MassYak85

This might be of some reassurance. I have my Diawa BG2000 paired with a Fury 703 and I love it. It balances pretty well and I don't think it's a heavy setup. One more thing to note: the 1500 and 2000 size has SIGNIFICANTLY less drag than the 2500 and up, at least according to Diawa's website. I was pretty concerned about this when I first ordered it but I have no issues cranking it down enough to set the hook on big worms and similar stuff.

I have the Fury 795, I'd recommend it for sure for what you are doing. Although I disagree with @WRB on 3oz being it's upper limit, I fish a lot of baits in the 2-4oz range on it and don't feel like I'm maxing out the rod. I think it's 1-5 oz rating is pretty accurate, at least for treble hook baits. I'm not fishing 8" hudds on it by any means.

It's a longshot but if someone knows anyone that lost a pair of sunglasses on Quinsig today or over the weekend I saw a pair floating by and hooked them. I'd hate to throw them away as I am pretty sure they are prescription, but I have no use for them if I can't find the owner because of that.

Fished Whitehall today 6am to 4pm for my first outing in MA this year. All I can say is the pickerel must have had a good spawn a couple years ago because little 10-12 inch fingerlings were all I could catch. Slooooooooooow day. Never did try fishing the really deep part but gave the deeper weed edges on the steeper shores plenty of time with nothing to show for it. Fished everything from swimjigs, big worms to MS Slammers. Pickerel seemed to prefer a keitech on an owner flashy swimmer. You know it's a bad day when eve the pickerel are finicky. I messed up what was probably my one chance at a bass on a hookset on a 10" worm. My drag was too light so the hook didn't penetrate and it spit it immediately. Oh well though. It was also VERY hot, I thought I left this kind of heat down in Virginia lol. Hopefully the fish are in a bit better mood after a few days of this where they can get used to it.

If you are going with braid a 35 size reel is too big honestly, the better line management is noticed when using mono or fluoro lines since a wider spool creates bigger loops in the line which tend to not want to jump off the spool as much. Using braid all but eliminates line management issues on spinning reels, so you can get away with using a smaller reel. With 15lb braid I'd go with the 25 size.

When you say drained, are we talking "no water left, everything in it died 2 years ago" drained? Or was it just drawn down a bit. And was it refilled naturally by a stream/river that fish can access or by rain? Basically if the max age of the fish in that pond is 2 years I would leave it be for a couple years until fish have a chance to reach decent size.

I used the Uni-Uni for a long time when starting to use leaders, I broke off a good number of fish, especially when fishing things like T-rigs that required heavier hooksets. I think I was using like 30lb braid to 12lb fluoro. The important thing though is that the breakoffs occurred at the knot. I use the Albright or FG now and if I break off it's the knot to the bait itself. The knot is dead simple to tie and I'll be honest I have still used it if I needed to quickly tie on a leader on the fly, but my experiences with it have shattered my confidence enough I won't use it anymore for most applications.

My worm gear and levelwind are always pretty gunked up in the summer after even a couple weeks just because of all the vegetation in our waters up north. ESPECIALLY when frog fishing. A quick swab to get out excess dirt and grime can make a big difference for sure.

I got a 9lb cat yo-yoing a blade bait off the bottom of reservoir channel this winter. They get your mind racing for sure but after about half a minute of fighting the thing I had a pretty good guess that it was not a bass.

Fury is not made in an 807 unfortunately and it sounds like the champion series is way outside what OP is looking to pay for a rod.

This is what I think is most damaging. Small businesses that do a lot of online selling are going to get absolutely hosed trying to stay in line with this law. Also, does anyone know if this affects ALL online transactions or only purchases made through a retailer? Like for example, garage bait shops where it's literally one dude working 40 extra hours a week on top of a full time job to make baits....are they getting royally screwed by this?

I'd look at the 806 Dobyns Fury if I was you, I have the 795 for lighter swimbaits but for a hudd you want a little extra beef to get that jig hook planted.

Can you post a picture? You should not have to really pry hard on most reel parts to get them apart. Any reel can be stripped down to it's frame and I remember taking that gear off when I serviced mine over the winter. Generally that plastic gear attached to the level wind is attached the end of the worm gear by an e-clip. Just be careful when you take those off as they can fly across the room and into another dimension.

I do looooove the sound, but not enough to look for reels that might have it. I'll save it for long runs from stripers.

If you want to step into the swimbait game, with these ^ Otherwise I use swimjigs a lot. There's a lot of crossover between the sunfish and perch patterns usually so I honestly don't know which the bass are always going after.

