TOXIC

I was referring to a new technique as something you are required to buy new. For example a Tokyo rig is something you would buy unless you were really into bait making. I remember one year I was doing seminars at Bass Pro and the “new” bait everybody had to have was a seedless spoon with a prop built in. Your average fisherman couldn’t just rig that. New colors and presentations of existing baits don’t really qualify as a new technique to me. Heck, I did an article for Yamamoto once where I covered 78 different ways to rig a Senko. ??

Totally depends on what you are throwing. Small cranks and other moving baits can be thrown on baitcasters but for finesse plastics where the action is in the fall rate (like a Senko), you want your bait to free fall. In order to accomplish this with a baitcaster, you would have to manually pull line off the reel. A spinning rod allows the line to free flow with no or very little resistance. Considering you get 90% of your bites on the fall then hand lining off a baitcaster will cause you to miss bites. Normally Senko style finesse baits thrown on a baitcaster will pendulum back towards you rather than free fall because the reel settings you need to keep from backlashing will keep the bait from free falling.

Although it doesn’t look too painful, if you look at that back deck there used to be 5 more rod/reel combos but Lake Okeechobee decided I needed to pay some dues in rough water when a strap came loose.

Easy answer.....bait companies need to sell baits. New technique means more sales. Somebody has to feed the bait monkey.?

I have never been so frustrated with the wind as I was last week. It wasn’t that the wind was blowing. It was that it was constantly changing direction to the point there was no clean water anywhere. As you know those bass hate dirty water and it was tough getting them to bite. Also, they were in pods. If you found a pod you could catch a bunch in the same area. They were also relating to vertical cover and were not in the pads or eel grass. You can bet I’ll be back. ??

Grab your favorite beverage, sit back and let me give you a recap of our week on Okeechobee. We left with dreams of monster bass and were willing to do whatever it took short of throwing shiners. Left Virginia 4am and stayed the first night in Palm Coast, Florida. Side note, I stayed in Palm Coast for 3 months when I was in Florida for work for 2 years and found a house to rent in JAX. Woke up the next morning to pretty stiff winds and decided to meet our local fisherman who was going to fish with us for the week, at C Scott Driver ramp on the north end of the lake since the south end was blown out and muddy. First day was a total bust. Zero fish. I attributed it to a couple of things including recalibrating to a totally different style of fishing, 16 hours of driving and the wind was howling. We couldn’t find clean water. Called it a day and checked in to Roland’s in Clewiston. 2nd day we hit South Bay and the water was trash from the winds but now the winds have shifted and were out of the south so we decided to put the boats on the trailers and head north again to try and beat the mud back further north and we put in at Harney Pond. Caught a few fish but the water quality was down. 3rd day we went south again and let me tell you the wind was just absolutely a killer. It shifted and changed directions multiple times during the day. We caught some fish in the reed beds outside of Boy Scout cut from the Rim Canal and some in Buckhead. By now we’ve got them figured out as far as baits but the challenge was finding clean water. We had caught some nice fish. Day 4 we decided to run the rim canal north and we fished Moonshine Bay. Tons of beds but no fish on them. Because of the winds, the lake was fishing really small and all of the clean water was picked over pretty good. 5th day we went back to our reed beds on the south end and did well. Overview: Overall we did really well considering we talked to a lot of locals and guides and they were not doing as well as we were. We took a poll on whether we would go back, our group had guys from Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Georgia and the only one who said he wouldn’t make the trip was from Mass and he was the least experienced of the group. Roland’s was a good place to stay, the tiki bar was convenient for food. We stayed in the motel and not the condos rooms were clean and had a mini fridge . If I went back, I would definitely book a condo and cook my own food. My only complaint was that boat/trailer parking is a little sketchy. There’s plenty of electrical outlets but no real rhyme or reason on how/where to park. Combination of open field with plug ins like an rv park and spaces outside rooms with plug ins. You could always find a spot, it just might not be as convenient as it could be. Baits that worked: 5 and 6 inch Senkos in red/green or blue/black colors. Weightless on 4 or 5.0 ewg hooks or with a 1/8th oz screw in nose weight for beds and vertical reed fishing and pitching pads. Swim Jig in bluegill colors and small paddle tail trailer in green pumpkin. Chatterbait in blue/black with a Zako trailer of the same color or a chatterbait in white chartreuse with a paddle tail Zako in Golden shiner. Yamamoto heart tail Swimbaits in various colors from golden shiner to darker rigged on a gamakatsu screw lock 1/8th weighted hook 4.0 or 5.0. SPRO Aruku Shad in Nasty Shad color. Frogs, both hollow body SPRO Popping frog and Solid body, Yamamoto Yamafrog. 1/4 oz Ned with. Yamamoto Kuttail worm, 5 inch. Now some fish pics. I have some vids of us running some trails and cuts that were sketchy at best. High pucker factors for sure.

After being pro staff for Yamamoto for close to 20 years, you know what my vote is.??. But let me tell you what I have always said about the Senko vs the 10,000 copy stick baits out there.......Once you start putting weights in a Senko, nail weights, nose weights, worm weights, Tokyo rigs, dropshot rigs, etc. and as soon as you start throwing them on anything larger than 10lb test line, you might as well use a cheap knockoff because you have taken away what makes a Senko different from all of the others and that’s the action. Take that away and you have made it just another stick bait. It was designed to be a free falling finesse bait. As a matter of fact Yamamoto has always encouraged me to throw other stick baits and let them know how they performed. And just so you know I’m no hypocrite, I just got back from lake Okeechobee and the number 1 bait that caught 95% of my fish was a 5 inch Senko on a 7ft med/hvy fast action pro qualifier rod and a pro qualifier wide spool spinning reel with 35lb braid and a 5.0 gamakatsu ewg hook. I rigged it both weightless and with a screw in nose weight so that it would fall straight down the reed stalks. Nothing finesse about either one of those rigs. Finally, if there is a manufacturer that makes a “must have” unique color for you, then confidence trumps maker every time.

