haggard

So much for the summertime blues!

Soft plastics - 4 to 5 inch TX rigged worm (or paddletail / swim dinger) with 1/4 oz bullet weight. 2.5 to 3.5 in paddletail on a jig head TX rigged baby turtle if you can find 'em ned rig ~1/10 oz with 2.5 in worm Nothing over 5 inches.

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to take him fishing again and show him how it's done. Timing is everything. Looks like you're in Sandown NH not too far from me (Kittery, Maine). How about you & your son come up this way for the day? Private camp site an hour from Kittery with access to some great water. Panfish and bass. My motorboat isn't much but gets you on the water. Truck is in the shop so I can't tow it this weekend (Labor Day weekend) so it would have to be next weekend. Unless you have a vehicle that can tow it (lightweight 16' boat)... then this weekend is good (my son would be going along too... he's new to fishing) We can pick up Maine 1-day fishing licenses en route (there's a place 2 miles from my house). Let me know.

- soft plastic paddletail, green with white stripe (underbelly) - soft plastic worm, green pumpkin with chartreuse tail tip They worked far better in my mind when I looked at them in the store... than they did in reality.

You said medium action (i.e. moderate action), you're not describing the power of the rod, is that correct? I ask because you then ask about ultralight so it sounds like you're talking about power not action. I think a medium power, fast action (M/F) rod is just the ticket for general purpose bass fishing and UL power is just too light. UL great for panfish and trout, but not for your everyday bass. The UL likely won't give you a good hookset and may not have enough backbone to bring it in. A light/fast would work better (that's what I currently use for finesse bassing, but only because I don't have a M/F spinner), but I still find the L/F too light for your average bass. I got it as a dedicated panfish rod that could handle the occasional bass. A medium-light/fast could be good. Even a M/F spinning setup would work and lets you be prepared for bigger bass or heavier cover. You can certainly catch bass on an UL especially if you use the drag a lot, but it's just that you'll probably have a far better success rate and easier time with ML/F or M/F. I landed what I'd guess was a 2-3 lb largemouth on a 5'6 UL/F with 6 lb mono test once while targeting panfish and it was a blast but it wouldn't be the combo I deliberately pick for bass. * bing *

I've used a 1/12 oz ned rig on a L/F and it seems to just get by, at best. I'd use your M/F rather than the UL. The UL probably won't have enough backbone as you mentioned. Spinning reel preferred.

Baitcaster: strip off line one foot at a time and let the lure sink; if line goes taught in a couple seconds, you're not there yet - strip off another foot and repeat. If line goes limp, you're at the bottom. I usually do this in freespool mode (thumb bar pressed) while keeping gentle thumb pressure on the spool, instead of pulling against the drag - thinking this won't wear out the drag system as fast. Spinner: with bail open, lift the rod tip and let back down; if line stays taught you're not at the bottom. Repeat. I use mono (not as sensitive as other line types) and when fishing 30-40 feet or so I have a hard time sensing the bottom so I use the above techniques a lot. Only thing I've found that helps is repeatedly popping the lure up and letting it sink again, and on the pop I can feel the resistance as the lure frees itself from the mud. For rocky bottoms, dragging the lure back towards me lets me feel the bottom, but then it often gets snagged.

Location - shallow coves - shady banks - under shady overhangs - weedlines (edges of pads), shady or not Rod - ultralight/fast (panfish can be a blast on these) - light/fast Reel - spinning Lure - Crappie Magnet (black and green) - 1/16 to 1/8 oz jig head with 2-inch curl tail grub (bright green, or green/white) I've tried a M/F rod for panfish and really wanted to make it work, but it just wasn't sensitive enough for the light bites and didn't catch much. My go-to panfish setup is now a 7'0 L/F on a nice blank with a 2-inch curl tail grub on a jig head. A UL/F might be better but mine is only 5'6 (short casts) with a less sensitive blank, and the L/F is good to have for that occasional bass. Once in a while a panfish will grab something big. Last trip out I tossed a 5 inch worm from a baitcaster hoping for bass and brought in a chunky sunfish. How the heck that fish thought it could swallow a 5 inch worm is a mystery, but he tried.

I love yak fishing and StC rods but haven't seen anything about this one that says it's a must-have compared to 6'6-7'0 Premiere or Mojo Bass rods. Enlighten me.

Can't help you there. All my double digits are after the decimal point.

Welcome to bassresource. Never give up. Thank you for your service. You're going to love this place.

Always loved cars and trucks but was never really a full blown gear head. Two of my favorites didn't even have big motors. 1970 VW Karmann Ghia picked up in Atlanta, Georgia on our honeymoon from its original owner (she bought it new and drove it for 27 years); we drove it back to NH. Mostly original, including factory wooden steering wheel and shift knob. Enjoyed it for several years. Sold. Regret. Photo of beautiful wife with Ghia on the trip back to NH. 1967 Chevy C-10 with a three on the tree, 283 ci V8, manual choke, small rear window and wooden bed floor. Replaced those awful modern rims with the stock ones. Glad I bought it before the previous owner lowered it or something... Sold. Regret: They're both gone but beautiful wife is still here 20+ years later

Real Man's / Woman's belt. They don't sag over time like your typical GAP crap/retail store belt. Hand made. https://www.simplyrugged.com/ecommerce/Real-Man-s-Gun-Belt-Single-Layer-of-Leather.cfm?item_id=171&parent=670

As you should be. Congrats.

StC MH/F + Curado 200K seems like a good match - a workhorse paired with a workhorse, for heavier duty applications. I use the Mojo Bass 6'8 MH/F instead of the 7' Premier but same sorta idea. Rod & reel each seem slightly "oversized" to me but that's just what I want in a HD application.