Nice fish Tim! Uggggh, 1 more week and I'll be back up joining you guys. I haven't fished in like a month since I let my Virginia license expire in May and didn't want to pay 70 bucks to renew it just for a month.

My real question here essentially boils down to: If you are targeting trophy fish, are willing to tough out the weather, and don't have time constraints...when are you going fishing during the summer and why? Are you waiting for any specific weather pattern to develop, any moon phases etc,? Going off that question, I wanted to generate some conversation here about fishing pressure affecting optimal fishing times. I've always felt that a busy weekend can have a bigger impact on the fish than many weather changes, but I am still relatively new to this sport compared to some of you guys and don't have decades of experience. It always made sense to me that the middle of the work week, with all else being equal, would produce the least pressure and therefore better fishing. I've also read and heard it said before that certain bass, particular some of the larger ones, can get into a feeding cycle of only feeding at night during certain times of the year, when fishing pressure is high during the day. And obviously low-pressure lakes can be a real honey hole for those that know about them, but you also have to balance how healthy the fishery itself is, since it might get fished less for a reason. Does it make sense to combine all three of these ideas....fish nights on a Wednesday on a less-popular lake? Or do those true night-exclusive bass during the summer get into those patterns because the lake gets so much pressure normally.

I like these just as much as the simms tbh

I've got some 4/0 and 5/0 straight shank worm hooks that seem to pair up nicely with the bigger worms, and I like them better coming through weeds than the EWG's. I did get some Magnum Baits Mauler's (BIG creature baits) and 10" stick baits to try as well. I've got some 7/0 Owner EWG Jungle and 6/0 Flipping hooks for those lol. If you couldn't tell I got a new frog/punch/flip rod I've been waiting to crack some fish on lol. Fresh 65lb braid and I've been practicing pitching in my yard lol.

A microcomputer in a fishing reel? Sounds interesting but I hope it's durable and waterproof, and that the brakes still work mechanically when the computer does fail. If it's all they are making it out to be that could be pretty sweet though especially for skipping and stuff. Edit: Guess I've been living under a rock, the technology itself isn't new but I guess for that price range of shimano's reels it is.

There are a ton of great swimbaits for under a hundred. That 40-80 range will get you a LOT of quality, and even custom baits that are some of the best in the market. Again it's all about what you can afford and what you are fishing. There are a lot of guys fishing swimbaits ONLY throw swimbaits. So dropping 200 on a bait that is going to get fished for 50 hours that season isn't really that crazy if you think about how much guys spend on soft plastics, jigs, and terminal tackle every year just as an example. Now if you own 10 roman made's than I can't defend that too much lol, but again it's all about what you can afford and what's still enjoyable.

Screw those beavers lol. I nearly had a freaking heart attack that one time I went out at night! I was just past the island, no lights to speak of, I'm the only one out there and the water exploded like 50 feet behind me. I've learned not to get excited that it's a fish by now but it still surprises me when it happens. One thing I want to try this year are big worms with split shot. Eco pro makes some TINY tungsten split shot, I got a few sizes and if you put a couple a foot in front of a Jelly worm or something of similar size it gives it a really nice fall and should allow it to rest on top of the weeds.

I hope not lol. By nature I always like to tinker with and improve things so I am almost never perfectly content with my setups or gear. Going into this season I'm about as content as I'll ever be though, I have more than enough lures and have plenty of rods to cover my bases. If I ever feel I've actually filled in every nook and cranny there is to fill I will probably take up lure-making as a hobby since I'm sure it will turn to "I wish I had that" to "I wish I had what no one currently makes".

Yea I'm not holding my breath on the Muskie population to take off there lol. My biggest bass I ever got there is like 4.8 and I've had a few great 20-25 fish days a few summers back but it can be tough for sure. Nice thing like you said is kayakers pretty much have exclusive access to half the lake because of the stumps and insanely dense pad fields on the western shore. I have definitely had some run-ins with BIG fish a couple times in early spring so I know they are still in there. And I've seen big ones pulled through the ice, but for such a small pond it certainly gets a lot of pressure and they don't have much deep water to escape to. Do you know if you are technically allowed on there at night? I have fished it at night once for a couple hours but I never bothered to check the signs.

@Janderson45 How's the pad and weed growth on A1? I imagine the pads have become fairly established by now but none of the super thick mats we sometimes get in mid summer? I will be back in a couple weeks and that will probably be one of the first places I hit. I'm hoping to get some time in with the Slammer there before it gets too choked up.