PhishLI

I remember watching a video many years ago where a diver made friends with a Barracuda. When he dove in the area the fish would always visit him. He fed it by hand, and he even gave it nice scratchies, which the fish loved. They were pals. Then one day, and quite out of the blue, the 'cuda clamped down on homeboy's face.

With the big family in town for Mother's Day and birthdays, it looked like we'd have to cancel our first Jon boat trip of the year yet again, but the Phish brothers are tricky, and we worked out a deal with the powers that be. Too bad we couldn't have hit this mid-island lake 2 weeks ago because it's already topped out with weeds and the pad fields are almost fully developed which is crazy-early for May 13th. It was muggy and the swarms of gnats were overwhelming no matter where we stopped. My son in law got the same pass we did, but he headed 75miles out east with his brother to the north fork. As usual, that lake is way behind ours only 35 miles east of there. Not a Lily pad anywhere near the surface and no new grass sprouted up yet. Anyway, I spent as much time peeling weeds off the prop as I did fishing, so it'll be the yaks or nothing if we get back to this place any time soon. We had little time to develop a solid strategy, but figured out small wakes and cranks running barely subsurface was the deal. Small golden shiners were darting through the weed tops, so this made sense. The bass were just slurping or slapping at treble baits though, and we were amazed at how many managed to hit the baits but miss the hooks. The trusty Livingston Bullnose wake worked through open lanes saved our trip in the end, so we beat the skunk for our first time out which is always a good omen. Would've liked to stay longer having found the juice, but swans went to war with geese, and it was no different than if a meteor shower hit the lake, so we split.

@bulldog1935 recommended Varivas Max Power PEx8 at some point and I finally tried it on my Tatula LT3000. This braid made me like spinning gear again. Casting distance is fantastic with 1/15oz ned heads and TRD BugZ. Even better with a Finesse TRD that doesn't catch wind like the BugZ do. I bought 16lb. It's so thin that the spool is nearly filled with backer. I topped it with 165ft of Varivas in order to get 3 runs out of the spool. It's very slick too, and remains that way, so it doesn't bite in on itself which reduces distance.

Hey, I was wrangling my energizer 4 year granddaughter all day Friday. Glad it worked out! Check your pm.

Here, here! This man has some nerve, I tell ya. My enthusiasm over posting a couple of spawned out 3 pounders just shriveled faster than an ice bath would shrivel my... Magnificent!

Take it as a sign of good things to come. Back in July of '19, this happened to me twice from the bank. Two absolute slobs lost. I had waders on, but hadn't gone in yet, and slack line during the transition into the water doomed me. After the second time in a week, I put the hoodoo on myself by cooking up the idea that I was hereby cursed, and that this was a sign no big fish would be granted to me for the rest of the year. I chalked it up to some type of untraceable karmic vengeance. I'd been a jerk on occasion in the old days, so this made sense to me. By October of that year, I'd landed a freak, so perhaps I wasn't as bad as I'd imagined, or maybe I was simply being a superstitious moron. A similar thing happened 2 years ago, but I came out on top yet again. It 'aint over til it's over, brother. Keep the faith.

For sure, but this year, even in MLF, lots of guys below the handful of those hitting them well have been getting stomped. More than usual, it seems. The Sabine tourneys are almost painful to watch. A bunch of 8" bass being caught feels like punishment!

Lots of guys got spanked badly, and to add insult to injury, the Sabine is next.

Face and fingers. Never get burned, and it isn't oily.

Midway is running a 50% off sale on TFO rods. The 7'6" ML spinning has me thinking. Tactical Elite Mag Bass Spinning Rod

Did you pull the shields off each bearing and flush them out? If not, well, who knows.

They're new, and they are your friend. Since you'd encountered them way past this stage last year, their stages of growth will allow you a ton of new opportunities. Fish in and around them diligently and you'll probably hit some solid males and big girls during your prespawn period. They're a magnet for all species.

Yes. I think the pinion has 11 or 12 teeth. Once I reestablished the marks, I just kept advancing one tooth at a time. Kinda sucked breaking it down several times. Serves me right for losing the mark to begin with.

One fat night chunk will get your mind right, and quickly.

Finally had a drama-free session at one of my favorite spots. No Junkies, flunkies, or weirdos showed up to harsh my mellow. It was just the rain and me. Missed a few, but I got some too, so the action was good. The Black and Blue Zman Pro CrawZ loaded with a glass rattle rigged on a Gamakatsu 5/0-1/8oz/Owner Large CPS continues to get a nice amount of nighttime attention, and I've gotten more bites lately on the WP75 in perch than I have in a few years.

WOW, Man. Just wow!

Several weeks ago, I pulled only my Zillion G gears for a clean and relube. Before I removed them, I cleaned the gear faces with MAF cleaner on a Qtip and marked each with Dykem Red. I came to find that my engraver was kaput, and somewhere along the way I lost the paint mark on the pinion's tooth. Put it back together and, well chit fire, it's geary. 7 take aparts and advancing the pinion later and it's ethereally smooth again. I agree that with standard feeling reels this may not be noticeable, but it is with this particular reel.

With a little time cranking a reel, the pinion and main run-in together. It's a wise move to put match-marks on both before you remove them for servicing. If a reel is smooth before servicing it, but not afterwards, at least you can eliminate the gearset as the issue because they were returned to their original tooth-to-tooth position.

Shimano's BFS reels that have FTB mag brakes like your reel will not accept spools from standard SVS Infinity braked reels. The arbor size is fixed on your spool due to the mag brake, so there's no way to get more line cap.

Is your situation the same as it was? River fishing and sitting in a yak with 75' casts the norm, and only occasional swimbait fishing? If so, and if you like the K that much, then get another. It'll be fine for this duty. Even the Tatula 150 would be fine here if you'd like to try something different that plays well with heavier mono. If you see yourself eventually fishing from a platform where you can stand up and bomb cast, the Curado 300 is a very nice reel. So is the Tatula 200.

I sometimes wonder whether fishing brings out the worst in some people, or if it simply attracts some of the worst people.

Maybe you'll find your way back to this particular scenery sooner than you think. Perhaps @WIGuide has a point. The same point was made to me after I'd blown a fuse over a guy posting an almost 7lber from one of my prime spots complete with key backround-markers on a local public FB bass page. I made enough noise in the pipeline that someone encouraged him to remove the post, but I was still miffed. I'd imagined some of the ruthless NYC poaching crews caught it, as well as out of town bassers. The guy who talked me down is a hammer and explained that guys like himself and others who've come out with me find it very difficult there on a good day, so even if the post attracted some unwanted attention, those who saw it would likely peter out quickly anyway. He's right in this case. New faces don't stick around long at all here, even the ones who look the part. Most people don't have the head to crack a code to begin with, or the willpower to grind it out when that's just what it takes nearly every single time. Hopefully you'll make it back home.

Hopefully you'll still post perfect brown bass still shots using voodoo'd-backround-trickery? #FootballsOnMars, #FootballsOnMtEverest...

YT vids of practice through today will show all the details.