Big Hands

I have been known to use the phrase "never up, never in", but in this case it may actually be "never in, never up".

I haven't fished a tournament in decades (as in more than one). I didn't like that it seemed as though every outing had to be a pre-fish of some sort and it just wasn't fun for me. And, I usually just want to fish the way I want to fish without worrying about 'the tournament' results or if someone else is 'in my spot' or all the other stuff. I wouldn't say I'll never fish one again, but I don't see it becoming a regular occurrence. I'm not someone that has to bet on whatever I'm doing for it to be exciting or fun. I'm just wired like that.

Don't want to let that genie out of the bottle. It might start thinking it needs it's own private rod locker. I have 10 rod/reel combos in my first tier quiver. We fish all year here (no hard water season), and if there was a rod that comes close to always being on the deck and rigged the same way, it would be a dropshot. But, in the winter, I may or may not have it along every trip. I usually limit myself to four or five rods per trip, and two three of them will be targeted to what I plan to do that day and the other one or two will be wild cards just in case things don't go as planned. None of my rigs are exclusively dedicated to one bait. Even my dropshot rod gets used for slipshot and weightless worm fishing, and maybe even light spoon jigging.

The first time I went to Lake Fork back in the mid 90's, there's a cove called Double Branch that was nothing but trees that were still standing, and timber that had snapped at water level and was still floating. It made pockets that created a kind of honeycomb of sorts on the surface that covered almost the entire area. Back then, a lot of bass boats had hand controlled trolling motors on the front of the bow that could easily be lifted as needed as you crawled over the floating laydowns by getting moving at them (passenger at the back) and then pulling the tm UP just as you got to the log. The bow would cruise over the log about halfway, then the passenger would move to the bow and the boat would teeter-totter over the log and on to the next one as we made our way toward the back of the slough. The bass were holding in these pockets, and were eating black buzzbaits (with the clacker especially). But you would usually need to cast two or three pockets away, and then drag them up and over the timber. Drag locked completely down and heavy line and rods. You just had to bust them hard and keep them water-skiing across the surface. If you gave them an inch, you were going to have big problems in a hurry. That was one of the things that made me fall in love with fishing in Texas. Of course it has never been that way since, but I keep hoping to find another similar situation somewhere. . . Maybe Bois d'Ark will get like that at some point before I meet my demise. It will have to fill, and then have time for the trees to rot and fall. Not sure I have that much time left, but I remain hopeful.

I introduced myself to fishing. Probably after seeing pictures of men jack-poling tuna in the middle of the ocean when I was young. Fishing fascinated me, but my family were primarily water-skiers. Even my mother could do a shore start. A neighbor took my older brother ocean fishing when he was eight. I wanted to go so bad, but he said I was too young (I was six), but he would take me when I turned eight. I began saving all of my money to buy a rod and reel in preparation for that trip. I bought a Daiwa 7700 reel and an 8' fiberglass rod at the swap meet for the princely sum of $13 just before I turned eight. And then I waited. . . and I waited. . . and I waited, but the invite never came. I guess he forgot. . . . but I didn't. Around that time I would check out books from the library about fishing, and happened to check one about bass fishing, and that one drew my interest more than any other type of fishing. Tales of using wooden plugs and bass attacking them through the lily pads just spoke to me. The rest of my family ridiculed me mercilessly about fishing and the type of boats that fisherman typically ran. They were nothing like the speedboats I was used to being around. Every time we would see a janky old Glaspar being towed down the highway someone would quip "Look, there's Jeff's boat!" Hilarity ensued. Lather, rinse, repeat. Endlessly. I was the late bloomer, not getting up on doubles until I was five and a single ski at ten, and my father had to force me to water ski. "Where's Jeff?" "He's down there fishing." "Get over here and put the skis on." I didn't care, I just wanted to fish. Some things never change.

There are times when I am able to put down an anchor, and I feel I can get hyper-sensitive to subtle strikes. This is while fishing on the bottom with heavier weights and braided main line. I reel as slowly as I can and still keep the handle moving, pausing occasionally. I will sometimes just hold the rod as still as possible, and close my eyes for several seconds at a time so that I am not distracted by visual things. I can feel it crawl up, through, and over cover and structure. I try to imagine exactly what could be giving me this feedback. It takes about three to five minutes per cast after the bait hits the bottom to fish this way. Since I am generally by myself, I don't have to worry about entertaining anyone, or whether or not they're ready to move down the bank. When I am not able to anchor, I KNOW that I am not nearly as capable of instantly detecting those super-subtle strikes. On the water I fish, the wind is rarely slack for very long, so even in relatively calm conditions you have to work at keeping the boat in the same position. Closing my eyes long enough to fully focus is not generally possible, and the boat is almost always going to be affected by a breeze. When they say "the tug is the drug", I assumed that this is in reference to the bite, but then wondered if it's the fight after the fish is hooked for others? For me, it's all about the bite.

