MassYak85

I got out but it was on the hardwater. Found some sketchy ice along the 495 belt. I got a couple spots that are usually the first in the area to lock up. Ice was very variable you really gotta know what you're doing. The snow seemed to accumulate on one side of the lake and in those spots there was a layer or black ice maybe 2 inches thick with 3 inches of white ice on top of that. That was safe and what we fished. The remainder of the lake was solid black ice but only a hair over 2inches. I wasn't risking that. A couple pickerel decided to hit the tipups but no bass today. I jigged up a good amount of tiny perch and sunfish. A fun but slow start to the hardware season. The weather was crazy, started out just below freezing in the morning but I knew it would get sketchy in the afternoon. It hit 55 before noon and the wind combined with the temperature started cutting through the white ice like a buzzsaw. There was half an inch of water on the ice when we left. I imagine the rain tommorow could be enough to reset the ice completely.

Some good ol' thread necromancy I see ? I do this way more than I should. If I think it was a prime piece of cover I'll drop the rod and make a cast with something else before getting it but I usually just go get it. I figure after all the pulling and line snapping trying to get it unstuck I've already spooked fish anyways.

@bulldog1935 I'm gonna go with the RC Bearings they have some of the size I need in stainless for 2 bucks a pop. Gonna order 4 for now and see how I like them.

Very helpful thank you!

Various Daiwa reels mostly, some Tatulas, Fuegos, Lexa. I'm sure it's a mixture of everything. And it's not like they're rusted to hell, just a slight bit of roughness but I like to nip it in the butt before it gets worse in the middle of a fishing season.

I'm doing some yearly maintenance on some reels and a few of them have some bearings on their way out. Specifically the ones supporting the pinion and the one above the antireverse (both are size 8x12x3.5mm on my reels). Looking up the part number or ordering through Boca it's like 10-15 bucks a pop. I've used cheap RC bearings for levelwinds and handle knobs before with good luck but not sure about these. Has anyone replaced there's and had good luck with cheap ones? Spool bearings I don't mind biting the bullet for but these just seem unnecessary to drop 60 bucks on 4.

I usually have about a month between open water fishing and safe ice, sometimes only a couple weeks. I usually go through all my tackle and re-stock things with the Christmas sale on TW. Then spend a couple weeks cleaning all my reels, respooling line etc. Then it's usually 3-4 months of ice fishing and praying for an early spring!

Honestly not too much. Maybe focus more on worms in the summer, and in the Fall I definitely tried to force that "Fall Feed" bite waaaaaaay too early. But the Fall was good and I took a chunk of the spring off because of Covid so not a great season but I definitely feel I made some strides.

I was gonna respond but the more I thought about it I couldn't really give myself a solid answer. I have spinnerbaits with all the blade types but most of my fishing is in clearer water with willow leaf blades. Big Colorado blades I typically save for very dirty water or night time. One of my resolutions for next season is to focus more on my confidence techniques and spinnrbaits are one of them for sure so as might have to play around more with different blades.

I've had perch and bass before. But to me perch is too much work for how much meat you get and I feel bad eating bass unless I know they're gonna die anyways. I'm not against eating small slot size ones though. Wild rainbows are my target food fish of choice.

Acetone for bearings THAT DONT HAVE PLASTIC CAGES FOR THE BEARINGS. And simple green for everything else.

I'm actually really bad about trying EVERYTHING rather than honing my most productive techniques. So the only ones I can think of are the Neko rig and large flutter spoons.

Yea the rabbit hole is deep and slippery lol. I remember maybe 6 or 7 years ago I'd just go out with my 4'6" ultralight ugly stick, fishing a 5" stickworm wacky rigged on an EWG hook. I lost a lot of fish because of that combo lol, but have some great memories too. A few years ago I tricked out a milkcrate to hold like 7 3700 size tackle boxes AND two deep 3700 boxes. Then it has basically a "wing" that has 5 rod holders, a net holder, and then the kayak itself has 2 molded in rod holders. I can bring almost everything I own if I want. Mind you this is all in the back of a 50lb 10ft sit-in kayak ?

