PhishLI

It was tough sledding under a crystal-clear big-moon sky for 3 hours. Zero wind didn't help our cause either. This place is super clear down to its 7' max-depth, so it was easy to see bluegill frozen in place between the stands of lily pads and unwilling to even sniff a Hot Snakes NED rig. Everything was on lock down, but this being the last Jon boat trip of the summer for the Phish brothers we carried on. Pulled the trolling motor and paddled through heavily choked out water way up to the super shallow north end where we found a few open gaps in 1' -18" of water and much smaller baitfish darting over sparse weeds and mud bottoms. Just as we made it to this zone the universe intervened by blowing in light cloud cover to dim the moonlight nicely. With clouds came wind, and for the next 45 minutes they were willing to chase. Knocked off some cookie cutters first, then we each landed a decent fish right before the clouds passed by and the wind quit. I landed a nice trout right at the end of the frenzy. Conditions looked perfect for a soft jerk bait, slow rolled finesse swimmer, or a popper, but they were feeding up for something different. The Livingston Bullnose and Legal Dope Tum Tum wakes got the bites, even the trout.

It can go like that. We spent 3 bite-less and windless hours last night under a bright moon, but clouds came in with a dash of wind and it was game on for 45 minutes until the clouds passed and the wind stopped. After that you'd think the fish had been transported to a different dimension. Not even a peck.

You can't know everyone, so you really can't say nobody. Almost every big bass I've caught came at night or on the edge of night. Nearly every big bass my close friends have caught and even friends through our extended network have caught came at night. My best numbers session by a huge margin came at night. Perhaps, but we have very diverse lakes here. My local spots are all super shallow and are more ponds than lakes, so it makes sense that bass are less willing to expose themselves and chase during the day. Go farther out east and the lakes get far deeper, but the results are the same. Night fishing rules around here. Like @AlabamaSpothunter said, it's a way different vibe. I admit I'm addicted to it because I'm peaked in every way imaginable at night. Tuned in a completely different way. I simply don't get the same rush fishing and catching during the day. It's not even close. It's almost boring to me in comparison. Don't imagine that fish will be jumping into your boat and dismiss the exercise if they don't right off the bat. You'll need to figure out how the lake works at night. Don't be surprised if you break your PB if you do.

It's a little too slow for me. In the case of the Shellcracker, it's a crank-down wake bait. Fish it as a wake-bait or crank it down to depth according to how the fish are responding to it. It will crank down with a slower IPT though if you're willing to fast crank it after the end of a long cast where the IPT is much less. If you're thinking about using 300 sized reels many come fitted with a 42mm tall spool, so gear ratio vs IPT is different than with typical 150-200 sized reels where 34mm-36mm tall spools are the norm. Bottom line is that I prefer about 30" IPT in general. It's unusual that I'm doing a straight retrieve with any swimbait, and when I'm using a burner type, which is rare, it's just about right for me.

No. Just right. top: Daiwa BG2500 bottom: Daiwa LT3000

Black Dog Baits Shellcracker G2. One in white and another in a bluegill pattern. Swimbait City usually has them in stock. Killer bait at a stupid good price. Shell Cracker G2 – Black Dog Bait Co. (blackdogbaits.com) G2 vs SW 168

Around here there are big fish lakes and small fish lakes. Where the bass are big, the pickerel can be big to huge, like 26"-30", but so is everything else. Cats, carp, bluegill, perch. everything. It just so happens that most of the places where I go feed into salt water and all have eels. I watched a 3 footer slithering over a weed clump the other night which was a first. They're usually glued to the bottom when I spot them and much smaller. Like a foot to 15" long. They seem to be on the move. A few years ago, the SK Bullworm played well at these places at about this time. I have them rigged and ready.

No, but I'll avoid awful conditions like right now at 8:30pm with a big moon hanging directly over the lake with barely any wind, and what wind there is, is coming from the east. My wife just asked if I was going. Nope, said I. Guaranteed the bite absolutely sux for at least the next 5 hours, so I'll pass. Moonset is at 1:30 am. The bite will turn on shortly thereafter and ramp up over the next few hours before it shuts down at sun-up when the Ospreys and Cormorants scare the bass back to wherever they hide. I might try to catch part of that window at 4:00am ifin I can wrest my weary bones out da bed.

Tie good knots and check your line often so you don't get broken off on the hookset. Don't wing it into a tree top, and you'll be fine. The PB is a floater. I don't know anyone who's lost a floater fishing from a boat or yak. Git one.

