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If I'm not bringing my trolling motor, I'll use a 12v 7Ah SLA battery with mine. It's about 6" long and weighs less than 5lbs. It'll run my fish finder as long as I need since it's a smaller one that doesn't drain much power. It cost me less than $15.

In open water, I don't have a problem landing any bass (short of a large striper) on 12# line. So I'll often throw 8-12# line. However, when fishing around thick vegetation, wood, or anything else I might get hung up on, heavier line increases the odds of both landing the fish, and getting my lure back if it gets snagged. So it's not so much an issue of needing the extra strength to fight the fish. 20 lbs of force will probably break a rod anyway. But it's more about having the added strength to fight other junk under the water. And sometimes it's also about reducing stretch, as thicker line doesn't stretch as easily.

I'm usually switching over to a topwater with treble hooks if there's no vegetation to get hung up in. The hookup ratio is better, in my opinion. I'm sure a frog would still work, but I feel like frogs are best when you need weedless presentations. If the weeds aren't an issue, I think there are better options to throw. So for me, it's the vegetation that dictates when to throw a frog, versus the time of year. Of course, the time of year does have a lot of control over the vegetation, so they're not unrelated. But I make my decision based on cover, not the calendar.

I like heavier spinnerbaits with smaller, willow blades, even in dirty water. You get less thump, but they tend to stay down better. Also, I tend to use a stiffer rod and 30-40# braided line to reduce stretch. It makes hookups easier, since you'll have a lot more line out. Though, I fish from a kayak, so swinging for the fences on a hookset can be dangerous. You could get by with a normal rod and mono or fluoro if you wanted to, provided you can put the power behind it when needed.

There are two main differences in a kayak fish finder vs. one for a bass boat, in my opinion. One is size. In a bass boat, you'll usually have some distance between you and the screen and plenty of room onboard. So bigger screens are usually better. For a kayak, a smaller screen is usually preferred, as it's less likely to get in the way, and you'll be sitting pretty close to it. Resolution still matters though. But you likely won't need a huge screen to be able to tell what's going on. And a smaller screen usually drains less power, which means you can get by with a smaller battery. So you save money, save space, and save weight. The second is transducer size. A lot of the fish finders with side scan have longer transducers. Many kayaks have a large port in a scupper hole to fit a transducer to keep them out of the way. A handy option. But the larger transducers with side scan won't usually fit in these. And side scan isn't as important on a kayak, in my opinion, because they only work while you're moving at a decent speed (2-3 mph), which in a kayak, you usually aren't moving too fast while fishing. It still comes in handy though, like for scouting places to fish, which you'll do less of in a kayak vs. a bass boat because of how much more difficult it is to cover large swaths of water. So you tend to make the best use of what you have access to versus trying to find the best place on the lake. I have a side scan transducer on mine, and I do use it. So they are still useful and I like them. But I have to hang the transducer over the side to make it work, and that presents some minor issues. Nothing too bad though. I use a Scotty 141 and 0368 to hold the transducer and fish finder screen in one unit. Otherwise, the usual things apply. Do you want GPS? Maps? Down scan? Just figure out your budget and what features you most value, and you should be able to narrow it down to a few options.

I use two beads when fishing with a light lead weight. You get a bit more click that way, as the soft lead often doesn't do much on it's own. I also use two beads, a plastic and a glass, when fishing with a large tungsten weight, like a 1oz. or so. The plastic bead helps absorb some of the impact so that the hard tungsten doesn't make direct contact and shatter the glass bead. I believe beads do make a difference, under the right circumstances. I fish a lot of heavily stained waters with soft, clay bottoms, so I think the beads help the bass locate the lures without having to hit them in the nose with it. There are a few places I fish as well with clearer water and sand, gravel, or rocky bottoms, and on those, I don't worry about beads.

