PhishLI

Here are a few pics from a place that's the opposite of Artist. Taken yesterday. No major algae bloom, lush with weeds and pads, but now 2 feet lower than it was during the spring. Not a trickle over the dam which is usually a torrent. Just some seepage now. Bad news in a 10 acre spot where the mean depth is typically 3 1/2 feet. The weeds have collapsed into themselves. It's like casting your bait into jello. It's a stagnant mess now with no flow. I've caught several 6lbers here in the past, and plenty of solid bass. Hopefully they'll survive. If it gets any worse, I'm not sure they will. It simply won't rain. Stick with it during this tough stretch. Things will turn around eventually. '17 was pretty bad. Not this bad, but very low levels everywhere. Things improved considerably by '18.

Paint your house.?

So yeah, these are tricky little ponds that we call lakes around here. Just about any lake in this area without loads of weeds has had a bad algae bloom which has blocked out sunlight. No sun, no weeds. Places that were choked to the surface 2 years ago like Artist Lake are grassless now. Blydenburgh, which is typically 100 acres of shore to shore weeds, didn't have a sprout last year because of this issue. Laurel too, and many others. But there are plenty that weren't hit. Regardless of what's printed on the NYDEC pages, just about every spot has a large selection of baitfish and craws, but not shad. Just a few places have runs of Alwife(river herring or American shad). Unless you're way out east, they aren't a factor for you. That's changing though. Fish ladders are being built into many south shore dammed lakes and ponds. Other than a few natural lakes way out east, there are no ledges to think about. If you're a resident of one of these scant selections, you're allowed to fish there. If you aren't, don't go. You will be caught, have your gear confiscated, and will have to appear in court and pay a fine. They're seriously cracking down in these places. I've witnessed this happen more than once. Ronk has steep drop offs, but has zero O2 below 15 feet, and is brutally choked out. Most of the pad fields are in shallow water rarely greater than 3 feet deep. Typically those pad fields are in-filled with milfoil, except for the algae bloom lakes. Those still have pads if they had them before the algae, but no weeds. The problem right now is that the drought has dropped these ponds as much as 2 feet. You basically end up having pad fields in hot, ultra shallow oxygen depleted water. The dying plants in these zones aren't a plus. The past month has been rough because of this drought, but it's typically tough anyway. The bait is everywhere, especially in the middle near deeper holes, and so are the bass. Watch the birds either diving for or skimming small bait off the surface. Right now this is exclusively way off the bank. It's been this way for a while now, but that should shift back closer to the bank in early October. Maybe. The low water levels have changed the normal patterns. If you'd like to overcome this now, then get a something that floats. Every good fish pic I've had texted to me over the past month has come from quite a bit off shore, so from a boat or a yak. However, those came in unaffected grass lakes. If this isn't an option, then keep plugging away. Dinks can deal far better with low O2 in super shallow water, so you'll nab random smalls occasionally if you catch an active bite window. Just understand that the bass are still very scattered, and with so much bait available to them your timing needs to be just right. Here's something to keep in mind about these smaller places here. Areas that are dead zones one day might be loaded with bait the next. Bait gets pounded out of one area then driven to the next one. Finding a concentration of small baitfish at the right time is your best bet right now. It won't be cloudy again until Monday through Tuesday, so the high sun days will be rough. Try early predawn or after dark until then. The cooler night air chills shallows quickly, and at some point after dark bait will need to push closer to the bank to survive as all the predatory species activate. Being there at that point is your best shot. We didn't find an active bite until 1 am yesterday, and they were all dinks.

This a a great sale price for a nice rod, and a nice upgrade from an Aird-X. Free shipping too. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1022115950?pid=850731

Been there. I feel your pain.

Max size/weight? Line size? TAT150P Right 5.5:1 8.1 7BB + 1RB 14/150, 16/130

Like anyone or anything else, opinions differ, but this guy lives for offshore fishing, and puts out a ton of granular info based on his observations of doing so. Not a lot of fluff either, and talks about failures too.

This is a logical statement. Light is light. Right? Shadows are shadows. Yes? Not exactly, IMO. Steely white moonlight directly over a lake is somehow different than sunlight, and the fish behave differently. I do more lake wading than anything else because it's my best option close to home. I'm really just a glorified bank angler with less constraints. Our lakes are tree-lined right up to the bank with occasional cuts to fish from on the bank, so I can reach stretches a bank-bound angler can't, and can hit offshore cover they can't because I can wade out. Being in the water I also can observe certain things. On just about any night when there isn't a bright moon overhead, bluegills constantly peck at my wading boots if they're in the area. I often set up where I've found small baitfish gathered, so gills are always close by or mixed in. If I shine a light onto them, they'll scatter in all directions, but will return quickly. During bright moon nights small bait is rarely seen unless I stir them out of weeds, then back they go quickly. On these nights when I come across a random bluegill in these zones, they're literally frozen belly down on the bottom. Shine a light on them and they won't even budge. I need to practically step on them to get them to move. They never peck at my boots either. The only other time I see this behavior is when they first move up to the bank in early March when the water is still very cold. I encounter them randomly, belly down, and seemingly frozen in place. Shine a light on them and they don't move, like they're hypnotized. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, if the surface is calm it's exceedingly rare for anything to break it. Unless I'm missing something, the entire lake seems to go into lockdown. I've never once had a bass hit a bait aggressively on bright moon nights. When it happens, and that's rare, it's always very subtle. More of a slurp, or a nip on a tail or appendage. However, that's here in unusually shallow NY water. Perhaps I'll figure it out someday. I've failed to so far, and so have the local hammers I know. It's possible that all of us lack the creativity to break the seal, but I'll keep trying to crack the code.