I have renters insurance and asked them if they would cover it and they said yes. I am young, I travel light so to speak so far in life, so if I'm being honest, other than my car my fishing gear would BY FAR be the most expensive thing to replace in the event of a fire or something, or if my car got broken into. I do shudder to think how much time I'd have to put into finding past order receipts to prove I owner certain things though.

They are nice, swap out the split rings though. I don't know why they felt the need to cheap out on those for a 10 dollar bait.

Nice! Usually my last fish of the year comes on a blade bait. I picked up a couple Jackall Deracoup tailspinners this year though and they were money in November. I was still working them at a decent pace considering the water temps, just enough to keep off the bottom. I wish I had stuck with the Hudds a little more this fall but it was hard to do when they're visibly chasing tiny baitfish schools.

It seems that's the way it goes this time of year. You find them and they're grouped up and can get some on consecutive casts and then nothing for a while. Anyone get out before the Noreaster?

I sometimes feel I put too much pressure on myself to catch fish. It's tough to wind up (gameplan, research seasonal patterns, study your lake map, get up way earlier than you'd like to) and just completely WHIFF on a full day on the water. It's easy to go home feeling like you failed, or just being confused what you did wrong, and then you start second guessing yourself or worse, lose confidence in some of your staple baits. Now sure, sometimes you hit a home run and everything lines up just the way you dreamed it up and all is good. But it usually doesn't go that way. At the worst point for me I would almost feel like I was wasting time by even going. IMO there's a delicate balance between analyzing your fishing and reflecting on what you can do to improve, and just letting a day go as "the bite was off today, it happens, move on".

Only couple that had me saying "what are the odds..." Once I was dragging bottom with a T-rig and felt a slight pull. I set the hook but it didn't feel like much, thought it might be a tiny dink or a stick. Nope, turns out I snagged someone's old line that they broke off....and somehow it still had a very-much-alive bullhead on the end of it. It was only like 8 inches lol I have no idea how someone managed to break that tiny little thing off. Another time me and a buddy were shore fishing and he was using my gear. He goes to set the hook and breaks off immediately. We figured it was a pickerel. About 5 minutes later I hook up with the same pickerel...with my other lure still in it's mouth.

We hit up Webster, water was still mid 40s. My notes from last year this same weekend had the water there at 39. So we're definitely a few weeks behind schedule.

The perch can be insane this time of year. I had a good weekend fishing a tailspinner. Caught almost all of my fish between 15-20FOW on steep breaks. Seems like the Fall Feed is still going strong. I couldn't put down that tailspinner. Got some nice bass between 2-4lbs and the biggest white perch I've ever seen. I submitted it for a pin lol. Pickerel were going nuts too and got into a school of yellow perch, probably caught 20 in 30 casts. This is my unofficial end to the season. Sucks cause it's been such a mild year I'd love to fish up until Christmas but with Covid I doubt I'll get to squeeze much more in aside from some shore sessions. Couldn't ask for a much better last weekend though. I'm definitely starting to feel more comfortable fishing deep.

Was down in VA for 6 months and had my kayak. I was fishing one of the reservoirs during the winter, jigging a blade bait in the main channel and thought I hooked a log....which then started moving. Turned out to be a 10lb catfish which was interesting to say the least trying to get it into my tiny kayak.

Does anyone know where to get small blades like the ones found on Owner Flashy Swimmers? Bonus points if anyone knows what size those are too. I have some tail spinners and small spinnerbaits I wanna modify a bit in the offseason.

Oh gotcha. For MA they'll give you a pin if it meets the minimum length criteria for the species (again, 21" for Largemouth) and then at the end of the year if your fish was the biggest submitted that year for the species you get a gold pin. Whoever submits the most eligible species in the year gets an angler of the year award and they have a ceremony for them and all the gold pin winners.

How big do Largies have to be for the program? In MA it's 21", 20" for Smallies.