MassYak85

x2 it's my favorite rod

OP, it sounds like what you want is a glove suitable for real cold wet weather correct? If that's the case I am still looking myself but I have settled on one pair for now. They're kind of pricey (I got them on sale for half off which is what prompted the purchase) I will say though, they are still a little bulky for ME to fish with open water. Which is what I bought them for so I was slightly disappointed with them. I do still use them when the water or air is in the 30's out of necessity but I would still like to find something better. So for now they are primarily ice fishing gloves, but d**n good ones. First glove I have ever used that was actually, 100% waterproof no matter what. I also got a large size, and I'm slightly convinced had I got mediums and had them tight fitting they would be exactly what I want, but I'm not going to shell out 75 bucks for a second pair anytime soon to find out. My main problem with the large is for my hands the fingers leave about a quarter to a half inch of space at the ends of my fingertips, which makes tying knots very hard, but for just thumbing a spool they work well.

Lol, that's both a relief and a confidence crusher to hear. I think I'd rather know I just haven't adjusted yet than that the fishing sucks for everyone at the places I'm going to. Literally every person I've talked to has done terribly bass fishing so far. Saturday this other dude was in a real nice kayak, had some nice combos I recognized, had electronics hooked up and everything. I see him pulling in as I get close to the ramp and I think "oh good, a local who is into bass fishing and knows this place, maybe I can get some tips"....nope, he caught 1 as well, same as me. It seems the only thing people can catch successfully are sunfish and catfish, neither of which I really want to spend time pursuing. I know they're here, and I have a feeling if I could spend some time on a fishfinder scanning around the creek channel swings near the aerators I might be able to put something together but I don't have one on my kayak yet. My other theory is the summer just hits them harder down here the way winter does up in new england. I'll be back here for the spawn so that should be a good gauge as to the population I'm dealing with at least.

I don't fish them myself but I've heard it said you should fish the grass minnows almost like a swimjig a lot of the times. I think for those you can really use any gear ratio and a medium retrieve will get you bit just bringing it tight against cover. I don't think those were meant to be crawled. And even for the 8" when you're crawling it, you can still use a 9 speed reel if you were so inclined, it just may be a lot tougher for you to slow down enough to do it.

The reasoning behind people saying that is those are "reaction" baits where the fish are not necessarily sitting their analyzing it before chowing down. It swims by rather quick and they are forced to decide then and there "do I want to eat that" and line visibility probably won't play as big a role unless they are already super finicky. With the worms you are generally fishing them slower and the bass has time to swim right up to it, stare it down, and decide to eat it or not. That's the theory anyway, whether or not you decide to buy into it is your choice and you should experiment and prove it to yourself one way or the other. Personally, I like leaders for most techniques unless the water is super dingy or I'm fishing topwater or punching. I've caught them on straight braid, but I've also caught 12 fish fishing the same lure, same areas, as a friend who caught no fish and was using straight braid, and I had a leader on a bright sunny clear water day. This happened two times in one summer, same conditions two different friends. That's as close I've been able to come to "proving it" to myself that they are necessary sometimes. So when in any doubt I use one now.

Yea that's the thing. I personally like high speeds but they can test my patience for certain techniques. It's also a fine line because you also don't want a reel that's so slow that you can't keep up with a fish that swims right at you. I fish smaller swimbaits on a 300 size cardiff which is 5.8:1 with a decent size spool. It's nice for slow crawling hudds but I had something big knock about 5 feet of slack into my line fishing a mattlures gill and by the time I reeled in the slack and set the hook I had just enough time to feel it spit it out and take off leaving a torpedo of a wake.

It depends how slow you can reel and stay sane.

There's probably 50 threads asking the same question if you use the search bar. I honestly don't think you could go wrong with any of the sizes other than maybe the 190. Even one pounders will crush the 130 though so don't shy away from it if you have a rod that can handle it.

I'm not in a club but I am in University currently. If someone basically told me what you just did and wanted me to take them out for a day I'd honestly be thrilled.

An update for how things are going down here in Virginia... Went out for 4 hours at one of the reservoir, I don't think I've ever been so happy to catch one 2lb bass in my life. Got it on a shakey head, right at a rock to clay transition in some shade near the creek channel near an aerator. That's about as close to a "oh, that fish should have been there" moment I've had down here. Wasn't able to put a pattern together though.

Swim jigs it does great, I forgot to say I also use it for those, I prefer them on that rod over the HF unless it's a really heavy duty swimjig. I also fish my spro rat on it but I don't know what the flex of the mojo is like. All I know is I was fishing the 40 size spro rat and the 130 whopper plopper on my HF rod for a while. I lost two PB smallies because they jumped within like 10 feet of the boat and had no issue unloading the rod with a single headshake and throwing it. So from then on I have used the MH because it does have more flex. I can't say for sure it's the ideal rod for topwaters because I don't have much experience with more moderate rods but it does work fine for me with them.

