plawren53202

Was there a variety of colors? I was in Cabelas here a few weeks ago and they had a similar sale, but it was a giant bin filled with only one color (Sexy Shad) Booyah squarebills--like 100s of them LOL. My terrible Walmart doesn't have any fishing gear left to clear out on clearance.

Couple of thoughts I had based on previous experience, which may or may not be applicable: I have gotten knots forming when I overfilled a spinning spool with braid. Extra loops would slip off the spool when casting and then knot up as they passed through the guides. I have had bad problems with the tag end of my leader/braid knot snagging line on the spool as it came off the spool during a cast, and knots forming in the loops. My fix for that has always been to make my leader short enough (just less than rod length) so that when in casting position the knot is always just in front of my reel spool but never actually on it. I recognize that this is a luxury of fishing generally dirtier water, though; people fishing crystal clear water often need a much longer leader.

Thanks, I'll have to look for that one, I can't believe I missed that one because I watch a ton of his stuff. That is consistent with my experience last night. My subdivision pond fish are all dinks so the 1.5 is pretty big for them, but I was definitely moving it pretty quickly, using my Fuego 8:1 (not at top speed obviously), and bouncing it off the bottom and in particular I think off of the small dropoff a little off the bank.

Creek Fishing Adventures on YouTube fishes the Ocoee quite a bit, so if you haven't seen his videos you might give them a look (I'm assuming that there's some way to search his channel for "Ocoee"). So apparently there is some public access somewhere.

I don't hear much about people using squarebills in summer and was curious as to why. A quick survey of YouTube revealed that nearly all the reputable videos I could find on summer crankbaits are about deep cranking. I get that this makes sense for the deep fish, obviously not going to use a squarebill to go after them. But even on a big lake, some of the fish stay shallow all summer. And in a pond, unless it's a really unusual pond they don't have a choice, and I was wondering how many people use squarebills to catch these fish. Obviously some of the typical summer shallow hangouts for lake fish--weeds, under docks--aren't great situations for squarebills, but still. I've had a slow streak going the last few days at my subdivision pond. My usual approach there is finesse (small baits, slow presentation, light line), typically a wacky worm or Ned rig, because they get a lot of pressure (and the finesse techniques usually work really well). Last night I tried several finesse options and hadn't gotten a bite. Digging through my tackle bag I ran across my squarebill box. Thinking that maybe a reaction bite could be had even though they obviously weren't in an eating mood, I tied on a KVD 1.5 in a bluegill pattern. Caught 5 in the short amount of time I had left before I had to leave. Apparently the reaction bite was working at a time when the otherwise weren't in the mood to feed. And, a squarebill is an option for me here because this pond is shallow, little to no cover other than a few weeds right at the bank. I was casting it out as far as I could get it, so that it was digging in the bottom by the time I got it back to the slight dropoff about 15-20 feet out from the bank. Usually if the fish are tight lipped I tend to go toward more "finesse-y" options, I have to confess that trying for a pure reaction strike in those circumstances is not in my usual playbook. It will be, going forward, and also a squarebill will be in summer list of options going forward.

I have the Fury 733c so basically same action as the Sierra 703c just 3 inches longer. To me this seems like a really good sweet spot for an all purpose rod. I know many will say that one of the "4" power rods is better for Texas rigged baits, certainly jigs, which I agree if you are using it mainly for those then it may be. For me "all purpose" includes a lot of crankbaits so I felt like a 3 power works better as an all purpose under those circumstances. Having said all of that, I've had no problem setting the hook on many Texas rigged-caught fish.

Big 10" worms like the Zoom Ol Monster are popular choices for fishing on a Carolina rig on deep ledges like the TVA chain lakes. Summer is prime time for this.

Buzzbait: Pros--it's the 4x4 of topwaters, it'll go where the Whopper Plopper only dreams to go; cons--it sinks when you stop reeling Whopper Plopper: Pros--floats when you stop reeling, allowing for more variety in retrieve; trebles hook up without requiring hard hookset; cons--won't work around weeds or floating gunk in the water For me I'd rather use a Whopper Plopper mainly because of the ability to vary retrieve, and the trebles, if water conditions allow; but if not then I'll go to a buzzbait