In my mind it's a form of gambling, and people who play it are gamblers at heart. There's even a pot. I kicked in on a super bowl pool and a world series pool when I was 18, both of which I won. There was definitely a high, but I realized quite quickly that I didn't enjoy the games as I did without the gambling aspect, so I never did it again. Just spoiled it for me. I suppose the tenor of today's Live-mix reinforced my perception that the fun part of fishing seems to be heavily outweighed by the realities of the pro circuit. Fishing where I do locally, I'm conditioned for a grind every time out, and most wouldn't consider it fun or pleasant, but I've come to prefer the challenge. However, I'm not away from family and bleeding out cash on the regular to do this.

Sweet! Even knowing ahead of time that you'd caught that fish, my heart still started pounding when you were over the side trying to land it. If there are stages to the adrenaline rush, the peak definitely comes at that split second before you have it in hand. I had a dose the other night. Awesome. Never gets old.

This morning on Live BP stated that pro bass fishing is the "most losingest pro sport" by contrasting KVD's 29 wins against so many losses over the course of decades. Not a knock at all, as he explained, but noted that there is so much losing in the process, even for the great KVD. Later on, Steve Bowman noted that "yesterday's weigh-in line had the look and feel of a funeral." There were some guys who choked up on the stage yesterday afternoon because they didn't re-qualify for the Elites, and well-known names who missed the Classic cut. Bobby Lane and Ish are struggling to requalify in the Opens. It's a shark tank now. It isn't working in a coal mine, but Pro fishing is a rough gig. Anyone who makes it to the big leagues and can hold their spot earns it, big time.

Don't sweat it. David Dudley is using that rod on the BPT. You'll find use for it.

Slipped in a quick midnight sesh last night in between rainstorms. Wind was blasting in from the southwest, so it was impossible to see where the bait was staged. Cranked up my brakes, tried to find some eating over high grass, and nabbed two on the Livingston Bullnose wake before sideways rain blew me outta there at 1:30. On my way out I spotted two huge topwater killshots right where I was just working across the cove and almost turned back but my wife would kill me if I got electrocuted, so I had to bounce. The better fish fought like a champ for every inch, so it's all good after missing most of August.

Get an inexpensive pair of hip waders and it's a different game. You'll reach stretches of the bank where others can't. You'll get to explore new places and find hot spots you had no idea were hot. Makes it way more interesting. Wading a lake or pond doesn't necessarily mean wading farther out from shore. It simply gets you away from open public cuts to new places along a tree-lined bank. These are nearly bulletproof. A good set of gel insoles makes them quite comfy. frogg toggs Rana II PVC Hip Waders | Dick's Sporting Goods (dickssportinggoods.com)

Good move. Service it occasionally and your grandchildren will be fishing with it after you're gone.

All of the XT spinning rods are listed as fast. TATULAXT701MLFS Spinning Rods ML F 7' 1 6-12 1/8-3/8 8 Fuji® Aluminum Oxide $99.99 TATULAXT701MFS Spinning Rods MF F 7' 1 6-14 1/8-3/4 8 Fuji® Aluminum Oxide $99.99 TATULAXT702MFS Spinning Rods M F 7' 2 6-14 1/8-3/8 8 Fuji® Aluminum Oxide $99.99 TATULAXT701MHFS Spinning Rods MH F 7' 1 8-17 1/4-3/4 8 Fuji® Aluminum Oxide $99.99 TATULAXT731MFS Spinning Rods M F 7'3" 1 6-14 1/8-3/8 8 Fuji® Aluminum Oxide $99.99

This time last year we were melting under relentless heat, but we've been in a cool down for the past two weeks, even as low as the 60s during some overnights. Lack of any real rainfall has dropped the water levels quite a bit, but not as badly as last year when it was alarmingly low from the drought. Before the cool off high air temps had the water nearly hot, but it's dramatically lower now. I didn't bring my casting thermometer tonight, but I could easily feel the much colder temps through my waders. It's been pretty windy here too, so that aided in sucking the heat out. The milfoil patches I waded through which usually retain their heat were themselves even cooled down by a lot These shallow mill ponds where I often fish are so sensitive to changing conditions. With rain forecast for tomorrow it's currently 72 and muggy. Moonrise is later every night by 45 minutes, so with clouds in the sky and relative darkness while I was out, I was hoping for some topwater action, but that wasn't the case. Other than one random skinny I landed running the Livingston Bullnose wake right against the shoreline, all of my other bites came from working small soft swimmers on the bottom, and with the much colder water temps pickerel are on the move again as evidenced by the tail-less or shredded swimmers I reeled in strike after strike. They're such jerks, but I've got Mend-It. One bass is better than none, so I'll take it.?‍♂️

We got our wish for heavy cloud cover hiding a big moon on our every-other-Saturday john boat trip, but it was completely windless. They were on total lockdown, so the bite was super tough, and our skunk-free streak was seriously teetering on the edge. I finally knocked the stink off with a Livington Bullnose wake/crank eating squirt, and my brother got the right bite on a Megabass Hazedong Shad and closed the show. He thought he'd snagged a branch at first, then it jumped.?I was thrilled to see him finally hook into some decent horsepower after several trips of slogging a 12' john boat inhumane distances back and forth to these off the beaten path puddles where we travel to.

