Ogandrews

I fish from a sit in kayak because I’m cheap and won’t buy a new one, and I have no issue using the same length rods as I would on a boat. For flipping I’ve used 7’6” -7’11” and never felt awkward, you just have to get used to longer rods. I very regularly use 9’-9’6” musky rods out of my kayak and it still feels normal, you just have to get the feel of fishing out of a yak.

I am a die hard st croix guy but if it is against the LT and the expride I would go with the expride all day. I have never been a huge fan of the LT bass line, they are good rods but I don’t think they are a huge step up from the Avid, or I would say save up some more and get a higher end legend. The expride is about as good as it gets for that price point, although I think the legend tournament line up has a better jerkbait rod but that’s not what we’re talking about. I don’t have any experience with the metanium but I’ve never heard a bad review on it. I do however have a good amount of experience with the bantam mgl and that is a great workhorse reel if your looking for another option.

St croix legend tournament musky “big nasty” 9ft heavy-$410 shimano tranx 500pg- 500 $910, and worth every penny

If you guys want a solid blade bait look up wahoo baits, I buy them at my local fleet farm for $3 each and they come with great hooks. Granted I throw the mostly for river walleye but I know they would be good for bass.

Perch are the main baitfish besides tullibee around where I mostly fish and they will try to eat anything. I have caught 8” perch on 5” swimbaits before. Another funny thing that happens a lot when I’m pike fishing with 7-8” perch colored swimbaits is that they will school up around the swimbait if I have it dangling in the water next to my boat, can’t tell you how many times that has happened to me. They are very aggressive and definitely not the brightest fish in the lake, makes them a great fish to target if you have kids or inexperienced people on the boat.

I generally tie straight to it without a swivel, and rarely does it have any body roll. If you guys are looking for a much better alternative to a plopper look at the Lee Lures mini water chopper. It is 4.75” so around the size of a 110 but it is 1.8 oz and has slightly larger metal tail so it gives it a very deep and loud plopping sound. It spins at a super slow speed and can also be burned without the body rolling. The front hook has a wire hook hanger that hangs a little down from the bait which acts as a keel making it practically never roll. It is also a wood bait which makes it ride higher in the water and allows you to fish it in big waves and still have an effective presentation. Also comes in a lot of bigger sizes but the mini is the best bass size as well as being a great downsized musky bait. It’s not cheap, the mini is $55 but it’s worth it for a quality hand made bait and it is insured for the life of the bait so if anything breaks you can send it back and lee will fix it. Give it a try it’s a great lure

For the last 2 years I have been fishing out of a 12 ft sit in field and stream kayak I bought for $200. It’s not fancy, the only real features are two rod holders but it gave me the opportunity to get off the bank and catch some amazing fish. If you can find a used sit on kayak I would go for that but if all you can afford is a sit in than go for it, I have been very successful fishing out of mine. Got my pb musky, largemouth, smallmouth, sauger, rainbow trout, channel catfish, and my pb pike at 44.5 which is 3/4 an inch off of the Minnesota state record. It is a pretty wide and being 12 ft it is pretty stable for a sit in. I have a trolling motor and a small garmin hooked up to it so it is a joy to fish out of. Only thing I wish is that it had more rod storage, I always bring a big musky sized net with me in case I hook a big pike/musky so I’m limited to 2 rods but I make it work. I now own a boat but I still use the kayak all the time, can’t beat the ease of use and being able to launch wherever you want.

33.5 is an awesome walleye, that fish could have easily been pushing 14-15lbs prespawn. The numbers you said were a pretty good guess but I just wanted to bring up the point that walleye vary a huge amount. Not saying that your numbers are wrong because their obviously just an estimate, it’s just that walleye vary a huge amount depending on where their from.

I have that exact same rod/reel setup and it is one of my favorite combos I own. I bought it to use as a jerkbait and small top water rod, and it is absolutely perfect for those baits. I have also used it for shakey heads, tubes with 3/16-1/4 oz heads, light wire finesse jigs, smaller swimbaits, squarebills, and craws on jig heads for river smallmouth. Super versatile rod, might not be perfect for all of those techniques but it definitely handles them. I have 30lbs powerpro maxcuatro which is the diameter of regular 20lbs braid, and will usually throw a 10-14lbs mono leader or floro if I’m throwing a jerkbait. If I want to go out and just have fun catching bass, that’s the rod I pick up. I’ve even landed a 39” northern on it last fall, that fish had that rod bent down to the reel when it would make runs it was awesome.

