casts_by_fly

I start fishing a frog when the bass are bedding, which is normally low 60's here and on through the summer. Like you see, there are some places where its by far the most efficient thing to throw. However, some days they just won't hit it. I had one of those last night. One blowup from a little fish and that was it. The bass were in a funk mood, not chasing anything, not eating anything put in front of them, etc. For where you're talking about, I'd have a frog and a light punching rig set up to fish that. Throw the frog until you've found a fish or two and then go through that general area and punch it. Log sticking out? Punch around it. Find a deeper spot or a place with some rock? Punch around it. Since its new to you, you're going to have to learn it and where the bass hang out. They won't be evenly spread up and down the canal. The frog can cover some water and help find them even if they are blowing up and missing it.

Just get the micro remote and be done with it.

Probably 3/8 since above that most jigs will have a heavy hook.

Either would work but the M/XF would be a dandy for small jigs. A bitsy flip is about the heaviest hook I'd plan to use but it will work with a little heavier wire, especially if you're fishing braid to leader. If you want an interesting one, check out sieberts lil' man jig. I picked up a couple last year and they are great little jigs.

What do you mean by mid-frame? The 3k size, as in all of your other reels are either the smaller or larger sized? I always took the twin power to be more of a heavier duty, even saltwater reel. Maybe it's in the naming.

If you decide to go mono, sunline supernatural is a thin diameter wonderful line for a spinning reel. very supple. I use it on my baitcasters in 12/14/16 lb and have it on two of my spinning reels that I use for trout (in 4 and 6 lb). Its a very thin line so buy by diameter. 8 lb would be perfect for a 3000 sized reel.

I think we’ve found the problem that actually needs a solution. As a saltwater guy I’m surprised you’d even start to think that.

I had a musky run down a 12” bass as I was bringing it in yesterday and only missed because I saw it and moved quicker. That put me down the path of expensive large bass flavored big baits and I too quickly decided against it. Musky have teeth after all. A bass, bluegill, minnow, or tilapia- doesn’t matter to me. If you want to use bait then use one as bait. Rainbow trout are popular live bait for stripers. Want to see someone’s eyes get red in anger? Tell a trout fly fisherman you’re going to go catch a couple trout and use them as striper bait. I generally don’t use live bait for bass because I want the challenge of catching them on lures. And I don’t want the hassle of getting and dealing with bait. In your case, why not grab some fresh tilapia for bait?

where are you located and what's your current water temp? Are you sure they are bass beds? The bass come in and spawn almost the same time as bluegills. This year they have overlapped because of the water temperatures staying in the low to mid 60's for so long. I think for us here in NJ, we had a warm spell that pushed water temps into the 60's, but it was earlier in the year than the bass were ready to spawn. Then it cooled into the high 50's and the fish backed off again. Then when it warmed again, every fish came and went pretty quickly. The bluegills started spawning 2 weeks ago amidst this and when I fished on the 15th I saw bass on beds next to bluegill on beds. Definitely different bed types, separated by 20' or so. Bluegill will bed close to each other. You'll get them in a honeycomb pattern or similar. The bass will have more individual beds with more separation from each other. Bluegill don't much care about cover around the bed while bass prefer to be up against 'something' if they can. Bluegill spawn all summer now so you'll see beds until the fall and fish will be around them. Bass will spawn and the males will guard the beds for a while. Once the fry hatch though the males won't be around long. I don't know the exact numbers of days, but at most a week from when the females stop dropping eggs the males will be gone.

Fortunately, we can calculate that! 29.92" inches of Mercury is the equivalent of 1 atmosphere which is considered 'standard' pressure and what we'll use as a baseline. You know what else you can measure pressure in? Inches of water. 29.92 inHg = 407.2 inH2O (the difference is the density in the two). The barometer will vary from 29.5 to 30.5 most of the time. That change of ~0.5" of mercury on either side of normal equals ..... drumroll..... 6.8" of water. A bass needs to go up or down in the water column less than a foot to feel the same pressure change. Something tells me that the actual pressure felt in the water isn't the driving factor. Using that logic I've always said that the barometer isn't a driving factor of largemouth behavior. Though, my dad swears by a moderate barometer, not too high and not too low, not changing rapidly, for fish to be active and anecdotally it seems to hold up for him. A slightly lower barometer (like 28.5 to 29.5) will favor topwaters and as it goes up the fish start looking down. I think that ties to the light level typically associated but who's to say. I don't get to chose my days by the barometer, I just fish when I can get out.