I totally get this point. My other fishing background besides bass fishing is trout fishing. Here in Missouri the trout spots are very limited. Being so close as to have to watch casting across lines was very often a situation born out of necessity, especially in the stocked waters. Opening day for instance is a shoulder to shoulder circus. But that's my issue with what has been happening at the pond, it is absolutely NOT a situation of necessity. We had four acres of open water with not another soul there other than me and the people who came up next to me. I'm like you, I'd rather be on the water alone, but I understand on public bank fishing waters that's most often never going to be the case. However, I have never been in a situation, even on our heavily pressured public waters, where it was necessary to be so close that people were casting across each other's lines. I'm not really sure where exactly you're coming from on this. Etiquette aside, this all boils down to a situation where lines were going to be getting tangled--one time avoiding it only because I had to burn my bait in to avoid it, and second time avoiding it only because I left before they threw a cast--when there were multiple acres of empty water someone could have chosen to set up on instead. It's not egos, emotions or any of that, it's pure physics. I'm struggling to see how it's essential to maintain a situation where lines are going to be getting snagged. And in both situations, it's not like either was the first time somebody had ever fished; I could tell both had done at least a little fishing. If you've thrown a cast before, you understand the physics of lines tangling. And in the first situation, that is exactly what I did, I tried to help the kid. I spoke to him exactly the way I would want someone to talk to my teenage son if he were out on the water by himself. I didn't ask him to leave, I tried to explain to him what happens when two people casting 50-60 feet out in the water are standing 10 feet apart. And it resulted in the kid calling daddy to come down to the pond, and if dad hadn't been as level headed, I'm sure it could have gotten ugly. That's what I took out of all of this, just leave, there's no trying to address the situation even in a respectful helpful way.

Sorry, to clarify, I had just gotten to the spot and was trying to rig up. If I was leaving, no problem at all. If we in the fishing world have gotten to the point where it's not offensive when someone is literally casting across your line, when there are 4 acres of pond to fish with no one there, then the fishing world (or the world in general) has truly gotten to a sad state. I guess just to illustrate the point next time this happens I'll tie on a crankbait and snag their lines repeatedly and see how well that goes.

I "run and gun" as well, my experience is in most ponds if you don't get at least a nibble pretty quickly, then either the spot, the presentation or the bait isn't right and you need to change something. I've accepted that in public spots during Covid, I have to modify that a little, which is fine. These last two incidents bothered me so much though because it was far far worse than just not being able to run and gun around the pond, the people were so close that they literally almost violated the 6 foot social distancing rules. I appreciate everyone's thoughts on best to just move and not say anything. Affirms that my decision last night, although difficult, was right. It's just a bummer because with a lot of other very stressful stuff going on in my life right now, until March of this year fishing was my one escape from all that.

