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One thing I was amazed to learn, long ago, was just how much the human body can adapt to temperature. Back when I worked outside in the summer doing hard labor, I got so used to being out in the sun on those 100°+ degree days, that when I got home, I had my A/C set to 85° because anything cooler felt unbearable. And in the winter, when I worked in the freezing weather, I'd have my house set to around 60°, because anything hotter made me sweat. It made my utilities bills very reasonable. One thing I do do now is try to spend lots of time outside to get my body to adapt. For instance, I'll mow my grass or wash my car in the heat of the day. I try to push myself a little bit. You don't want to go too far and get heat exhaustion. Just make yourself a little bit uncomfortable often. If you do it at your house, and you stay aware, you can push yourself a bit each day and always get inside with the cool air and water quickly if you start to feel off. It takes about a month to adapt, so when the weather changes drastically in a short time like it has, it's not much help. But in the later months of summer I will have no problem fishing in the 100° heat because I'm spending a lot of time in my yard right now when most people are avoiding the heat.

I'm guessing the Silvermax uses a standard magnetic brake system. You might get an improvement in a $100 reel, like a Daiwa Fuego or a Shimano SLX. Even a dual brake reel like the BPS Pro Qualifier 2 would probably help in casting lighter lures. But I wouldn't expect anything huge. Standard magnetic brakes work pretty well on their own, if you have everything set up correctly. I'm betting your main issue is the rod. Your rod is probably too stiff to cast lighter lures well, so you're probably having to cast harder with them to get them out there. And that's probably what's causing your overruns. Getting a second setup for lighter lures would probably help more than just replacing the reel.

I remember going in to one of the Academy's near me one day last year and the shelves were completely bare. I mean nothing was left. Then I went to another, smaller Academy, and they had a decent selection of stuff. Probably 80% of usual. But since this winter, they've both been close to fully stocked. There will be the individual this or that that's out of stock, but for the most part, it's been business as usual. Same with the Bass Pro. Dick's, however, removed all of their fishing gear from all of their stores near me. They did this about six months before the pandemic.

Agreed. I also will throw a popper out and let it sit for a while before popping it. I might give it a slight nudge so it wiggles, at most. Wait for the rings of waves to die off, then start working it back. My grandfather taught me that. Let the bass get scared, calm down, and then wonder what that sound was when it hit the water. Make it looked stunned. Then pop it back. It's almost like a finesse lure. If they're keying in on reaction baits, then I go with something that travels quicker, like that spook.

That happens to me all of the time. I try not to collect lures, and I know I've got enough already and don't really have room to store more stuff I will rarely use. So I typically only look if I go into the store looking for something specific ahead of time. And even then, it's mostly just to replace stuff. Otherwise, I spend more time looking at rods and reels and dreaming about the day my wife says it's okay to spend half a grand on a single rod. I never bought into the magic lure theory. I always figure they're not biting what I'm throwing because I'm not in the right area, or I'm fishing it wrong. I never assume it's because I'm throwing the wrong thing.

Get yourself a small tackle bag and keep everything in there. Don't allow yourself to store anything anywhere else. That way, once it's filled, you can't buy more until you've lost what you have. That's what I do, and it works pretty well for keeping costs down. If you find yourself buying a lot of new plastics, it's because you're catching a lot of fish, and you don't worry about it so much. Fishing is as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. And in the world of hobbies, it's one of the more affordable, so long as you don't buy a boat.

I'm not aware of any, but there is a Sportsman Lake and a Sportsman Club lake. I assume these were at one time. But Sportsman lake is now public and Sportsman Club lake is owned by the Chickasaw Nation. They just recently bought it and are turning the old clubhouse into a community center. Don't know what they'll do with the lake, but it's been neglected for decades. I think there's just too many public lakes to make a private club lake profitable here.

Semi-tight. I try for tight line, but I get excited and usually wind up setting the hook while there's still some slack on the line.

