Jleebesaw

I mix of everything for me. I started fishing when 2d sonar was the pinnacle of fishing tech! So plenty of my spots I learned from other fisherman. Back in the day I did a lot of bank beating and fishing obvious points and humps. I also used the old bent rod pattern quite a lot! Lol I can remember buying lake maps that had contour lines. Using those along with 2d sonar got me introduced into offshore fishing. I kept up with sonar until livescipe. I haven’t bought that yet. Not sure if I ever will. Anyway, on screen mapping along with side scan has made finding juicy offshore spots much easier. I just recently moved. I’m fishing Lake Champlain a lot starting this year. I’ve only been out on it a handful of times. I moved here from about 3 hrs west. I used to fish the st Lawrence a lot. So I have my boat ready to go. I’ll be fishing a lot of new places this year. Should be fun to find some spots.

I use 10" ribbon tails here in northern NY all summer. They work well. I use them on carolina rigs on deepish (20') rocky flats for smallies.

2 counties. St Lawrence and Jefferson counties. Thats my old stomping grounds. Recently moved to Clinton county. Surprised to see that bass season opens on the second Saturday of June instead of the 15th on Lake Champlain. Fished a small tourney Saturday. It's getting to be that you need to double check the regs every time you go fishing! Lol

I agree within reason. I wouldn't think too highly of anybody keeping a limit of any species ever day though. Lol. I'm not going to knock someone who likes to keep some fish to eat. I get several limits of crappie every spring. Right in the middle of their spawn. I don't know about population density of different species, but it seems to me that, other than during the spawn, crappies are harder to find than smallmouth bass. During the summer I can always catch a bass or 2 at least. Usually several. If I try to catch crappie post spawn, I rarely find them. Yet nobody bats an eye at killing and eating 200 of them a year. I think responsible harvest of them is fine.

I have a Yukon angler 116 and love it. I'm a bass boat guy for the most part and don't know a lot about kayaks, but this thing works well for me. I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it the last 2 years.

I've never fished lake Erie. Mostly lake champlain and the st lawrence. They will still be spawning on these bodies of water. I'm sure they will there too. It's a lot of water so it would be slow to warm. I'm just guessing really, but I think they'll be spawning still. There's people on here that fish there though. They will hopefully pitch in with a more educated resonse.

Seems like it's been consistent where I fish. Some years are better than others, but overall consistent. I mostly fish a couple of big water bodies though. Lake champlain and the st lawrence. They are big enough that fishing pressure probably isn't as much of a factor.

I've never actually used a Ned rig. I've caught many smallmouths on a t-rig though. Also, I've caught a lot of them on a jig with an exposed hook using tubes or grubs. I guess thats the same as a Ned rig? I don't know. That's what a Ned rig looks like to me. Just a lot of guys use these small senko looking baits and I always use grubs or tubes.

Oddly enough, I live in Champlain NY and the air seems fine. I literally work at the border with Quebec where the fires are. My family is from the watertown area and they say it's horrible. Pretty crazy. Weather pattern pushes it right away from us. The closest fires are only a 10 minute drive from here.

I just use the temp from my fish finders. I can then use past experiance to get an idea of what I should be doing. I don't know what the temp is deeper and I don't really care. Having a rough idea is good enough for me. I know what worked in different surface temp ranges in the past and can work off that info.

I use the same jigs as I use for LM. A smallmouths mouth isn't really that small. You don't need to downsize. They can and do take most baits that LM will take. U less you're using some really big jigs, it won't be a problem.

I've never used one to target smallies but I have caught some on them while fishing areas that seemed more like LM territory. Not sure why, but I never use them when I'm targeting smallies. Probably should try it more. I used to catch them in a river by my childhood home on inline spinners all the time though.

Might not be a female.

I go with the brute force method. Braided line and a tight drag. Works most of the time. Jigs take a pretty good hookset to begin with, so that's what I do. You'll always have one get caught up under docks occasionally.

