casts_by_fly

enough power to reliably set a 1/0 standard wire hook? Treble hooks are about useless here from the end of may until October due to grass.

I certainly don’t need it but for the price tw has them on clearance for I’m tempted. The zodiacs with the same spec gets good reviews here and then new curado that my dad owns fishes nice in the hour or two I was throwing it (medium I think). I’m a falcon user primarily and if this was a falcon I would have bought it already. I’m thinking lighter Texas rigs, weightless senkos, and maybe a finesse jig now and then.

epoxy isn’t actually that bad. You have to heat the tip top frame without burning the blank. Do it gently and it will eventually just release. You can tie a rubber band to it pulling straight out while you heat that way as soon as it releases it pops and you stop. That said, I don’t think it’s epoxy they are using. It’s some other kind of glue.

A lot of factory rods aren’t using hot melt anymore. You can try it, but if it loose just pull it off and use fresh glue.

Depends on the model but that’s about the right time frame for most all of them. Which one are you looking at?

every situation is different and sometimes the bass want a fast drop while others a slow fall and swim. That said, you’re describing a lot of what I have here. Grass, not super heavy pads, likely modest depths to 15’ or so. If I only had one weight for all of that it would be a 1/4 oz. It’s not going to push down through heavier cover at all but if you pick the holes when pitching it will be okay and fishing the edges it’s great. That said, I’d advise having 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 on you. I’ll occasionally throw 1/8 or 3/4 but that’s once or twice a season each. I’ll have both 1/4 and 3/8 tied on most trips this time of year. Usually both are fine and fishing the same, I’ll just have two different plastics rigged.

not sure what part of PA you’re talking about but western pa has plenty of grass and frog fishing.

Yeah, that’s a special fish. That’s better than a 10 lb largemouth caught anywhere. Well done.

And don’t forget, if you’re comparing to 832 braid the diameter is thick for a given strength. 30 lb 832 is more like 40-45# test

if sales are much lower than anticipated for the quarter/year then they might do that for a limited time (flash sale) to boost product flow. However that’s not a good strategy long term for business. To do that, you’re basically buying inventory at full (wholesale) price and selling it for cut (retail) price. That’s the way to dilute your margins very quickly. Less margin means less operating profit. now what happens is manufacturers will sell them the product cheaper for a sale period to promote volume on their side. But not all manufacturers take part. That’s why you will basically never see Falcon rods on sale anywhere. They don’t do this type of promotion. On the other hand, Pure fishing does it all of the time with every sale. if you want to get 10-20% off at TW, buy a bunch of gift cards when they go on sale at Christmas time. That’s the only guarantee way.

manufacturers are the ones that determine what gets put on sale. They provide sales incentives, discounted prices, or other financial support for sales. If you don't like what's on sale, look at the mannufacturer, not the seller. The seller only puts things on sale by their choice if they have a major overstock. And even then a big retailer would go back to the manufacturer for financial support for overstocking them.

A helix 9 or bigger (or solix/apex) with the larger transducer is the best side imaging I've seen. I note the size because a Helix 7 and smaller comes with the little transducer. (there isn't an 8" SI) Since you have an ultrex I would say running humminbirds for everything and networking it all would be ideal. LVS34 is the best live imaging and I'd leave that up front. All that said, you already have the 106 up front and the transducer mounted for SI. You're already going to keep that anyway for live imaging. You already have the black box and networking set up for Garmin. So in that case, I would just go garmin the whole way. HBird SI is better, but Garmin is still very good and you own them. Network them together and just roll with it. If the HBird you have is still mounted after adding the second 106, then leave it for 2D. Then use the console 106 for maps and SI. Dedicate the up front 106 for live.

probably another 15-30'.

I start with the standard frog (pad crasher). For the most part, if I'm throwing a frog its around heavier grass than lighter grass so the bigger frog stands out a little more on the mats. If the fish are swatting and missing or if its pressured fish then I'll go to the smaller jr pad crasher. I never go bigger. Maybe I should, but if I want to throw a 4" bait on top of grass I have other options. Rod wise, my 6'11" Falcon Eye crosser is my frog rod. 50 lb braid, 1/2-1 1/2 rating. heavy/fast. If I am going to the JR, that rod will throw it but it starts to struggle so I'll drop down to my 6'10" Head Turner which has more or less the same action but is a full power lighter. Its got 16 lb mono so I don't bang out the long casts in that case. Though, if I'm dropping to the JR size then I'm probably not fishing 50 yard deep mats.

I have a pack of yum dingers in the same color so haven't bought that in the senko. GP/GPblack flake/GP blue craw seems to be my best producer here no matter what bait I'm throwing. Rage bug, craw, palmetto bug, worm, etc. I don't throw a stick worm as much as I should, but when I do its probably that wacky dinger in GP. Separately, what mono(s) have you settled on? I too am a mono fan unless its braid for specific applications. Supernatural has become my general favorite aside from heavy big game for swimbaits/big pitching.