No bling or extras on these. Both cool enough looking for my simple tastes. Just two desert island favs of mine, and both are a pleasure to fish with. right: USDM Zillion G. Nearly perfect. left: JDM Catalina TW, which is essentially a USDM '18 Zillion HD with a Mag Z spool. I can bomb a 3/8oz chatter bait, then tie on a 3 oz swim bait and launch it without touching the brake. A trouble-free versatile brute. Magseal main crank bearing, and clicking drag is cool.

My worst fishing locally is on bright moon nights without cloud cover. Every type of fish freezes in place until the moon drops below the tree line. Until that point, and If the water is glass, insects are safe on the surface. Nothing will break top to eat them. Nothing. Once the moon drops things turn on quickly. Sometimes instantly. However, I'm fishing on an island in very shallow waters which are very close to saltwater. During daylight hours, large fishing birds like Osprey, Cormorants, and others are a constant threat to fish. Many of the bass I've caught have healed scars showing where they've escaped the beaks of fishing birds. I imagine their survival instinct informs their behavior, and I've observed that a bright moon illuminates these shallow waters enough to shut down everything until it drops. I've killed a ton of hours watching a dead surface, but then witness it erupt with activity once it gets dark enough for everything to feel safe enough to move freely again. I'm not saying bass can't be caught under these conditions, because they can, but they won't chase at all, and are certainly reluctant to bite hard even if a bait is dropped on their heads. They're even shy in the pads. I get the same reports from others fishing similar waters elsewhere on this island. These days I try to time my trips here for before moon rise and after moon fall unless I'm simply in the mood for casting practice or just feeling masochistic. YMMV

If the moon's up here without cloud cover, whether it's full, waning, or waxing, I wait to go until it dips below the western tree line. Within a half hour the bite usually turns on. Before that point, it's always super dead. Even the baitfish stay frozen into position on the bottom. They won't even come up for insects on the surface. Good for casting practice only. I'll take a new moon every time for high activity. Different world.

do a web search for (LIVE) Rod Talk With TFO Rods

If you've never installed a helicoil before, then this isn't the place to start. Good chance you'll just end up flushing $20 down the drain. With the lack of depth of that through hole, and the absolute requirement that both the drill and tap is held 100% perpendicular to the frame, your chances of success are very low. It's absolutely do-able, but very iffy by a novice with a hand drill and a T-handle. Try the other options you've been offered, or suck it up and order a new frame.

The main disadvantage is your rod is way overpowered for the worms you're throwing. Besides that, a 3/8oz weight is like a brick on the worms you're using in the water depth you're fishing. Buy a lighter powered rod. What if the fish doesn't bite and run? You will if you drop down to a lighter powered rod instead.

You may have heard the term "It's the wizard, not the wand". Just about anyone here with time on the water and a sense of this game can detect a strike throwing a very light bait like a 7" power worm-1/16oz weight on a $50 6'6" MH Berkley Lightning rod. However, on the same setup, and without a semi slack or taught line, soaking wet 50lb braid isn't going to transmit anything if the bass just bites and spits instead of bites and runs. @WRB has said over and over that you are the strike detector, and he's right. The rod does matter, but this is an overblown point, especially if "you" don't yet understand everything that's happening when a fish bites. Save your 5 power Sierra for baits appropriate for its wheel house weight-wise, and pick up any decent MF or a light MHF for your lightly weighted plastics. If you feel that you must fish with slack line, then spool up with a quality fluoro for mainline and follow the advice you've been given. It takes time to develop a feel, especially in different lakes.

? Everyting eats it, mon.

I tighten it a tad more than he does, just until the clicking stops, but no more than that.

Same I use two strips, placed on top of the line, and spaced at 180 degrees apart. I tell myself that it's balanced. I've never once had line slip doing this.

I have a spot in my yard where the space between 2 parallel fences is exactly 60 ft. I just hooked on and made nearly 3 runs between the two with a full spool of 40lb J8. Minus 1' each for the hooks, I'd call it 175'-ish, so just shy of 60 yards. It's spooled up about a 1/16" shy of the rim's chamfer. So yeah, 105 yards is total fiction. Try this sometime with a Curado K 200. More fantasy land. Just comparing its spool's arbor to rim by eye, it's barely any different than many 100 size reels, yet most believe it holds a ton of line, but it really doesn't.

You caused me to remember this, and I found it.

It's something or other. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/goodbye-to-the-dl-mlb-to-change-name-of-disabled-list-to-injured-list-report-says/ ? This is next level whiffing though.

Budget?

Now there's a stocking stuffer. Thanks!