MassYak85

The way I see it is this. We buy tackle to try and cover all our bases, to be ready for whatever conditions we might encounter. Could we take a single worm and hook to the lake and catch fish most days, sure. But rarely would that be "the best" way to catch fish that day. The thing is a lot of times we might go to the lake and use 1, 2, 5 lures out of hundreds. It doesn't mean the rest were useless and we shouldn't have brought them, it's just that once we narrowed down what would work. Each lure is a tool and as long as each "tool" serves a legitimate purpose and fits a condition that you might possibly be faced with, I don't think it's wasted space.

Primus brings up a good point, I have an Okuma Guide Select H rated 1-6 oz and I would not throw anything over 4 oz on it.

How far into your leader are you breaking off? If it's in some random spot then either the leader line itself is bad or you aren't checking it enough for nicks or damage. If it seems like the entire leader came back without the lure it may be your leader to lure knot breaking. If you are confident you are not doing anything wrong I'd try another line. I personally run 20lb P-Line 100% Fluorcarbon leaders and 40lb mainline Power Pro braid and an FG knot and I never have issues.

I use the Lexa 300 for stuff like hudds it's got plenty of line capacity

Nice! Only walleye I've ever personally seen in MA came out of the Connecticut river, my dad caught it when I was young.

Keitech or Eco Pro Tungsten Swing Shad

Let us know how it turns out! I've got a piece of bass wood lying around I'll try and do something with one day. I'll probably start with just a walking topwater lure but might try something kind of like a slammer if it turns out okay.

I'm more on the H/F side of things for rods myself. I use a 7'6" H/F Abu Garcia Vendetta 2.0 rod. It's a pool cue, but I can still cast accurately and BOMB hollow body frogs with it. Plus I fish from a kayak and in crazy thick lilypads. I like the extra power to horse fish out and to get a solid hookset because with this type of fishing often times I am moving more than the fish during a fight and it might have me wrapped around 10 lilypad stems the thickness of your pinky finger. I think most important reel quality is going to be drag, followed closely by speed. A lot of times when I'm sitting in lilypads I'll see movement somewhere else and I need to bring my frog back ASAP to make that other cast.

That would be sweet! I can imagine cranking it down and then letting it suspend next to a piece of cover could be killer! Only reason I ask about the 8" weedless is the only place I've seen them online is from Ken's website, and they've gone up to like 40 bucks a pop, which is what it is I guess. I've also heard he can be inconsistent with getting orders out, but I've never personally ordered from him. I regret not getting any when TW used to stock them, and they had them for like 29 bucks I think.

The 68 has no issues with hooking up. They collapse very easily. Also just my 2 cents, others may disagree, but as someone who was in your shoes looking at beginner swimbaits not too long ago myself, if you can afford it, just go with the tried and true lures like the hudds, slammers, bullshads etc and get a couple or a few that you can afford, and learn them and out time into them. I think it will do you more good than trying to find out first hand which of the cheaper entry level swimbaits are actually good or not. But at the end of the day it's what you are willing to spend and if all you can get is an S-waver 168 (s-wavers are actually very good baits for the money), and a savage gear trout, by all means do it.

I just got done shaving off about half the lead on mine. It was easier to cut open and glue back together than I was expecting actually. Would you mind sending me the link to that video? That sounds really cool. Does he (or anyone else you've heard of) ever take standard 8" hudds and do a weedless conversion? I was just looking at my 8" today and got to thinking a beast hook might fit inside with the harness removed.

Oh man, thanks! The deal is also for the short sleeve version too, I'm definitely grabbing a couple.

Yea definitely go with the 5, worst case you have to fish it slower, which is what you want with hudds generally anyways. I find my ROF12 still gets hung up in the weeds IMO.

