Functional

mid afternoon November 21st Blue bird skies 3/8oz spinnerbaid, small colorado and large willow Oddly, the week before i broke my old PD with the same conditions and bait. Then went for about 5lbs at the above date and broke that PB.

Any update? I need to replace my current set of oakleys and wanted to see your thoughts on this set of lenses vs a standard polarized black.

I conveniently bought some Culprit 7.5 FAT in 2 colors yesterday (before reading this)....now I'm excited to try them.

under $200 I'd go ARK Tharp Hammer or Money Maker OR the Daiwa Tatula with cork grip. in my opinion I dont think anything above the price of either of those is worth it until you get to the mid to upper $200 range...even then the ARK tharps and Tatula are hard to beat.

Was it so much to ask for a rattling TRD or Tickler that isnt made by Googan? Really feel like this is a miss in the NED market, I easily pull more with a rattle than non rattle...they just last 2 fish at best. Asked that on Zman's IG and they replied it was in their micro's but there is zero mention of a rattle on their page or anywhere else I can find. Either way its not a standard TRD/Tickler.

HAHA. A more serious answer, 9/10 there is more than enough ambient light to tell there is an object there. What takes practice is knowing how far your cast is going without being able to see even a glimmer of line or lure as its traveling and knowing when to stop it before you hit something. Despite loving bait casters, night fishing I do with a spinning rod only, I can keep the bait far lower with no tangles than I can with a BC which becomes important around trees and docks.

in general on Gaston I've had best luck finding rocks and fishing them. There is a TON of grass all along the shore throughout gaston and makes it hard to pick apart. Best bet is to find flats to ledges from the shore, if it has rocks even better, some cover better than nothing. As mentioned wake boat traffic might dictate where you wont be fishing.

You just have to believe its there. All my night fishing has been done with a black double jointed jitterbug. Rock piles, docks, downed trees, rocky banks, anywhere that has a shallow flat out from the shore all produce very well. My father, uncle and myself used to fill a bag each and cull throughout the night with just that one lure.

for the time I did some kayak fishing before my boat I enjoyed (and still do) the bit that its exercise, it makes my pick apart smaller chunks of the lake instead of zooming off to a "promising" area and it takes up far less space to store. I sold my kayak but recently went out with my brother in law with his spare. After that experience I was reminded of all the crap I struggled with. Wind blowing you off spot fast, waves moving you off your spot, hooking a fish and it reeling YOU in. After that I've decided I'll never own another kayak without at least peddle drive. Was impossible to fish slow and complete more than 2 casts before you were way out of the area. All of that said, I love my boat, but theres not a month that goes by I'm not missing kayak fishing and wondering if I should sell my boat and go all in on a nice peddle drive kayak rig. Just something about it.

Hes also writing his script to talk about this very topic in a week or 2. The more time I spend on here the more I realize how much crap he steals from this site. More on topic: I always would assume those were survey markings or tags for tree cutting. Going to pay a bit more attention to them now if I see some just for a little fun. I'd be willing to bet the majority (and by the replies in this thread) would think similarly.

the force has no lag with the foot pedal and you can adjust tension on heel/toe action. The spot lock I will say has a delay. I've never used a MK or Ghost but if you hit spot lock and you havent been relatively stationary for 20-30 seconds it will always push you backwards first, almost like there is a slight lag in the GPS location and your actual position. The map always reads true but something with Spotlock has a delay. Once it spot locks you it does a very good job keeping you there and you can adjust how sensitive it is to keeping you in the same spot. It was purchased/updated as of July 2021 so if theres been an update that fixes this im all ears...its my only gripe with the TM.

night fishing used to be my favorite with my father in an aluminum boat. Wed go out after dinner around 7 or 8 just before dark and stay out until the bite cooled off after sunrise (usually 7 or 8). The amount of light you have at night is a lot more than you think. Only light we had is a spotlight used to ID our landing area (used to be in the woods, no ramps on the lake we used) and the clip on hat ones. We used to tape over all but 1 LED bulb to keep it as dim as possible, just barely enough to see for tying and getting baits. I agree, dont try new waters at night, stick to areas/lakes you know. We lived in NY at the time and at night in an aluminum boat it could get chilly, we brought a blanket for quick power naps on the bottom of the boat. Also, bring layers even if its not cold the dew will make you feel cold. Topwater bite at night is crazy, we used to tie on a double jointed black jitterbug with rattle and thats all wed use. Back when we used to catch to eat wed both come back with a stringer full of good sized bass. Keep your ears up, incredible the type of predators and kills you hear in the dead of night.

