nighthawk25

Got out to a local lake with my brothers last night. Trolled a few hours and caught a few pike, walleye, some decent bass. The last 45 min of daylight we tried casting different lures. I caught a dink on a spook style bait and 5 on a senko. The biggest were around 16". Was a great night with my brothers and catching some decent fish.

I'm getting tired of using FC on my cranking setups. It seems stiff and I've lost a bunch when it breaks about off 50' from the lure. Would I be ok with braid on my setups? 1. Enigma Fishing 7'8" MH Mod Fast with a Revo Winch (this is my big crankbait/deep crankin combo) 2.Ugly Stik GX2 6'6" MH Mod Fast with Lew's Speed Spool (for squarebills/Shallow and Medium divers)

The waters fairly stained with 1-2' visibility but I have caught decent fish on jerkbaits when the waters a bit clearer. I have a few of those. I'll have to give them a try.

So basically something that won't hit bottom? What retrieve do you use?

I tried a spinnerbait and topwater yesterday but no luck. I want to try the spinnerbait and chatterbait though.

I'm trying to gain confidence in squarebills but most times it just seems I don't know what I'm doing. I have caught a few fish but I can go back with a senko and clean house. The lake I fish 75% of the time is very fertile. The bottom is mostly covered with silt and old decaying leaves. Theres a few shallow spots that have a gravel/sand bottom. The shoreline has a few docks but theres a lotta weeds making it hard to gain confidence in the crankbaits. The lake is about 60 acres and has 1 inlet and also a river flowing through one end. Should I just concentrate on throwing plastics or should I continue to use the squarebills and try to figure out what I'm missing?

I was out last night and it was tough. The lake had a heavy algae bloom. I caught 2 bass and 1 crappie in 5 hours. All were caught on crankbaits.

I've caught some fish with them. The hooks have held up after some decent pike. I repainted a few of mine so I'm not sure on the factory paint job.

I'm hoping to get to a lake to try to catch some wiper. I have never been to this lake or fished for wiper before. How do I go about finding them this time of year? Are they following shad in open water? What do I use when I find them? The lake I plan on fishing is very small and we should be able to cover it in few hours.

Buying a new Revo Winch and wondering why it wouldn't cast far. Turns out it has a centrifugual brake unlike my Lew's Speed Spool's.

I like braid when using whats called a tightline rig here locally. It consists of a bell sinker (1/4 to 3/8 oz) and a 2 hooks about a foot apart. Braid is much more sensitive and doesn't stretch with the big sinker at the end. I do make the rig with mono or flouro so the fish can't see it as well.

Thanks for the info! I'll continue researching but I might go with a cheaper SOT. I'm not in a hurry to get one so I'll wait until something turns up.

I know I'm resurrecting an older thread here but do you have pics of the pilot 12? How do you like it? I am looking at buying a kayak, preferably a pedal drive. The pilot 12 would be cheaper but I also want to research the Native propel 10.

I paint my own crankbaits, jerkbaits etc so I'm always trying to get something going with those but often I fish a weightless senko first to gain confidence and not get skunked (usually)..

I haven't tried Zoom tubes but the coffee tubes seem pretty durable. They're pretty reasonably priced so I'd buy a pack to compare.

I don't fish tubes a whole lot but have had decent success with the 3.5 inch SK coffee tubes with a 1/4 oz internal jighead.

I prefer fishing crankbaits and jerkbaits and have caught fish on them but weightless senkos have been most productive.

I tried uploading a picture but it doesn't go through. They are 3" flatside crankbaits, 1 with a squarebill and 2 with rounded bills. 1 of the rounded bills has a nice wobble and wiggle while the other 2 don't have as much wobble but they shoot off side to side when I reel them in.

So I made a few flatside balsa crankbaits. I finally got to test them tonight. One of the three wiggles and is tuned pretty good. The other 2 don't wiggle as much but the shoot left then right. They still dive decent and track pretty much straight. What does it mean when crankbaits hunt? These are the first balsa lures I made and I'm pretty happy with them so far. Just have to paint them up now..

Would a spybait work? I have caught decent bass while trolling for other species with crankbaits, but haven't figured out how to catch them while casting in open water.

What foil do you use for these baits? It looks really cool! I made a few baits out of Azek trimboard (I think) that we had laying around but would like to make some from balsa or cedar as well.