casts_by_fly

Yes, entirely possible.

That may be so. But in that case we should never hear of it unless it is a DQ or other 'offense'.

with your wealth of pictures over the past number of years and the broad behavior of smallies to revisit areas year after year, have you ever looked at pictures to see if maybe you caught the same fish again? I'm sure you have at least a couple times given how many you catch, though that would be a bit of time looking back through them to compare unless there was one pretty distinct.

I wish we had the poop emoji available as a reaction...

@king fisher and innocent until proven guilty. Per the article, he passed the first two times and then the third was undetermined. So if they don't have a "he's lying" then what are we even talking about? Even with a flawed test where you'd question a "he's lying" in the first place, if you don't even have that much then what are you doing?

If you can manage a couple more inches of rod, have a look at the Falcon eye crosser. It is 6'11" but feels shorter. It's intended as a frog rod but it does great with that 1oz bait range whether pitching a plastic or throwing a 3/4-1oz spinnerbait/vibrating jig. And of course it's a great frog rod. I'll throw a 6" magdraft on it (freestyle or not) and it does well there too.

It was the texas rig for me. Growing up we fished moving baits of all types and jigs. If the fish weren't chasing something then you hopped a jig on the bottom. Finesse was a split shot rig with a 4" centipede or ringworm. A texas rig was never in play because it was 'too slow'. I carried that mentality for a long time until I did the all plastics trip 4-5 years ago (previously posted here). A key learning for me then was that a texas rig doesn't have to be slow. Fish it just like a hopping jig- cast it out far and keep it moving across the bottom. Sure, you can slow it down but as a searching rig on the bottom it does a might good job. Then when you find some fish that way, slow down and cover the area more thoroughly with varied retrieves. This is nothing to say about using it as a pitching bait into cover the way I would have a jig. Since that learning moment, a texas rig is one of my 'always on deck' baits. For the grassy/mud bottom lakes I tend to fish more a texas rig just slides through cleaner than a jig does. And with a texas rig you just vary the weight or the plastic to have a whole new bait pretty quickly. If I rewind to the past 5 years worth of bass, I'd wager that 60-70% of the bass that make up my best 20 fish would have been on a texas rig of some sort (with the balance on a vibrating jig or a buzzbait).

I have that JDM bantam on my 7'4" jig rod so I think you can guess my answer. I'm throwing 18# shooter fluoro which is between 50# and 65# 832 braid. I have no capacity issues.

thanks glen! After the software improvements and lots of other things, it seems like cloudflare is your biggest pain in the butt issue and the main thing giving problems. And not something directly solveable with them. Any considerations for a new host?

I'm with okoboji eagle. I'd fish it as it for now, make sure you have a secondard propulsion in case of an issue, and then see how it fishes. Having fished a kayak at 4 mph I can see the difference between 2/4/6 mph and it is significant if you're on 1000 acres and have to launch at one end. But if you're launching and just starting to fish then run the bow mount for now until you see what you really want. And in your spare time, get the old outboard running that you have. If the lake is just no wake (but gas is fine) then you're not asking it to do much. And you always have it for backup. I wouldn't spend much money on it at this point, but since you turn wrenches already I'm sure you can get it puttering around.

@gim - you use the hole that your strap hooks into otherwise and run a bolt right though it. The retracting strap has a matching bolt hole on the back of it and it comes with a 1/2" dia bolt or so.

funny enough, i just had a set delivered to the house yesterday and was going to swap them today!

I watched Jason Christie's video on it when it launched and it's pretty slick. The different modes Todd is describing look awesome- mirroring the TM to hunt with your foot, locking and using the foot pad for the pole, using the pole to sweep while you're using the TM for moving around. All really slick. Totally integrated and done in a smart way. I'm a HBird guy but that would make me swap if I was setting up a new boat.

a baitcaster for casting 1/2 oz lures? Pick one of your preference in a 30-150 size. If a baitcaster can't do a 1/2 oz hardbait there is something wrong.

Good times! Right there with you.

I don’t know if you got the Bluetooth version of the battery. If not and You find yourself pushing the limits of the battery you could get a shunt meter which will tell you capacity remaining. That said, I think you got a 5ah charger? And 4 hours charging would be 20 Ah. That’s nothing in total use so you had plenty to go.

Not sure about the susky but there are spots all through the Ohio river drainage in western PA. Used to be quite a few 30 years ago but not nearly as many now as the smallies and largemouth have pushed them out.

You can’t go by voltage on a lithium to know how much you’ve used. They will stay at a pretty constant voltage from 90% down to 10% and then just stop. Something to keep in mind.

Heard my first gobble this morning while letting the dogs out. This the season to start messing with them here. I don’t hunt them (the seasons and tags here are screwy and restrictive) but I used to and have all my calls still.

Different ways for different days. There are so many different baits that are Texas rigged and each one is a little different. I am of the quicker preference for setting the hook on a Texas rig, but I’m usually throwing something like a rage bug where almost every time they are inhaling the entire thing on the first hit. When I’m pitching around a rage bug (either straight pitching into spots or hopping it back along the bottom), I’ll feel the hit, reel up the slack, and sweep the rod. If I’m throwing a zoom ole monster I’ll give it a half second because sometimes they will just grab the back half and not get the hook on the first eat. Anything Texas rigged on a spinning rod is fairly small and they are eating it from the first bite so I’m hitting them quickly.

@herder went down around new hope tonight. The forsythia were almost in full bloom just 25 miles south. Bottom of my street? Nothing. Pre-emergent is going down on the lawn this week. Tis the season.

@Glenn have you used an SV boost Daiwa spool to compare the two? What you’re describing is an SV boost on high so I’m curious.

I saw this post yesterday morning and said "he's crazy- we're nowhere close to forsythia's starting". I was out Wednesday evening and the woods up here are very winter still. Then I remembered that I'm right on the edge of the 'where stuff is just colder' part of NJ. So the forsythia at the bottom of the street are closed up tight but driving south just 5 miles yesterday evening had yellow bushes starting to pop open. It's amazing the difference just a few miles can make. Also says I need to get out of the house more.

Nah, just here and texting with a couple people. I was in a couple facebook groups for local stuff but it was 70% complaining or anything else negative, 20% “yeah, but”, and a post or two occasionally from someone useful. Not worth my time or mental energy when I can put my time here and feel so much better for it.

I thought Jason Christie might be a player in this one. He’s a “just go fishing” kinda guy with lots of shallow cover which is what this looks like. He’s not out of it 7lb back with 2 days left but that feels like a lot to pick up here.