The day I caught my PB, all around the cove and at about 9:30 in the morning in the middle of December, it was HUGE bass boiling. They were somewhat spread out, and not really like they had a bait ball pushed, but more like something just triggered them to start munching on the surface. I have seen countless boils/frenzies from schooling bass, but I have never seen so many big bass feeding on the surface. We were fishing plastic worms when the boils started. I had a Poe plug tied on with ten pound mono and cast across a point where I had seen one of the monster boils. Took less than ten cranks on the handle and it stopped dead in it's tracks. I thought maybe I had hit a tree, then the tree began moving and shaking. It seemed like we battled a long time, but it was likely between five and eight minutes. The fish weighed 12 lbs - 13 ounces. I have never seen big bass do that before nor since.

It would have to be new nylons because I don't own any old nylons ;~)

Recent time on the water for me. Staying in tune as things gradually shift. High wind is a non-starter for me too.

My daughter is getting ready to go on an extended trip and took her car to the dealership to get the oil changed. Then, they come to her to say that she needs new control arms and compression rods (telling her the rubber is 'torn') in the front end, new serpentine belts, and that her camshaft sensors are leaking oil. They want well north of $2K for the repairs, so she told them she would get back to them after investigating. I go ahead and buy the new control arms, and tell her we'll check out the belts and leaking camshaft sensors when we're changing out the control arms and compression rods. We tear apart the front end, and lo and behold the control arms and compression rods are all in excellent condition. I take off the serpentine belts, and they're in excellent condition. I take my inspection camera and look down the back side of the engine at the camshaft sensors and there is no oil leaking. Then, I remember the last time she took the car to them, they told her she had leaking camshaft sensors, but she never told them that we went to a different dealership and got the factory o-rings for the sensors and replaced them ourselves. I can only surmise that they were trying to perform a bunch of front end work, and replace the belts (that looked like new), and they probably looked at her service records and saw that according to their records that the sensor leaks had never been fixed and just automatically assumed they were still leaking. When she bought the car over five years ago, an issue developed in a few days that we deduced was likely a clutch pedal adjustment. We took it to the dealership where she bought it, and the service writer told us that the head mechanic says she needs a new clutch for $3K (and the warranty doesn't cover clutches). We ask the head mechanic to try the adjusting the linkage on the hydraulic clutch. He got nasty with us and gave us the speech about how he had 30 years of experience and that he's 100% certain her clutch is worn out. We take it to another dealership and ask them to try to adjust the the linkage on the hydraulic clutch. They agree, and 'voila', the car shifts just like it's supposed to. Almost five and a half years later and well you know the story. . . . Almost every time I have had an interaction with a dealership service department, it has gone similarly. I have several more examples, but I am trying to reduce my tendency for verbosity ;~) Straight up crooks that will apparently lie just as easily as they breathe. Makes me want to do a compression test on their wedding tackle with a size 14 Doc Marten. I will NEVER just simply trust that they have been honest with me, and will generally assume they are lying if they are speaking. That's why I do most of my repair work myself if possible. TL/DR version: Get another opinion from someone other than a dealership. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them.

Any baitcaster that retails for $100 or more should come with oil.

The new Shimano Curado BFS comes with two different types of oil. The regular oil, and the "BFS" oil.

Welcome. You have a few suburban park ponds around you to fish, but not a lot of other close by options. I grew up 'north OC-adjacent' in La Mirada.

Welcome to the site. I think I'm ready to be 'from southern california' soon myself.

I guarantee WRB knows exactly where this is. The guy furthest back in this pic lost a rig over the side of his boat a week or so back when a fish pulled it over. The water level had already dropped below where he had marked the spot and his rig was nowhere to be found. In February and March of this year, I was catching fish as far back as you can see in this pic. One regular I talked to last week has been foregoing fishing and is full time scavenging the shoreline for whatever he can find. He showed me two tubs full of big swimbaits and several rod/reel combos among lots of other stuff. Last week I found a Little Mermaid Zebco combo, and yesterday I found another spinning rod/reel combo. That one was nothing fancy. Looked like something I would use for 'other species', LOL.

They started lowering the water level at the beginning of May. The bite is normally really good through May and into June, but this year, the bite has continued to be excellent. I think several of the longer coves being emptied has pushed the fish at least to the mouths of those coves. The numbers for me, have been really good. The fish are looking kinda skinny though. Seventeen inch fish that weigh two and a half pounds. They were definitely chunkier a couple months ago.

