casts_by_fly

I wish it was my video and could take credit for it. And I agree entirely about filters. I used to shoot photogrphy for a long time. Its amazing what you can do with filters on the front of a lens. For the first hundred years of photos that was the best way to manipulate the light coming into the lens, so photographers ended up getting pretty good with them! Steve Rodgers uses an underwater ROV to take video of bass behavior. I was hoping he'd put a filter on the front of it and video away.

that Wednesday plan I had might be out the window. The wind was hanging abut 12 mph in the above clip. It’s now forecast at 18 mph at 4pm. I can hide from 12 but 18 is tough. Hopefully it keeps changing and the heavy wind keeps moving earlier

This is my usual solution also. When the grass is thick enough that a lipless is fouling every other cast and I’m picking grass off the hooks I’ll swap to a chatterbait.

Pretty sure that's jason christie and greg hackney? Remind me how well they did fishing shallow? if you're not catching fish you're probably not on camera. https://www.bassmaster.com/tournament/2024-bassmaster-elite-at-toledo-bend/leaderboard/?pro=1

in grass? None that I've found yet. I'll reach for a lipless in grass before I reach for a SB.

what pat said. The original rattletrap seems to come through cleaner than a red eye shad for me but both will do. And ripping through weeds is a good thing. I tried the hybrid hunter last year and maybe the weeds were just too thick but it didn't come through clean. A DT Fat squarebill with single hooks came through alright.

While that may be true this time of year in the late winter/prespawn, that will change as the season goes on. The tournament trail is poised to exploit that pattern though so you'll continue to see it there. The first and last two will be FFS dominated for sure. I suspect Murray, Wheeler, and Smith will also as that will be shad spawn and summer pattern fish. Grand and the florida lakes? Who's to say. Feb. 22-25, Many, La., Toledo Bend Reservoir Feb. 29-March 3, Yantis, Texas, Lake Fork March 22-24, Bassmaster Classic, Tulsa, Okla., Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees April 11-14, Leesburg, Fla., Harris Chain of Lakes April 18-21, Palatka, Fla., St. Johns River May 9-12, Columbia, S.C., Lake Murray June 13-16, Decatur, Ala., Wheeler Lake June 27-30, Cullman, Ala., Smith Lake Aug. 8-11, Plattsburgh, N.Y., Lake Champlain Aug. 15-18, Waddington, N.Y., St. Lawrence River

Possible but unlikely. if I were fishing it I would plan for 100 to win it, certainly. But for 10 guys to catch 100 lb is a lot. Consider the St lawrence tournaments where there is basically an unlimited supply of 4-5 lb smallies. Finding them and staying on them for one angler for 4 days is tough enough. The odds are not in your favor of 10 guys being able to do it. I would say 3 with 3 more guys over 95lb.

That isn't actually maribou. That's Emu feather in the original picture. Emu can be used if it's good quality, but just know it behaves differently to maribou. Its a more delicate feather and the stems break easier. Maribou has a lot more mini stems (featherules?) so there is a lot more motion while at rest. Emu is good for a body wrap and good for an accent across the back of a fly/jig. regular maribou can be had easily at any fly tying shop you have near you or you can order for $5 or less a bag. Don't mess with craft store castoffs, just get a pack of good white maribou.

Same here. We just had hail/sleeet an hour ago but its about all melted already. Its going to get cold briefly but I think that's the last of it for us. The coming 10 days is looking pretty ideal for this time of year.

photos can be highly deceptive. I’m sure you’ve seen images that have been edited where the same thing looks two different colors. A camera is doing all of that on its own. It’s interpreting what it thinks a scene is and the data it’s taken and guessing what it should look like. Some cameras processors tend to make an image warmer, some more vibrant, etc. If you ever take photos in raw mode and look at them with minimal interpretation you’ll see how bland pictures actually look without the camera manipulating. Never trust a photo and especially never trust co lot in a photo unless you have a definite reference for color like a white sheet or something truly grey/black in the photo. also, while we might not be able to interpret what a bass thinks when it sees a color, you can get a pretty good idea of what the actually see in the first place. while it won’t be perfect, Steve rodgers just dropped a video that approximates it.

I agree and would expand that to all of the biologist reports and info for their area. PA and NJ both do a decent job of posting biologists reports for the various lakes around. Want to know the primary baitfish? Biologist sampling. Does a lake have big fish? Same. Going to a new area? Check the reports for lakes in that area.

i don’t know about the market trends, but my point is that e-free gas is a niche product. While it’s the best choice for small engines of all types, most people just put regular gas in them anyway. For the manufacturers (refineries) they want to offer it but it’s limited run type of stuff. It’s the same cost to produce and transport but a lot lower volume so the per gallon price will be a lot higher. With higher volume gas the cost increase over time can be mitigated better with volume.