As we've thoroughly covered on this forum already, being a bank-bound angler has been a curse in most parts of the country during Covid. Certainly the case here in St. Louis, where most public spots have been pounded. My subdivision pond, which is allegedly for subdivision residents only (LOL), that has certainly been the case. I don't particularly enjoy fishing it other than the fact that it takes me 30 seconds to drive down there, so it is easy to squeeze in before or after work (I live in an area where there aren't really any good options that don't require a significant drive). But incidents lately have reduced my enjoyment to the point that I'm just about to throw in the towel. Interestingly the numbers of the Covid fishing crowds there seem to have lessened a little, but the problems haven't. Incident #1: Two trips ago, I'm fishing, only one at the pond. A boy in his young teens, I'd estimate 13 or 14, is walking up to the pond and marches straight to a spot within 15 feet of me--for reference keep in mind that this pond is about 4-5 acres in size, so not tiny, and the shoreline is absolutely devoid of any visible cover so there would not appear to be any "good spots" (although I know of a couple of places where there are large rocks on the bottom, because I've scoured the bottom with a Carolina rig). Not surprisingly his first cast with a giant spinnerbait launches straight across my line and I have to quickly reel in to avoid a mess. Trying to be as gentle as possible, I said to him, hey bud, you know people usually pick a spot to set up where you don't cast across someone else's line. He responds with, huh? I said, it's usually a good idea to set up far enough away from other people that you don't cross their line when you cast. He says, so you want me to move? I said, well, if you're going to stay there you're going to have to be really careful because your first cast already went across my line. He storms off a little ways down the bank, throws about 3 casts, gets out his cell phone, and sure enough a couple of minutes later dad shows up on a golf cart and kid runs up to the road to talk to him. Thankfully to dad's credit he didn't say anything to me and they just left. Incident #2: Yesterday, I'm, again, the only one at the pond. The last couple of trips the bass have at random times been busting some kind of bass or bluegill fry in one particular spot--a corner on the windblown side of the pond. Last time this happened I caught 4 or 5. Yesterday they started doing it again, so I quickly headed toward that spot. The pond is small enough in that area, and the water pretty clear, so that marching right up to that spot would spook them off. So I set my stuff down in a spot close by, kneeled down and started tying on a small swimbait to imitate the fry. As I'm tying I see a couple, look late 20s or early 30s, walking down the bank, chairs, buckets, bobbers, the whole nine yards. I can tell they're headed my way--again with the whole pond at their disposal, and I'm quite certain they weren't headed to that spot because they saw bass busting fry--so I'm frantically trying to get knot tied, swimbait on hook etc. to stand up and get fishing, and of course my knot tying skills completely disappear so it takes me 2 or 3 attempts to get it tied. Sure enough they head right next to me, 10 feet away--it was so close that I almost thought it was a practical joke at first, like one of my friends that fishes had set this up to mess with me. And, they march right up to the edge of the water (of course spooking off the fry busting fish--never saw another splash the rest of the night) and start planting chairs, buckets etc. I was tempted to say something, but incident #1 ended poorly enough as it was with a young kid. In this day and age I'm just not real keen on starting needless confrontation, there's lots of crazy out there. And, my observation is that a lot of these new Covid anglers or the bucket and bobber brigade just don't give a rip or don't know enough about fishing to even understand that what they've done is bad fishing etiquette, so they just get offended or angry if you try to say anything, even politely. Just not worth it to me, so I just packed up my stuff and headed to the other end of the pond. Fishing was slow last night so by heading off from where they were actively busting fry I gave up any shot of catching more than 1 or 2 loan roamers. But just not worth it to me. So, any words of wisdom? Don't say anything, and stand there and cross lines, or like last night, have no chance of catching what had been active fish. Or say something, very little chance of them actually moving, and high likelihood that the situation escalates. Just seems like a no win, and makes me just want to say screw it and only go when it's raining or at 5:30 in the morning.

I think the bigger issue even apart from lure weight is the thickness of the jig's hook along with stiffness of weedguard. A lot of jigs have thick wire hooks, certainly much thicker than the Ned rig heads and other baits I typically throw with my ML spinning rod. Driving that stiff wire hook home through a bass's jaw is alone probably going to be a challenge for a ML rod, but then add in the stiff bristle weedguard that most jigs have. That's a lot of stuff you have to get through to get the hook home. I would lean toward at least a MH for any jig fishing unless the jig was specifically a finesse, light wire hook jig.

My PB bass, an 8.5 lb. largemouth, came (I'm almost embarrassed to say) on a size 10 black wooly bugger fished on a 5 weight flyrod. It was early January, I had gotten the flyrod as a Christmas present, it was my first non-Walmart flyrod (an Orvis) and I was anxious to get out and try casting it. I went to a pond, no real expectation of catching a bluegill much less a PB bass, just wanted to try casting the new setup. It was about 35 degrees that day, and whammo, what do you know. Thank God it was cold that day because in warm water there's no chance I could have landed that size bass on a 5 weight. But at the same time, in mid summer that fish would likely have had very little interest in whatever a tiny size 10 black wooly bugger imitates. I think Bluebasser hit the nail on the head; when the water is cold and food is scarce, even big bass will feed on very small prey. Middle of the summer, maybe not so much, although I can easily see dink bass gorging on mayflies in the summer for instance. There the quantity can make up for the small size; one mayfly might not make for a meal even for a dink bass, but a mouthful of 200 of them might go quite a ways.

I hear you on this. When I have a bait on that falls in the middle of the weight range for my primary baitcaster combo, it's nearly backlash-proof (now of course as I say that I will have a massive bird's nest next time) because I have the dual brakes on my Tournament MP dialed in to exactly where I want them. If I go with a really light bait on that setup, though, it takes a little tinkering and a little more diligent thumb management.

Not Tackle Direct, but I think this gives a clue that a lot of these delays with a lot of shippers, fishing or not, are Covid related right now. My wife ordered some new running shoes direct from Asics last week. She ordered on Wednesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon the status showed a Fedex tracking number and that the shipping label had printed.....continued to show that same status through until Sunday. Monday it finally showed that it shipped on Monday, with expected delivery on Tuesday.