I have been having good fishing in both arms and have been giving the center point some attention (it hasn't been very productive for me though. The steeper banks of the bedrock areas have been good to me though. This morning, I pulled 8 from one spot on the west bank of the ski arm in an hour and a half. I thought the fishing was going to be terrible as the water dropped, and thought the bass would be continually suspended off the bank They have been right on the bank, and still are as of today, especially for the morning bite. Then after a while it has been a mix of tight on the bank and down to 10-15 feet. And many are not hesitating to grab it either. Here is a pic to illustrate what I was alluding to in the OP. There is a green bush at the high water mark in the back of the pocket that I was fishing a year ago. Now, I am fishing the point that comes out from back in that pocket. Same area, but two different types of features.

At my local reservoir, they are lowering the lake level to about 130 feet below full pool so they can perform work on the dam. It's now at about 85 feet below full, and is scheduled to drop another 45 feet by around Labor Day, and then begin to refill somewhere around November and be full sometime in the Spring of 2022. It has been dropping an average of about 9" per day since the beginning of May. I know when I have travelled to fish, if the flood gates open and the water drops two or three inches in a few days, you may as well go mow your lawn because the fish are in a funk. But here, not so much. . . . What has been unexpected for me, is that the fishing has not seemed to suffer at all. In fact, it has been very good to excellent the whole time. Bass are often taking baits right sat the water's edge. If I had to guess, I think they have not been affected as much as I would think because the shoreline is relatively steep, so they would not have to move much at all to stay in the same area. But the structure is not totally consistent, and things can change a little vertically speaking. Rock is mostly the structure we are dealing with, and I am getting bit most consistently along the steeper shoreline with large rock features as opposed to the more 'rubbly' shorelines. The water I was fishing two weeks ago is usually ten feet lower and I only have to adjust as the odd features change subtly. What was a rock pile last week is a cliff this week, and it goes back and forth like that. But, there are some odd places where humps that were unfishable last winter became islands, which then became points. TL/DR: The water is dropping fast and the fishing has been unexpectedly excellent.

We can go for several months without rain here, and from May through August we don't normally get much rain, if any. During that time it's either hot and dry, really hot and dry, or super hot and dry. We may get one storm in September through mid-October. We may get a few storms from Mid-October through December. . . . or nothing at all. January through April, you never know what will happen. I don't think weather here has the effect that it can other places because relatively speaking, it doesn't change much for a lot of the year. Most of the time, I pay more attention to the wind than anything else. Then, for a few months, I have to pay attention to rain. I have an app called "Windy' that I pay attention to before I go or plan to go as that is the weather factor that affects my fishing the most. I know in Texas (probably in many other places too) they have a saying: "If you don't like the weather, stick around, cuz it's gonna change." Watching the weather channel is almost as popular as mowing ginormous patches of grass on riding lawn mowers, LOL. At the lake I normally fish, the water level has almost nothing to do with it raining here. The water comes through the aqueduct and is often doing the opposite of what you'd think it should be doing.

I have had a several of them over several years. Thankfully, they finally updated the design to be more like the rest of the Shimano spinning reels. They do their job, but are priced about where they should be. Each $10 jump in price gets you a few little upgrades.

I have a few of the CBX rods from Turners, which I have come to believe are the same blanks as the Phenix Feather. I have a medium spinning rod (7'1"), and both the H (7'1") and MH (7'7") casting rods. The casting rods IMHO fish a little lighter (speaking about the 'power') than their rating, or at least toward the lighter end of the range. I am currently looking at the Phenix Feather ML (7'1") to round out my casting rod quiver paired with a Curado BFS. They don't offer a M, and the ML seems to feel closer to a true ML power. They are very lightweight, and fish similarly to my Tatula and Kage rods. The reel seat is a matter of preference as they can be with most rods. I also have three of the Phenix Crankbait Composite X rods for crankbait duty. I'm not necessarily a 'fanboy', but I just find them to be a good choice at their price point. For me, they hit that sweet spot of performance vs price point that I am comfortable with. YMMV.

If I only fished a rod or two, I would rate versatility higher on my list of priorities for line preferences. Still not sure I would put any mono or copolymer on for the sake of versatility. The rod, reel, line(s), hook(s), weights, terminal tackle, and bait(s) are all parts of a system. They need to work well together. One poorly chosen component can affect the effectiveness of the 'system'. Then, the angler needs to use the technique that best suits all of the factors related to their unique circumstances. There are often multiple paths up the same mountain and I would advise taking the path that works best for you and your unique circumstances.

Don't be hollerin' about the 956 ;~)

I think Castac is likely dried up right now. Not sure about access even when it has water. I know you have been to Castaic, but the bite has been pretty good for shore anglers on both the lagoon and the upper lake.