Firstoutfisher

Thanks for your input, good to hear from a fellow Missourian bank beater

Do you often park your boat where you are casting out and working the bait uphill? Or throw your lures where you cant move the boat to unsag or retrieve them. Or fish offshore structure from the bank? Often deal with brush and other obstacles that may impair your casting ability when in a boat? If you answered no to any of the above then yes boat fishing is different than bank fishing. WRB, I keep seeing you mention that slip shot rig(finesse carolina rig) I have never fished a crig before but I will have to try that sometime.

As we all know there are unique challenges that fishing from the bank poses. Some techniques are more well suited for this style of fishing and some are almost unusable. In your experience what are the top 5 best and worst techniques when bank fishing and why?

Thanks,that is a very informative post. When I mentioned moving/retrieving the bait it is more so to move where it sits than it is to impart action. When fishing from the bank I am very limited in where I can put the bait so I need to cover water somehow as there aren't high % spots to throw to like from a boat. It seems like there really is no right or wrong way to present it kind of like most other techniques. I will just have to put in the time and see what works best for me.I probably should switch from the nose hooked version to a texposed version when fishing from the shore. Although I think most of my snags were the weight getting stuck. Overall I am pretty excited to explore this technique more. It seems like a lot of people dislike it but as a person that is almost always using some kind of moving bait it was nice to just cast it out and see there and wait, good mental training for focus and patience. Also eye opening how many bites i got in such a small stretch of shore versus running the whole 1/4 mile with a quick moving bait and maybe only getting a handful. Maybe covering water isnt as important as I once thought.

Got out tonight for a little bank fishing and tried out the dropshot for the first time ever. Got more bites than I ever have in this spot and got a PB. Now I am really itching to try out the dropshot some more. Couple questions though. When casting and retrieving a drop shot how do you usually retrieve it? Cast it out, let it sit for a while, slowly reel to move the bait? Or slowly sweep the rod to drag it than pick up the slack? What about picking the rod straight up and letting the bait pendulum towards you? I tried a little bit of each tonight and they all felt kind of awkward and I was snagging a lot. When your weight is sitting on the bottom do you keep the line completely tight from weight to tip of rod? Or do you allow some slack? obviously too much slack and your bait will just be sitting on the bottom.

Gancraft Jointed Claw 70 or jointed claw 128

I know its probably not what you want to hear but maybe looking into local machine shops and see if you can have a couple custom made. I don't feel like there would be any off the shelf options that will be ideal for what you are wanting to do. This is something I have never even thought about but this post has my gears turning now.

oh okay,what kind of rig are you throwing? live bait or artifical?

Not to derail the thread too much but Im just now getting more into catfishing and I am using similar setups. What kind of rigs do you use on these rods? Everything I read about catfishing almost all the rigs use 2+ oz weights which is way outside of the range for these rods and the rods I have as well.

I hadn't considered a soft plastic frog. Any idea what the weight on it is? What is your preferred rigging? Seems appealing since achieving a good action will be easier from a seated position in the kayak as opposed to a regular frog.

You would be amazed at the amount of force imparted on your line when the lure flying through the air comes to a dead stop.

I've had this happen on baitcasters spooled with braid. I eventually found out it was caused by dig in. It may not even be visible but when you're hitting a certain spot on the spool its stopping the line and the force causes your knot to fail launching the lure into orbit. You can fix it by running out your line and reeling it back in with proper tension. I did the same and haven't had any issues since. I figure after a certain amount of time of reeling in slack line or untensioned line the line tension on the spool will need to be reset again.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I am going to pick up a gavacho and a scum frog launch frog since those had the most suggestions and are affordable

My current frog setup is a Daiwa Aird X heavy/fast and the rod is an absolute broomstick. Right now I am using booyah pad crashers which weigh 1/2oz. Trying to cast them is incredibly frustrating as it is hard to cast accurately because they don't sufficiently load the rod. I toyed with the idea of getting a new frog rod but can't justify that when I have never even caught a fish on a frog. Haha. Instead I would like to get some heavier weight frogs that cast better on my setup. Most of the highly regarded/recommended frogs online are either 1/2 oz or 5/8oz. I saw a couple that are more than 5/8 like the megabass big gabot and jackal gavacho but both of those are pretty expensive and have poor reviews on tacklewarehouse. Anyone have experience with any of the bigger/heavier frogs and can recommend a couple I could try?

