tkunk

Super windy/wavy days can turn a lake over in the middle of summer. Where I fish, it's happened the last two years.

Which heads do you use? All the 0.5+ oz heads I've seen have very long shanks.

It's always best to fish fast, assuming it works. Often, the hard part is predicting when it's going to work. Luckily, this is easy to do for smallies. In the summer, smallies get fired up when it's windy and wavy. Power techniques like burning big, heavy spinnerbaits and working jerkbaits aggressively catch tons of fish. On calm days, I've always had much better luck with tubes, drop shots, and swimbaits. But it's important to understand that "finesse" doesn't mean "slow". While in search mode, you can cruise around at 1 MPH fishing a finesse bait.

I've broken a couple of rods and reels. In my experience, it's much better to go through TW than directly through manufacturers. With Shimano and Daiwa (both of which are awesome companies IMO), it can take a few months to get a replacement product. With TW, it takes a couple of weeks.

I've burned out some reels, so that's a good question. If it's hard to retrieve your lure, you can strip drag with a hard yank, or you can cast out your entire spool, you should go with a bigger reel. Note that something like a big swimbait might not show the first two symptoms, but you can still wreck a small reel if you backlash and your lure doesn't break off. In your case, a 2 oz crankbait is about the size of a Depth Raider, which is an average-sized but hard-pulling musky lure. Most musky guys I know use a 400-500 sized Shimano reel for that.

That site I linked does have parts for reels. Search for the reel you want, and it'll show an exploded diagram with parts.

That thing is freaking heavy. It's about same weight as Shimano 400/Revo 60.

You can always send your reel in, but it takes a long time to get it back. I've had good luck finding parts on http://www.ereplacementparts.com, but they're not cheap.

My biggest surprise catch was a 20+ lb king salmon on a jerkbait. A bass reel's wimpy ~10 pounds of drag is nothing to a salmon, so it spooled me, but the knot I used to tie the braid to my spool actually held.

There are many pike where I fish, so this looks interesting. What type of knot do you use to connect this type of leader to your main line? Maybe use a small swivel with a bead? I'm guessing you don't want it passing through your guides when you cast.

I need to service my reel. It's the 2016 Stradic, not the latest version. When I remove the spool assembly, there's a teensy (hex?) screw that pins the rotor nut to the main shaft. Does anyone know what tool I can use to remove it? Thanks.

The Navionics webinars (especially the ones with Seth Feider) on youtube are by far the best learning materials I've seen for smallies. That said, the most effective way to find bass on big water like SB is to build relationships with people who fish in your area and talk with them. Smallies there are nomadic after the spawn, so you need to do some networking to consistently find fish, especially on calm days.

I use a Tranx 500 for muskies in the summer and bull reds in the winter. It's an awesome reel. So far this year, the Tranx 400, which is smaller and less expensive, has been really good too. Saltwater fish can make very long runs, so I definitely wouldn't go smaller than a Shimano 400 or Revo 60. I've actully been spooled on my Tranx 500. You can get a decent 12 foot surf rod for $125. If you get a good reel and use a heavy enough weight, you'll be able to cast over 100 yards with the wind at your back, which is another reason you'll want a high capacity reel.

Unlike many companies, IMO, Loomis isn't conservative about the top end lure rating of their rods. I would guess that 5" senko will feel a little heavy on that rod when you're casting. It probably won't be a huge deal, though. If it helps, I often use the NRX 872 for 4" senkos, and it handles them perfectly.

I never had much luck throwing any crankbait longer than 2.5". Smallies will hit bigger baits, but they won't get hooked reliably. Wiggle Warts and DT10s are the right size to use. As mentioned earlier, you don't need to get super deep to target deep smallies: The active ones will rise a long way to hit a bait. The colors you want depend mostly on forage, time of day, and cloud cover. I typically use shad, sexy shad, or brown crawdad colors.

Thanks guys. I'll give the 120 a shot.

