ErieCan

I'm 6'1" and find a 6'8" rod works well on the boat. I like a shorter handle on it as well.

Having always chased smallmouth, I've never targeted largemouth other than the ones that make their way out into the deeper weed beds where the smallies will sometimes hang out. But this flipping and pitching business is a lot of fun! My first couple trips out I used mostly a swim jig and chatterbait. Today I whipped out the flippin stick and went into the thick of it. Ended the day with 15 bass and 3 pike. The largest bass weighed in at 4.2lbs (she was stout and fat). Most were 2lb clones. The pike were hitting a chatter bait but no bass. I pulled 5 bass out of one small isolated patch of cat tails. The biggest bass was in less than 2' of water unter a floating mat of weed. Used a 1oz punch weight and an Xzone adrenaline craw. *PS, I need a way to take pics of me with the fish. These extended arm pics are lame. Lol.*

I was set on buying a Victory rod. Looked at a 7'3" MH/F casting version. Ended up buying a Daiwa Rebellion of equal length and action for a bit less money. The Daiwa was lighter and had a nicer taper in my opinion. Both great rods. I think St. Croix has the better warranty however and is made in the USA.

There's a vid on YouTube of a guy losing 2 frogs to the same pike. Then catching that pike later on a spinner bait and getting his frogs back when he cleaned it. At 4:19 minutes he tells the story. Cleans the pike later in the vid. The whole video made me laugh though. *language warning*

Our bass season started on Saturday here and due to the weather, the bay wasn't exactly safe. I headed out this morning and although I was fighting the wind all day, I managed eight largemouth. Nothing big, all 1.5-2 lb (5 lb bass are considered big up here). A couple hit a chatterbait, then I switched to a jig and craw and picked up the rest. Normally I would have ventured out in the bay for smallmouth while they're still around but the whitecaps said otherwise.

I own a Fuego LT 2500D-XH (high speed), three Tatula bait caster rods and an Intenza spinning rod. The Fuego is a great reel at that price. The XH version is like 34" per turn so be aware of that model. The Tatula rods are great. Tough and sensitive rods and I do want one of their spinning rods. The Intenza I ordered online. It's a 7' med-light, x-fast model. These rods tend to feel stiffer than their rating. The tip isn't as soft as my St.Croix x-fast mediums. Very light in weight though.

Got a bunch of slammers and swammers. Bass season isn't open here yet but I've used the 5.5" swammer on a big skirted jig for pike. They give a good wobble to a swim jig and held up really well to pike teeth.

Power shot T-rig worms into the thick stuff.

I found something interesting on another forum. A guy had a 60 Command Thrust like me and tried 4 blade props on a 16' aluminum console. He was getting too much lift in the stern. Complained he was blowing out with the four blade props. It was found that because its a command thrust, a motor meant to push more weight like pontoon boats, and the props therefore are larger diameter, that it's too much thrust for a smaller boats which are light in the stern (like mine). Most of my weight is in the mid to bow area. Me and a buddy at the console and two trolling motor batteries near the bow. The spitfire may not even be an option for my setup. A standard gear case would probably do fine with it.

I have a Lund Rebel 1650 with a Mercury Command Thrust 60hp. The boat came with a 13.75 diam, 15 pitch 3 blade. With that prop I'd get max 33 mph at about 5700-5800 RPM (according to the analog gauge). I needed a spare and wanted to try a 4 blade (I fish Lake Erie and wanted a rough water prop). The dealer said that Merc 4 blade Spitfire props are designed in a way that you shouldn't have to go down in pitch. So he sold me a 13.4 diam, 15 pitch spitfire. I took it out today and although I really liked the hole shot, control, and the fact that it really lifts the stern up on plane, I was maxing out at about 5300 RPM and barely hitting 32 mph. The only other option in the Spitfire for my set up (according to the Merc prop selector site) is a 13.8 diam, 13 pitch. Increased diameter, but two pitch down. Do you think this prop will solve the RPM issue? Will it drop my top speed too much?

Most of our storm fronts come from the south west. That SW wind leading up to the rain/storm the fish will be super active. Especially as the storm starts rolling in. Typically, after the storm, the weather system circle and pull a high pressure cold front. That will be a North-east wind. Usually the fishing is pretty lousy at that time.

