JWall14

I usually follow the rule - the bigger the river, the bigger the fish. There are exceptions but given the voice between a creek and a 300ft across river I’ll take river any day. Might be harder to find fish but they will be bigger.

Yes that video was interesting to watch. It seems like a Exist with very few downgrades so I grabbed one yesterday. I will use it a lot this summer wading for river smallmouth so I’ll be putting the drag to the test.

I didn’t even realize there was a thread posted at the same time.

Well I ordered a certate 2500 for $360 so I hope it shows up. If it’s fast I could have it for a tournament on Saturday but that is asking for a lot.

I'm am looking to pair my p5 Windbuster with a 2500 size Cerate. How do they compare to other reels? How has yours held up?

Have you gotten anything from them??

Is this place reliable? I'm looking to buy a nice spinning reel and their prices are good but they seem to good to be real??

Yeah it is just missing the shimano x wrap it seems to me. That may be worth the extra $80 for some people... I am dying to get one of those ned rig specific rods.

Yeah go 7’sum H

Hit the lake again for a hour. Found a 4-9 bed fish that was fun to work. We left 3 other bedders because they were small(er) and I don't love the idea of catching every bed fish. My brother had one get so angry that he ate the drop shot weight, and not the bright white and chartreuse bait above it's head. We laughed about that for a while.

Very true. It is hard on smaller rivers but I usually do a drive by and stop every so often to take a look. Also below dams are usually great for at least a mile and likely more. That's where I start when I look on maps. Any other giant ripple/rapid section will create the same effect.

No, but never tried it with largies. Smallies straight up don't give a darn where I fish (I have left my leader at home more than once and they still ate).

Fury’s are nice. I got the 7’ ML and caught thousands of smallies on it. Great for the price.

OH BOY. Felt like summer. With air temps in the 80s for the weekend (back in the 50s now), my brother and I hit the river and caught a decent bag of 12.5 lbs worth of smallmouth. My brother caught his new PB smallie for 2-7, and I added two 3-0s, and two 2-0s. All were around beds. Cool looking fish as well. We did leave some beds- only targeted the bigger fish to give the smaller ones a break.

From wading I have seen the females stay with the males on the beds. I can't answer much more because they don't really have much depth choice in a wadable river. I see both males and females guarding the bed for at least a week or two.

I would look at the shimano Nasci, Ultegra or Sahara depending on your budget. They are on the heavier side but I pair my 9 oz nasci with a sub 4 oz destroyer because I’m waiting for a replacement and it does the job. I really don’t notice the weigh that much and for $100 it’s really smooth and durable (I’ve submerged mine fully at least 10 times while wading).

Ah ok thanks!

Dirty jigs make IMO the best jigs. The weed guard is soft enough to get good hooksets and they have any color you could want. They are just the best quality jigs on the market.

That honestly sounds how I hoped it would perform. Just wondering which reel do you pair it with, I would have a curado DC if I grabbed one this summer.

You need to grab some Ned rig stuff. It’s not hard to fish and will demolish smallmouth. While I’m here one thing that has changed is that Tactical Bassin make the best informational videos on everything IMO. I know I’m not the only one who thinks that here so you should check them out.

That water looks AMAZING! Nice fish!

I'm leaning towards the Tequila because it is so versatile. What rods do you guys like. I would like to have only 1 H rod that can kind of do it all so that's why I'm leaning towards Tequila because it is rated 3/4 - 4 oz which is crazy and because Matt Allen says it's one of his favorite rods. I wish it was a bit longer but honestly being 7' is not an instant no for me. I don't really have a max price so any rods are a go Basically: if you could buy any all around H/XH rod for frogs, punching, flipping, jigs, etc. which would you get and why?

Is this reel as good as I think. I want to pair it on a p5 destroyer and was wondering if its worth the extra money over a Twin Power?

I’ll take a look at that but the double uni worked fine for me. Thanks tho! I definitely would go out again. Lots of multi species action which is a nice change.

@Junk Fisherman was interested in how Heidecke lake fished so here is the tourney recap. We launched at 7:20 and fished until 2:20. There were 50 boats in the tourney(all high school teams) in a 2000 acre lake. Water clarity was about 4ft and temps were low-mid 50s. We fished mainly cranks, ned rigs, jigs, and a drop shot. I had the ned in my hand almost the whole time. We started by the water pump on the north side of the man made lake. -the lake is a giant rectangle with almost all rip rap bank and a train track down the center (so two big rectangles) About 7 boats had the same idea and one boat next to us had one in the first 2 min. I got 2 20 in walleye in the first 5 min and then my partner caught a 2.3 ln largie on a DT 6. Then 15 min later I got a 14in smallie on a ned. At this time we were pumped and ready to have a good bag. This is when it went wrong. We should have found some fresh rip rap to continue our patern but we stayed near the pump for another hour. There were too many other boats doing the same and we should have ran to fresh water. My partner snapped his 15lb floro mid way on a good jig fish that would have qualified us for state. I also missed two more on the ned. A majority of boats were running rip rap. Boats with limits were fishing similar stuff to us so I think it was just who happened to run into fish. The other boat from our school got 5 for 6lbs. They had their bite turn on in the afternoon which was opposite of us. We ended with only 2 for 3-8. It took 13lbs to win which is impressive at this lake. Lots of by-catches including drum, walleye, and hybrid. The top schools all live around there which makes sense. I would come back given the chance because there was a lot of action. Also, forgot to mention the over 50 people bank fishing which was slightly annoying as they all had walleye/carp/whatever line out which eliminated some water. They also illegally go out on the rail line which took up even more water. I would be interested in the offshore fishing here but we don't have any electronics that would be good enough for me to want to try that.