I fish 100% braid to a leader or straight braid and whenever I have tried out floro as a main line, usually once a year or so, I feel the same way. Feels like I don’t have control of the fish like I do with braid, and I just can’t get used to the loss of sensitivity without braid. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but in my experience there is no situation where braid to a leader or straight braid is beat by straight floro or mono. I know talking about braid to a leader brings out some strong opinions on this forum so I’m not trying to start am argument, I’m just saying that for my fishing there is no reason to use straight floro or mono.

It’s kind of funny that people rant and rave about it being the best walleye lake in the state and all the fish you end up catching look like toothpicks. Not saying it’s a bad lake, it’s one of the best smallie fisheries in the world and would still be one of the top 5 musky fisheries in the world if they hadn’t stopped stocking. Such a shame that the musky fishing there has gone so down the drain. There are still world record class fish out there but its a one in a million chance. Thankfully vermilion is still good and has 58+ inch fish in it but even that fishery has gone down hill.

I don’t mean to be the guy correcting everyone but those numbers vary a lot more in walleye even than they do in bass. Spawn obviously is different because there’s 28” fish that come out of the Mississippi around here that are around 12-13lbs, and it can go up a lot from that as they get longer. If you look at summer fish there will be a huge variation. A good example would be mil lacs vs pool 4 Mississippi. A 30” fish that has been done spawning in Mille lacs is generally super skinny and could be 5 or 6lbs without it’s eggs. Then you go to pool 4 where there is an insane forage base and that same post spawn fish is going to be still right around that 10lbs+ mark without its eggs. There’s countless lakes like this in Mn and the rest of the Midwest where walleyes are very skinny most of the year. It’s really hard to gauge how much a fish weighs by its length, especially when it’s around spawn.

I use guppy heads all the time, super good hooks for little swimbaits. I would recommend a medium for sure then. Half the time I throw little swimbaits I do it on my jerkbait rod which is a st croix 6’8” m xf baitcaster with 30lbs braid to a leader and I’ve never bent out a guppy head

the triumph rods are a big step down from even the next rod up. I have owned a lot of different lines of st croixs and they really hold their own in the 200-300 price point, as well as the top of the line range. I’m not sure, I feel like I got better casts and control when throwing a 3.3 or so with a medium. I generally don’t throw very light wire hooks with them because most of the time I use them I’m smallmouth fishing in rivers where I need to control the fish. If your throwing lighter wire jig heads in lakes than I think you would be fine with a Ml, although I would still prefer a medium in my opinion.

I would keep it really simple. I would get a medium power spinning rod, I like using braid to a leader but if you don’t want to tie a leader that straight mono will work while you learn. I would say get some 5” senkos in green pumpkin and rig them weedless, some sort of paddletail swimbait like a 3.8-4.8 keitech wigged on a weedless swimbait hook or a jig head in open water, and top water like a small spook or a popper. There are a lot of other great lures but these will get you started and help you learn the basics without getting too complicated.

I never really understand why people throw chatterbaits on such slow rods. It is a big single hook bait, it doesn’t have a huge amount if weight and it doesn’t have small trebles that you have to be worried about bending out. If your fishing around weeds I feel like you can’t rip the bait out of weeds as well with a slow rod. I throw them on a dobyns Sierra 733c with 40lbs braid to a 15-20lbs leader most of the time and if the grass is super heavy I’ll go heavier than that. I know a lot better bass fisherman then me throw them on slow rods and stretchy lines so there must be something to it, it’s just not the way I like to throw it.

For small swimbaits like that I use a g loomis e6x 852c which is a 7’1m xf and have been super happy with my results. I know there is a similar rod in the expride line which is a way better rod than the e6x for not a whole lot more. Another rod that I would rate on par with the expride is the st croix legend tournament bass 7’1 m. The expride and legend tournament are both around the same price and will both do the job very well. I threw finesse swimbaits on a medium lite for awhile and I really prefer a regular medium for them.

Hands down get the Shimano expride 7’3” extra heavy. It will hang with any other brands rods in the 300’s and will save you some money. If you can afford it there isn’t a better rod for the money in my opinion, I have been amazed by the ones I have used. If only they made them in a musky line that that would be the only rods I would own.

Get power pro maxcuatro. There is no better braid on the market in my opinion and I have tried countless different lines. It is thinner for the diameter of the line, very supple, and coarse which sounds like a bad thing but it makes it super easy to control and makes it cut through weeds super well. For frogs go to 65lbs, it’s the same size as normal 50lbs braid and will cast better than normal 50lbs. I use it on every single setup except for spinning rods because it doesn’t come under 20lbs, for those I will use 10 or 8lbs suffix 832 which is my #2 best line, another awesome braid and much less money than maxcuatro.

