Ogandrews

You guys blow my setup out of the water. 3 years ago I bought a used 12ft sit in field and stream kayak for $150. It’s got 2 rod holders so technically it’s a fishing kayak. With it being longer and wide it quite stable to fish out of. I have a bracket I mounted into the rod holders that I attach a 55lbs thrust minkota on and have a big deep cycle battery behind my seat. Thing flies with the 55, on a calm day I’ll get it around 10mph. I can fish for 12 hours and it still has batteries. I’ve got 2 rod holders on top of the bracket, and I have a garmin striker 5 that sits in my lap with the ducer drilled into the side of the yak with some silicone around it to keep it from leaking. It’s not pretty, but it’s comfortable to fish out of and I’ve caught some amazing fish out of it including the 44.5” northern in my profile picture. Doubt I’m going to upgrade any time soon. I’ll drag this thing with all my gear in it down gravel roads and through anything to get to my launch and not feel bad about it. Beat the crap out of this thing on rocks, tying up to concrete walls on dams, wedged it on top of ice shelf’s while river fishing in the winter, throw it in the bed of my truck, and the bottom still isn’t noticeably scratched up. Best 150 I’ve ever spent. This pic gives somewhat of an idea of the setup.

I wouldn’t rule out Honda if it’s on the boat you want and have somewhere you can get it serviced. I own a smaller Honda 4 stroke but have a friend with a newer 150 and he loves it. Both mine and his are super quite for their power and he has yet to have any significant issues with his in the years he’s owned it, I haven’t had mine long enough to say. Obviously any motor can be great or have issues, but I would rule out Honda just because they aren’t the biggest brand around.

Generally I’ll start fishing them slow and then if I’m not getting bit then I will start getting more aggressive

I was about to post about bfishin tackle ring worms. Amazing walleye baits and work just as well for smallmouth if you want to use them. Come in a lot of colors and aren’t expensive, hold up really well on a hook for how much action they have as well. Those ring worms are probably responsible for more 30”+ walleye caught on the Mississippi around me than any other baits combined.

I’m just basing this off of a couple of my friends that regularly fish in Wisconsin. They have told me about multiple “action” lakes that have a way higher population of fish that they will practically always see fish every time they go out and rarely don’t boat one.

I’m sorry but those things really look like the head and shaft of a...uh...well you know

2.5-3.5” tube no question, exposed hook most of the time and can be Texas rigged if your around cover

It’s funny how all of you guys are trying so hard not to poop on the water. Just this Saturday I had to beach the boat twice and make a trip to the woods, usually just hang over the side of the boat and drop it but I was on a small body of water with like 20 other people so that wasn’t happening. I never leave the house without some TP, never know when it’s gonna sneak up on you.

Is there a significant benefit to an E over a K? I’ve used a couple and liked my K’s a lot better. Same with the 300, I don’t see the point of trying to buy one with how good of a reel the tranx is. I know they are quality reels, i just think that the new ones are better.

I would strongly recommend the new st croix legend extreme if you could find one. I have fished the old legend extreme and they are incredible rods. A close friend of mine has fished with one of the new ones and also owns the previous model, and he says that the new one is the best balanced and most sensitive rod he has ever felt, and he owns multiple NRX’s. It’s not quite as light as the loomis but incredibly balanced so it feels super light in the hand. This is second hand info as I haven’t fished it but I trust my friends opinion.

Regular power pro is pretty stiff compared to other braids, takes some time to break in but once it does it’s fine. Take it out and throw a higher resistance bait for awhile like a chatterbait or something, should speed up the process. I much prefer powerpro maxcuatro and suffix 832, much more supple and doesn’t take much time at all to break in. Maxcuatro is the best, but 832 is awesome as well it’s just thicker than maxcuatro but it’s also about half the price.

Usually 65lbs PP maxcuatro which is the size of normal 50lbs line, to a short chunk of 60lbs floro or 15-30 tie-able titanium to keep the teeth away. I’ve usually will throw them on a heavy rod, sometimes a Mh. It has a large single hook so I’m not worried about a soft rod or stretchy line. When it comes to setting the hook I do it just like a frog, once the lure disappears I set the hook. I have a lot better hookup percentage this way than waiting second or two, just my experience.

