PhishLI

Just one bite and a miss during a quick morning wade. Geese were at war and blew up every spot where I tried to fish. But I caught a murder of turtles for a picture sunning themselves on a laydown.

It's reasonable to wonder why, and you've gotten good answers, but for me it's irrelevant. 150 Meter or 300 Meter filler spools break down nicely into a number of batches of 165', so that's what I use as the length for my mainline with a backer to fill out the rest. I happen to have a mountain of inexpensive 50lb 8 strand braid, so that's what I choose to use as a backer. For bass fishing with typical 6'10"-7'3" bass rods and the typical baits associated with bass fishing, a 165' cast is quite far and not easily achieved with stock low profile casting reels. Aside with from a 1 ounce dark sleeper, 3.5" poop bait, or certain heavy frogs, few will exhaust the top shot/mainline down to the connection knot whether it's braid or plastic mainline. I'm not worried about hitting the backer knot. In the rare case that I do, so what?

I'd like to report something on the matter, but I just can't get a break with the wind on days where I can get out on the boat. It's just been cranking. Like ridiculous.

That settles it. I'm moving to Maine. The lake Baccarac of the north.

I hit an eastern lake with my brother for an afternoon Jon boat session. There were four other boats and two kayaks on it when we got there. Not great for 45 acres, but we went in anyway. Crisp, shifting, steady 20 mph winds had the real feel in the lower 30s even under a high sun, so it was unpleasantly chilly to say the least, and having to stay on the trolling motor constantly or else pretty much sucked. I got a big Pickeral on the Swag LT, and this weekend it didn't get through my uprated Big Game leader. Four more bites for me over the next two hours but only one bass landed on an underspin. One kayak dude had one shake off about ten feet out from him and invented a few new curse words in frustration. Everyone else skunked, so I can't complain.

Something about their pro staff being naughty on the forum.

Only one brand. Starts with a Z. Call it something else, like Zedman, Finnessy Turd, or the Original Splatterbait, or the SlappHammer.

Heard from the OP that oiling the spool bearings solved his issue.

Rasmussen’s Guide To Finding Bass Quickly In Unfamiliar Waters | The Ultimate Bass Fishing Resource Guide® LLC

💪 Nice!

Have you lubed the bearing under the tension knob and the one in the side plate? The one I got from you has been great, but every now and then those spool bearings need a drop of oil or they'll get loud. Do you have a Daiwa Reel Oiler? Makes it easy to place the drop between the bearing shield and inner race. None of my Tats do this, but I oil my bearings about once a month. Takes 2 minutes and everything is right again.

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On Easter Sunday a humongous and might I add rather rude Pickeral bit off my one and only Zedman 6" Swag LT line thru. Had some BPS gift cards burning a hole in my cork board, so I'm flush again and then some.😁

I just got a Revo STX that has a metal side plate. I'm glad it does. I also just got another Lew's Tournament Pro LFS that doesn't, but I really like that reel, so I'm fine with it. My other one has a S-ton of very hard mileage on it since '20 and is just starting to show its age. Any reel would after what I put that one through. Almost 100% fishing straight braid in pad fields. I also got another Fuego CT that doesn't have one, but for the price I paid for it, I'm fine. That aside, I probably won't go out of my way to buy a Daiwa without this feature. Plenty of them below the Zillion have one these days.

Excellent!

Nice!

Tying it to something heavy makes it easier with heavy mono. If I'm only tying to a hook, I hang a 1 ounce sinker on it first.

This is 95% of what I fish here. I'll assume because you mentioned "lakes" you're bopping around to different spots. If that's in fact the case, may I suggest that you concentrate on one body of water for a season and try to decode it. This is what I finally needed to do when I moved from my childhood home of deep glacial lakes to where I live now with these shallow millponds and reservoirs. It was different world and I suffered for months. Mojo was gone. But I put in the work, absorbed what was happening when it happened, then everything clicked. While it's true that what you learn in that one spot if you do happen to crack the code might not quickly translate to success elsewhere, but the bigger thing that'll happen is that you'll get dialed in. It a headspace thing. When you're finally focused, you'll see things faster in different places, and your newly developed instinct will simply operate and put you where you need to be. Just like achieving balance, it's something you need to feel for yourself. Words on a page won't teach it. You need to be mission driven, and focusing on one spot will allow you to process information, success and failure, more efficiently. So far, you've gotten nothing but good advice regarding tactics and strategy, and they matter for sure, but that's only a small part of the equation, IMO.

Oh, they are. With the length of day and moon cycles, they've been eating. It's amazing how well fed they are after ice-out. I have yet to catch anything looking like a post-spawner.

No wiggle. Zero play. Zero tension. All reels. Then I take a silver sharpie marker and make a hash at what I see as 12 o'clock on the tension knob. Comes off with alcohol if I sell a reel.

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You'll probably get what you want. This morning it was blowing a consistent 15mph from the west, regardless of what the weather reported. Right now, it's coming in from the NW at a hard 16mph with swirling 28mph gusts. Real feel is 19*. Temps dropping to 32* by 5am. Whatever gains in warmth we had will really dip, especially in spots that max out at 5' deep. These dips during late April early May will have bass abandoning their beds for a few days and shut down. Might happen once. Might happen a few times.

For DAIWA BFS SV HONEYCOMB SPOOL /d.34/ TATULA CT/FUEGO CT/PROREX/ COASTAL | eBay

"Aint that timely?@Swamp Girl