redmeansdistortion

I'm heading out this weekend. Most of the ice is off of the western side of LSC and it might be ice free with the rain coming tomorrow. Going to hit the Clinton River spillway for some ice-out pike

I use the same setup for Neds as I do for brook trout. 7'6" light 1/16-1/2 Kokanee rod with an Abu Black Max 1600 spooled with 6lb Seaguar Red Label. Not the ideal setup, but it throws Neds pretty dang far and the rod has excellent backbone.

It's hard trying not to fish a pretty reel. I have a 4500CS Rocket in sunset orange, one of 100 made, and I want to fish it badly.

Carry a 6" piece of 1/2" wooden dowel in your tackle box. Next time you get snagged, wrap your line around dowel a few times and use it to pull yourself free.

If that isn't the nastiest bird nest I ever saw in my life.

Welcome to the madness. We will get along just fine as long as you aren't a Buckeyes kinda guy

Puh-leez. The Banjo don't have anything on the Flying Lure.

There's nothing I enjoy more than a chinook or big steelhead peeling 50yd+ of line during the fight. I fish salmon and steelhead the vast majority of the time. This involves wandering miles through the back country to my favorite holes and often times it's just myself or myself and whomever I bring. The overall experience of the hike, the serenity of nature, not hearing motors or partiers, and smelling exhaust fumes is much better than you will ever find on any bass boat, or boat in general. My favorite brook trout stream in the UP of Michigan is a 22 mile hike off the beaten path. There is a sign posted at the trail head that says 'Past this point you are on your own so prepare accordingly. Help can be hours or days away'

They don't. If you want an Ambassadeur with a disengaging level wind, look for a Black Max or Pro Max 1600/3600. They were made in '93 and '94. Those reels were way ahead of their time. I have an army of them and use them for everything from stream trout, to bass, to walleye, and big steelhead. If you get one, clean it up good, swap the Teflon drag washers for Carbontex, replace the white brake blocks with light weight blue blocks, and it'll be a casting machine.

A 12ft would be fine. I'm not fishing any rougher waters and will be mostly in smaller inland lakes and the canals along Lake St Clair. I'm kind of thinking I might get two, because the wife is gonna ask 'where's mine?" lol

If you've never fished with a round reel, you may want to borrow one from somebody to make sure you like it first. Especially if you're considering an Ambassadeur. Ambassadeurs sit high on the reel seat and can't be palmed as easily as the low profile reels. I have larger hands so I have no issue, but many others don't find them comfy for all day fishing. The Cardiff on the other hand, sits much lower than the Ambassadeur and is almost as easily palmed as a low profile. The Ambassadeur has been using the same basic design since it's inception. It comes from a time when casting rods had deeply recessed reel seats.

Thanks for posting this. As an avid trout fisherman, the info in these videos is extremely valuable.

Yeah things can get pretty heated here when we get into brand preferences. In all honesty, any quality new production reel should last you many years no matter the make. Like any other industry, companies that sell garbage soon find themselves liquidated.

My favorite WW color is the hot pink, it works so well I keep triples. I've probably gone through a couple dozen of them the last decade. Logjams don't willingly surrender whatever finds it's way into their gangly clutches.

I'd like to go up to about $1000. I did see a nice pedal kayak on Craigslist a few months back for $800 and almost bit, but I decided not to because of winter. What kind of trolling motor do you use? I even thought about getting something like a Predator 212 from Harbor Freight and adding a bracket and prop shaft so I can motor back and forth to my holes, but that would make it a pain hauling it on the roof of the car.

I'm 6' and 190lb if that helps. My weight usually fluctuates between 180 and 200, usually on the heavier in the colder months.

Once you get past the hook, worm, and bobber phase, fishing in general becomes expensive lol.

I've been slowly getting interested in kayak fishing the last couple of years, but I have no idea where to start. I'd like to buy used and something that I can fit on the roof of my car (Ford Fiesta ST). I'd prefer pedal driven, but have no issue with oar driven if the price is right. I'd use the kayak on smaller inland lakes and the canals that dot Lake St Clair. What would be a good size to go with? Another feature I'd like is something I can stand up and fish, but that's not a necessity. What does everybody here think?

The ice should be mostly gone in a couple of weeks. It's almost always gone by the third week of March. Only a few times that I can remember the last 30 some years that the ice stayed into April. I'm craving some ice out pike and musky action in the Clinton River spillway.

Wiggle Warts, and their cousin, the Hot n Tot are deadly on river smallmouth. Any time I use either bait fishing for steelhead, I tend to hook into way more smallmouth to the point they can become a nuisance.

Abu made the 5500 and 6500 in a 2-speed too. It was pretty popular with musky fishermen because it would retrieve a bait at 6.3:1, and when you hooked up, it would switch to 3.8:1 to winch the fish in.

I've never eaten carp, but I've heard they are great if prepared right. One 'trash fish' I do enjoy is smoked sucker. They're somewhat a delicacy up here in the north, but they're only good if you catch them when the water is still cold. Once the water warms up the meat becomes mushy and they're better used as bait for pike and musky.

Myself as well as many other salmon/steelhead anglers surf fish Lake Huron and Lake Michigan with live alewives, crayfish, smelt, and gizzard shad. The reels I see most often are the Penn Squall and Abu 6500. Often times, it can be 100yd or greater distance you need to cast and those reels really put them out there.

Great post, very informative.