This reminds me of the video Richard Gene the Fishing Machine just posted within the last week on YT; he was fishing someone's private pond that had an automatic feeder. The bluegill he was catching were huge, and he wisely used a brown jig that bore a close resemblance to the food pellets from the feeder. At one point he even picked up a pellet and compared it next to his jig.

I don't have any words of wisdom to help you with flipping, except to say that I struggle a lot with setting up a baitcasting reel to flip or pitch as well. I'm a mainly bank angler, so I don't have a lot of occasion to flip, certainly not like boat guys who spend hours running banks and flipping. But on rare occasion when I do, I have the same problems as you (goes for both my Lew's Tournament MP and Daiwa Fuego)--set the spool tension too tight and the bait just doesn't go anywhere; set it too loose and I get instant backlash no matter where the brakes are set or how quickly I put on the "thumb brake." So, I'm going to be watching any responses to your questions with interest. On your question about the frog, I would think this would go for any lighter lures in general. My experience with throwing light lures on a baitcaster is that you have to depend a little more on the "thumb brake" and, unfortunately, just practice and get the hang of it. I have found that for light lures, I need to go really light on the spool tension knob, and also fairly light on the brakes. Heavier on either one and the lure just won't go far. With so little spool tension or brakes, then, you have to really manage with your thumb to prevent backlash and the end of the cast. The trickiest part for me was backlash earlier in the cast. My experience (which I could be way off base, I'm just winging all this on my own) is that temptation with a light lure is to really put some oomph into the cast and try to muscle it far, but that results in backlash. Letting up on spool tension and brakes makes you not have to chuck it so hard. This seems counterintuitive if you're already experiencing backlash, but that early/mid cast backlash is from your muscle making the spool spin faster than the bait is traveling at the beginning of the cast. Less spool tension/brakes means less muscle needed to get the bait going; you just need to thumb manage the spool at the end of the cast. Also let the rod do the work (assuming the bait isn't just far too light for the rod), try to feel the rod load up on the back cast. Hope all that rambling helps. Your questions are good questions.

As the owner of a Tournament MP, I would second this. I have never even seen an Antares in person much less used one, so I can't speak to that. But I will say that my Tournament MP has the feel of a reel well above its price point, certainly the $99 I paid for mine on sale but even the $149 list price. Based on my more limited experience with the Tournament Pro Speed Spool LFS, I agree that these are probably the most bang for the buck in the Lew's lineup. I think the law of diminishing returns kicks in when you start to go higher in the price list; not saying they aren't "better" reels, but not better by the same measure as they cost more.

To me that's one of the good things about a spinnerbait, you can fish it nearly anywhere in the water column. Just figure out where the fish are that particular day and then vary retrieve speed to fish it there. You can even use it to find what depth they're at, it's a great search bait. My subdivision pond is similarly shallow (I estimate deepest water is 6'); in this super hot weather we've been having the fish will cruise weeds along the bank very early/very late, but otherwise are couching out on the bottom in the deepest water. I could theoretically use a spinnerbait in both settings... ...but with all the new Covid anglers, for some reason they all seem to show up throwing a spinnerbait. I don't know if it's the appeal of the $1 bargain box at Walmart or what, but it's become a running joke with my son that every time someone shows up at the pond and we've never seen them before, they're going to be throwing a white or chartreuse spinnerbait (and not the Booyah pond magic size, but big old whoppers, despite the fact that this pond has no fish over about a pound). In the interest of giving the fish something they don't see often, I've stayed away from the spinnerbait this year. Lots of Ned rigs, cause I'm pretty sure they aren't seeing many of those.

