PressuredFishing

Yeah, I hear you. I ended up just flipping and pitching bushes with a 1/2 jig in gen clear water, surprisingly got a few bites on this technique That's a bummer man, went camping and loosing the locking pin, not fun when you are far away from stores

Yes I felt your pain, we are in this together

If you have a boat try a small 2-4 inch flutter spoon, to get down to bass, a small keitech, or underspin. Something with flash to stand out from the thousands in the crowd

So today was really rough, it was one of those "lots of annoying things happen day" my spinning reel blew up 3 times because of line twist. No idea why the reel had such bad line twist, but it did. So after cutting 50 feet I fish some more and the fishing wasn't tough, but the negative experience really gated me from catching any fish, becoming annoyed and not focusing on my casts or retrieves. I called it a day after 5 hours because I couldn't enjoy myself with half a spool. Anyone have days like this? How do you guys combat the negative mentality

Fishing heavily pressured clear lakes all my life, you can catch them three ways Finesse (tried and true) Power (silent non rattling baits with natural colors going mock 5 through the water during peak bite times) Big (swimbaits of all shapes and sizes will do better in my experience in clearer water compared to murky water. Even if you don't catch fish use it as a probe to watch followers, throw in with something else when you see them

Are pike any good eating?

The pfluger president is an amazing reel for me, all three of them have been good for me. (Important) the grease they put in the presidents and xt presidents can get very rough in cold weather, I thought mine was broken out on the lake but worked fine after warming the grease up. With that being said, after owning a president along with many other brands, I believe the tolerances of shinanos Sahara and diawas legalis regal and feugo are much better and smoother than my presidents. As for the lews, they have tighter tolerances than the pflugers and are smoother, however not as smooth as the shimanos and diawas. With all this said, IMHO the lews mach 2 spinning reel has the most features on the market. A aluminum framed spinning reel with winn knobs is unheard of, it's 60$ on Amazon. They are all great, some are greater, one is the greatest.

This is not a popular opinion, but I don't consider spotted bay bass or Cabazon as a bass. Yes they are in the bass family, but are more comparable to crappie for lure selection, they are super small and they normal only get 1 or 2 lbs. The world record is only 6 lbs, a sizable pb is 3-4. After fishing for them for 4 years on a biweekly basis , lmb lures for spots is like swimbaits for lmb. Smb lures work really well for quality spots (you won't get bit alot with these lures, similar to jig fishing for bass) finesse jigs and 3-3.5 inch dropshot or trick worms produce bigger bites. Standard lures should be maribu or crappie jigs, or grubs. Moving baits can consist of smaller jerkbaits. To put bluntly, spots eat more crappie sized baits than lmb and sub.

Tom really helped explain this to me, now I do it all the time, it doesn't even have to be mono to floro, it can be mono to mono. So in a nutshell you do it because a lighter diameter line is limper, which can move more freely. Imagine a small dropshot worm on 10lb line. Doesn't move too freely right? Because the mono is too stiff. On the other hand if you bump down to 4lb line that worm is going to wiggle and dart alot easier because of the limper line. Now bass aren't line shy, but you can also change diameter for depth. For instance, i fish really deep riprap banks that go from 1 to 20 feet of water and rock is still down there. Deep divers get stuck in the rocks, so I use a small squarebill on 6lb floro. Sinks it down to bottom because of the thinner diameter. By the same token if you need to stay above a grass flat or a two foot clearing under the water, I'll rock 25 lb mono and burn the crank in gen clear water above grass. Thicker diameter is not limp, and creates stiffness in the bait, go to your pool and try 10lb mono on a dropshot, than 4lb. Then it will become clear

My father grew up with the quick fire designed reels, quantum used to make some as well as shimano. Shimano has two different ones, the spirex and the syncopate. The one is "higher specs" than the other. I think companies have moved away from this reel design because the longevity is questionable and having automatic bail flipping mechanisms adds line twist compared to manually closing bails. This is why the old Mitchel 300 reels stopped closing themselves manually as well as langleys spinning reels and so on and so forth. It can be hard to change I know, but there isn't a large enough market for them to sell these anymore. If you have a medical condition preventing you from using spinning reels, you can go two different routes. Bfs (baitcasting for light lures) or spin cast. I use a shimano fx 200 reel my dad had for trout and it works good, but it has a back drag. It has a spare spool so when fishing creeks and you get bad linetwist on one spool you can retire it for the day and pull on the other one. Wow that's quite a collectable!

Hookups on toads AND frogs with the right equipment have always been poor compared to walking topwaters or poppers. If there is grass I usually try to throw a swimjig first because my hookup ratios with other baits are poor. I have also noticed bass could care less even if a lure has grass on it in thick grass. I have caught bass when my swimjig has lots of grass around it. Just not impressed with frogs and toad style lures

have had this happen a lot, im not sure if there is a way to prevent it. This is why I try to wear long sleeve and ALWAYS glasses, Sunglasses saved my vision when setting a zara spook hook right next to the boat, glasses where ruined, a shame too because they where prescription, but they saved my eye. For me its when two trebles are in a small 12 inchers mouth and forget pliers, thats a terrorizing fear I have.

