CrankFate

Seasick. Yes. These were the days I caught most of the biggest fish in my life. It’s hard to understand how crazy I am about fishing. But I’m literally reeling up fish while throwing up. This is why I don’t like being on boats in the ocean. As far as losing 10 pounds goes, when I’m not overweight and trying to trim down, I normally lose 10-12 pounds every week between Sunday and Tuesday.

If that’s in response to me, I meant if you have 100’ of line or less, you can’t fish in 150’ of water. I also would not make 90’ casts targeting the Legendary Carp that I am planning on catching this summer. (Looks to be 30-40 pounds) Get it. One of my favorites. I’m thinking of getting a 30 just for the lighter paint job because the 50 is so awesome.

Activity levels are huge. I always pray that I'm walking into a feeding frenzy as I first get my line in the water. When I am in fishing mode, I am practicing in my sleep every day. Then, the night before I go, I'm dreaming about walking into a starving fish with lots of competition situation, biting just to stop the rest of the fish from eating more. Which makes getting skunked even worse.......

I am loving the gamakatsu 2/0 7 3/0 EWGs, they are setting the hook into everything they touch all by themselves, including my hands, my pants, my shirt, the carpet in my car, the winn grips on my rod. Everything. I'm with @E-rude dude @NHBull @NoShoes gear matters. I begrudgingly changed over to fishing two rods in freshwater, which I have done in saltwater for a very long time. One soft and one stiff. Or one light and one heavy, depending on how you look at it. With a rod and reel that do not match the technique, hookset problems will happen. I just got over that problem by using a stiffer rod for certain techniques. I always feel like with the right setup, the fish are practically setting the hooks on themselves. I think that just comes from having used the wrong setup one too many times.

@Big Hands It has limitations, but IMO, they arent as big a deal as the advertising makes it seem. As long as you're not really deep or in heavy cover, it does about anything I'd ever need. Since, I'm never deep and there is no heavy cover around here.

I should probably check into this thread more often. I was up about 30lbs from the lockdown. I am down to 220 for the first time in a long time. Working to get as close to 210 as possible. Having a vacation scheduled always helps, because you dont want to look fat in the pictures. I worked out like crazy for the first 4 months of the year. Right now, I am just focusing on diet and shrinking the size of my shoulders and upper back. I looked terrible in a shirt with a collar, because my traps were just too big. Genetics. My upper back and traps get bigger if I type the word "weights" or "gym." I was doing way too much bench pressing. I focused on 20 rep sets in just about every lift for the first part of the year. Taking a break now, but will be going back soon, in total weight loss mode.

If youre going to $500 you should go to a store with a lot of rods on display. You will never know what you are buying without seeing it. The more expensive a rod is, the more likely it is to later be found in a BST or eBay listing. Best to actually handle the rod before buying it.

I dont know. I just got a Curado BFS and it has exceeded my expectations.

I’d change baits. The bass don’t usually get worked up over what the BG are eating. We’re not waiting out the blackfish while the bergalls peck away.

The only things I know that cause missed bites are too much give in the hook set and not enough give in the hook set. The only things I know that cause dropped fish is too much give on the retrieve or not enough give on the retrieve.

The bearings are great. They just don’t work with no brakes on. With braking on, they cast way farther and way lighter weights than stock. I forgot to put the brakes back on after servicing the reel.

@Cravin all I’m going to say is the stainless lightning bearings, properly cleaned and oiled are beyond fast. I don’t know how they are this fast. They will cast down to 2-3 grams, with a 50 spool, and still be too fast without braking. It’s like 0-6000 rpm’s in 1/10 a second.

It depends on the water color and clarity. Just look at this eye from crystal clear water that I caught today. Here’s an eye from very low visibility water This fish from murky water was twice the size of the fish in the pic above, but the eye is tiny. Also, low visibility fish that I see have mouths that are twice as big as Clearwater fish. (I was not using worms for bass, my son got this 3 1/2lb bass fishing for BG). one more so you can see the size of the fish in the bottom pic

If you can imitate the sound of carp underwater, during the bass spawn, the bass will go crazy.

Grey/silver powerbait. I don’t know the color name.

Right spot. But the definition of “spot” is very problematic. A spot can fish just one guy. Or it could fish 50 guys. People get too caught up in a tiny specific place, that’s where bait and technique starts to matter more.

Nope. Cast after cast after cast. I never realized that all brakes were off. I felt even more stupid when I realized while on this site.

After unshielding the Boca stainless lightning bearings on my aldebaran and adding a drop of Shimano BFS oil to them, I started casting it and it was so fast it was uncastable. Terrible high speed overruns every single cast. It was just too fast to cast. So I couldn’t use it. At some point yesterday, I was on this website and it hit me. After servicing the reel I turned off all the brakes so I could sit there and admire the ridiculous freespool. All I had to do is open the sideplate and turn the brakes on ??‍♂️? Usually this type of thing only happens when I’m vacation. It was like amateur hour to anyone around who saw me nest up on every cast ??‍♂️ The other people fishing were all giving me the baitmonkey eye like:

If Costco can’t make churros because of Covid, there’s no way anyone can be making these reels.

Then you’re supposed to throw a dynamite stick in there.

Assuming this is post spawn, they’re looking for something. If they are completely keyed in on one specific thing they become very hard to catch.

Dink days of summer. I saw several 5-7lb fish hanging out in the sun. Not feeding. Maybe recovering from the spawn after feeding?

Sounds like you made the right choice. I have to go with @roadwarrior on this. The new schedule means they’re going to be seeing a lot more of you. If they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t want to see you day after day.

@J Francho on hold for a decade? Never! I just meant a lot less. Without life in the way, I’m out there every other day from May to November.

I agree with what everyone is saying about FC. It is definitely less visible than braid. If the issue is stretch in the line, FC does stretch more than braid. But the whole purpose of BFS fishing, as far as I know, was not originally throwing smaller lures, it was really about using lighter weight, smaller gear, to catch bigger fish than was possible in years past. Because we now have strong, light gear and strong thin PE lines. If stretch is the issue, all you need is the thinner, softer rods used for BFS. I’m not saying anyone should ditch what works for them. Body mechanics matters more than it gets considered. I fish better with a softer rod and stiffer line. A lot of guys do better with stiffer rods and softer line. A lot of guys don’t. For me, it might just be that I started out with a soft, honey fiberglass rod.