Big Hands

On a new lake? I'm fairly sure I would flail around, until I tried a little bit of everything I have with me until I get so drained of confidence that I just go ahead and ask a local what to do, and then try that. I keep telling myself that if one tries hard enough and often enough, even a blind squirrel stumbles upon a nut once in a while. This year, so far, the blind squirrels have reason to mock me without mercy. However, being the optimist that I am, I still have faith that the bass will soon home in on my patterns and once again take me from sub-zero to sub-hero.

I have two Daiwa medium fast spinning rods, one a Kage that is 6'10" and the other a Tatula that is 7'. I originally bought the Kage 7' medium fast, but the reel foot would squirm around on the Kage rod, so I traded it back for that Tatula. I have fished with all three rods, and have found that I prefer the 7' Kage (except for the reel seat foot squirming issue) and the Tatula 7' over the 6'10" Kage. I like the extra length for casting, setting the hook, and fighting the fish. . . . pretty much everything about it. It's not night and day, but I do prefer the longer rod. I am mostly throwing finesse offerings like dropshot, small t-rig, slipshot, weightless wacky Senkos, etc. I have recently added a ML Zodias (ZDS70MLA) medium light power, and an Expride EX270LA light power and I am liking these rods for the lighter weight finesse offerings that I used to use medium power rods for. They cast better and do just fine keeping fish pinned. Having the experience I do with all of those rods (and more. . . don't get me started), if I could only have one finesse spinning rod for the time being, it would be a 7' ML/F. JMHO and YMMV.

That sounds about right. . . . if you don't stick it out and play the game. IME, the first thing that happens when I have approached a bed is that the bass will swim away from the bed the same way a quail will try to lead a predator away from the rest of the covey. They swim off, but eventually come back around. They may do this a few, or even several times. But if they come back fairly soon, there's a good chance that they will be players. Sometimes, the bed won't be well defined, but you can see the bass act differently when your bait dances across a certain area. The more your bait dances around on that spot, the more interested they become, swimming off, but returning sooner and sooner. Often staring, sometimes getting closer. You can sense the agitation in their movements as they become more and more sudden and menacing. I know they are getting closer to mouthing the bait when they do what I call 'flashing' by making sudden movements and you can see the light reflecting off of them. It happens quick, often before you realize it. Many times, you can be almost sitting on top of them by this time, and they are past the point of being spooked and are consumed by defending their bed. If they hit it once, most of the time they will keep doing it. They are pretty slick about being able to grab a part of the bait that doesn't have hooks, so large baits might irk them quicker, but I find them harder to get them to stick. You can even switch out from one to another, but don't give them time to cool off too much. If you're quick and even anticipate the strike, that can help. A small fish looking bait like a 3" Roboworm Alive Shad in Hologram Shad color nose hooked with a number 4 light wire mosquito hook on a dropshot rig with a very short distance between the weight and the hook is very enticing, or even a small pure white grub or a hair jig you that you can see well enough, it's hard for them to strike it without getting hooked. And the sharp point with light wire does a good job of securing the fish. So, if you give it a few shakes and move on, it's not surprising that you find they rarely bite. It's often a matter of working them and the fact that they can clearly tell you're there and probably messing with them eventually becomes irrelevant. I won't say that I never bed fish because I do occasionally, but much prefer to target feeding fish.

Ooooh, I'm all giddy inside ?

Is that a genuine Mike Long Signature Series Snag-a-Thon 5000HD?

I don't think all of the fish stop feeding for too long. It's on me to figure out how to trigger strikes. Most of the time I do. Sometimes I don't. I know sometimes I just totally miss the mark. It's just part of fishing. Unless there's something dire happening, it's not them, it's me.

