Darth-Baiter

every bathroom at my house has a Toto butt-washing toilet. so yea. i miss home. sleeping? the first night sucks, but subsequent nights are fine. i stay at Hamptons if i can. for work, all bets are off. my job has a hotel allotment and there isnt a Hampton on the planet that falls within budget. it also depends on why i am traveling. i once did an elk bowhunting trip from a hotel as homebase. best sleep ever. exhausted but showered. it was d**n luxurious.

i was casting to shore. but i always had my ears and eyes tuned for surfacing bass. i had my popper rod on deck the whole time. when the bass surfaced they would only make a ruckus for about 1 minute and then disappear. when they did, i pull up my worm and warp drive to the fray. i got it to 5.2 mph according to my fishfinder. full on sprint. i got 8 bass that way. i would cast beyond the feeding frenzy and WHAM! fish on. it is the fastest i have ever gone in my kayak. hands on the rudder. a turn is kinda sketchy at that speed if you are unprepared. my legs are strangly sore. 5.2mph. now i know. 2022 Hobie Outback.

i have an older (old) pflueger 20. still going strong. it is minuature. so tiny you could hang it from the rearview as an ornament. i have taken big Sierra Nevada trout on that thing. my first impression when i took it out of a box decades ago was, "i'm gonna break this thing!" but nope. crammed into a backpack, and over 200 miles hiking after trout, the thing has never failed me. i bought it when i was college broke, so i know it didnt cost much. i cant remember now.

i totally appreciate you taking the time to type this out for me. i dont use the anti reverse either but will try it to fight a fish once. (maybe once only). drag noise. i never knew it was a thing, but now having the Vanford, i get it. hahah. i bought the Tatula 15 minutes ago. getting 20% off was just too low hanging of fruit for me to resist. $160!! i think my Vanford is repairable, so i am not getting off that ride anytime soon. i have plans to hook a big OK striper on it. HAH! thanks, Mr Socal.

probably mine as well. but i have only really had a handful of spinning reels in my life. i'm not well versed in all things spinning.

thanks!!!. just did this. ordered a Tatula LT2500 and the coupon code worked!! took the sting out of destroying my Vanford 2500 this weekend down a couple of pain notches. every other site excluded Daiwa and Shimano from their sale. boxing Vanford up for repairs hopefully.

i see this guy at Clearlake with a Slayer Max 10. he brings it to the lake in the back (inside) of a Toyota Prius. he just just sticks a tiny bit out the back and bungee downs the hatch. i'm stopping at gas stations and he just guffaws at me (i joke). it is an enviable setup he has. i love his can-do attitude.

you stole that thing!! well done. i like it alot. that is a 10 foot kayak. slayer 10?

that is a cool trailer!! you reporpose a utility trailer? i rinse my kayak with my hose after use. i might wipe it down to remove that mudline. if it is really dirty, i use Dr Brommers household cleaner. it is perfectly biological safe. i know a man that uses it as his sole soap. dishes to bathsoap. but he is a bit quirky. haha..

i rolled my kayak yesterday trying to reach a distant lake. on a steep trail. i thought i got away unscathed until i tried to dropshot. NOPE. my reel was kinda crushed. i beer-can crushed the bail for sure. then i noted the spool is kinda skewed to the side. i bent the main shaft a tiny bit. i talked to Mike at DVT, and i will send it to him for repairs (and get him to clean my SLX DC). this is the catatyst for me to try a Daiwa substitute in the interim while my main spinning is down. so i LOVE my Vanford 2500. should i get a Tatula 2500? it looks nice on paper. save a few bucks. i am shopping for similar specs under the Daiwa flag.

Got my second all time punch-bass. On my makeshift Punch-tube. punching a tube works. The bait doesn’t take a beating like a typical punch rig. we got into them. Mostly weightless t-rig. But drop shot and the aforementioned PUNCH. An ocean running cigarette style boat creates an epic boat wake. Two of them racing? Egads. The wake is almost surf-able. In the end it’s the boat traffic that ran us into shallow waters where there was much fewer fish. No bigs for sure.