I got some cheap neoprene upper "water shoes" at wal mart. They were like $10. They are the best. They dry out super fast, tye sun doesn't get to my feet, and I can feel the breese through them. Somehow, these $10 wal mart shoes are quite comfortable too. I'm the type who will spend money on shoes. Expensive work boots etc. So I didn't have high hopes for these. I got them when I bought a kayak because I always get my feet wet getting in or out of it. Now I I wear them in the boat too. Unless it's cold out. Don't wear them when it's cold out.

Lucky to go 3 or 4 times a month. Up until last year I was a 4 or 5 times a week guy with normally 2 or 3 tournaments a month. This is all from may through November because of the winters here in NY.

Tell me about it. The smallies were just getting ready to start spawning up here in lake champlain I think. It snowed the last 2 days. I'm hoping they didn't decide its winter again and head back to deeper waters. Breaking out the kayak on some small water Friday morning where the water will be much warmer to look for some LM. With the wind on champlain lately, I'm going to have to trade in the bass boat. need a deep v in this sucker right now!

Probably get laughed of the post for this, but I bought a lifetime Tamarac pro 116 last spring. It was $550 at wal mart. I didn't want to spend much on a kayak because I mostly fish from a bass boat. This thing has been great for me. The seat is comfortable. I can fish for 4 hrs or so without the slightest discomfort. It had the biggest weight capacity of the kayaks available at that wal mart store. If you are brand new and not looking to spend much, this will get you on the water and fishing. It's not top of the line by any stretch, but for the price, I like it. I fish several lakes that don't allow motors and some rocky shallow river areas that are sketchy water for a boat. I really like it.

I like t rigs. Topwater is awesome too. But I find that I use t rigs more than anything. If the bass aren't biting good for me, I always slow down and pick areas apart with bottom contact. Near shore, I use the t rig. If it's offshore I'll break out the ole carolina rig. The carolina rig doesn't get talked about much these days, but we all know it catches them.

Not huge, but it's the first one this year

Can anybody tell me about replacing the bilge pump on a 2008 tracker pro team 170 TX? What brand do I get? Are they universal? I can't seem to find anything online e telling me what the replacement part is. My bilge pump and livewell pump both quit working and one of them is leaking. I cant see them very well and want to replace them both but I can't tell what pumps to buy. Even on BPS website, they don't mention if the pumps they sell fit their boats or not.

I'm not going g to pretend to k ow anything about raising big bass in ponds, but I know it's harder than it seems. I know some people with a 10 acre pond on their hunting land. They have biologists from a nearby college that helped them for free. There was all kinds of water testing. The biologists recommended what type of plants to put in it and everything. They buy baitfish a few times a year to put in it. It seems like a lot of work. They've been messing with it for like 15 years. They did catch a few 10lb LM out of it though. This is in upstate NY, so a 10lb bass is pretty d**n impressive.

I dont use it. I'm fishing in New York and Vermont, so the sun isn't as bad here as it is in some places. If it's a sunny day, I wear light pants, uv blocking long sleeve shirts, gloves, and a hat. It's usually not very sunny here though! Lol.

This is true. When I'm in my boat going 60mph and the wind is Maki g my glasses vibrate around, i usually see the paddles before I see the person or the kayak. I bought a fishing kayak and made sure to get very flashy bright paddle blades for that very reason. It's just something I've noticed.

I dont hate them. But they just tick me off. Pike and muskie more than pickerel. I don't catch that many pickerel, but pike and muskies have cost me a lot of money in lures, and time in tournaments over the years. Plus they stink. Takes 2 days to get the smell of pike off your hands. They get slime all over the place. They can be fun at times too though. I once caught a 52" muskie on the St Lawrence while bass fishing. He grabbed a paddle tail swimbait just right so that he was hooked through the lip and didn't cut my line. It was fun fighting it. Things can really pull. Also had a big northern steal a crappie I was reeling in one time. Right next to the boat. Actually startled me! Aggressive scoundrels!