Boomstick

That's fair lol

I was going to take the kayak out last Saturday, but my kid had a headache and my stomach was a little rough from doing the Death Nut Challenge 3.0 the night before (nobody even told me I was only supposed to eat one of the nuts!), so we got a late start. So once we felt better, we headed down to one of our shore spots and nobody was getting anything. I guess someone got a perch when I went to pick up dinner, but that was about it. As it got dark, fish started jumping out and I caught a small rock bass, but nothing for a while after. A little while later, my son said to me that he wasn't really fishing his drop shot because he couldn't see much of anything but if he was, he would fish the culvert next to me. Now the culvert is pretty much collapsed but historically has big fish so I wasn't targeting it as hard as I normally would, but what the heck, I threw my drop shot out in front of the culvert and got bit. I figure this fish was in the 4s somewhere. Another guy fishing came over and lent me his net and he said it has to be a 5 pounder, but I'm pretty confident it was a little shy. From the fight it put up, I was a little bummed that it wasn't much larger. My kid took the picture and didn't want to walk over to the light, so sorry you can't see anything. Still my largest bass of the year. I got my kid a spinning rod for his bday, and he's been getting all the big fish usually on a drop shot.

Well I have learned some things that work for some people don't work well for me. The other thing I could add here is that the Rage Bug is basically the original. It took off and became popular because it clearly works. The Bandito Bug is basically a copy. I'm not sure what went into making the copy, but it seems like they just made it larger.

I have two rods for finesse presentations. #1) Daiwa Tatula Elite Brent Ehrler dropshot rod, 7' M/F with a Daiwa Tatula LT 2000D reel. 12# Sunline SX1 and a 6-8# leader. Will throw about anything that you may want to throw on a spinning rods. Great setup. #2) St Croix Avid X 6'9" ML/XF with a Daiwa BG 2000. #12 Sunline SX1 and a 6-8# leader. This runs on the stouter side for a ML, not too far from a finesse medium. Typically use this when I bring two spinning rods out and for lighter baits like Ned rigs.

I have the older version of the Bottom Contact rod. It's a fantastic rod for jigs, weighted T-Rigs and C-Rigs. It's a little heavier than the new version (but balances exceptionally well with a light reel), has maybe 70% backbone with 30% of a fairly stout tip and foam handles. Build quality is top notch. The Bottom Contact II is around 4 ounces so it's even lighter, has a shorter tip (which may be good or bad) but they switched to cork handles and from what I understand, it's the same low quality that they use on the Tatula so make sure you keep that sealed with U40 because it pits pretty fast. I have three rods with AGS guides and have yet to break one, but I'm pretty careful with all of my rods by default.

His price on 1/8oz and 3/16oz weights are as good as any at 80 cents per. They are sold out of 1/4s at the moment. That said, once I free up some cash I'll probably stock up on other sizes too. It's just the 1/4oz that I use the most, thus lose the most.

I have bought things that they said were from Amazon that ended up shipping from overseas before as well. I think you got that backwards. I also do most of my fishing in Vermont as well.

I also put it in a followup - I didn't even think of that until I almost bought the lead ones that Ken linked and I'm like hey those could get me fined in the states I fish in.

That's a good buy, a lot cheaper than 3 for $6

The Daiwa Tatula Elite 7' M/F Brent Ehrler dropshot rod will do quite nicely.

I don't have an Elite, but many other Tatulas are solid reels. The Elite is supposed to cast further. The Curado MGL 150 isn't bad either, but the gem in the Shimano line is generally the MGL70. As long as you are not using heavy line - it will hold enough 16# fluorocarbon. Typically, Daiwa is better for short, accurate casts and Shimanos cast further. Both are solid reels.

The problem is people send a fake tracking number, Amazon accepts it so I have to wait. I've had so many bad experiences with this and I tried to report the sellers but they haven't taken action, so I largely go somewhere else. I probably should get tungsten in MA. I believe the lead ban is anything under 1oz.

@MN Fisher Not bad. Have you ordered from either seller by chance? I largely stopped using Amazon for certain items, including fishing tackle due to either massive price markups or getting a fake tracking number and never receiving anything and having to wait a few months to get my money back.