When I was doing seminars all the time the way I taught newbies the difference between flipping and pitching is that a pitcher throws the ball when pitching so you throw the bait when pitching. If you do a flip you end up in the same spot just like flipping a bait, no extra line comes out so you hit the same spot. I just got back from lake Okeechobee and we did a ton of both. More pitching than flipping but when you have 1 foot of open water on either side of the boat and then 6 foot tall reeds......you flip.?

Just loaded mine up for a trip to Okeechobee for week. Leaving tomorrow morning. It’s the only place in the US above freezing.?

Accommodations are always tough. There are some hotels on the mainland but we have always stayed on Harsens Island in a cottage. We book it every year. We couldn’t book it last year due to the high water so we stayed with a friend on the mainland. Others can tell you more about hotels than I can. As for locations, it’s always weather dependent but you can usually bank on the Mile Roads, Selfridge and Muscamoot holding fish. Check back a little closer or watch for my report after we go up in May. We are scrambling to find a place to stay now because the cottage is off line again this year.

Having been a guide for so many years I have been hooked more times than I would care to remember. My pain threshold is pretty high ?. Normally I would do the string trick or cut the barb off but because of where this was located, it was easier to just pull it out. Plus it’s a pain to put new hooks on blade baits. ?

Just last weekend, I was loading up my rods into my truck from my buddies boat and ran 1 barb from a treble on a blade bait past the barb on the topside of my thumb just past the base of my nail. I was in a hurry so I just ripped it out the opposite direction it went in. You’d of thought I hit an artery with the way it was bleeding.?. My buddy saw it and pulled a bandage out of his first aid kit.

As with any other purchase, you need to figure out what “quality” means. I don’t run tin but off the top of my head if I were looking, I would want to know things like the thickness of the hull, the gauge and quality of the wiring, the thickness of the carpet, construction materials differences, thickness of vinyl on the seats, etc. Motor size both outboard and troller have no impact on quality, that is price point. Start comparing the items I listed and you’ll see where price goes according to better quality.

Assuming they don’t put travel restrictions on Florida, I would recommend getting a Disney guide and fish the private Disney property lakes.

Totally different tools for totally different situations. For your small boat a manual spike may be the best for holding you in the shallows. I have a cable steer 36v 112lb thrust trolling motor and fish often on a boat with an ultrex equipped with spot lock. I have run both a lot. It is the best thing since bottled beer in some situations, fishing shallow isn’t one of them. Now if you fish rivers, or open water, or bigger water, spot lock is a godsend. You get used to the differences is steering response and when I’m on the back of the boat and my partner is retrying or eating lunch, I can run the tm remotely rather than going upfront. I will be upgrading my tm in the near future to a unit with spot lock. I just like to wait until products have been on the market a while and I can see how well they perform.

Trying to fill by line diameter is very difficult. I wouldn’t waste expensive braid as filler. I would just put enough cheap mono on to give some backing. I just eyeball how much backing will save me a little extra line when spooling, keeping in mind I want the least amount of backing as possible. Nothing worse than spooling up a reel and on the first cast have the backing knot fly through the guides.

This post made me dizzy. You put up a picture of a raft off as the reason you don’t want to tie to a dock? You are willing to sink a mooring or use an anchor offshore? If you don’t want to tie off to the dock, then pull your boat out. Period. I know I wouldn’t be the one wading out to get the boat in the morning. I have tied my boats off to docks on a lot of big water and have had some pretty nasty storms come in. My inflatable bumpers have always done their job even to the point where some of them have rubbed rubber onto the hull. No damage and easily removed. I can guarantee you I am as picky about my boat as anyone. But seriously, learn how to properly tie off to the dock with bumpers, watch the weather and if there’s a chance of a big storm, pull the boat out. I would never trust a mooring or an anchor in a big storm, at least not one you could put in yourself.

I have guided on this lake and have fished it for 20 years. It’s a tough one to figure out because of the odd conditions the power plant makes with its discharge and the inflow of 3 major creeks. I have found fish on the beds long before any other lake this far north and I have caught them year round. I think yesterday was the beginning of the spawn movement. Don’t ask me why, I just feel it is. Started with a big fish on the bank in skinny water and a ragged tail. Then we proceeded to catch them really good in what I would call pre spawn areas. Banner day for that lake for sure. Here’s a little sample of what we caught all day. And here’s one from my buddy.

It’s natural to be concerned and you should call your local DNR Fisheries Biologist and ask the question to see what they say. Don’t be surprised if they tell you it has no impact though.

I see your point. I watched the review video on AutoGeeks and never got the impression it was hard to remove. Well, it was. Might be better with a buffer and a polish pad but I prefer to do my vehicles by hand. As for the dye it was annoying because the product was so hard to remove but I really didn’t look into why it was grey. Good info.

What did you not like about it? My only real complaint so far was that it was hard to apply and remove.

I got the rpm number directly from Mercury’s website. It’s bad juju to over rev your motor even by 300:rpm. I run my 250 Yamaha at the lower end of the max rpms.

4 stroke rpm wot is 4,500-5,500 rpm.

Do you have to re-wax after? Anytime I clay, I follow it up with wax.

Thanks. I have a buddy who lives in Michigan and is a true car nut. He just did a frame off restoration on a 55 Chevy. He recommended the new clay mitt over my synthetic non abrasive clay bar. He also has every product that Meguiars has ever made but he uses mechanical application unless wet sanding and I prefer to keep it hand applied unless I need paint correction.