Half the fun of fishing new water is exploring and not knowing.

Update on resurrecting the old boat with the spare/donor motor to get me through the rest of the season. I had stripped all the electric start and remote control cables thinking I'd just use the rope start, but had no luck pull starting it and it was very exhausting. Over the last couple days I pieced the electric start bits back together. Fortunately I had some photos of the motor when I bought it, showing what cables went where - starter solenoid, start/stop switch, etc. It cranks but doesn't start. Replaced the spark plugs and it fires right up now. This will be a tiller steer but there's no tiller yet. It shouldn't be hard to make a makeshift one. This is for steering only; the throttle control is a separate remote unit. Milk crate seat with flotation cushion; mounted the throttle control nearby; start/stop switch and solenoid mounted to the gunnel. It's ironic that the boat and motor I thought had reached the end of their lives are now coming together. It just might work

Enjoyed a day on Great East Lake yesterday. I'd never seen GE before despite living very close to it. The lake is about 1,800 acres spanning Acton, Maine and Wakefield, New Hampshire, nearly a 50/50 split. The water is very clear, even in the shallows at the boat launch where there's less circulation and where other lakes in the area tend to get murky. Pretty much anywhere in the lake you could see 16 feet down. @jbmaine was kind enough to spend a day introducing me to GE (not to mention doing all the driving, using his boat and giving up three slots in his rod locker for my gear). We went looking specifically for largemouth, and started out by motoring 5 miles from the launch to the farthest point east before wetting any lines. Along the way we stopped at hole where the depth went from (something I can't remember) suddenly to 100 feet, in a very small area. We didn't see any activityon the finder but it was interesting to see just the same. On towards the farthest east point - this area has meandering channels and quite a few islands and ends in a shallow cove. Along the way is lots of largemouth-friend looking shoreline, overhangs and a few laydowns. We threw topwater frogs into the pads for a while without much success, other than plenty bites from small yellow perch. One bass followed a frog to the boat, stared at it for a while and finally bit but wouldn't stay on. We left the cove and started working our way back. @jbmaine found a laydown and suggested I fish it - I tried to the sides, probably a little too far away but I didn't want to get snagged (I haven't fished many laydowns yet) and have to bring the boat in to recover the lure, scaring away the fish. Lure was a Doomsday Baby Turtle, TX rigged with 1/4 oz bullet, which I finally managed to toss just over the trunk and then popped it back over on the retrieve without a snag. A few seconds later a largemouth picked it up and we had our first fish (and only largemouth) of the day. Not a huge one but happy to have it. We spent the next several hours working our way back through the channels fishing laydowns and floats, staying only long enough in any area to know we spent enough time there without catching fish. And we weren't catching a lot of fish. Or any fish. Not even a bite in all these largemouth looking areas. Back out on the main water the supposedly 5 mph wind was picking up to a whitecap-inducing something more than 5 mph, and it was almost noon so we started thinking about Plan B. We just didn't know what that was yet. We crossed the lake into another basin on the west side, found a narrow channel and fished that for a while. Got one chunky sunfish (surprisingly on a 5 inch black/blue worm TX rigged), and one strike on the topwater frog in the pads but missed the fish. "Anchored" (Spot locked) at that spot to enjoy shade and lunch, and a large snapping turtle comes up to the boat and just wouldn't leave. It was super curious, just kept floating around staring at us. It went on for at least a solid five minutes. Back to fishing, no fish, but not for lack of trying. As we left the cove the wind died down and we thought we'd give one more try, this time out to a shallow area 900 ft off shore with a rocky bottom and boulders. Shallow markers guided us in and @jbmaine located a steep transition on the finder so we set up in that spot just as the wind really picked up again. Feeling the bottom was difficult if not impossible, lines were bowing way out yet he landed three smallies on a ned rig almost back to back, and me one smallie on a 4-in paddletail with 1/4 bullet. Strangest thing about the day was we looked in all the right places for largemouth but it ended up turning into more of a smallmouth day. We would have stayed longer and caught more of them if not for that wind. It got up to 18 mph gusts later in the day (by then we were off). Not quite the number and size of fish we were aiming for but my most enjoyable day of fishing so far this season: a full day, exploring new water, a Lund outfitted just right, fishing with a friend, and neither of us got skunked. What struck me most about Great East is how great a variety it has to offer: countless docks, open water, protected water, super deep water, shallow coves, pads, vegetation, rocks, sand, mud, islands, laydowns... it seemed to have everything. Thanks @jbmaine.

Same here. It would even be a manual transmission if I could have ordered it that way. I guess "they don't make 'em like they used to" When my son was really young looked at the roller handle and says "what's that?"

Actual text from my boss today (I'm on vacation)

Does anyone really roll down their car windows anymore?

Set expectations. Before the next trip out, tell him you're going minimalist, self sufficient, taking only what you need, then cutting that in half.

Let me guess... "priceless"?

For $120 (and sometimes less on sale) my first and favorite baitcaster rod is the StC PC66MF. For me it's the "do everything" baitcaster for freshwater bass fishing. It's said that StC is a little heavier power compared to other brands so it may be more like other brands' medium heavy, or something inbetween. If you really want MH, I second @LonnieP's rec for the Mojo Bass. It's built on a higher modulus blank. I have it in the 6'8 MHF flavor (MJC68MHF) and really like it for heavier duty applications. Great quality rod for not crazy money. Well not too crazy anyway

That's some great customer service. Thank you Lowrance. Running a Hook 4 here and very happy with it. Haven't cut any cables yet...