OldManLure

Is there a chance it was bone or white and someone painted chartreuse stripes to “dress it up”?

Algae blooms can be dangerous. Physical contact with the water, breathing the surrounding contaminated air and the worst, ingesting contaminated water can each cause pretty significant health issues. I know of golfers getting sick after retrieving golf balls, and have heard reports of kids who fished affected ponds and got sick. I would definitely avoid it.

That’s why I call them kayhacks. If they lack a cockpit, have scuppers, need batteries to move or fish, light up like a party boat and require a trailer and ramp to get to water, I believe it is an insult to call them a kayak.

In addition to other comments, be careful that you’re not reeling slack line. Without some tension it can lay too loose on spool, and is an invitation for snarling on subsequent casts.

A technique that allows one handed or one armed corrections is, in my opinion, an incredibly valuable skill for effectively fishing in current or wind…especially current. Not having to put down the rod to maintain, or even regain, position has resulted in a number of fish that I’m pretty certain would have otherwise been missed. I will admit that I do find it a little more difficult to accomplish in my sit-on, or what I like to call my kayhack, than I do in one of my sit-ins.

On the river in my sit-ins, 7’ M/F, 7’MH/F, 7’3” H/M, 6’6”M/M…all spinning. In slow water in my sit-on, I’ll swap out the two 7’ spinning for two 7’ casting. And I always carry a 5’6” UL for extra fun.

USCG recommends 5:1 in calm water, 7:1 in rough water. So 30’ of line in 6’ of calm water.

They work very well. I wish I had a few.

I don’t recall if it was something they fed the fish, injected into the fish or added to the water.

Chemically.

I don’t know whether or not you’d be interested, but since you brought up fish sounds there is a site that has/is cataloguing fish sounds. fishsounds.net I have only seen it mentioned, and have not visited it so I know nothing about it.

I don’t believe in so-called reaction strikes. I believe that fish will often experience periods where the desire to feed is suppressed while other biological needs are met, primarily digestion. If you keep tossing lures, and on the 20th cast you catch one, it is because either the biological process that suppressed feeding are ‘turned off’ and the fish bites, or a hungry fish has come to see what all the commotion is about. I am looking because I think there are some other studies that I’m interested in revisiting. I used to subscribe to several journals, but no longer have any hard copies. I will see what I can find online in their archives. I will make sure to forward you links.

I hear you. I have a jet I love; the problems I’ve learned to tolerate. But I fish from my kayaks at least 20-30x for every trip with the boat. The jet can take me a lot of places but could never reach some of the places I fish from the kayak. And of course there is the whole ramp thing. If forced, I’d give up the boat before parting with any of my kayaks.

Very true. Outside of the spawn, bass seem to generally become more territorial and more likely to exhibit defensive behaviors with age especially when resources like food and desirable habitat like structure, water health, temperature, food, etc. become restricted. I have often wondered when a bass seems content to just bang my bait rather than eat it if I’m in an area that for whatever reason holds fewer fish, and the fish banging my bait isn’t hungry but simply defending its spot. On a few occasions, I’ve been able to revisit the area. Once in awhile I’ve been lucky and pulled a fish out of that spot when, I guess, the fish was as much in the mood to eat as defend.

You’re right. I recall seeing results of studies examining feeding behaviors that found that when bass were ‘blinded’ through the manipulation of light, their feeding behavior was negatively impacted. This was not the case when deprived of the input provided by their lateral line system. When relying on vision alone, they seemed to need to be much closer to the prey before deciding to strike and were less successful. When relying on only the lateral line and the spatial information it provides, their success was not affected as much. Another observation I found interesting was that without the information gathered by the lateral line, fish relied more on inhaling food than attacking and ‘biting’ it. While these studies may not have addressed what bass see, they did provide some answers on how they ‘see’ it.

Every cast is a +\- guaranteed fish.

At best, you’d learn how a captive bass in a confined space behaves.

No rod, regardless of expense or any other quality, is going to magically convey the bottom composition. It is the experienced person holding the rod who will know the difference. And the amount of experience that enables distinguishing the differences can be gained using rods of any quality.

Use the receipt as a trailer and the gullible bass will eat it up.

https://hawkeyeelectronics.com/products/fishtrax-1c-fish-finder A little more high-tech than paddle poking, but simply so. The transducer drops over the side of a canoe or kayak and is suspended by an adjustable float. It lets you keep paddling while surveying the bottom (and seeing fish). The screen is about the size of a larger Iphone. I bought mine specifically to explore and ‘map’ my favorite stretches of the Upper Potomac from my sit-in kayak. Without it, I’m pretty sure I would have never found a number of spots related to underwater structure…sudden drop offs to small holes, shelves in layers of rock, submerged boulders that created underwater current breaks, humps on the bottom, etc. that have turned out to hold smallies more often than not. And on several occasions over deeper water I was even able to ‘see’ a few of the rascals. And when the river has been too high to float, I’ve also used it on several nearby lakes that were unfamiliar to me. And in the deeper water of those, not only does it locate fish, but revealed in more detail some features that were only generalized on available contour maps. Other than my pfd, it has proven to be the best $99 I’ve spent for anything related to my kayak fishing.

Read the room. The reality is that a huge number of Americans don’t have the luxury to decide whether “to suck it up or not”. The decision is being made for them.

I’d be an advocate for spinnerbait, jerkbaits, lipless, buzzbaits, jigs (inc swim), bladed jigs, swimbaits and tubes. My opinion of the rest is they are redundant, overhyped, novelty, or gimmicks.

So they want you to keep them and ensure they die rather than release them and give them a 50:50 chance?

With everything else being equal, I would be surprised if the difference in casting distance between 10# and 14# is more than a couple feet.

Isn’t it fascinating how that works.