Wife and I watch wheel of fortune and jeopardy during dinner/kid feeding and thats about it. Only sports I watch are F1 and Supercross which I tape and watch first thing in the AM before the kid wakes up and to put myself to sleep in bed. My fishing addiction is there...if TV was taking up time I could be fishing it'd be an easy cut out of my life. Unfortunately its the things I cant avoid that prevent me being on the water...thats when the bait monkey sits on my shoulder, lights up a fat cigar and lounges right by my ear and I get into trouble.

Shimano - rods, reels Zoom - all soft baits Seibert - spinners and jigs covered I'll spring for a rigged hobie setup and misc hard baits I rarely use and im good to go.

I'm pretty sensitive to dehydration so I keep about 5 bottles under the drive seat at all times. I'll also bring a cooler out with more cold water and a small size bottle of gatorade. I've been told by doctors that room temp water absorbs into your body faster than cold, but cold water can help cool you off. The bottles under the seat always stay cool enough to qualify as "room temp". The gatorade is to help replenish the electrolytes that you sweat out or you can get a lot of other unsafe/unfun symptoms. It's very important though, even more so if you fish solo. There was a thread not too long ago about a guy who died and was found in the lake. Could easily happen when you are working a shoreline, get a little light headed and fall over/hit your head and with no PFD im sure 95% of us dont wear while working the TM you could be living in the lake permanently.

i think bass pro has the Garmin echomap 93sv on sale with transducer for $699. Not sure if its the old GT54 transducer but thats a pretty decent deal. Obviously you can use garmin's panoptix/livescope later on if you wanted.

For me it's not completely lacking sensitivity but the others I listed I feel a noticeable difference. I absolutely love my sierra for spinners and is dedicated to that now. I tried it with Trigs and jigs (what I bought it for) but bottom feel lacked for me with its softer tip. A little load on the tip like with a spinner or moving bait seemed to give it some life for me and enough flex to not rip the hook out on strikes l. Nothing against Sierras at all, just my feelings for those applications.

If you aren't looking for bottom contact sensitivity the dobyns sierra is great for the baits you mentioned. If you want bottom contact sensitivity too the ARK Tharp series/diawa tatula cork version on the low end and Expride A a bit above your budget. I've tried a bunch of inbetween rods and I'm not sure anything above the 140-150 range gets you anything better until you get to the expride.

What lakes in NC do you fish? Every one I've been hitting with a 3/8oz Booyah spinner with silver/silver main willow and small colorado in silver shiner with a Zoom super fluke jr in smokin shad (cut 1/4" to 1/2" off nose) as a trailer has killed them. depends on the column I'm trying to hit but try reeling it in JUST fast enough it doesnt sink any more on the retrieve. change up pace as rod tip position to change the attitude of the spinner. Personally I've never had luck changing up retrieve speed (during a single cast) or shaking it, constant retrieve has always worked best. Clear or muddy (and my home lake can look like chocolate milk sometimes) that exact combo has worked through it all.

thick...thick mono. honestly the thickest you can go before it starts significantly effecting the action of the bait you really want to fish.

Lake gaston, falls lake, jordan lake, smith mountain lake are probably all within your 3 hour window. Never fished falls yet but fished SML and LG and I catch more at LG but the quality was better at SML. I've only been to SML once but I hear some arms are much better than others...i was not in one of the "better" arms. There is more to do outside of the lake at Falls and Jordan since it is so close to Raleigh if that matters at all to you. LG and SML both have places on the water you can pull your boat up to and eat if you or your wife want to go out for dinner or lunch on the lake.

At a shooting class I took, one guy joked around he didnt come there to do bad. Instructor made it a point for everyone to know and said "If you don't come expecting to fail you will never be prepared to succeed" This was in the context of learning something new and mastering it....has its application but has stuck with me and think of it often on the tough days fishing.

I only know one lake well enough to do this but my home lake I typically know where the baitfish are when they are close to shore. If they are in shore, i fish the cover at my offshore or drop off locations. When I cant find the baitfish against the shore ill hit all the shore cover. All the active feeding usually happens when the bass go to push the baitfish out and it usually happens just outside either type of cover. after that the bass hang out where the baitfish previously were until its time to go eat again. I have not been able to identify the conditions that make the baitfish move yet. I have no idea if this is typical and the other lakes I fish I just havent put the time in to really find the spots the baitfish travel to...not to mention theres far more forage options in the other lakes.

might be coincidence but when I lived in NY this never happened. Once I moved to the south it became pretty common. Only thing I can think of is the pickerel and pike were much quicker to hit a spinner/paddle tail than a cat.

braid transmits under load but not under slack line like mono and FC do. Mono is not going to instantly stretch as soon as it under a little weight, you need more load to get any type of stretch in mono. You cant use a stretch argument for sensitivity because the stretch just isnt there under the lures weight (even with some weed cover). Mono/FC is going to be more sensitive under slack line because of its density, more weight moved during the hit will feel through the line, unlike braid which weighs practically nothing. both are good, but for different applications or fishing styles.