Made it out to the backwaters around wabasha today and had a 30+ fish day between me and a friend. Got my first ever bowfin which was awesome, had no idea how hard fighting a fish they were. Those things really don’t get the respect they deserve, I’ll definitely be targeting them more. Water was anywhere from 48 to 62 degrees depending on where I was. There was a 25 boat bass tournament going on so it made it a little harder to fish the spots I usually like but we still managed to have a good day. Got my “biggest”, still really small, pike of the day on a frog in 1 fow which is awesome considering it’s still April. Overall a great day on the water.

Made a trip out to the Mississippi River backwaters today and had a 30+ fish day between largemouth, pike, and my first ever bowfin. I had no idea how hard a bowfin fought, what an awesome fish I’ll definitely be targeting them more. Nothing huge, my friend got the only pike over 30” but it was fun to get out and stick some fish. The biggest pike I got was actually on a frog which is pretty awesome considering the water was still in the 50’s

If you really want to target bass I would try to fish deeper water. I’ve never fished for pickerel but my main species I fish for are pike and musky which are in the same family esox. I would assume pickerel are the same as their cousins and are more comfortable in cooler water which means this is some of the prime time for their activity. In my lakes I fish bass will rarely mix with pike because the pike are faster and more aggressive than bass which would make it hard for them to compete for food, not to mention the fact that the pike can eat the bass easily. Pickerel probably aren’t big enough to eat most of the bass but they are still very fast and aggressive which means the bass are probably in a different area. If the pickerel are shallow, try getting into deeper water and fishing slow for the bass. Another thing is if you are getting bit off by pickerel I would recommend investing in some titanium wire. You can tie it as a leader just like you would mono or floro and it will protect you from getting bit off without wrecking your lures action like a traditional steel leader would.

For dropshotting and wacky rigging I will either use a 1 or 2 owner mosquito light or a vmc sure set dropshot hook. For river fishing though majority of the time I will rig my plastics on some sort of jig head. The most universal when around rocks in my opinion is some sort of finesse football head which really helps with not getting snagged. Most of the time I will use a 1/8th or 1/4 oz head depending on depth and current. I’ll use this to rig any craw/creature/worm I want to have bottom contact. For tubes I usually use a tube jig head, although sometimes I will use a ball head also. For swimbaits and grubs I will usually use a darterhead or just a regular ball head jig. I pretty much never t rig in the rivers I fish so I don’t even bother bringing stuff for it. I have spent a lot of time in Michigan and most of the rivers you will be fishing will be very similar to the ones I fish here in south east Minnesota. If I could only bring a handful of baits for these rivers it would be a strike king rage menace in green pumpkin on a small football head, a 2.5” power tube in green pumpkin with a tube jig head inserted in the tube, a 3.3” keitech in any baitfish color on a ball head jig, a small gold jerkbait like a husky jerk or a duo realis rozante, and a smaller top water walking bait like a rapala skitter walk or a smaller spook. This is what I fish with 90% of the time and you will catch a pile of fish if this is all you had in your tackle box. Don’t overthink it, River smallies are generally very aggressive and will take a shot at most baits if presented correctly.

I feel like I’m the only person in the world that doesn’t use roboworms. I have tried a bunch of different kinds of them on a drop shot and shakeyhead and I always do better on strike king dream shots and half shells, or a 3” senko wacky rigged when it comes to dropshotting, or when it comes to a shakey head I have never found a worm that outfishes the strike king fat baby finesse worm. A lot of this probably comes down to what I have confidence in but I just have never found what all the hype is around roboworm. Not saying their bad baits because they obviously catch fish, it’s just for my fishing applications I think that there are better options.

Walleye are awesome predators that get a bad rap as fighting like wet socks but big ones, especially river fish, fight really well. They don’t make crazy runs like other fish but they have a unique way of fighting that is really hard in itself. I hooked this 27” in 2’ of water in really fast current while I was fishing for big browns. Was using a g loomis e6x 7’1m xf with 10lbs braid to 10lbs mono so not super light and it took me a good 2 minutes to get it to shore and you can see how small a river it is. I have caught a couple mid 20” walleye while throwing 10”-16” musky plastics like a Poseidon swimbait or a Mag Bulldawg. Walleye have about as big of a mouth for their size as largemouth do so they can eat really big baits. In general you see people using small baits for them because they are going after eaters which are usually 14-18”. Paddletail swimbaits are one of the single best walleye baits in rivers and lakes and will catch them year round. One of my confidence baits when targeting them is a 4.5 regular keitech swing impact not the fat to find them, and then switch to a 4.3 or 4.8 fat to try to get a bigger bite. I have caught them on 5.8 and 6.8’s but I get consistently bit more often on the smaller ones. I live within 30 miles of pool 4 of the Mississippi which puts out some of the biggest walleye in the country every year so I definitely do my share of targeting them.