I am trying to change my relationship with 'clutter' I have one tackle satchel that holds five 3700 boxes and has a few side pouches that hold pliers, scale, leader material, scent, scissors, sunglasses, license, etc. But it all fits into the satchel. One 3700 box holds weights and some hooks. I have another ziplok with more hooks that fits in a side pouch. The other four 3700's will rotate depending on what I want to throw that day. Once in a blue moon, I will toss in one additional 3700 box under the deck. That's it. Most of the time I have what I need to get bit. It's up to me to put something together that will work from what I have in the boat. I own 14 rod/reel combos, but only four or five max go out on a given day. Occasionally I will slide the swimbait rod into the back of the Yukon in case I want to come back and get it. My expectation is the one satchel and four rigs. If I didn't I would look like Fred Sanford and Jed Clampett carpooling home from the swap meet. It's very rare that I regret limiting my clutter. . . . . . I mean cargo.

The Shimano SLX casting rod and reel combo is an excellent choice, and is available within your stated budget range. As a general use rig, I like the 7'0" MH/F rod paired with an SLX 150XG 8.2:1 reel. Bought separately, those two items sell for $200, but are $139 together. Let your fingers do the searching. Beat to the punch. . .

#297 & #956 Everything else is just everything else to me.

In most of the water I fish, I can be fishing shallow, rotate my chair 1/8 of a turn, and then be 'fishing offshore'.

Totally dependent on what is happening. I have times when they want it on the fall, and if they haven't hit it in the first thirty seconds, it's not likely to happen on the rest of the retrieve. It certainly could, but if I'm on a hot bite right at the beginning of the retrieve and not much after, that's how I'll fish until I let them prove otherwise. Every so often, I'll try a longer retrieve just to make sure I'm not missing much. Other times, they'll hit it right as it gets to the boat, or somewhere in between. I let them tell me how it's going to be. And, we're getting close to the time of year when I expect more feedback, early and often!

The delta gets about 30 million acre feet of runoff from the Sierras, and of that 30 million acre feet, about 5 million acre feet is sent to southern California.

There is usually a period in the spring where many larger profile plastics like lizards and other creature baits will do quite well. If you're trophy hunting, bigger baits will often catch bigger fish. But if I am struggling to get bit, I will most likely scale down. These days, I like dragging 3.5" or 4" Keitech Swing Impact (Electric Shad) on a carolina or slipshot rig in deeper water. In the shallower water, I'd fish that senko wacky and weightless. And I would be looking for areas that at least have some deeper water nearby When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I fish plastics most of the time, so that's kind of what I generally look to use.

All things considered, I think you have arrived at the correct conclusion. Just the price to ship a reel two ways, not to mention paying a competent person fairly to repair it, gets you pretty close to owning a new reel that hasn't spent years along a sandy river bank. Thank it for it's service and move.

Well, it is now ;~)

Form, Fit, and Function IS bling to me.

Well, you ought to be easy to spot with that thing ;~)

I made a jointed wooden imitation trout swimbait with a rubber tail for a friend that wanted one bigger than the 11" to 12" standard sized one I had made previously for him. So I made him one that was every bit of 13" and slightly larger diameter. He claims he had a bass eat it that had completely swallowed the lure. He said he got it near the boat and all he could see was his 20 lb Trilene XT coming out from the behemoth's mouth. . . . just before the fish broke the line. Is it true? I don't know. What I do know is that when I got home from work, his rig (truck and boat) was parked in front of my house and he was standing on my front porch, literally still shaking (I call it the 'double-digit-shakes'. . . . . if you know, then you know), asking me how soon I could have more made in that size. All of the time I was fishing those baits, all but one bass we caught were over 5 lbs, except for one. That weighed 1-1/4 lbs and wasn't much bigger than the bait. We caught a lot of bass on those baits, including my second biggest ever, a 12 lbs 4 oz fatty that I actually water skied across the surface on it's side with 25 lb mono (as happy as I was to boat he fish, there's a part of that considers that fish to be the most unsatisfying catch of mine ever TBH) and into the net. Literally every one of those bass was hooked on the front treble, meaning that they always ate them head first. I am pretty sure we could have left the rear treble off and caught just as many fish.

October through March: Carolina rig on a 4' leader with a 4" Keitech Swing Impact in Electric Shad. April through September: 5" Senko in #297 weightless & wacky with little or no breeze, on a dropshot if the breeze is too strong to fish weightless.

Next time, reel it in very slowly. . . . Might have to backreel quite a bit for a while to successfully boat that one. . . . or whatever else might eat 'your lure'.