MassYak85

I wish the video had the sound of the bait. The reason I like the Whopper Plopper so much is the sound, I think it just ticks the fish off sometimes it's so loud (130). I do like how they have the rear fin placement on those though, they look like they may shed weeds and debris better than the whopper plopper tails.

I've seen other videos of guys in Japan doing that. What blows my mind is that we always here about all these finesse techniques coming out of Japan to catch these "super finicky fish"...yet somehow this crazy technqiue works lol.

Why don't you use the plug knocker with braid? I use braid for 95 percent of my fishing and always carry the plug knocker.

x2 I would not own a kayak if I had to fish around those things

You can get a Diawa Tatula CT brand new on Ebay right now for 90 bucks. I haven't tried the Casitas and haven't heard anything bad about them, but you might get a better bang for your buck with that deal.

I have this same one and highly recommend it. It's not expensive and I currently have a 100% success rate on retrieving anything from cranks to jigs.

THIS It will pay for itself in probably your first trip

At least in my local waters they are the dominant predator. If I lived in Muskie territory my feelings may be different. I do have some pike near me that I sometimes target.

I like to fish spinnerbaits around cover, bumping it into submerged branches, stumps, or just over weed beds. A trailer hook is a big no-go in that situation. The only time I might consider using one is if I was burning it back to the boat just below the surface or something.

Sometimes a jig will come with a really long skirt and will actually interfere with the action of the trailer, in that case I trim it. As for the weedgaurd, remember the shorter it is the more force it takes to compress so just be careful if you do trim it to make sure you are using stout gear. I rarely ever trim a weedgaurd. What you can do is if it's too stiff you can trim off individual strands at the head of the jig.

In my experience "tap tap" is generally smaller fish or bluegills picking up your bait and then attempting to suck it in deeper. With bigger bass it's usually just one solid thud/tap/tick depending how hard they hit it.

This is just my take, but I find the key to truly enjoying fishing as a passion is to still be happy at the end of a day of catching nothing. For some, catching nothing in an entire day of fishing is simply wasted time throwing a hunk of plastic into the water over and over with no reward. For others, it's either a deep connection with nature or a deep rooted, borderline obsessive, pursuit of a dream. I know for me personally, it is not enough to observe nature. I have a strong desire to immerse myself in it. I don't enjoy liking at mountains the same way I do hiking them. I don't enjoy looking over a lake the way I do being on it. But there's more to it because I can take my kayak out and paddle around all day and enjoy it in a much different way than if I brought a rod. There's a reason guys grind away on swimbaits for months sometimes without a bite and stay committed and driven. I honestly can't even describe what it is specifically but that hunt for a fish of a lifetime is just so motivating and invigorating and I don't think can ever really be put out. But I do understand that for some that fire is just not there. They could catch the world record on a bobber and worm and other than some momentary excitement it would do nothing for them.

Lol I still "need" a phenix feather to complete my overhaul of my setups. I was planning on waiting until the Labor Day Sale for TW buuuuuuut we'll see.

Diawa BG 2000 with the fathers day sale for 63 bucks on ebay...and just like that, all my reels are Diawas lol.

I'm slowly transitioning most of my reels to Diawa. I've tried like 5 different brands at this point and for that 100-200 dollar price range I have been happiest with my Diawa's. I still have my Pflueger president spinning reel on my only spinning outfit though and it's been a reel trooper ? (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). It's probably my oldest remaining reel and still works great but I might retire it soon and get a BG.

I like the Gamakatsu's but I also use the Roboworm Rebarb hooks, they make them up to 4/0 and they are a bit lighter wire for their size than other worm hooks. I got some of the 4/0 to try this summer with larger worms for spinning gear and lighter weights. They also have a small keeper to hold them in place. I haven't fished them enough to give my opinion strength wise but they seem like nice hooks.

I'd imagine since parts are used across a large amount of platforms for OEM that even as one reel stops being produced others that share those parts still are and so the sharing makes it easier to keep parts around longer.

Yea I found it in my last post, I guess they re-did their site recently some of their links are broken.

Okay so doing a little more digging even though the link is broken in some parts of the website, if you go to their "fishshop" (https://fishshop.shimano.com/), you can get their parts under the "parts" tab. Although it looks like most of the reels in that shop are the newer ones, they might be scaling back on holding parts for older models (sounds like that is the case with the guy in the OP, maybe trying to get parts for older curados).

I easily ordered some spare parts for my Cardiff 300 a couple years ago....but I looked on their website and they have broken the link for their online parts ordering. You may still be able to do it by phone I haven't tried, but if this is true that you can't get any parts anymore I surely will not be buying their reels going forward. Also interesting to note, all the reels I clicked on on their site had the reel manuals removed when you clicked the link. This is actually pretty disappointing because their online parts shop was in my opinion, THE best in the industry and very easy to deal with. You just open the schematic, find the parts number, and then press add to cart. Boom, done. No calling a help hotline, no waiting for emails. I'll reserve final judgement until someone who has had a more recent experience chimes in but overall a dumb move by Shimano if it's all true and not just them updating stuff temporarily. On the topic of Lew's though. My one experience with their customer service department was fantastic and they gave me the parts I needed, plus more, and two day shipped them at no cost to me (and the issue I was having was 100% my own fault not on them). They aren't my favorite reels to fish but no complaints against the company itself.

What do you mean by "the hype of lures" or "all these different lures"? Are you suggesting we all go out using one jig every time? I will agree, location and finding fish is the most important aspect of fishing. But there's a reason certain lures work better at certain times.

If the fish are being nice and biting what I want to throw...spinnerbait, wacky worm, frog, BIG topwaters. If they aren't (they never are), then I guess that's why we all can't stop buying stuff haha.

This is why I all but abandoned fluoro as a mainline. A backlash could ruin the entire spool (or at least my confidence that the line wasn't damaged) even if you got it out.

Easily a new world record

I actually managed to use the sale to stock up on things rather than impulse buy for once. Got some of the new ST-35 trebles in a few sizes to try on my swimbaits, some 20lb (spinning) and 40lb (casting) 500yd spools of power pro braid, a few war eagle spinnerbaits, some underspins, kietech fat impacts, seaguar blue label 15lb (leader line mostly for worm fishing), and a couple other things. I do have a labor day sale wishlist going already though lol to finally get equipped for some jerkbait fishing this fall and winter. That tatula CT is the reel for that setup so we'll see if I can maintain the willpower to wait until september haha.