I’m going Wednesday most likely. I hit a pond a week ago when we had that warmup but it was still miserable to be out in that temp and wind so I only stayed 15 minutes. Wednesday is going to be 60 degrees in the afternoon and rainy so I’m going somewhere.

Supply and demand. Not enough demand to drive a volume savings but they want to be able to offer it so the price is the price.

I think I’m like most here that when the wind hits a certain number I’m just planning to not go. I do check wind direction in the forecast also. The point about how open the lake is makes a big difference. My early season lake is a big bowl and if the wind is from the west at 10 mph or more you just don’t go. It will be calm and the wind behind you u til you’re too far out to realize it. Then you’re SOL and the whitecaps are coming in behind you. that said, my blanket ‘10 mph’ that I usually follow I’m going to explore it a little more this year. A 10 mph wind here at the house is ripping pretty good but I bet there are a couple lakes around where 15 would be fine but I just don’t go to check.

a free rig already keeps the lure above the bottom. Most of the time a bait is in the water for a free rig it is slowly falling to the bottom. So the distancing of the wire from a Tokyo rig isn’t a benefit really.

I thought it looked crustacean like. Looks a lot like the bomber patterns of crayfish just over a perch like base color. how long will you throw a given bait before you switch bait/color? If a bass eating your lure is your indicator, then it’s a combo of having a lure they will eat in a place they will be. Do you change places first or lures/colors?

hooksets are free. If you think it’s a fish, set the hook. specific to crank baits (and most moving baits) they will have a wobble or whomp or cadence that you feel. A spinnerbaits blades, the wobble of a chatterbait, the bb’s rattling inside a red eye shad. If that feeling stops while you’re reeling it in, set the hook. It’s either a fish or grass. If it’s fish you’re good. If it’s grass you rip it through. Over time you’ll get better at predicting which is which by feel, but the action for you is the same. sometimes a fish will just grab it lightly and the only thing you’ll feel is the stop of the feeling. rick

so subtlety more or less. Colder water, clearer water, more flighty conditions/spots/fish and you’ll go to a more subtle bait which could include the color intensity, noise, or action. Makes sense to me. I guess my thinking was that there is a negligible difference between the two so not sure that I’d carry both. Three left and row four right would be a great 1-2 punch for perchy conditions. Then again, if I had 18’ of aluminum and 6 lb smallmouth at the ready maybe I would…

a helix 7 will draw just under an amp. A helix 9 draws about 2.5 amps. If both are on thats 3.5 amps which isn’t a ton. However, if your trolling motor is also on it could be drawing anywhere from am amp to 40 amps. I would wager the fish finder issue is low voltage and a battery that can’t supply enough power. Fish finders are sensitive to having enough power, hence having one good house battery for them. I’d check any batteries you aren’t replacing by getting them load tested at the auto parts store (usually free). Then you know what you’re dealing with. And if it were me personally I wouldn’t even bother with what you have. I would start with fresh batteries so I knew exactly how they had been treated.

random curiosity question. What would make you pick row 3 left vs row 5 right on a given day? Same lure, just different color. But the color is so similar between them. Both are clearly a perch imitation.

I agree they could have done a little better. Another 1/4" would have made a difference. A little stiffer would have helped also. Its just barely clipping the hook point when you compress it. But because the fibers are so long they are easily compressed (more like a light swim jig than a brush jig). We'll see in actual practice how much it works. I wouldn't be throwing this into heavy brush, that's for sure. We don't really have that here so not a consideration for me, but if that's you're thing maybe think twice. For milfoil and pondweed that we have here I think it will be okay. For pads? not sure yet. Wooden docks worry me a little too.

So long as the battery can provide the amperage it will start the motor. That's why the CCA is listed. However the engineering of the lead plates inside the battery is what is different. Cranking batteries have more and thinner lead plates to provide a higher instantaneous current. Deep cycle batteries are fewer and thicker plates to allow them to be worn down over the course of a day. If you used a thin plate cranking battery as a trolling motor battery, you could wear down the lead plates to the point that they don't charge anymore. Over time that will happen. I'm not sure the result of using a deep cycle in place of a cranking battery providing the CCA rating is good enough. Your trolling motor batteries should be separate from the rest of your stuff. In some cases you'll get interference between the motor and the fish finders. Additionally, you'll run down the charge faster if you're running a pair of graphs. The best setup is one cranking, one house battery, and 1/2/3 trolling motor batteries as required by your motor. Absent that, your cranking battery can be your house battery for your fishfinders and pumps.

Unless you're putting it on a center bar, getting up past 9" starts to get big for a rail mount. I know I wouldn't want a 12" on the rail both for weight and for getting in my way of casting. The 9" is still pretty big in that regard at certain casting angles.