The Hook 9 says it draws about .75 amps. The Hook 5 says it draws 12.2 watts, which would be about an amp, though I don't know how much I trust those numbers, because one would think the smaller 5" screen would draw less juice than the larger 9" screen. Anyway, let's say we're looking at about 1 amp per hour for the fish finder. The Interstate Marine 24m-rd has a reserve capacity of 75, which gives us about 31.25 amp hours. I don't know how many volts your motor needs to start, but let's guess it's around 11.5v. Many starters don't need more than 10v, but at 11.5v, you're going to be down to around the 10-20% battery life remaining. So let's say 20% for the upper limit. That means you can run 80% of the battery for the fish finder and you should still be able to crank the motor. So there's 25 amps (80% of 31.25 total amps). At one amp per hour, that's 25 hours. Now, every time you start the battery, and anything else running off that battery, will take away from that. However, you're not supposed to drain a cranking battery below about 5%, as it'll shorten the lifespan. They're not like deep cycle batteries that can be drained down to 50% on the regular. So 5% of 31.25 is 1.5625, or about an hour and a half. But all that means is that you'll have to replace the battery sooner. How much sooner? Who can say? So, the math says 1.5-25 hours, depending on how many years you want your battery to last. And I can say from experience with this type of stuff, that the math doesn't usually give you a good real world estimate. The health of the battery and the type of charger can effect their capacity. Also can any number of variables you may not consider can come into play here, like the quality of wires and connectors (and any corrosion) and if there's any weak connection to ground that will slowly drain the battery. Not to mention the health of the motor and starter, and how much it actually need to start. Plus, who knows if the figures the math is based off of are even accurate? It's just hard to consider every possibility. Personally, I'd just run it as is and not worry about it and bring a paddle. In a small lake, you can always paddle back if an emergency arises. When the battery finally gives up the ghost, or starts giving you trouble, you'll have a better, real-world idea and can make an changes at that time if it seems like it might be a problem. EDIT: I forgot you said 2 Lowrance Hook units. So make that 45 minutes to 12.5 hours.

No grease for maximum drag. Very light coating of drag grease for maximum smoothness. Either way is good for general use, as it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference one way or the other. So long as you don't apply too much grease, it's hard to go wrong.

I don't know about packing smaller. But I definitely like 2pc rods. A good 2pc will feel like a 1pc rod. The biggest problem with 2pc rods is selection. Though in your situation, I'd probably just buy a Berkley Lightning rod when I get down there. That would probably run the cost of shipping a decent rod. And while not a great rod, it's definitely good enough to catch fish on.

If you're flipping and pitching and the stretch of mono bugs you, then I'd suggest that might need a stronger rod. I've had issues with mono stretching too much on me before, so I know it can be an issue. But you usually have to have a good bit of line out there for stretch to become an issue. If you've just got a dozen or so feet of line out, then the majority of the give you feel in the line is probably coming from the rod. That's my take on the situation.

I'm surprised no one has said a square bill. I always have luck with a small square bill. If the bait ball is deep, I'll throw a jigging spoon. They usually attack from below, so if you can get just below the ball, they like to hit it just as you're pulling out of it. Then again, I fish from a kayak, so I don't often need to worry about not getting too close. They usually pay me no mind, as there's enough commotion going on that's got their attention.

He might have fed it some tungsten weights! Seriously though, scales can be way off, especially cheap ones. Also, you have to make sure to hold the scale correctly and zero it before you weight anything. Some people don't do that and will get inaccurate weight measurements.

You can do that pretty easily, and have a nice setup. You can buy a 7-12 Ah SLA battery and charger, and that Scotty 140 and 368 mount system that will allow you to mount your transducer and display on a non-permanent, easy to use basis. That's about $100 right there. Then you might want to add a battery box. A pre-made one will run you close to $100, but you can make your own out of an ammo box, some waterproof cable glands, some EVA foam glued in with rubber cement, and spade connectors to connect the fish finder to the battery. That'll run you about $50. That'll leave you a few hundred for the fish finder itself. For $200-300, you can get a pretty decent fish finder for a kayak. Or if you really want to save some money, you can just drag a castable fish finder behind you and use your smart phone as the display. A lot of kayakers do that. No mounting and no batteries required. Just some heavy duty braided line.

The only spinning reel that I have fluorocarbon on is my crappie rig. And the only reason I use it on that is because I rarely cast it more than a few feet. I mostly just use it for jigging. I've tried it on a few others. It works fine for a while, but it always winds up getting knotted in the middle. It's just not worth the hassle for me. I now use a light braid with fluorocarbon leaders on my spinning rods. It's much less frustrating that way, even if I do have to retie the leaders often.

I don't really have a lot of opportunities for secret spots in Oklahoma. But there are a few spots on the big lakes where I can get my kayak into that big bass boats can't go. These spots also tend to be a good distance from any place to launch a kayak, so I imagine even most kayakers won't visit them. But I'll use my trolling motor to get out there, and then pick it up and switch to paddle to proceed once I'm there. There usually aren't a ton of bass in those areas, but I can often catch one or two small ones. I don't imagine that I'm the only one who knows about them, they're pretty obvious to find, but I also don't imagine that there are a lot of people who can actually fish them.

