Michigander

You can catch jerk bait fish in dirty water but you have to get really close to the cover. Switching your hooks to inline singles will let you get up into light weeds and around wood/docks.

I've caught several fish on fouled lures and my PB smallmouth came on a topwater that got fouled during the cast. I just make the best of the situation and fish it like the bait is extra injured/vulnerable.

That is basically what I was thinking too.

Dragging a floating worm on a football head works out on the ledges. Hard to do unless you have Spot Lock. There's also some rock faces on the shore in parts that have Rocky sandy points coming off of them. You can pop a tube down along them and pick up smallmouth. As far as the bushes go, it seems like you can run those but have to accept you'll be a lot of distance in between bites. That's just a numbers game. At least this was my experience down there.

I lived in Kansas for a couple years and can attest to the perma-wind. Was fishing a lake here in Michigan yesterday and there was basically no wind. It got hot really fast and it was a tad on the uncomfortable side to fish. Only relief came from running to different parts of the lake.

I saw the picture and was like "well that looks really close to something by Northland". I think odds are good.

When I'm out on the kayak, I'm constantly cleaning up after other people, miles of fishing line recovered so far I'm sure and I have quite the collection of cheap plastic bobbers but I'm always excited to find a lure at the end. Most of the time it's junk or something I don't want but sometimes I find good ones. Mostly I just hang the serviceable lures on a sign near the parking lot to brighten someone else's day when they find them. Best I found this year was a Booyeah Pad Crasher in a color I didn't have. That one went in my tackle box.

Definitely go rod first. That being said, giving your reel a good cleaning greasing, and oiling will make it perform better. You can also upgrade the drag washers for a pittance compared to a ci4. Lastly, you could consider polishing your metal drag washers. I did it over the winter and couldn't be happier with the results on light line.

Love the Fuegos, it's a great intersection of price/quality for my skill level.

I think it reflects their target market. Freshwater guys typically want light weight reels and don't grapple with sharks whereas saltwater guys need reels that are tanks. There's no incentive to build a President like that.

I still buy Penn spinning reels because they are so overbuilt for what I'm doing with them that they work great but I don't bother with the others.

It looks like Pure Fishing owns the brands but they (and Bass Pro) have Doyo Korea do the manufacturing. LoL

Pure Fishing I believe. They bought up a ton of the lower and mid level fishing companies. In addition to Abu Garcia and Lews, they also have Berkeley, Pflueger, Penn, Shakespeare, and Fenwick.

I've been an Invisex guy for several years but I have been field testing the Hitena Bass Raptor FC this season. Haven't put line conditioner on it because I wanted to try it raw so there's some memory issues. That being said, I'm frankly impressed by it's ability to transmit vibration. I'm using the 20# as a leader for pitching jigs and straight 8# on my drop shot rod. Certainly worth trying.

If carp are like suckers, don't use a graphite rod, use a fiberglass. Fiberglass is less likely to transmit your vibration (movement or sound) to the line/bait.

If you don't care about looks and are lazy, just slap a pair of drain plugs in there, lol. https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/field-stream-snap-drain-plug-17fnsudrnsnpplg1bfma/17fnsudrnsnpplg1bfma?sku=17698124&camp=CSE:DSG_92700049053083658_pla_pla-504825196742&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAjwztL2BRATEiwAvnALctBctcpO_RUHV3uA15gPbXRCofGdvb_5LlCbvrybUYrMZOkb1Rrw4RoC-pMQAvD_BwE

Also love the Toadrunner. Haven't had issues with the hooks, but that's good to know Padcrasher hooks are compatible!

Got skunked at my opening tournament on Saturday. Most of the field zeroed or only had 1-2 fish. It was tough out there.

I would avoid buying Rage Toads at Walmart. They are cheaper than everywhere else, but it seems like they are selling the miscasts in the little blister packs.

Unfortunately for me, they seem to be everywhere at the moment.....

LOL, that's basically what I did. I bought a ton of jigs at a fishing show and was determined to learn how to use them since I just spent so much money on them. Good luck! It'll happen for you if you stick with it. My only advice is find cover that you're sure you'll snag in, and then make ten casts into it. Work the jig out of it slow and it'll actually come out most of the time. Also, watch your line. A lot if times, it never hits the bottom in the thick stuff.

So do the bass take off when the carp are getting X-rated in the shallows? Or do they just ignore the loud neighbors?

They've fooled me before. But now I have learned to distinguish the difference in splash sound.

I committed to learning the jig about two years ago. This year it finally clicked and am doing really well with them. I actually commented to my fishing partner earlier today after releasing a solid bass that I don't know what the change was and if I could go back in time to give myself advice, I wouldn't even know what to say. It's just something that you figure out suddenly.

I plan to get into rod building once I move to a new house that has room for such things. The limited space I have now is dominated by my other hobbies. My entrance into rod building isn't about saving money but rather spending my money on rods that are exactly what I want. I have yet to find a production rod I am 100% happy with (though I have a couple 95%+ rods) but I believe I could build one. My preferences are not "marketable" enough for a real company to make.