I'll be out somewhere this weekend, not sure where yet. @Mr. Aquarium, do you happen to have any experience cutting open hudds? I want to see if I can shave off some of the weight on my Hudd 68 ROF12 to make it more like a ROF5 or even less. But I don't know what the harness really look like. I've got plenty of Mend-it to seal it back up but just want to know if I'd be wasting my time.

x2 I love both lines, and also like the spro rats and savage gear bluegills (although the bluegills might give you issues if you let them sink into the weeds). Definitely grab a Mini-Slammer or the 7" as well. Mattures ultimate bluegill might be a goof choice as well.

My favorite rod that I own is my jig rod, a 7'2" HF Tatula. It's light, sensitive and is a true fast action with plenty of backbone. I almost exclusively use it for T-rigs and Jigs but I'd be comfortable frogging or light punching with it too. It can be found for the lower end of your budget too.

I'll probably keep my Slammer on one of my rods until the entire lake is frozen. But my whopper plopper and noisier topwaters are definitely done for the season. The key for me once the water dropped into the lower 50's is long pauses, or even just deadsticking for a minute or two.

The ice is definitely coming DogBone, here's a look at A1 from this past weekend, there was some pretty interesting ice formations on one of the shorelines.

Others may have different opinions, and granted I haven't fished it in a couple years, but I think there are better places to fish than cochituate. Not saying there aren't decent fish in there, but among some of the ice fishermen it's nicknamed "the dead sea". By all means give it a go but especially shore fishing I would probably spend my time elsewhere if it was me.

I pretty much always run 40 lb braid to a 20lb fluoro leader for jigs. The abrasion resistance factor alone makes it worth it to me. I hooked a 4lber earlier this year that was on the other side of a rock. I landed it but my entire leader was trashed and shredded from the tug of war we had with the line grinding over the rock. Straight braid that fight would have lasted a second at most.

I hit A1 for a couple hours late morning. I honestly only made probably 30 casts. The water was so clear, the sun was out and almost no wind until later on that I just stood up and paddled around to see what I could see. Managed to find the exact location of the old creek bed as it passes by the island as well as what I think could be a verrrrry prime location come spawn for whichever big fish wants to claim it first. I saw probably 5-6 bass as I was paddling around, all pretty decent fish in the 2-3+ lb range. There was still a couple places where the weeds were holding on and green. To my surprise there were two coves that were actually iced over. The swans were out in full force as well, there must have been at least 100, I stopped counting at 70. The casts I did make were with a hudd 68 and a 9" slammer. My hudd is a ROF 12 and even though it's weedless, I feel like to fish it slow enough to be effective this time of year it still is getting hung up in the weeds too much. I might get a ROF 5 or even 0 and add some nail weights to fish the weedier lakes better. I did actually get a little interest in the slammer. I must have let it sit for like 2 minutes after casting it out and I see it get nudged ever so slightly and a fin pop up right next to it. That was as close as I got to a bite though. The wind picked up and I decided to call it quits, still a great day though and I took away some useful information for next season.

When you say heavy, are you talking S-Waver 168 heavy, Deps 250 heavy...or Roman Made Mother Heavy? And like Dwight said I would shy away from a fast action rod. You are just setting yourself up for disappointment IMO. Last thing you want with a bait that weighs half a pound is the fish coming up and completely unloading your rod every time it shakes it's head and having the full weight of the bait thrashing back and forth working the treble hooks out.

Good to hear of slammer fish still being caught, I might try and get out this weekend but looking at those temperatures it's going to be brutal. 18 degrees Friday night! I was still seeing high 50's last weekend for water temps...I'm sure we can kiss those goodbye. Anyone have good luck after the first really sharp cold snap? I almost wonder if it might kick them into high gear to feed up.

I have the 40. I think your 6'9" MH would work for the 30 and 40 sizes. A slow wake works but also give walking it a shot. It does a good job of staying in place and combine a couple back forth twitches with some long pauses right in a pocket in the pads and hold on. I'd recommend 40lb braid for your setup and the cover you'll be fishing.

Swimjig by far for me