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I'll keep the occasional Walleye if I happen to catch one, especially while camping. If I'm ice fishing a stocked trout lake, I'll keep my limit. I should keep some pike, but I don't really feel like dealing with the slimers. Not sure I'll ever keep a smallmouth, and a lot of the waters I fish have special regs anyways.

I've used it below freezing without issue, but not a ton. Yakima has been making cargo boxes for a long time including plenty marketed to the ski / snowboard crowd. They wouldn't use a plastic that couldn't handle the cold. I'd recommend trying to get in touch through their website. They generally have very good customer service.

I purchased mine early 2023, and although I used it all last season, I never bothered to put it on the truck this year. I also bought it for half price, and I feel that's an acceptable amount. No way would I drop $700(after shipping / tax) on it, although even then it's on the less expensive side of rod boxes. It does feel flimsy, but I never had any functional issues with it. I didn't have any combos that wouldn't fit, and I liked that the box is deep enough to throw my waders and wading boots or other gear underneath the rods. I didn't notice much added wind noise or buffeting. As for security, it latches at the front and back, I think it would take some work to pry into it. I'm more worried about someone with a cordless angle grinder cutting the clamp brackets and just taking the whole thing away. It really only stayed on last year because I was doing more shuttle trips with a buddy. Getting the rods out of the cab and throwing my yak on the bed rack just made that easier. But he moved away, and I've been doing more solo / camping trips. The MPG hit with both the rod box and kayak on the rack is just too much for the longer trips, and I'd rather have my tonneau cover on to keep the box covered when my truck is at a landing overnight. Overall, if it retailed in the $350-450 range it would make more sense.

Winter - usually whatever panfish jig I'm using that a bass happens to grab. Spring - Choppo Summer - Choppo Fall - Choppo

A lot of online sites do that, especially if you haven't ordered from them before. I got 10% off my micro power pole order the same way. If it's not something I need right away and I'm just 'window shopping', I'll punch in everything short of my CC info and see what happens. Unfortunately that also tends to get me signed up for their mailing list but it's usually easy enough to unsubscribe.

I'm a big lure guy, so I start with the 120 size Choppo and go down from there.

From the MN boating guide: https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/boatwater/boatingguide.pdf Probably a good idea to check your state regulations. I'm not saying that what the row team did here was right, but from the looks of it I'll bet more than a few folks here get upset at cyclists riding on the road as well.

Fished the upper Mississippi this past weekend. It was flowing pretty decent, and surprisingly muddied up where I was. Bit of a bummer, was hoping it had cleared up by now. Saturday was rough, I was off my game and had maybe a 50% hookup rate. Sunday was much better. Got on the water early, and the bass were up shallower and hanging out around current seams and breaks. Only fished for a few hours, but got some decent smallmouth and a surprise largemouth. First time I've got one in the Miss' here, and it was the biggest one I've got in a while. Smashed a walking topwater. Just over 4lbs and somewhere above 19". I need to find my bump board..

30-40lb flouro leader material has worked well for me. I think a lot of folks will just grab flouro line and expect it to behave the same as leader material, but it doesn't. Seaguar blue label is my go-to.

It's legal to target beds here, but I don't like doing it (unless it looks like a big'un). They're never all doing the same thing at the same time, so I'll usually just look for the hungry ones roaming the shallows.

Micro power pole is the best thing I've bought after my pedal kayak. I got the 8' HD spike as I do a lot of river fishing. One trick - add everything you want to the cart, run through all the steps to check out but don't complete the purchase. Make sure your e-mail is in there. A lot of times after 24 hours or so you'll get an e-mail from the retailer offering a %10 off code to complete the purchase.

Had a pretty good weekend, even managed a few on the fly despite the wind. Ended up with about 25 smallies on Saturday and another 15 or so Sunday. Saw a few beds but didn't look like they had spawned yet. A wake bait running 6-12" was the top producer for me. Fish seemed to be hanging out at drop offs, especially around points. If there was a shallow flat with a drop, it was almost a guaranteed strike once that wake bait made it to the drop. They weren't too picky though, also got them on a chatterbait, spinner, a few top water hits, wacky worm, crankbait.. Not sure what the water temp was, but they were for sure bulking up before the spawn.

I think 4mph is a target speed for most pedal kayak manufacturers. My Jackson pedal drive will do 4mph with a token effort. 3mph without trying so I have to actually pedal pretty slow to hit my desired trolling speed of 2-2.5 mph. If I want to sweat I can get to 5mph. But yeah, being able to make adjustments and such without putting the rod down is so nice, I don't think I'll ever give up a pedal yak. I've thought getting something with a motor but the added complexity and weight just hasn't made sense to me yet.

I run all my setups braid to flouro, both casting and spinning. Mainly Suffix 832 to Seaquar blue label flouro leader anywhere from 20-40lb on casting setups that I'm throwing bigger / more expensive lures and 10-15lbs on spinners throwing jigs and such. I'll use an FG knot if I'm at home, but if I need to retie on the water it's an alberto. I normally throw bigger topwaters and crankbaits and haven't had an issue using braid. River smallies aren't leader shy, and running heavier flouro means you won't get bit off by pike/musky quite so often. You in the Metro area? Always looking for other folks to kayak fish with.

Unfortunately I didn't even think about that. I did give them the 'you guys know it's not bass season, right?' and one guy gave me a sheepish 'yeah..'. But I was also the only other truck at the launch and didn't want to risk any retaliation. I don't think an extra few weeks of fishing is worth living in Nodak 😁 I agree, and it's also why I went over to Wisconsin on Sunday.