I have taken my 7'2" glass Tatula out as an all purpose moving bait rod, throwing 3/8oz chatterbaits, 3/8 or 1/2oz spinnerbaits and various crankbaits or jerkbaits. It is a bit light for single hook lures, but it's passable and if I have one rod to do the above it's passable. The older version was a bit stiffer (and more sensitive too) and was a pretty solid rod for a chatterbait or spinnerbait. The 7'4" is what you want, either the Tatula or Tatula Elite version should do. The reviews that say they are not sensitive are technically not wrong - sensitivity is fairly muted on glass rods, but as long as you are throwing a moving bait they typically suffice.

I never really hate spinning gear, but there are days I hate finesse baits when I snag everything in site and have to re-tie on a leader and a new dropshot or whatever I'm fishing. But then there are days I don't snag anything and catch 15 fish on it and I remember why I use it.

Has anyone found any deals on buying drop shot weights in bulk? I have had a few unlucky days where I lost 5 or 6 of them on snags and have to keep buying more so I would like to just stock up, primarly on 1/4oz since that is the norm.

This is a pretty decent checklist. What I usually do first is I check the depth chart and look for the deep part or parts of the lake. If there is a deep part in one area, anything between the deep part and shallow water like a point is usually a good spot to target. Is there an arm off of the deep spot? (arms make points). In man-made lakes, look for old creek channels at the bottom of the lake. Usually those are your deep points, and they usually lead somewhere to shallower water (maybe above the thermocline). Remember a bass will not just swim up, they will follow the bottom to move from deeper water to shallow water. Beyond that, when you are marking laydowns, shoals and rockpiles, look for the presence of fish in the area, whether it's bass or baitfish as well. The combination of fish in the area and structure is always a good sign.

It sounds like lakes 1 & 3 are great lakes to fish for the bank angler. If you can walk into cracks between the "leaves of the clover" you are basically on points which should all be good places to target, pretty much year round. I would not give up on lake 2 yet but may put less time there until you get a bass. It's possible that the area you have shore access is a bad spot in the summer, but may produce better early in the spring or later in the fall. If it turns out it's just a bad spot altogether, you may want to skip this one but I wouldn't write it off just yet. It's definitely a lot more fun when you are able to get off shore and hit all of the spots. The pedal units are nice because you can jog yourself in place while you fish a spot in deeper water and wind which is really hard to anchor in which I face with a paddle kayak frequently. But you can rig them out pretty comfortably, check around the net, maybe on Youtube for various setups.

Who reads the instructions anymore? I line it up with Tatsu and immediately take it on the water and then figure out why I'm cutting out $25 worth of line afterwards

If you don't use leaders or are using really thin line, micro guides are a decent way to keep your line tight and off the rod blank when casting. It also removes that "pop" when your line goes tight. I think conventional guides may cast further. I generally prefer either conventional guides or the larger Fuji K guides which sit somewhere between a micro guide and conventional guide. I don't usually use braid to leader, but the small micro guides are just a pain to run line through because they're so small and not worth the hassle.

I would second the Victory 7'3" H/XF. Very nice summary of the three options in the Victory line as well.

The only lure that I use in the summer and rarely use the rest of the year is a hollow body frog. Mainly because when the water is warm on hot days, fishing it over lily pads is quite productive. My most productive lure in the summer? This year, it was a drop shot. Last year I had a handful of lures fighting for the top spot, if I remember right it was a spinnerbait, T-Rig, jig, tube and drop shot and I'm not sure which one one out.

Might be better running a lure over the rocks that won't hit the bottom in that case.

I'm not 100% innocent with this myself, as I have to unload my kayak then put all of my gear on it all my gear and that can take a while. If it's just me, since my kayak sits flat, I can set it up on the trailer, and take it down the hill and be gone in a few minutes. If I have the kids with me, they have to use J-racks so it takes a while. Most of the time however we can find a space next to the boat ramp that I can launch from so we're not in anybody's way.

Yup, we got a leanto in the state park. There's two other campgrounds and countless cabins on the water as well, more than most other lakes in Vermont but it's far from touristy.