For me, this is the answer. We have a bunch of lakes with big boulders. A lot of my lakes are natural lakes, scoured out by glaciers a good few years ago and only the biggest boulders remained. That said, I've never found boulders themselves to be the answer. These lakes also have lot of vegetation and some of them have dropoffs/depth changes. An isolated boulder isn't holding anything, but a boulder at the bottom of a dropoff or one with some milfoil/coontail/lily pads up against it is another story. Show me a boulder in the middle of a grass bed and I'm not leaving it very quickly.

Yeah, that's why I had to pick up a pack. They had the regular ribeyes at $10 a pound. There are two ways to cook a steak like this- either sous vide or reverse sear. Both will get the inside up to eating temperature before you brown the outside. I was shooting for a cooler side of medium which is about 130 degrees. I had the sous vide set for 125 but it didn't get that far in the center by the time I had pulled it. It was only 115 or so. The solution is a hotter bath, a longer time, and/or not cooking from frozen. Next time it will be a combo is 1 and 3. Since the searing isn't adding any appreciable heat to the center I'll take it all the way to serving temp at 130. And to keep the time shorter (a 2-hour sous vide is the right texture for me) I'll not go from frozen at all.

If any of you are costco people, have a look at their meat section currently. We were in a week ago and they had Tomhawk Ribeyes for $12 a pound. Given they are 3x that price at my local butcher I had to try them. They come in a 2-pack. After the dog graciously taste tested one of them last weekend while it was in the sink awaiting vacuum packing, I decided we needed to cook the second one this weekend. It did not suck. 2.5 hours in the sous vide (from frozen). About 15 minutes on the grill with the smoker box on. Then about 6 minutes of constant flipping on a medium heat for a sear. The center wasn't done as much as I wanted from the sous vide so I had to get a little more heat into it with the medium heat and longer. Otherwise it would have been 90 seconds on the IR burner to sear it. That's a 9"x13" pan for size reference. About a 40 oz steak

My wife and I got married on Memorial day Sunday 17 years ago. This year the date fell on the Monday, so we celebrated all through the weekend, knowing that the Monday weather was supposed to be pretty bad. Nice dinner Friday night, pool party with friends Saturday, and a new brewery exploration on Sunday. I put in my time. Monday was supposed to be a 100% cloud day with over an inch of rain forecast, so I'm going fishing while she's getting a massage. I've had a lot less time to fish this year due to a new job, so when I do get to go out I'm picking my best lakes every time and not just exploring and seeing what's at all of them. So I went to my favorite lake. Its the site of all my biggest fish for the past 3 years and also has decent numbers. Its my Menderchunk #1. Given the weather forecast and time of year I figured there would be a good morning topwater bite. The bass are done spawning, the bluegills are heavy spawning, and the water is getting warmer. The grass should be in just about full now and all of that adds up to a very early morning throwing a buzzbait until they stop eating it. I launched at 430 with just a hint of light in the sky and started down my favorite bank. Over the first 90 minutes I managed 4 bass, two pickerel, and another 4 blowups that just didn't quite take. The biggest of the day was a 19" 3.5# fish that sharked a buzzbait that landed 2' from shore. That fish must have had its tail on the shoreline as it was between my lure and the rocks. Also it was still really thin from the spawn as a 19" fish here usually pushes almost a pound heavier. It was after that when the wheels started to fall off. I fish the same buzzbait all the time. Not just the same type or size, but the same lure. Its been bent and twisted all sorts of ways and back. It had just the right squeal on the rivet and ran true. Alas, it is no more. I really like the swinging sugar buzz. Occasionally it will twist in the air and the joint between the two sections will get stuck which is a pain, but on the whole its my goto buzzbait. I've never considered that the joins would open up. Apparently boat flipping a 20" pickerel on a well used bait will do it. Looking back at my pictures from the 19" fish, I can see the lower joint opened and it was clearly just a matter of time. It was also at this point in the morning that the weatherman proved to be wrong. We had a sprinkle when I launched, but an hour after sun up I was seeing blue through some of the clouds. The fish shut off of the buzzbait. As always, I text my dad pictures as I'm on the water. On my last update he called (which I thought was weird, but he also doesn't text back). He said pick up a worm. He just had the same thing last week on his Menderchunk #1. They were eating, but stopped looking up. He ended with 31 that day. I had picked up a big swimbait because of the bluegill, but decided he's probably right and swapped to a texas rigged rage bug. A texas rigged plastic was never my wheelhouse. Then I did the all plastic outing and learned a bit. Last year a texas rigged beaver was probably my best producer. In the end I don't think it would have mattered which plastic I put on. I caught fish on the rage bug, a carolina rigged rage craw (my first carolina rig fish actually), a senko, and a bandito bug (I fancied a change from the RB). All in I finished with 15 bass, a pair of pickerel, a handful of blowups, and nearly a muskie that was chasing the 12" bass that I caught last. All of the bass were either 12-13" or they were 16-17" (which was running about 2.5 lb). So long as you stayed near the bluegill beds the bass were there and eating. Any place that I left the bluegill beds (there were 2 other boats doing laps with me) the fish weren't there (or weren't eating). All in, not a bad way to spend an anniversary.