Not really. I like to fish on my lunch break, so I usually have a rod in my truck for that. I might have a few baits in there as well. But if I'm not at work, I usually take it out. It's just one more thing to get broken or stolen. Plus, I almost never have a fishing opportunity that wasn't planned. The lakes and public ponds are usually a good bit out of the way of anything, and you dare not fish on private land in my state. People around here are trigger happy and suspicious of strangers on their land. I had pulled over once to answer an email on my phone in front of a farm (still on public land) and the farmer met me with a shotgun! He was a nice guy once he figured I wasn't a threat. But he came prepared for war when all I wanted was to be a safe driver.

I've seen guys rev their engines and circle a spot with the intention of stirring up the fish before fishing an area. Then again, I'll pull up to some spots in my kayak and shut off the trolling motor before I get there so I don't spook the fish. It just depends. Sometimes some noise and wake will help. Sometimes, it'll hurt the fishing.

I've gone swimming to retrieve a jig when I had a box full of them. So yeah. My friends laugh at me, but it's no big deal for me to jump into a lake. Swimming is a one of the most fun things you can do at a lake! I frequently fish when it's 100°+, so I usually dress with the intention of getting wet (to cool off). My fishing clothes are stained from the red water. However, I also fish in the winter, and if the water and air is cold, then no. It's just stuff.

I'm addicted to glidebaits even if the fish won't bite it! It's almost like having a lure on a remote control. Same with Zara Spooks. With a glidebait you get those wide swings on a straight retrieve, a short pop will spin them around backwards, and a long, hard one will cause them to dart and roll like a fleeing baitfish. With a Spook you can walk it around things by alternating small and hard pops of the rod.

It's fishing! You win either way! If you can't decide, flip a coin.

I've frequently used 10# fluoro leaders with all of my jigs and never had issues with hooksets. Though if I'm pitching around cover, I usually just cut off the leader and go straight braid.

I had a similar experience a while back. I thought the bass were short striking my spinnerbait, so I decided to tie on a 1/4 oz. underspin crappie jig with a 3" fluke trailer and see what happens. Turns out, it was gizzard shad. I caught one about 10" long.

Around here, in February, we've got until about 6:30 before it's too dark. Still only two and half hours. Not a lot of time. But that's the best time, in my experience, if you're wanting to maximize your time on the water. Still, I do prefer to get there a bit earlier. I'd rather not catch fish on the water than not catch fish at home.

I rely solely on my thumb for skipping. I just leave my thumb to ride the spool the whole time. I'm not great at it, so I lose a lot of distance. But it does prevent backlashes. Get a baby pool or dog pool and fill it with water to practice skipping in your back yard.

For me, it depends on the time of year. If it's hot out, mornings are better. Give the water the full night to cool off. In the colder times of the year, the evenings are better. Give the water more time to warm up. There's not a ton of vegetation in most lakes near me, so their effects on D.O. aren't as strong here. Plus the constant high winds do a good job of mixing the water. In the middle of August, the only time I can catch fish (mostly) is from an hour before sunup up up till about two hours after sunup. And that's fine with me, as it's usually about 20° cooler at sunup than it is at sundown. In the middle of February, it's the opposite. Get to the lake around 4:00 p.m and fish till the sun goes down. You can do more, but you're mostly just wasting your time (outside of those rare days).

I was reading an article by Tommy Biffle the other day. He's from my area and was saying that fishing in September was the hardest time to fish. He said you have to really downsize and take what you can get that month. He also said that by mid October, things start to turn around. Looking back, that jives with my experience. Though I often read online about how August is the hard time to catch fish, yet I seem to do okay in August (not great) and how people are chasing the shad in the shallows and other fall patterns in September. That's only just started to happen this week at some of the shallower lakes where I live. Last week, the highs were in the 90's. But in two weeks the fall patterns should be gearing up everywhere near me. I think it's the case of we all get the same patterns, it's just that it happens at different times at different latitudes. Kind of like the fall leaves. I'm sure the leaves are changing colors in a lot of places up north right now. It'll be near Halloween before that happens here.

