Boomstick

I buy licenses in MA, VT, and NY. NY is a 12 month license and MA and VT expire every year, and I usually don't fish in NY as soon as the water thaws, so it's pretty easy for me to keep track.

The temperatures are still a little too cold up here. Most of our water has finally thawed and I am hoping that I will hit the water next weekend if it's not too cold! Nice kayak -- I am buying myself a Bonafide this year, but don't expect to use it until May

I have spinnerbaits that produce from a wide range of brands that I could recommend, but I can keep this pretty simple and say stick with War Eagle. They work well, hold up well and run around $7 and make most color and blade combinations you'd ever need. Other brands like Strike King, Booyah, River2Sea, Nichols and Revenge are also very good. Now to match the spinnerbait to your fishing conditions: -If you always fish brown muddy water, get a 1/2oz model in chartreuse or white/chartreuse with a single colorado blade. -If you always fish stained water, try a white/chartreuse with dual willow blades, one silver and one gold, 3/8oz or 1/2oz will do. -If you always fish clear water, try an all-white 3/8 model with dual silver willow blades. -If you want one that needs to work in a variety of conditions, get a sexy shad or blue herring color in 3/8oz with a gold and nickel blade. War Eagle makes a good one, and there is also a Strike King KVD model that you can get at most Walmarts that fit the bill well also. If you get a spinnerbait where the first blade starts past the end of the hook like a Revenge, be sure to use a trailer hook. I rarely use a trailer hook the rest of the time, and if I'm getting short strikes, I will usually throw on a keitech trailer but a trailer hook works too it just picks up a few more weeds.

The only time I use braid with a leader is on my spinning gear. I prefer how braid handles, so I tie on a 7ft fluorocarbon leader. As far as casting gear, I use Berkley Trilene Fluorocarbon on most of my reels, partially because I'm cheap and Bass Pro/Cabela's usually has a buy one get one sale every spring, but also because it's very good line as well. On the reel I fish poppers and buzzbaits with, I run 12lb Sufix Siege, and on reels I use for jigs in cover and frogs, I run 65lb Daiwa J-Braid Grand, and my jig rod has microguides so I can't tie on a leader, but if I'm going to use a leader I will use my reel with 17lb fluorcarbon instead.

The 7'2" should be fine for those to be honest. It is a Daiwa MH so a MH+ and does have a little more backbone than most deep diving rods. The 7'4" might make sense if you are literally using the strongest hooks possible and maybe a larger size. Have you used the 7' M/R glass for reference?

The 7'4" is a H/R rod. I couldn't really see using that for crankbaits, but if I had one I would absolutely use it for larger crankbaits or spinnerbaits in grass, but a rod like that is near the bottom of my bucket list. If I fished a lake like Lake Okeechobee which has a ton of really thick grass or fished larger spinnerbaits more often then I would be all over that. If you do get the 7'4", I would be interested to hear what it's like.

I have a Daiwa Tatula Glass 7' M/R (MF) and 7'2" MH/R rod that I use for crankbaits. The MH will get the nod in grass and also most of the time for deep divers, but for everything else the M rod is awesome -- launches the smaller ones a mile and has a good amount of play in the tip.

I have a Daiwa 7'2" MH/R (mod. fast) glass rod that would fit the bill nicely. It has a good amount of backbone so that's good for spinnerbaits and chatterbaits, and some play in the tip -- try to give sweeping hooksets when fishing a larger hooked lure. It's pretty good for fishing square bills in grass, when a faster tip is preferred and works pretty good for jerkbaits too. Pretty much an all around moving bait stick if there ever was one. A M/F rod that runs on the heavier side, usually a 8-17 line rating will also work pretty well, like the St Croix Mojo Bass Jerkbait rod or the the Premier that MIBassyaker mentioned. I just got the Sierra 703C for my oldest son for this year and the tip is on the mod. fast side and I would think that would be a fantastic choice as well -- he plans to fish weightless and lightly weighted soft plastics, topwaters, cranks and jerkbaits on it. The Fury should be similiar. I think the Tatula Glass would be a better choice if you plan on fishing 1/2oz chatterbaits or spinnerbaits as it has a solid backbone to it, but you can fish weightless and lightly weighted soft plastics on the 703C. The 6'10" Tatula has a bit too much tip imo for a jerkbait, but is a great rod for soft plastics, jigs, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, etc.

Well they cancelled the rest of the youth hockey season, so time is no longer an issue. Turns out that Cabelas.com was discounting the Berkley Trilene FC by something like 60% so I did even better. I purchased a few spools of Berkley Trilene Big Game which I will use for backing and also early in the season when there's a chance the reels might still see below zero temps at night before switching to more expensive line.