FAT imapacts impart a great body roll on lighter/thinner/skinnier swimjigs. On a full skirted swim jig (that's more like a flipping jig) you need a bigger/more active trailer if you want the same body roll. But to Ajay's point, that's not the only action for a swim jig. If you put a double trailer out the back horizontally (like a rage craw) then the two craws do a great up and down motion while the jig itself barely moves. The action is entirely in the trailer at that point.

I fish basically clear or gin clear water most of the time. I'm also a matcher generally, but I've also started going smaller and smaller with trailers. I've taken them off my spinnerbaits mostly. Chatterbaits have moved from Zakos and rage menace to just a spunk shad. The only contrast/standout I'll do is a chartreuse belly on an otherwise plain chatterbait combo. That's just because we have so many bluegill around.

I'm pretty sure you don't need to pair the remote to also pair the app. So far as the motor head is concerned, they are unique items and don't require each other. Either way, you know to pair it at the first chance you get now for just such as issue. Its not great using the phone app and trying to fish, but it will at least get you around. And if you're fishing tournaments and require the reliability, I'd pick up the micro remote to have a backup that's usable.

As noted further back in this thread, I am a FFS user at times. Other times I'm not: "This year I still do that when I'm fishing the bank or fishing to cover I know. Some places I don't even look at it because I know them so well." Yesterday was one of those times. I know that lake pretty darn well now and can tell you within 2' how deep I am pretty much anywhere on it. I didn't even turn on my fishfinder until I'd been fishing for 4 hours. Even after that I only used livescope to tell me where the grassline was and how far off the bottom it had grown. I knew where the solid line of grass was, but I wanted to see the next 30 yards deeper than that.

About the same as any other finish. Its a little harder of a finish compared to epoxy, but in both cases if you are trying to take a guide off you have to cut through it with a razor blade. Some of it will chip right off the blank with a fingernail but some will have to be scraped with a blade.

I’m still on the pad crasher and the jr. version. I wish they were a little heavier but I’m not going to worry much about it. They walk great. Hooks are sharp. I tend to throw sunburn as my default (medium brown) but if it’s overcast or nearer dark I’ll throw black. Sunny and bright I’ll also throw disco ball.

I’m going say a 7, maybe an 8. Spotlock, ffs, digital scouting. My phone is bluetoothed to my fish finder so I don’t have to dig it out to see who is texting me. But I’m still in a kayak and more often than not I’m just going down the bank doing stuff I could do while standing in a floating bathtub.

he looks so happy to see you!

Spinning rod with 15-20# braid. Probably medium power. Fast reel. Set the hook and keep cranking.

I have the Sedona FA which is from about 1999 or so. Still super smooth for a cheap reel.

for a standard size fluke I’d go with a 1/8th ounce weighted hook. Should be pretty close