I carry 5 (very rarely 6). If I was carrying 10 rods I might prerig because I could rig one of everything!

thanks!

Managed to hit my favorite three times in 11 days now and have a decent idea what’s going on. I posted about my anniversary trip on Memorial Day. Two more trips (one early morning and one late evening) have yielded 9 and 15 bass plus a few more lost fish. Nothing over 16-17” but I’ll take the constant action in a time period I’ve struggled in the past.

So basically if you showed up with some green pumpkin pepper in a range of baits you’d be in pretty good shape.

Yep. And as much as they can’t replace sentimental value, they could give him a brand new trailered topper.

summer before last I dropped the kayak in the water, threw the rods in, went back to get my tackle bag and had forgotten it. Fortunately I DID prerig rods so I at least have five lures plus a couple cutoffs in the bottom of the boat. me too and that’s been my methodology. I carry five rods so one of them should be working, right? But changing out lures, even taking just two minutes and giving my back a break to sit down, is time I should be fishing! So I am reluctant to swap. So if I guessed wrong the night before I’m probably going to stick with it longer than I should. I think going forward I’m going to try going unrigged on evening trips. I’ll grab a couple likely lures and have them in the ‘day box’ side of the boat and not in the tackle bag, nothing on until after I launch and have a look.

based on the testing I just did, I’d say a half of that is definitely possible. With a heavy frog probably a bit more.

I love rigging tackle. I love thinking ahead and picturing that the bass are going to want a spinnerbait (or insert other bait) today based on what I think will happen. I check the weather, the wind, the moon, the lake levels and temps, etc, to make a plan for how I'm going to fish. Maybe its an anticipation thing, like playing the lottery. Last night was a late addition trip to the plan. I did the frog distance testing yesterday morning so had cut all of the lures off my rods. I planned to re-rig them before leaving, but got waylaid. I ended up launching with 4 unrigged rods and a fifth with something I had no intention of throwing and cut it off immediately. It got me thinking about why I pick certain presentations ahead of time, my reluctance to take a minute to change lures, and my mental anchoring to something I think should be happening and not adapting to what is happening. I'm not saying I'm going to do it every trip (certainly not trips that start at 3 AM), but it was a useful exercise. Specifically here, if I were to have prerigged, I would have had a spinnerbait/chatterbait on one rod, a frog on a rod, a texas beaver, a magdraft freestyle, and something else (maybe a swim jig). The forecast was cloudy, breezy, and the third day of stable weather ahead of a front coming in last night. I'd think of that as good spinnerbait/chatterbait weather and would have started there with the occasional throw of a frog back into the muck. I don't know if I would have caught fish that way, but I do know when I got there it wasn't windy, wasn't cloudy (maybe 50% cloud cover), and the breeze was minimal most of the time. The water was 10' clarity also. Since I had nothing tied on, I had no anchor of what I thought should happen so I looked at the actual conditions and added one bait at a time. The swimbait idea was good, but the magdraft was too much for the 'skinny' conditions. A much smaller and more muted 4" swimbait was the ticket, followed up with a beaver (which is always a good choice and will probably always be rigged on one rod). Anyone else go fully unrigged or without a plan regularly?

I know the answer is 'as much as possible' but practically speaking how much further are you you looking to throw and how much are you 'missing' on the water? What I was seeing in my testing is that ultimately there is a limit. I think the frog aerodynamics are the limiting factor eventually. Basic physics/aerodynamics says the faster you launch something the further it will go. However, to get a higher and higher launch speed from a frog you're casting, you have to spin the spool faster and faster which will either result in an overrun or the brakes kicking in. Adding more weight to the frog will help, not with initial launch speed but with carrying speed through the arc of flight. Eventually though, you will hit a limit for your system.

Clunn, Nixon, KVD, and Doug Hannon. Honorable mention to Ned Kedhe. I wouldn't include Scott because I'm thinking in terms of the fishermen and not the industry. Its also a who influenced my fishing, so while I think think Ned Kedhe should be in everyone's top ten, he doesn't hit my top 4 because I don't fish that style (enough). As a scientist, I can relate to Doug hannon. Bass fishing was all mystique and luck. And then he put biology behind it which totally hits my science heart. I was also pre-teen to teen when we were watching him on TV so right in that formative era. KVD might be the GOAT, but if he is, Clunn was the GOAT before him. Patterning, seasonality, etc. And Nixon's run in the late 80's and early 90's was unstopable. Megabucks was one of my favorite tournaments of the year and he was dominant there.