As a bank angler, I unfortunately can't take a deck's worth of rods with me, so for a while it has been one MH/F baitcaster combo, one M spinning and one ML spinning combo. Found a partner so I can do some upcoming back of the boat tournament duty, so I need to add some more baitcaster combos--yet I don't have a big budget for them, while at the same time I don't want junk. So the mission was finding that sweet spot of good quality gear that doesn't break the bank. I just added as baitcasting combo #2, an H2O Xpress Ethos HD rod, the one with the cork handle and micro guides, in MH/F 7'0", and a Daiwa Fuego CT. I got the Fuego on sale on Walmart's website for $79, and although the rod technically wasn't on sale, for some reason it had a tag on it for $69, which is the regular price for the non-micro-guide/non-cork version, and the Academy worker told me to make sure they gave it to me for $69 even though the regular price is $79 (they did). Spooled it up with 12# P-Line Fluoroclear (co-polymer) because I couldn't find my usual Sufix Advance copolymer in stock anywhere in town (?) and fished it all weekend. The initial, admittedly small sample size, first impression report is that both of these are really, really solid choices in their price range, and I like this combo a lot. I'm used to using my Lew's Tournament MP with both centrifugal and magnetic brakes, so I was a little worried about getting the Fuego (with just magnetic brakes) dialed in. No problems, and it was a backlash free weekend. I intentionally threw baits at the two ends of the spectrum to see how it would handle, a Whopper Plopper 110 and, other end, a T rigged worm with a 1/8 oz. bullet weight. It did well on both ends; I was particularly surprised at how well it threw the worm with such a light weight, with no issues. Just a little adjustment on the spool tension knob for each, and good to go. This was my first Daiwa baitcaster, and I quickly found out I'm a BIG fan of the big paddle knobs on the handle. The Lew's Winn grip knobs have always been my favorite but these Daiwa paddle knobs are giving that a run for its money. The Fuego just has the feel of a quality reel, something from a significantly higher price point. It's smooth, solid and quiet in all the right ways. Casting distance was great; I was sending that super light worm halfway across the pond. Similar accolades to the rod. The Ethos rods are impressively light for their price range; it compares really well in a lot of respects with my Dobyns Fury (again which I am a big fan of). The balance with a reel mounted adds to the perceived lightness. The two big testing points for me for a rod are sensitivity and casting performance. One day in particular, it was about 95 degrees and bright sun, so the bass were not exactly crushing a bait. I was very impressed with the extremely light contact (not even taps, just slight drag or weightiness) that I could feel with this rod. And as I said earlier, no problems in casting a worm/weight definitely at the light end for a MH baitcaster. Good backbone on the hooksets, even managed to drive one home and land it early on the first day when I realized mid-hookset that I had forgotten to tighten down the drag on the reel (?). And, I think the blue of the rod looks really cool...which dumb as it is, was a factor in this purchase because all of my other combos have somehow ended up being very conservative black/black. Time is the ultimate test for these things, of course, but for first impressions I am extremely happy with this combo. I would absolutely consider another H2O rod purchase in the future, and Daiwa is really making a case for making me a fan, following up on my last purchase of an Aird-X ML spinning/Regal LT reel. I wanted to post this review because as much fun as the really high end stuff is, I think there are a lot of people who look to this board for advice because they want quality gear but can't pay a lot for it (that's definitely me). I would certainly include both the Fuego and the Xpress Ethos HD rod as candidates for anyone in that boat.

6# or 8# are my usual choices on this rod. Honestly there's probably not a significant difference between them and either is good. Standard mono has so much stretch that you might want to consider going with something else. The ML rods are pretty springy to begin with, and you do need a little backbone to set the hook on bigger smallies. I use braid mainline/copolymer leader on mine (Sufix 832 10# mainline/Sufix Advance copolymer 6# leader), but if you're not familiar with braid you could go straight copolymer with the Sufix Advance. Sufix Advance to me is the best of both worlds between fluoro and mono, soft and castable like mono but much less stretch and more sensitivity than mono, more like fluoro.

Lots of contenders because I love cheap deals, but the Yum and Zoom lineups have to be at the top of the list. The 4" Yum Dinger is an absolute must for pond bass for me and has probably caught well into triple digits for me this year. The Zoom Z Craw and Z Craw Jr. is the Swiss army knife of soft plastics for me; it works great Texas rigged like a creature bait, also makes a great jig or chatterbait trailer. Zoom Trick worms, Super Flukes, brush hogs and brush hog jrs., finesse worms and Ol' Monsters are all staples for me, and none of them are more than $4 a bag.

Ditto on the SK Coffee Tube. Earlier this summer in the creek I fish, smallies and spots were just hammering it. Green pumpkin is a must, they also really liked the Crazy Craw color which is an orange pumpkin-ish color with some different color flakes mixed in.

Count me as another vote for ML. Earlier this year I got my first ML spinning rod (had always used only UL or M spinning gear). To me an ML hits exactly the sweet spot for creek smallies, ponds with dink largemouths, those types of places. I know even in the small creeks I fish for smallmouths, I would not want less than a ML for when I get a decent size one on. Yet to me a ML is plenty light to keep it sporting; in fact my ML Daiwa Aird doubles as my crappie fishing rod because it is so sensitive--yet it has enough backbone that my last crappie trip I landed a 34" gar on it!