I'd say it depends what you want to use it for. I've been using mine for spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, heavier cranks and some smaller t-rigs and heavier topwaters. They say it's rated as a "Regular" action. Now the HF is what I would consider a true Fast action. I absolutely love that rod and it's also my favorite. The regular is more like a mod-fast. With certain rod companies it might even be a fast though. My issue is I don't have a cranking rod right now, but I don't want to lose the versatility of the MH, so it doesn't make sense for me to switch it out, even though I would prefer a little more flex for treble hook baits I think but it does work fine for heavier cranks. In short it's what you would probably want out of a MH, versatile.

I must say though, I underestimated that 8" WRS. Looking at the side view of them in pictures they don't look particularly bulky for their length. Let me tell you though that thing rivals an 8" hudd for shear bulk. It's deceptively wide.

I currently throw mine on a 7'2"MH/F Tatula. It's not ideal, but gets the job done. I used to use my 7'2" HF Tatula, but lost too many fish just because the rod couldn't absorb headshakes well as the fish got near the boat. I do think it's pushing the MHF rod's upper limit. I always underhand lob it on that rod. Ideally if I could get a dedicated rod for that class of topwaters I'd get like a 7'4 or 7'6 MH Moderate, almost like a deep cranking rod or something.

This thread was on the second page?! Bait Monkey must have gone on vacation! He must be staying somewhere near me though...

I can't say I've done enough side by side comparison to say definitively that the fish are significantly affected by seeing braid. I'll tell you what I'm not going to start doing....fishing 50lb braid in place of my 12lb fluoro for shakeyheads in 15ft of visibility.

Haha, yea. I wouldn't be pulling those 15 hour days if i was married that's for sure. It's something I'll enjoy while I can.

I'd say on average I'm on the water at 6am, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. If I don't get a single bite, I'll usually leave around 12 unless there's some sort of weather change that I think could get things going. If I'm seeing some activity but just can't get on a good pattern I might stay until 2 or 3 before running myself out of things to try. If I'm catching them good I stay until they stop biting. I've had 15 hour days before. Of course this all assumes I have nothing else planned for the day. The only time weather is usually a deterrent is thunderstorms or when it gets really cold. This spring I had to call it quits because I didn't wear warm enough clothes, my forearms got chilled (it was also raining), and as a result, so did the nerves running to my hands. I decided it was enough when I had to use two hands to disengage the thumb bar....

You might not have a ton of success in the middle of summer from shore with artificials but Wachussett Reservoir is within driving range of where you are and offers the potential for some trophy smallmouth.

I'm new to the area this summer too and it's been frustrating for me as well. I have a kayak but I haven't figured out any of the suffolk reservoirs yet, I keep getting skunked or only getting one. Oddly enough, the best luck I've had is in the small drainage canal behind Hooters. Give it a try. I had good luck on worms fished slowly.

The kayak can definitely play a role, especially depending what Yak you have. But I think the thing to look at in your situation is the line and possibly the rod. Too much give in those will probably cause poor hook penetration through the bait. I fish 5.8's weedless all the time from my kayak with a 7'2" MHf or HF rod, 40lb braid to a 15 or 20 lb leader and never have an issue with hookups. I feel a tick and hammer them with an almost locked down drag. The only techniques I start to consider the kayak itself in the equation is frogging. Where I'm fishing with a pool que of a rod, 50 or 65lb braid and the drag as tight as I can get it. In that situation truly the only give is the kayak once the rod loads. And there are times I think it does cause a poor hookset when my kayak shoots forward 5 feet and I end up with no fish. That being said I fish out of a 50lb (240 - 250 with myself and gear added) sit in kayak. A feather compared to some of the bigger fishing kayaks out there.

I'd consider that a good day at whitehall even with the lost fish. There are definitely big ones in there but I don't run into them too often. I did get a 5lber out of there last summer but other than that I've never gotten anything over 4. Allegedly some kid caught a 10 lber out of there a couple years back (pic was in bassmaster too). The lake always challenges me but I think if you put the time in there you can get some nice ones.

Let's put it this way. I've had better luck fishing drainage ditches in the middle of downtown than in any of the major reservoirs. And by better luck I mean I caught two fish each time... That was the thing, I was using a chartreuse tipped roboworm on a shakeyhead and the only bites I got were bluegills eating the last 2 inches of the tail. I've had one fish on a shad crank after it deflected off a rock but it was a dink. I've seen plenty of small shad jumping and I've tried flukes without much luck. I'll try your tip with the steeper banks though. Problem is most of the lakes I'm fishing have a foot of visibility if you're lucky. Anything that isn't bright or pitch black disappears from sight before you can say "1" on the fall. It's definitely a different world than up north.

Well sorry for the confusion lately but I'm back now. I'm about ready to throw in the towel on these Virginia Bass man, it's been roooouuuugh. Apparently there's some trophy bluegill fishing down here and I'm half tempted to take my ML dropshot rod and go for some of those.

That's one of the things I do. I'll also use it to try and determine if a secluded spot is accessible. If it seems like it could be I'll take the drive to check it out. Down here in Virginia there are hundreds of little ponds, many are private, some aren't. You've got to determine what is fish-able. Street view is really helpful for that too. I'll also just put a marker on each pond I see. Green if I have been to it and have confirmed I can fish there, yellow if it's questionable and I need to go check it out in person, and red if it's clearly off limits or private (surrounded by barbed wire or 100% closed off by private property).