I prefer braid to leader. Braid casts better and lasts longer. Plus, if I get a bad backlash, I can dig it out with braid. With Fluoro, you often have to replace the whole spool. Even if the backlash is easier to get out (which it usually isn't due to line memory), you'll often kink the line and create a weak spot with fluoro. Fluoro is tough, but once it stretches or kinks, it never returns back to the way it was. I don't know how many times I've made a bomb cast with fluoro, only to realize that the line snapped in the middle, just a few casts after a bad backlash. Plus braid had better tight line sensitivity, smaller diameter, and less stretch. The only time I really like straight fluoro these days if for pitching and flipping, where the slack line sensitivity really matters, and longer casts don't matter. Even on my crankbait rods I've switched to copoly due to line memory. But there's no right or wrong answer here. If one was clearly superior to the other, that's all anyone would use and the other would disappear from the market. That's why no one uses silk, Dacron, or Kevlar line anymore (for the most part).

I've got friends like this. It doesn't bother me once I figure out that this is what they're like. The trick is to just accept people for who they are. So I'll invite the flakes out and I'll never expect them to show up. And on the rare occasion they do actually show up, it's often a real treat! Good people are hard to find in this world, and the older you get, the harder they become to find. So you've got to cherish and cultivate the friendships you have. And good people can be heavily flawed people. Just don't plan your day around them, and you'll be fine.

In my rod collection, the more expensive the rod, the more sensitive it is. Yet, oddly enough, the cheaper the rod, the more fish I've caught with it. And I can't say for certain, but I could almost swear I caught more fish as a kid with a heavy, fiberglass rod and a spincast reel. The sensitivity was so bad on those that I had to keep a finger on the line to feel a bite. Hmm... Maybe the all that sensitivity is making me a worse fisherman?

Times have changed. When I was in high school in the 90's, they took attendance at the start of every class and sent that down to the principles office to verify. If you disappeared, and the school hadn't been informed, your parents were getting a phone call. Plus the school was monitored by police, so if you were leaving in the middle of the day, you'd get stopped and asked for a note from the principle saying it was okay. So the only kids who cut class were the ones who's parents didn't care. And the only way they could do that was to just not show up in the first place.

A rod is just a tool, and only part of the equation. How you use it can have a huge effect on the outcome. The right rod is the one that does what YOU want. For instance, with a stiffer rod, having thinner and stretchier line, along with a looser drag can help to keep treble hooks pinned and not tear them out. Also, you can absorb some of the shock with your body (arms and wrist), instead of relying solely on the rod to absorb all of the fight. With a softer rod, you can still drive in a large, single hook, by using a harder, slack line style hookset. Allow that rod to build up some speed before it grabs the hook. Point being, it's not so much a matter of matching the rod to the bait, as it is to matching the rod to your technique with the bait. You just have to know the rod's characteristics and know how to use them to your advantage and minimize any disadvantages.

I usually reach for a crankbait or jerkbait to pull through the bait balls. Unless the bait ball is running deeper, in which case I'll throw a spoon or blade bait and jig through the bottom. I rarely throw a topwater at a bait ball. They seem to scatter the baitfish more that lure the bass, in my experience.

I was just reading an article by the Oklahoma Wildlife Dept., and they were discussing the need to revisit catch and release policies and practices. There's only so much biomass an ecosystem can sustain, and right now a lot of our lakes are too bottom heavy. We have good numbers of fish, but unfortunately, they're all smaller fish. And if we want to get larger fish in the lakes, we're going to have to start to cull some of the smaller ones to leave enough food for the smaller ones to grow into larger ones. I think that's kind of happening all over.

Gentle soap and water is what's recommended. Mine are stained orange from the rust colored water I fish in. I don't even worry about cleaning them. They'll go back to orange the next time I use them.