Boomstick

So it's past due we schedule our next zoom call! Hopefully some of you got to make it out fishing. My kid's hockey season is just about at an end and I will start to have time to do things - they do have scheduled practices this week but no games, so they might cancel them. So perhaps the 6th, 7th or 8th? Or perhaps maybe on the morning of next Sunday, the 6th? When can everyone make it?

The worst thing that happened to me is my kid got a treble hook stuck in my side, with the barb slightly past my skin but not too deep. I was bleeding all over the place. On the plus side, the bleeding eventually stopped and I landed my PB on my first cast afterwards. I thought I would not be doing any fishing that day

It really depends on where I'm fishing, what I'm fishing, what the cover and structure is like and how far away my general target is. Since I am in a kayak, one scenario I often run into is that I am holding a little out of pitching range and don't feel like moving and re-anchoring or maybe low hanging branches are blocking me, so I will make quick casts to the general area and reel it in if I don't get bit on the fall.

Generally when bank fishing setup is often something like a ned rig on a spinning rod and the other rod or two may be a spinnerbait, crankbait, jerkbait, topwater and/or a T-Rig.

My oldest son has a SLX MGL 70. At one point he had 15# Invizx on it and never spooled it. He has since switched to 12# because of how well that reel bomb casts light lures.

Most Yo Zuri is the same diameter as most thicker mono except the 15# which is .016in which is the same as 17# in most thicker mono.

That should be fine as well.

What are you running for line? You should be okay if you are using a fluorocarbon that runs on the thinner side (aka not Berkley) up to 16 lbs with the SLX MGL70.

The Tatula SV won't win any distance casting competitions, but it's great for pitching and skipping and making carefully targeted casts. The new model is nice and compact in size and behaves the same as the old model. From your description of what you are looking for, I would say the Shimano SLX MGL 70 is perfect. That reel will bomb cast light lures all day long. Yes you do have to open it up, but I would leave 4 pins in and use the side dial to fine tune it so it's not really a problem.

There are four things I can't go fishing without: rods, reels, line and lures. It's icing on the cake if I remember everything else like sunscreen, a scale, net, pair of pliers and remember to wear clothes.

I see nothing wrong with this personally. You could be spending your money on a lot worse things believe me. While I'm not the biggest follower of the idea the lure has to be the right color and your hair has to be just right to get the fish to bite, there are lighter lures which blend in, dark or chartreuse lures that stand out and then there are red lures which either magically get all the bites or won't catch a damned thing! But it never hurts to have a few extras either way. I definitely do the same kind of thing. I wouldn't stick to only two all season, nor would I start with big swimbaits as a beginner but I definitely started focusing on a few lures and branched out from there.

I use the St Croix Mojo Bass which is a 6'8" M/XF for topwater. While it's an extra fast tip, it's a lighter power than the other mediums in the line so it bends past the tip and is by no means too stiff. You can buy the same rod in higher lines as well.

I haven't yet, but I've thought about it.

Well @Koz basically mentioned pretty much everything. I would consider everything he said and think about how you might rig it out and how each model lends itself to your setup ideas. In my case, I went with a Bonafide SS127 because I'm a big guy and it's pretty stable and the dry pod is a perfect place to mount a fish finder. I added an anchor trolley, a 5lb mushroom anchor, a YakAttack BlackPak in back and three rod holders on the back tracks. I knew exactly how I was going to set it up before I even get it from looking at other people's setups for ideas and it's worked out well. The Old Town Sportsman 120 is also fantastic at a cheaper price (and also pretty stable and it rocks less in waves as well)

I ended up with the advanced elements advanced frame model which retails for $599. It's a bit more expensive than the competing model but it's a bit better made as well so you get what you pay for. So far so good!

I would probably keep it under three hours or spend two nights. That said I have went as far as 2.5 hours for a day trip before.

I'm thinking the east and west end both look promising. Like they say, 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water and this is likely to apply here as much as ever, so chances are one will be a bust and the other might get you some bites. I would be more inclined to start off with the flats on each end and to move on to points if you have no success there. The cove in the north central area would make an excellent transition point for bass on the west side from shallow to deeper water (I have a lake with a shallow side and a similar point and that spot can be money!) and the secondary points on the channel on the east side also look promising. There are a few potential transition points on the east side. So I would start by figuring out which side holds the bass.

I fish because I can, therefore I am. I like the calmness of being out on the water, and fishing presents me a proper challenge.

^10

Hypothetically one might consider becoming a bank robber so they don't have to sell any of these rods. But if anyone asks, you didn't hear it from me.

I have used the 6'9" ML/XF Avid X spinning rod for smaller drop shots and ned rigs for a few years now with a Daiwa BG 2000 reel. It's a great rod and a pretty huge step up from the Ugly Stik Elite, you're going to be happy

Very true. I generally try to leave it on auto because it adjusts with the depth, but sometimes it's a little over ambitious with the range at times so if the depth is fairly uniform I will manually set it.

Sidescan is a great way to cover a lot of water in a short period of time. It's great for finding laydowns, weedlines, rocks, shoals, sunken bridges, creek channels etc. Often when I am on a new lake, I will paddle down the shoreline with sidescan on looking for both any structure that looks promising, and see if I see any bass-looking fish in the area. If I'm in a wide body of water, I might be looking at just one side even but in a channel you can use both sides going down the middle.

The engine problems with Subarus are definitely legitimate. My mom was looking at one once, and the comments on the car on Edmunds was thousands and thousands of people who were mostly posting mileages which would be the mileages at which they replaced their head gaskets. They have had the problem since 1984 and use the same engine design to this day. At one point they were listing head gasket replacement as a maintenance item, and often consider adding head gasket sealant as a maintenance item as well. The other thing is maintaining a Subaru usually makes parts and labor on BMWs and Mercedes look pretty tame. They may be cheaper to buy, but they are not cheap cars to maintain. This goes from using a timing belt instead of a chain that is a bit of a job to replace to just costing more for simple things like brake pads. That said aside from the cost to own and head gasket issues, I've known people who while on literally their tenth head gasket have made it to 300k with otherwise minimal problems.

My thoughts exactly.