If you're going to fish the salt, then get something built for the salt. The other bait casters suggested so far are rated as freshwater reels by their manufactures. The Quantum Accurist Inshore is a mainstay in my area of Long Island due to John Skinner. Search "John Skinner Accurist" if you'd like further info. The biggest salt retailer here gets them in by the pallet load and they go out just as fast. Very few problems reported. They're tough reels, easy to adjust, and are good casters. I have the freshwater version and it has held up well in very tough waters. Throw it on a Daiwa Aird-X and you're in business just under your budget. Quantum Accurist Inshore Casting Reels - Tackle Warehouse

Correct. If you have carpenter ants, especially found near windows and doors, there's a leak somewhere that's keeping the wood wet or damp enough to cause fungus or mold. Identify the leaks and fix the problem. If the insulation is wet replace it. Spray the now dry wood framing with a heavy salt solution and that will keep scouts from coming back.

I fish with a few sling bags but mostly with one that's the smallest I have, but I wouldn't want to fish with it swung around to my chest. I swing it around to my chest to grab stuff then rotate it back around just under my armpit to fish.

I go with this 6/0 which helps a bit with short strikers and use the 5/0 version for the Little Dipper.

Like I mentioned earlier, probably for the same reason you've heard over and over again that fluorocarbon doesn't stretch or has low stretch. Uninformed assumptions by end users and uninformed marketers, etc. This isn't exclusive to fishing. Reference what I said earlier. I can go on and on with examples. I'm right, and so is @WRB and so is @bulldog1935. Practical engineering experience has value and says so. This isn't a both sides issue as if this is an opinion based on preference. One opinion is correct and the other isn't. Just because some slop, and that's what it is, isn't fatally incorrect, that doesn't make it correct. If you're able to visualize a machine working in real time, you'll know this is true. A house built out of plumb and out of square doesn't mean it'll fall down, but it doesn't mean it's built correctly if it hasn't. There's a prevailing idea here with this example, and that idea is that a spool shifting laterally on its axis then interacting with a braking methodology is incorrect even though it still functions. My point is that it will perform correctly when set to a neutral position, therefore more predictably. If you're OK with your spool shifting towards or away from the braking interface depending on where the reel ends up as you rotate your wrist through the cast, then continue. My suggestion is to remove that unnecessary variable and tune your reels to a true zero-play/zero-tension setting. You'll get a more predictable outcome which is exactly what you'd expect with that setting. Why would you want the spool shifting whatsoever after you've fine-tuned your braking adjustments? If you visualize what's actually happening in real time you wouldn't.

I didn't say that. I'll try to explain it differently. There's no rational reason to have any slop whatsoever in a mechanism where a spool mounted inductor interacts with a magnetic field, and especially one that's been calibrated to travel out laterally in response to spool speed like most Daiwas do. Zero slop does not automatically mean tension is applied to the spool's shaft. When adjusted to a "neutral" position a lure will still hit the floor like a rock just the same as if it were adjusted loosely. In the case of Daiwa's "Zero Adjuster", some people are under the impression that it's set to some sort of laboratory standard at the factory. It's not. It's set by low wage line workers and is all over the place when you check a number of brand-new reels just out of the box. When it's set for no tension but no side to side play it's set correctly. When it clicks it's not. This is even more meaningful with centrifugal brakes on types like Shimano's SVS where the friction surface is cone shaped. Many reels have an external fine adjustment dial which moves this conical friction surface laterally towards braking blocks mounted to the spool. Why it's desirable to introduce axial slop into the equation of a system like this is mystifying to anyone with a mechanical engineering background and should be for anyone with some degree of mechanical aptitude. This misconception of keeping a reel loose somehow equates to expertise, but it's not true. It's like a brag or something: "I'm so good because I can run my reels loose or turn my brakes off completely". A seemingly nice guy, but Matt Allen from Tactical Bassin has repeated this mistaken idea so many times that I've lost count, and it's bled out into the ether. It's just more untrue fishing mythology just like the fantasy that fluorocarbon doesn't stretch. Anyone who has experienced a mystery blowup where everything was going just fine until it wasn't can probably trace at least a proportion of those random incidents back to a spool which was adjusted loosely, guaranteed. It makes sense if you think about it.