I have three Tatulas and they all look like the flat one of the two. I have a St. Croix Mojo Bass 7'4" and it's guide wraps look rounded like the other one in your pics. Honestly, I doubt it's going to make a difference.

What do you guys think of the Owner Twistlock flipping hooks? I ordered a few to try but out season doesn't start for a while yet.

I ordered a bunch of those trashmaster jigs. Seem perfect for pitching and swimming it from hole to hole. We get huge beds of millfoil up here.

Cut the line and put the bass in the live well. Check if blood is pumping out while in the water. If not, it's going to be ok. Bring wire clippers with you next time. If it happens again, cut the barc end out and slide the hook out or if you can't cut ass much of the hook off as you can and release.

Nice to see they're not as heavy in weight as the Mojo Bass. One of the tackle shops near me has a bunch in stock. I wanted to check them out in person but my whole province is in lockdown (yet again).

Being more of a smallmouth bass fisherman in the past, I would say that what I overlooked were baits typically geared towards largemouth. Everyone uses drop shot, tubes, and jerkbaits up here. I wanted to get down into the deep weed beds so I started using finesse swimjigs with paddle tail trailers. I went as brown as I could to mimic gobies and would slay the smallies with them. The down side was those weed beds also hold a lot of small pike. So it gets a bit expensive. Lol

In some situations I leave a long tag end so the weeds slide off and don't hang up on it.

I laughed so hard at this video. It's long so here's the summary. He loses a hollow body frog to a pike (bit off). He ties on another frog, same pike bites that one off too. Then he uses a spinner bait and eventually catches that same pike. Later in the video he cleans the pike and gets his frogs back. (caution, some curse words used in the video).

I got home from work and there it was at the door! About 3 days sooner than anticipated. I put a reel on it and tried casting a beat up Rage toad in the field. It definitely casts great. A bit heavier in weight than my Tatula rods but not bad over all. I think it will make a great toad rod and I'll probably be chucking some big pike spoons on it while I wait for bass season to open here. I want to try Dobyns but I can't find anyone in Canada that carries them except for Amazon.ca (and thier prices are all over the map). It's interesting you're using a glass rod because I thought of trying that. I have a (new version) Daiwa 7'2" MH glass crankbait rod. It's a bit lighter and more stout than other similar priced glass rods I played with. Daiwa calls the material Glatech, which isn't 100% fiberglass. Says it's glass wrapped in carbon fiber. Anyways, I've only tried it with small diving cranks for walleye so far, but I think it will serve me as a good chatterbait and top water rod as well (with braid).

I just ordered this rod. I plan to use to use it for toads mostly. I heard it has a bit of tip so it can cast the frogs/toads well. How would you rate it?

Same, I fish Erie and the bays. Can catch 5lb and under pike all day long. Keeps the fishing bug in check at least.

I fish the waters of Ontario Canada, and we used to go fish the American side of the upper Niagara before our season opened. This always made me wonder why our season was the way it is. (Opens the 4th Saturday of June, when the bass are done spawning). I'm not sure about the regs in all States, but it seems like you can fish bass all year in most places. I know male bass will guard the nest (eggs/fry), and they say that pulling them off the nest leaves their young open to predators. But it seems that you all have fairly healthy bass populations down there, so is fishing them during/post spawn really that detrimental? For 2021, they are opening a short pre-spawn "catch and release only" season in one of the Ontario management zones. Probably an experiment. Some areas here are completely closed to all fishing from around mid May until the season opens at the end of June. Mind you, that's probably the reason it's such a good fishery, but as stated, the US has good fisheries as well with year round seasons.

Go the lightest line you can get away with. In your case, it sounds like 20 on the jerkbait rod and 30 on the MH rod would do just fine.

I have braid on all of my rods. I'm getting more into largemouth fishing this season but I've been fishing smallmouth, pike, and walleye for years on Lake Erie and its bays. For your MH rod, I think it depends on what cover you're fishing. If you're going to be hauling bass out of thick vegitation and such, go with 50lb at least. For your medium, 20-30lb braid and leader would be fine. I run really long fluorocarbon leaders for smallmouth in the clear open water of Erie. For jerkbaits, I use fluorocarbon because of the clear water but if your water is stained, you can use mono. The benefit to mono is the stretch, and that helps when fishing trebel hook baits. Fluoro will stretch a bit, which is why I run the long leader on those baits so I have enough leader line to provide the stretch.