That's what I use with my Hook2 5 tripleshot side scanning transducer. It works great. It holds it steady enough when I'm using it, and still has a bit of give if I hit something with it (which is rare). Plus it's easy to pull up should I be sliding over some thick vegetation or branches, and for loading and unloading the boat. To me, the fish finder is more important than the kayak for fishing. I use the sonar all of the time. Not only for locating fish and structure, but also for finding the thermocline and finding transition zones. It's your eyes under water. On a small pond, it' not entirely necessary. You can fish every part and figure what's going on well enough. On a big lake, you'll spend years making detailed logs that won't tell you half of what a day with a sonar will. Sonar is a difference maker. GPS maps, down imaging, side imaging, and all of that fancy stuff is nice to have. But none of it is mandatory. Your smart phone can do GPS maps. Sonar will tell you what down imaging shows if you learn how to read it. And side imaging is more useful for large, fast boats than slow, nimble kayaks. Waypoints are nice, but buoy markers do the same thing. And you can usually get the lake temp online, and guesstimate what areas will be warmer and cooler anyway without needing a temperature sensor. But there's really no getting around sonar.

Am I the only one who jumps into the lake to keep cool? That makes a huge difference for me. Just keep your PFD and clothes on and remember to reapply sunscreen. Also, don't dry off when you get out. That's free sweat you're wearing.

Really, the biggest difference between jigs is how well they deal with certain types of cover. I've gotten away with using the wrong style of jig in the wrong type of cover, many, many times. You may have a few more hang ups, but it can still work to catch fish. I'd suggest an Arkie style as a good jack of all trades, master of none. But really, you should figure out what kind of cover you're going to run into most, and select a jig made for that. Then when you run into the occasional patch of a different kind of cover, just make do with what you have. Later on down the road, if you decide to get more serious with it, you can build up your jigging arsenal.

In order for scent to be an attractant, it has to disperse into the water. If a plastic bait did that, it would dissolve in the water in a short time. Since they don't, you can assume they don't work well for attracting fish. And even if they did disperse into the water, like a spray on scent, you're probably not leaving the bait in the water long enough to allow the scent to disperse and give the fish time to track it down. So you might get a use out of a spray on scent if you do something like a dropshot and leave the bait in the water for several minutes at a time. But you'll still have to reapply it often and recast to the same spot. And that's assuming that bass use scent to hunt down prey, which they're not really known to do. Scent does play a big role in some fish though, like catfish and carp. That being said, they probably do work well for keeping the fish on the bait longer, once they've bitten down. So they might help you land more fish by giving you more time to set the hook. And they might even give the illusion of more strikes by giving you more time to feel the strike. But I don't see how they would actually illicit more strikes. So really, scent is probably a bad term. We should probably refer to it as taste. Berkley Maxtaste.

I have a Fish Eagle, Pro Qualifier 2, and had a Tourney Pro rod. The Tourney Pro was garbage. But the Fish Eagle and PQ2 are both good rods for the money. I also have a PQ2 reel. It's not bad, no complaints. But a Daiwa Fuego is cheaper and better. I can't say I've fished better rods than the PQ2 or the Fish Eagle for the money they ask. But I haven't fished a lot in their price range, so I don't have a real good idea of what a $70 and $100 rod is supposed to be.

The first time I noticed it was broken was when I was removing it from a 1 lb bass. It seems he broke it, but I have no idea how. Anyway, I kept throwing it and it kept catching fish. If it breaks in two, I figure I'll wind up losing a lure and a fish I probably wouldn't have had otherwise. I've got other, similar crankbaits like it, and they don't seem to be producing as well.

Anytime the water is warm, the wind is calm, and the sun isn't bright. I fish them the same times and places as a walking bait. Sometimes they like the Spook. Sometimes they like the popper. In the fog or when there's crickets chirping, I usually grab one of those two first and then try the other if that doesn't work. I usually go for a Whopper plopper, buzzbait, or a torpedo if there's a bit more wind.

The whole purpose of looking for Creek channels and points is to identify areas where the depth changes quickly. The reservoirs near me don't have Creek channels or many points because they weren't made by damming a river, but instead by diverting a river into either an old quarry or just a deep valley. Still, the best places to find most game fish are the areas near any kind of cover (trees, grass, docks, etc) that lies near those points of fast elevation changes. On those maps, those will be the areas where the depth indicator lines are closest together. So while much of the traditional terminology may not apply to your lake very well, the concept is still sound. You're basically just looking for objects under the water that are close to both deep and shallow water.