I have a SLX 150 DC that is getting rough. I’m shopping for a replacement to kick the DC into the dry bag as a backup. I have a Curado200k and various Abu Garcia and Lews stuff. The 150MGL is simply a pleasure for me. I can backhand so accurate. Any level of effort/power of cast, it just doesn’t nests. I have birdnested it beyond saving the line, but that because my confidence inspired visions of grandiose, and I said, “hey watch me skip this worm under that tree”. Nope. Reality needed line cutters. the 150 is very obviously the reel MVP in my humble lineup. I was about to buy another 1 or two today but the 15% discount doesn’t seem to apply to reels. Maybe I’ll buy just one. For now. Maybe this upcoming November I’ll walk into a fishing store in Japan; but for now it’s the domestic 150MGL for me. It’s within my budget. Is it mechanically different from the 200K?

Boating traffic was insane. Silver lining: my Hobie Outback is darn near impossible to flip with any boat wake. Yachts passed me while towing wake boats and I just rode them out. We purposely tried to “Surf” some huge rollers, with poor results. bass? Wow there were lots of dinks. I lost count of tiny bass with huge appetites. We managed a few respectable fish. A 5lb was big fish of the day. Plenty of 2-3lb fish. We stayed out for 10 hours. I got a punch bass! Freaked me out. He hit me twice. First time I was, “wait! Was that a fish?” I punched again and he grabbed my punch tube. I’m tired. Really tired. ‘’oh, I got one random miniature striped bass.

I was bored yesterday and the YouTube algorithm had decided I needed this video. (plus a bunch of yoga ones as well - after searching for some lower back pain stretches) Roland was in teaching mode. he uses a swivel to lock his weighted Texas rig worm in place. I have nothing to lose, so I am going to try this in the California Delta tomorrow. it is very locked in, I do admit. seems like moss will hang up on it. we shall see.

my kayak is stored in my garage. I fish quite often and I have yet to see any UV fading. I even pulled off a few stickers I got bored with and I dont see the outline of any protected section where the sticker was. congrats on the dream kayak. I'm sure I won't do any sprays and stuff. I need less chemicals in my life, not more

I am fishing tomorrow. theCA Delta. I am tired of the bait keeper tab on my current dropshot rod. I moved everything over to a 7'1" Med Light Dobyns. I'll be fine. my favorite bait is the Zoom Z-drop worm in green pump.

Wind. even a breeze. I took my wife's friends inflatable out and I felt like a plastic bag blowing around in the wind. it was at it's beckon call. they are so light, wind really affects an inflatable. at least this was my experience.

hard bottom underwater is relative I imagine. I find great joy in that tactile feel of contact between my bait and lake floor. I love imagining what my bait looks like and when you have the perfect feel, it is so obvious when a bass picks up the offering.

I use the same hook exclusively. it just works for me. and I Texas rig 99% of the time since I just kinda plop the presentation anywhere. Owner Downshot offset hook. usually in 1/0 size, but on the CA Delta or Clearlake, I up it to the 2/0. a tiny pond near my home, I drop down to a #1. line? 20lb braid, (because that is all I can find, or I would go lower) and 10Lb flouro leader. nothing fancy. I have started with 3/16 tungsten weights, but I did really well with the garden variety lead weight. I'd argue I have more fish from the leads.

IRONY ALERT!! you all bring up hammers. my wife got me a cool hammer. i have used it a lot. mostly rebuilding all my fences at my last home. every contractor that visits me, offers to buy my hammer. it is not for sale. :).

i love your statement. ahhahah..

side note. if my seat ever fell in the water, I think the seat cushion will float it. it is attached by a strap in the back. those Hobie seats are costly!! the salesman admonished me repeatedly telling me to NEVER forget to clip the seat in.

Senko. I've even taken to use about a 3" section of broken worm as a jig trailer. seems to be working.

Yikes! No mine is silent. I think my 2022 seat is different than yours. Back on topic. I’m can get up fairly easily just by grabbing an H-rail which is lower than my seat. I think with me it’s mental. Touching the rail forces me to shift weight forward. if been getting up off the floor handless all weekend. I might be building strength. Yesterday I was doing the “baby pose” yoga move and I hear my wife say,”oh how cute”. I thought she was talking about me. I look up and my dog is doing “downward dog “ next to me.

great looking home! has great curb appeal! mine isnt bad either. but that one leak was like a thorn in my side. i will have a really good looking patch. he might have to ugly it up some to make it match the more dated hyper texured look of my region in the 70's.