Pike fished most of the day today, had 3 fish in the low 40” range follow or hit at the boat but didn’t hook up. My buddy landed the smallest fish we saw which was around 36”, really nice thick fish. This one hit on a 6.8” keitech

Fished for pike from 8am-5pm in on of my favorite small fisheries around here. Water took a hit with last nights cold, even a little ice on the creeks coming into it. My buddy landed the only fish of the day which was the smallest one we saw at 36-37” didn’t get a great measure. I had 3 fish over 40” either follow or swipe at my baits at the side of the boat but didn’t hook up. Didn’t try to bass fish at all, probably would have gotten something else in the boat if I had but it’s pike time. The pike in this fishery act almost like musky, follow a lot and you are generally working all day for a couple huge bites. Fished out of a 14 ft tin boat we threw in the bed of my truck, was pretty nice to just be able to throw it in wherever we wanted instead of messing around at the ramp.

What state were you in? There is obviously a lot of skill in musky fishing, but in the end a lot of it comes down to being in the right spot at the time when the feeding window starts. In my experience, and others will attest to this, musky feed aggressively in short windows. It is possible to get them to bite outside these windows, but you will get a lot more lazy follows when the fish aren’t actively feeding. Knowing when these windows Are going to happen is a huge part of the game. The normal things like wind switches, fronts, moon rise, moon set, cloud cover ect all play a roll in when they turn on, but there’s so many variables it’s really hard to pin point it down. All of these things together is what makes musky so hard to catch. Take lake vermilion which I spend a huge amount of time on as an example. It is a 40000 acre lake with 400 islands and over 315 miles of shoreline. The lake on average has about one musky per 4-10 acres of water. Mix a lake that big, with a low density of fish that mostly will only feed once or twice a day and it makes for a very difficult fish to catch. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to go out and regularly catch them, I’m just saying that if you do regularly target them you will see how truly hard it is to put fish in the boat on a daily or even weekly basis.

I would look into am expride, a st croix legend tournament bass is solid also. If your going to be buying in the 200’s idk if it’s possible to beat the expride. If you were willing to spend in the 400’s then the st croix legend X, legend elite, and older model legend extreme are all incredible rods. If you don’t want to spend that much than go with the expride. I decided to try to save money and got a g loomis e6x instead of an expride and I’m kicking myself for it not because it’s not nearly as nice of a rod. Only one day left now. It’s going to be a cold morning but it’s supposed to get into the low 60’s now down here so I’m hoping the pike are going to be snapping.

In the summer my number one bait for flipping docks and lay downs is a 3/8th oz dirty jigs no jack swim jig with a 4.8 keitech on it, fishing it just like you would a flipping jig or t rig. I have had success throwing a straight up swimbait as well but I have better luck with a swimjig for some reason. Figured it out one day when I didn’t have any flipping stuff and I wanted to do it, threw out the swim jig I had tied on and wow did it work. Thinking outside the box and trying stuff you don’t always read about has always worked great for me.

People catch fish using jigs in chocolate milk colored water, their actually one of the best baits around for real dirty water. If a flipping jig will work, a swim jig that puts off a lot more vibration will work. Bass have evolved to track down food with senses other than sight, if they want to eat they’ll find your bait somehow.

Top water walking bait, swim jig, frog, t rig, shakey head. Its funny that people are already talking about early summer and here I am hoping that the lake I’m going to on Saturday for fishing opener has water temps above the mid 40’s.

The main body of water I fish around my home town is just like you described in the shallows, and has some monster bass and pike in that nasty slimy stuff. Although I spend a lot of my time fishing the deep weed edges to make it easier there are a handful of baits to get into it. The obvious one is a frog which will come through anything. I have had a lot of success with punching with punch dropshot rig. I’ll usually use a 1oz or so tungsten weight and a t rigged plastic 8-12” above the weight. This lets you fish right in the nasty stuff but your bait is still above all of the slime. If you don’t have as heavy of matted weeds on top then use a lighter weight. Weightless senkos are always a good option as well. Weedless keitechs on a very light swimbait hook. Fluke fished fast is another option to stay above the slime. I fish swim jigs a lot but I have never been able to find a bottom contact jig that will come through the slime at all well, I’d stay away from them.

