MassYak85

Everyone of us is guilty of buying something that just looks good at some point. But I think you'll be much more effective buying lures if you go in their with a mindset of what you need to accomplish. Is it the middle of the summer and your fish have been deep and finicky? I'd be in the store looking for small worms I can dropshot, light wire hooks, light fluoro etc. As opposed to just walking in and convincing yourself you need certain things or saying "That HAS to get bit, it looks too tasty!". It's like going grocery shopping when you're hungry. I've also found it dangerous to try and expand your arsenal for techniques that are out of season or you have little experience with yet, because you just don't know what you truly need and end up justifying more than you probably should. And welcome!

It's these little lies that help us sleep at night

The only hook bonnets I've found that I actually like are Owner Safety Caps, I wonder if you could modify those. Or better yet, I'm sure Owner would sell a bunch if they could design ones that would work with feathered trebles.

Interesting. I've always hated having the back hook on some of my feathered topwaters being free and covering the front.

I don't own any high end rods but right now if I could replace all of mine with one series, I'd go Diawa Tatula (haven't tried the elites but I;m sure if we're just trying to stay under 200 a rod I'd go with those, can't see them being any worse than the regular ones).

x2 wait for dicks to put them on sale and just buy a bunch of bags

I always grab any fishing line lying around. That one's a pet peeve of mine.

I've never caught one but up here some guys in the winter will put 10" or 12" golden shiners under tip-ups on the ice to target trophy pike or bass.

There's a few lakes around me that they've gone crazy killing as many weeds as possible. The affects on bass are mostly indirect I suspect but still very prominent. One shore spot I used to fish at night had a great weed edge that you could almost guarantee would produce fish....that weed edge is gone and it's a sandy flat now because of the weed killer....I haven't caught a bass there in a year and at this point I'll stop trying unless it's the spawn. The way I see it the less weeds the less cover, and the less cover could be a good thing in the short term because they fish may be more predictable. But long term bait fish have less places to hide, and can get eaten up. Short supply of food is obviously bad for the bass and I believe the population can hurt because of it. But like others say it becomes more of a competition for food and smaller bass won't be able to compete, so you may end up with larger fish.

It's been a mudhole every time I've been haha, never seen more than 6 inches of visibility. I've looked at tournament results for smith and you're right they seem to pull some nice one when the bite is on. I'll probably focus my efforts on the suffolk lakes for planned trips but they're a little far if I want to just go on a whim in the afternoon. Weestern Branch seems really nice but I was only there for like an hour before getting chased off by a storm on Saturday.

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep that in mind when I go to Western Branch next. I fished Smith again today for 5 hours with only a dink on a squarebill to show for it. I tried to fish the main points with cranks, C-rig, flukes, lizards, paddle tails and didn't get a sniff other than that one fish. Am I wasting my time there or am I still missing something?

You'll probably be fine with 6-12lb leader depending what you are using for lures. As for leader knots, I'd recommend the Alberto as well.

So I'm down in Virginia Beach for the Summer and have been out fishing 5 or 6 times now. The places I have been are really neat bodies of water but my success on them has been very limited. I've been fishing Smith, Prince, and Western Branch and so far only have four bass and a catfish to show for my efforts. Needless to say I think I need a few pointers on fishing this area during the summer. I'm fishing out of my kayak and I feel I may not be fishing deep enough. I've seen some bass shallow and there are more trees down than I could ever dream of casting to but I don't seem to be having much luck around the obvious visible cover. I don't have a fish finder so finding deep structure will be a challenge but if dragging a jig the old fashioned way to locate stuff is what I should be doing then I don't mind. I don't need any specifics on spots but where have you guys been catching them this time of year? The first drop, second drop, points, channel swings? I can use my phone on the water with the Navionics app to give myself a fair idea of what I should be looking for but I need to do something other than what I have been, I'm just not sure what. Any advice is much appreciated.

Well, I managed to catch my PB... ...catfish. I'm not sure if the bass down here in VA are just wired different and I'm out of sync or if it's just tougher and more pressured. But I'm doing pretty bad. So back to the catfish. I'm off this little island and I see a fish breach the water that looks bigger than just the shad I've been seeing. So I cast a 5.8 keitech and let it sink right where I saw it. I reeled up the slack and I feel a tug and set the hook. Fish feels pretty solid and is fighting hard. I see a good size flash of a belly and it goes under my kayak. I grab the net and land it...and to my surprise I have a nice 3-4lb catfish in my net and not the 4lb bass I was expecting given the fight. Oh well, I'll take it but it doesn't really help me out as far as the bass go.

Yea I got my checks last week, I actually thought it might take longer. 16 Bags of worms for nothing, it doesn't get better than that.

I'm from MA, like to Ka(yak), and my street address

BPS definitely is on the upper end of retail for many products. I rarely buy stuff from them unless it's on sale or I need something quickly and am near the store.

Nice! I may be wrong but I feel the majority who litter are simply doing it out of convenience, give them a convenient place to put the trash and they'll probably use it.

Yea it's literally like a "cave" in the back of the store. Stuff gets thrown in there if it was returned and can't be put back on the shelf or if it's being discontinued, or if it was damaged and gets marked down accordingly.

Try it! If nothing else it will keep you occupied admiring how cool it looks haha. Plus it gives you that chance of a double hookup! Still waiting for one of those.

Thanks for the replies guys! This is what I was thinking of doing, except with acetone. I guess my only remaining question is what do you guys do for the anti-reverse clutch bearing? Doesn't that have a plastic retainer to hold the rollers? I imagine that will not mix well with some degreasers. Although it also has more spacing to let gunk out than the smaller bearings so maybe some simple green and the ultrasonic would work for that.

Just wanted to share a good customer service experience. Last week I put my kayak up and the back part of the Thule rack that my kayak sits against bent all the way back past where it's supposed to. Upon closer inspection and taking it apart a large plastic piece had given way and broken. I looked on their website and this part was not one of the ones you could buy replacements of. So I sent them an email with the part number, explaining what happened and they just asked for my address and sent it straight to me free of charge. A quick change out for the old part and it's back in business. Thanks Guys!

Last summer I snagged a Lews reel marked down to 100 from 200 since it was the last one they had and weren't' going to carry it anymore. I think it's discontinued actually but it was in the bargain cave and I wasn't going to pass that up.

Zoom trick worm or roboworms

So I've been cleaning my reels the past couple years with pretty good success, but this year I want to try and get the bearings a little cleaner. So far I've just been giving them a short soak in Simple Green and I'm not convinced that's doing the best job by itself. I've heard a lot of people like Acetone to soak their bearings but I've also heard it can eat away plastic. Is this true about ceramic hybrid bearings? Which raises my real question, are there many reels that come stock with ceramic hybrid bearings? I assume all my reels have stainless steel ones but again, I'm not sure, and that's something I want to know, not assume, before I start dipping them in chemicals. I know some of my reels have corrosion resistant bearings but I'm not really sure what makes them corrosion resistant vs other types of bearings, are they simply treated stainless steel bearings or do they contain any plastic components?