Bfs sounds to be doing very good for you then, that's cool, what reel you using? One thing I will say is while I don't use my bfs much for lake bass, it's KILLER for burning small baits because of the gear ratio, more importantly, I love it for the rivers because 0 line twist, my line on a spinning reel river fishing lasts one day.

I see, I have heard it is common for swimbaits to be thrown when a fish jumps and binds the trebles. Thanks for the positivity! That's true, it was a bite on a reaction bait and was a fun 3 second fight.

So I have officially committed 4 hours in total dedicated to pure swimbaiting, one rod, one reel, and one bait. So I was throwing the jackal ganterel Jr today and finally got my first hookup. I caught him near a layed down tree and just erratically worked the handle fast and jerky. The fish was easily 3-4lbs, not pushing my pb but was close. The fish felt heavy even on the swimbait rod, had him on for 3 seconds, jumped, and lost him. I tried to keep the rod tip low and grind him in, anyone have any reccomendations. I did set the hook pretty hard but the hooks are thick wire. I'm kinda heartbroken and was livid, but at least it happened on a small fish and not a 8+ pounder that lurks in there.

Okay, so depending on the size of catfish, you will choose your combo, 1-30 pound catfish can be caught on normal bass low profile casting setups, you don't really need a new setup, or an expensive setup for catfish. However If you don't want to get your bass setups slimey, I understand. You also don't need super heavy Gear unless your going after bigger fish. 12-20 pound mono works fine or any braid, catfish could care less about line. For the rod, you can get a Medium heavy shakesphere ugly stick, it will last forever and you don't need sensitivity for catfish. When using mono you can opt for the colored lines, like yellow or gold, just so you have something to watch in the water, you can also get bite alarms OR a bait clicker. For reels any low profile reel will work fine, tons solid reels, you can choose your likings. If you prefer spinning a medium heavy OR medium ugly stick will work fine for spinning, with spinning equipment you can throw Weightless chunk bait which can sit above summertime grass. Also most spinning reels have a audible clicker you you can set it loose and you will hear a fish on the line.

No complaints with lews, gear tolerances are good, thumb bars are crisp, frames are solid, one bone I have to pick is the magnetic break dials can be harder to turn, same with abu, diawa and shimano don't have this problem in my experience. Winn knobs are a lovely feature if you get their reels with those

. I throw 30 feet of 2lb on my bfs reel for flipping creeks for trout, and 6lb for my bfs reels for bass. As for normal reels, in my experience only braid digs itself into the spool, floro and coplymer is fine as well as mono. Even a size 100 reel you can use 2lb line, my question though would be why for bass? On baitcasters for bass in the 150 size range I use 8lb minimum for jerkbaits, you can use lighter I just don't see the point. You will have more problems with line getting stuck in between the sideplate and spool than line digging into itself. Personally if I may ask why are you using a baitcaster for lighter line? Bfs is fun but personally the drags on spinning reels imo are smoother and hooking into 5+ pound fish out here in socal is common, so backreeling is also a big plus. Have found my bfs combos have niche applications, primarily for trout and tiny pencil walking baits for bass (when needing a fast gear ratio) Two pound is fishable but I only do it on my curado bfs because the tolerances of the spool and frame are good (only 2lb for trout)

sadly it was not one of the ones listed, Next time I go out I will take a picture for you guys to see Yknow I love French food, Baguettes, Croissants, And my favorite Ratatouille, HOWEVER, I dont think I am willing to go far enough to eat a snail... taking them off my lure with my line is.... pushing it....

Will do that, thanks for this link, did not see this one

Yeah I tried contacting DFG on their phone number and emails, Its really hard to contact them unless in person, Perhaps they dont work on weekends.

So I harvest kelp off the beach in california, but I was wondering sense DFG doesnt specify If I can harvest Milfoils or hydrillias in freshwater, does anybody know? (I use both for composting)

Yeah, maybe sense I didn't show an image he didn't know what they looked like. One of the lakes I fish has dropped almost 50% and the shoreline is littered with zebra mussel shells, when fishing the spawn bass made their nests in the shells and really liked it compared to the sand flats. Another time I saw a shell cracker near shore sucking in and spitting out zebra shells like sunflower seeds, was really cool to watch them in action, in a matter of 5 minutes the little guy cracked open 10 individual zebra mussels, was really cool to watch.

Many bodies of water around me have quagga AND zebra. This is one that doesn't. The quagga mussel and zebra mussel came from the water districts pimping Colorado River water into their reservoirs, that's why we have very hard bass to catch imo because zebras+quaggas+milfoil+heat=30 foot visibility. This lake does not have either however, and there are around 6 that take strenuous precautions and procedures such as mandatory power washing and boat cards to prevent the species from coming into clean lakes. To be honest fishing clear water is fun, I know quaggas aren't great for the baitfish though. Many bodies of water around me have quagga AND zebra. This is one that doesn't. The quagga mussel and zebra mussel came from the water districts pimping Colorado River water into their reservoirs, that's why we have very hard bass to catch imo because zebras+quaggas+milfoil+heat=30 foot visibility. This lake does not have either however, and there are around 6 that take strenuous precautions and procedures such as mandatory power washing and boat cards to prevent the species from coming into clean lakes. To be honest fishing clear water is fun, I know quaggas aren't great for the baitfish though.

Yes, not all lakes have them though, but they eat quagga mussel as well