I either use a swim senko (or copy), Keitech or a Lake Fork Live Magic Shad trailer. If I use a Keitech, I usually cut the end of the tail off to give it a consistent action.

Now that is a quarantine I can get behind!

It's been over 100 years since since virus caused mass deaths. I survived swine flu, SARS and zika so far. I hate to say it, but shutting everything down really isn't going to stop the spread, it will just slow it at best. Because now it's out there and people still need toilet paper and hand sanitizer and at some point, things will open for business again and now what? There's reportedly 34m cases of influenza last year with 20k-52k deaths. Now, granted if that was Coronavirus using the highest death ratio, we can expect 112k deaths. But we can also expect more people to get treatment, and possibly have better treatment. So I'm going with this whole thing is political. Some people are gonna buy up a ton of stock on the cheap and make a killing whenever it rebounds.

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They might check for lead weights, but I don't think they check jigs. I've never been "lead checked" myself, only license checked. It's easy enough to buy tungsten weights at least.

Black crankbaits and chatterbaits can also be quite effective. I like the Storm Wiggle Wart for this application personally. The black Colorado blade spinnerbait, black buzzbait and black power worms are all good choices too. I usually only rig up one or two lures for night fishing myself, and the black power worms are nice because if I am fishing earlier all I gotta do is change the soft plastic when it gets dark!

Always. He has a tournament in April in Marlboro, MA which is real close to a Cabela's but the sale ends then. I might have a chance after his home tournament when games slow down a little to make it to East Hartford's Cabelas, if not I'll suck it up and pay full price -- it would cost me almost as much as I'd save on gas anyway.

You beat me to it. If I could buy only one type of jig, it would be a pitchin jig. They do everything well, come through grass and drag along the bottom. I still use other types of jigs too -- football for around rocks, flippin for really heavy cover and of course bladed too. Dirty Jigs has been my brand of choice since I picked up a bunch last year and I like them, they hold up quite well and have good color options. I typically carry pitching and football jigs in 3/8oz and 1/2oz and flipping jigs in 1/2oz and 3/4oz and keep it simple for colors, usually a lighter color like the Alabama Bream and a darker color like The Go To and/or Black & Blue as I don't think jig colors matter nearly as much as say spinnerbait colors

I got that too. They are doing the buy one get one I usually take advantage of on Berkley Trilene Fluorocarbon as well, but this year it is in store only. I might not be able to make it to a BPS or Cabela's in that timeframe due to my son's travel hockey schedule

I caught a pretty large perch this summer, and after releasing it, it floated upside down. My son jumped in and helped him to deeper water and eventually he turned right side up and swam away. In this case, I would say it was an overstressed fish.

I have a good number of friends I don't see as much as I should anyway, but generally fishing has brought me closer to my kids as they get older and the girlfriend doesn't mind as it gets us out of the house. And sometimes she joins us.

I work 40 hours a week, but I take as much off as I can in the spring and summer. I usually can make it out 3-4 days a week, the rest of the time I'm taking my son to piano lessons, doing laundry and chores and on Fridays I am usually preparing for the weekend's fishing trips in one way or another. I also camp a lot though and when I'm camping I get to fish everyday and it's wonderful

Up here in Mass, some lakes are starting to thaw! My son is still playing travel hockey and I need to get licenses too, so I'm not sure when I will get out.

Most of what I know for targeting big bass comes from Bill Murphy's book "In Pursuit of Giant Bass:, thanks for the recommendation by the way. One thing he describes in detail is how to find prime structure and targets around it that are easily accessible. In cases where a deep crevice in an otherwise shallow lake is the prime structure I'm targeting (at least in lakes I fish), I find that more often than not a jig is a very appropriate lure to fish around that structure. Hearing someone who has caught more ten pounders than I have five pounders is certainly reassuring I'm not going about it wrong. I haven't been able to land el mondo yet, but I do feel I'm getting much better mentally equipped to finally do so. I ironically got my PB by throwing a spinnerbait under a fallen tree, right between a branch and the trunk and it hit it immediately. My #2 was a crankbait through grass, in an area I stopped throwing in earlier the same day because I was getting sick of pulling grass out of the hooks. So my first recommendation is to read that book!

Well the weather on many days is around the same temperature that it thawed out last year. Add in the fact that the ice never got very thick this year to begin with, I think it will be thawed fairly soon. I drove by the first spot to thaw, and the spot by the culvert under the causeway is almost melted. It shouldn't be too long after that before that portion of the lake, the shallow side is thawed.

I may throw it on any of my MH rods, but the rod I would normally use would be a Daiwa Tatula Glass 7'2" MH/MF rod with 12lb mono. I normally use 3/8oz buzzbaits, and I would ideally use 15lb line too but the mono I have is 12lb so that's what I'm using.