be using the most in your area (are you going to be doing a lot of crankbaiting, or are you looking to fish a lot of jigs and t-rigs, or both? etc.) and get something that will handle those. And yes, you could always sell the original set up. I would just do it right the first time around for the baitcaster. You don't want to regret something and end up wanting to sell BOTH setups.

Personally I use 7 and 8 speed reels for basically everything (besides spinning gear). Is it ideal for every application....no, but I would rather slow down than speed up. I don't crank a whole lot, so if I ever get a cranking set up I might decide to try out a 5.8:1 or something.

If you are looking for bluegill swimbaits savage gear recently came out with some. The smaller 5" one is light (and won't break the bank) enough you could probably get away throwing it on a heavy flipping stick or frog rod without buying dedicated swimbait gear, but if you are looking to throw larger baits like Hudds you will need dedicated gear. They also aren't intimidatingly large, and even fish under 2 lbs could eat them, so if you are looking to build confidence in swimbaits they might help you out since you aren't eliminating as much of the bass population like you would throwing larger baits.

This one kid I knew in high school said he caught a twelve pounder, I told him to show me how long it was with his hands. I'm pretty sure he meant 12 incher.

This kid?

I had a few decent sized ones nip at the tail but none wanted to commit unfortunately. I also fished the sudbury res. from shore yesterday with the new savage gear bluegill swimbaits. Had a couple around 3 pounds follow it in but they didn't bite. Anyone ever do well there? I'd imagine there are some decent fish in there considering you aren't allowed on it. Today I went back to A-1. Started off just to the left of the launch near some lily pads, managed 2 fish around 2 lbs on a t-rgged stick-o. Gut hooked one and for the first time in a long time had to leave the hook in and cut the line, usually I can get them out with that trick but not this time. Moved on past the island and holy crap....talk about weeds. I thought last time I was there was bad, but there were some thick mats this time. I've never seen it this bad, even at the peak of summer last year they weren't this thick in the middle of the pond. Tried a jig for a little while but even that was turning into a salad on every cast. Decided to tie on the frog to eliminate the weed problem but they weren't biting on that. The wind kicked up while I was out, and I also brought my outriggers for my kayak so paddling back to the launch was literally painful, with the extra drag from the outriggers, the thick mats of weeds and the wind blowing right in my face. Battling the conditions wasn't fun so I decided to call it quits after a couple hours, I fish for fun so if it is no longer fun I'm not going to stay. Guess I'm going to have to rig up a punch rig next time I go there, and hope they are biting on frogs. There were a couple guys in a small boat kind of in the area I wanted to fish (it was out of the wind, since I currently don't have a stakeout pole), but I figured I'd give them some space. Saw them haul in a couple decent ones though. Also, my real prey swimbaits came in the mail. The 5" perch looks AMAZING. 7" pond shiner looks great too.

Most likely it was a steep ramp and the guy forgot to put the truck in park and put the emergency brake on, then when he got out to launch.....gravity took over.

Yea, I was like....this guy must fish like every day and absolutely kill everyone in local tournaments. As to the question, I don't count long term. I keep track for the day in my head how many I have caught. I'll also keep track of the weight of any fish over 3 for that day. I don't keep any kind of log but it would probably help me improve so I might consider it in the future.