Swim jigs are my number one bait when I’m around grass or wood. If I’m imitating bait fish, I’m throwing either a keitech or a strike king rage swimmer. If I’m imitating crayfish, I’ll throw a netbait paca slim or rage craw. I keep it very simple trailer wise, just match the color to what bait I’m trying to imitate. All I throw is dirty jigs, their the best on the market in my opinion. If you use a trailer with enough action than there is no need for you to shake your rod tip, the trailer is already getting the skirt to pulsate. I’ve caught probably 10x more fish on a steady retrieve then shaking my rod.

It really depends on where you are fishing. If your fishing on the higher population Wisconsin lakes for example, than it’s a bad day if you don’t catch one and see a bunch of fish. It’s the same story with a lot of the stocked reservoirs south of the Canadian boarder states than it is much more common to catch fish because they stock fish at such a higher rate and they don’t have as many pike to compete with. If your fishing on a lake with a much higher population than yes obviously your going to have a lot better chance catching one. If you are fishing a low density lake with huge trophy potential like our Minnesotan lakes and the lakes in Ontario and parts of the Great Lakes, than you are going to not catch anything a lot of the time. The best musky fisherman in the world, who fish these lakes because of the trophy potential, very regularly will go days or weeks without even a follow. If you want to catch the biggest musky in the world than your going to get A lot less action. Obviously there are a couple outlier lakes that have high populations and still have big fish like lake st Clair or lake of the woods, but even places like those you will have days with nothing and those lakes aren’t going to hold records like real low density fisheries like eagle, Rowan, Georgian bay, Mille lacs, vermilion etc. If you have fished muskies a couple times on lakes with high populations then yes it can seem like they aren’t hard to catch. It’s just like fishing for trophy bass, if you really dedicate yourself to trying to catch the biggest ones around, your going to spend a whole lot of time casting and not getting much action. The only difference is that the trophy musky lakes I’m talking about have an average of 1 fish per 4-40 or more acres of water, you don’t have those low of populations when your bass fishing.

I drive a 2016 ram 1500 with the 5.7 v8 which was rated at 11600 or something like that and although I’ve never towed a boat bigger than a new 18ft ranger with it, I have towed my companies plumbing construction trailer with it a few times. 1000 ft of copper and pvc, 80g water heater, a boiler, softener, and a good 2-3k lbs of fittings, tools, unistrut, gastite, concrete, mixer, chop saw etc and my truck never felt like it was underpowered in any way. Trailer has to be 7-9k fully loaded. Definitely handled it a lot better than my old work van which was a late 90’s ford with probably about 75 hp left. If I saw a hill coming up I would have to floor it and build up as much speed as I could for a quarter mile before so I wouldn’t stop halfway up the hill. That van was a death trap, really glad they bought me a new one.

If you want to musky fish than get a dedicated rod for it. Cabelas has a 50-80 rod I think it’s called the predator, should be able to get a 8-8’6” heavy that can handle smaller buck tails, cranks, and smaller rubber. Pair it with a maxcuatro off eBay you can find them new for 70-80. Put some 80lbs suffix 832 on it and you’re set.

As long as the ice is out the pike will be somewhere shallow most likely. They spawn in super shallow marshy bays as the ice is going out, and then will stay shallow until the water gets too warm for their liking. First pike I caught this year was in 36 degree water in about 2 fow on a keitech swimbait fished ridiculously slow. As water gets warmer the pike will progressively move away from spawning grounds and to more traditional feeding areas in bays. Weed lines, inside and outside weed turns, points, shallow drop offs, channels and dips in bays, stuff like that. While the water is still cold, and even when it’s warm, I fish super slow most of the time. My top spring baits are a keitech swimbait rigged weedless, a suspending jerkbait, a 4” phantom softtail glide bait, 1/4-3/8oz swim jig, and an s waver 168. Even though pike will eat big baits, if your not getting bites put on smaller baits. I have caught some really big pike for my area in 3.8 keitechs and really small jerkbaits. Once the water warms up more I will start throwing some more bucktails/chatterbaits/spinnerbaits but I very rarely pick them up this time of year. If I was going to a new body of water i would start with the biggest weed flat I could find between 3-10 fow and start working it shallow to deep. If you can find an indent in a flat like 5 feet in a 3 foot flat, that can be absolutely money.