Haven't tried a jerkbait, tried lipless and crankbait I have a couple kastmasters i use for trout fishing but usually on a straight retrieve, any videos that detail how to rip them the way you describe? Sound fun and possibly effective I would try this but don't think I have any spinning gear that will cast this far enough Already tried 3" swimbaits, on underspin and regular head not positive but have heard reports of people catching wipers on minnows in the cove in the past week so think its possible that is what they are great idea,maybe I will try this havent fished live bait in 10+ years Another guy recommended ripping a kastmaster so i will definitely try both of these techniques There are two other things I want to try, one is in line with all the fluke suggestions but I was thinking of trying a donkey rig with smaller flukes nose hooked and working them close to the surface, the other one is a shallow jerkbait like a rapala sub walk, 6th sense hyperjerk or megabass karashi

There is a cove a couple miles away from my house (lake of the ozarks).It is fed by a pretty significant sized spring. So there is always current and cool water flowing into the cove. About this time of year until maybe october around an hour before sunset you will see tons of fish feeding on topwater. I know this cove is fairly well populated with stripers and largemouth both so not sure what is feeding. If the water is on the clear side you can see boils of pretty small minnows and you will also see them skipping out of the water when they are being targeted. I've tried throwing numerous poppers,buzzbaits,walking baits, ploppers, small paddletails,underspins,spinnerbaits of all different colors and sizes and I cannot get these fish to bite anything I am presenting them from the top or sub surface. From the other people I've talked to in the area they seem to have the same luck. What lures and or techniques can I use to catch these fish? I would love to have somewhere to go and catch some topwater fish after work but its getting exhausting trying to coax the scoundrels into biting.

I live at lake of the ozarks and I've heard whispers that the walleye prespawn bite is warming up. Never caught or targeted walleye in my life. What lures and techniques should I be using to target them this time of the year?

Eying the expride medium 7' vs 6'10 medium light and was hoping someone with experience with both could enlighten me on the differences and which presentations each one is better at.

I have one but I have only fished it a handful of times. Have never caught anything on it. It is rated as regular(moderate in daiwa talk). However handling it and casting with it I would say it is more of a moderate fast rod. I think its ideal use probably single hook moving baits. Not soft enough for treble hook lures and not fast enough for bottom contact. Although it probably would do either of those things just not ideal. If you go to daiwa japans website and translate it the japan page says the rod is mod fast and good for spinnerbaits/swimjigs but also possible for texas rigs which is right in line with what I already thought.

Phenix m1 or daiwa rebellion are going to have higher quality components or even the daiwa tatula at that price point

the versatility of the rod is going to be determined more by the power and action of the rod and intended applications not the brand or model of the rod. In your price range a couple that come to mind are the daiwa rebellion series and the okuma psycho stick. Both of these rods are a good value for your $ when looking at the specs on paper. The psycho stick series is pretty limited but they have a couple good versatile/basic models. Going to have more selection with the rebellion series. A lot of people are going to suggest the expride which is near that price range and can most likely be purchased on sale or with a discount at your desired price range. I haven't personally fished the exprides but on paper they have quality components. I think them being recommended has become somewhat of an echo chamber. Most likely due to their popularity with tacticalbassin. They are always being touted as the best bang for your buck rod series around. Maybe I need to try one. Haha The megabass levante series used to be $200 and at that price point was a fine rod with great aesthetics. However the price was recently raised to $250 and I feel like at that price point you can do better.

regret not picking one of these up as a beater when tw had them 30% off. Haven't fished them but on paper nothing better than this at that price point. To the OP guess what im saying is medium fast=versatile and this rod has great components.

Megabass Orochi XX Ronin, 6'9 Medium Fast spinning rod designed for the best jerkbait in existence, the vision 110.

I've been wondering how those taste. Did you taste one to see if it tastes like fritos?

So for rods right now I have: Megabass Ronin- M/F spinning(I throw my jerkbaits on this) AGS Target Sniper- Jigs(could be used for other stuff if wanted) Rebellion 610 MHR- Spinnerbaits Shimano SLX Glass Medium/Mod- Cranks I could easily ditch the 610MHR and throw all those baits on the target sniper but I wanted to use it as my dedicated jig/trig rod Still undecided on what other technique I want to work on I was thinking I may cheat and take multiple soft plastics, something like this 1. Jerkbaits 2. Crankbait 3. Spinnerbait 4. Jig 5. Tube/Senko/Other The other technique I am most widely considering is some kind of finesse paddletail, I could use it on a dropshot or jighead or underspin, pretty versatile