When I fish 7-10" musky glide baits like Phantoms and Hellhounds, I get some big smallies following my lures. They often hit the baits, but they rarely get hooked. I think I'll have some success with something smaller. Does anyone know of a 2-3" hard glide bait for bass? Hopefully not super expensive, because I know I'll lose some lures to pike and muskies. I'm aware of soft flukes and jerkbaits, but I want a true glider.

I'm not near my boat at the moment, so I don't have a screenshot. If I provided one, all you'd see is a cursor on the left edge of the screen. If you randomly touched your screen at a bunch of different spots on the left edge, you'd see the same behavior that I'm seeing. The screen doesn't lock, but it's also not very responsive when I touch it, probably because the unit thinks it's being touched.

I've had an HDS12 for about two years. Recently, it's been acting as if someone keeps touching the left edge of the screen. It can happen anywhere from 30X per minute to 1X per day. I've tried resetting the unit and re-calibrating the screen, but neither of those has helped. Turning off the HDS7 on my bow might help, but the problem's so random, it's hard to tell. Does anyone have any clue what's happening?

If I were you, I'd put 65 lb braid on the heaviest bass combo I had, get a couple of 180 lb Stealth Tackle fluoro leaders, and only throw spinnerbaits and small single-blade bucktails. If you try to throw heavy or hard-pulling muskie lures on cheap and/or underpowered equipment, you're wasting your money. That reel you linked only does 22 IPT, which is far too slow for any musky application.

Fluoro In the spool reduces casting distance, especially with any kind of leader knot, so I almost always avoid it. The one exception is drop shooting. With a long, stretchy leader, fish seem to stay on better. Plus line comes off the spool easier when you're dropping vertically.

Bigger pike really like mid-sized musky glide baits. Last week, while fishing for muskies, I got a mid-30 inch fish on 6" soft tail Phantom.

A complete answer to your post would require a lot of text, but I'll describe spring, because it's relevant now, and it's the easiest time to catch fish. The best spring search baits for me are 3/32 oz hair jigs, small jerk baits (like pointer 78's), and Keitech 2.8s on 1/16-1/8 oz heads. Once I find fish, I spot lock and catch as many as I can using the search bait; then I switch to a 2.5" tube. If there's a bunch of mossy crap growing on the rocks, I'll use a drop shot instead of a tube. I mostly target 2-10'. For structure, look for boulders and rock/sand transitions on big flats with easy access to deep water. Always fish the warmest part of the bay (often it'll be wind blown shorelines). This is pretty much all I do until the water consistently hits 60 degrees.

You can catch walleyes on a drop shot (I got a 31.5 on one), but there are much more efficient ways to target them. Plus, I think that active walleyes would tend to suspend above any kind of drop shot. While fishing for bass, I catch most of them on Keitechs, Rippin' Raps, and Pointers. It's very rare that I get them on drop shots or tubes. I wouldn't go heavier than 10 lb braid. You'll want to use a 4-6 lb fluoro leader for abrasion resistance and sensitivity. If I were targeting walleyes, I'd go a little heavier on the leader, because they have teeth. With the drop shot, it helps to have a long leader (like 20+ feet), because the stretchiness of fluoro helps keep fish buttoned down better.

Where I fish, many guys use umbrella rigs almost exclusively, so I know that they catch fish, but I've never had any success with them. I'll catch fish on consecutive casts using a standard smallie bait like a jerkbait, tube, or swimbait. I'll switch to the A-Rig and catch nothing for awhile. Then I'll switch back to the standard smallie bait and start catching fish again. For my setup, I usually use a 5-arm model. I have dummy springs on the top two arms, a 1/16 oz head on the middle arm, and two 1/8 oz heads on the bottom arms. I use Keitech 2.8's on all the heads. For line, I use 65 lb braid with a 7 foot, 15 lb fluorocarbon leader. The water I fish is typically gin-clear. During prespawn, which is now, I typically retrieve the rig just fast enough so that it stays off the bottom. During the retrieve, it always appears to swim true. Am I doing anything wrong?