casts_by_fly

Soft, low memory mono is either sunline supernatural or suffix elite for me. I use both for a lot of things. I don’t think supernatural comes in bulk but Elite does. 3000 yd spools for about $40 or so depending on pound test.

Nah, that one's pretty straightforward. Out for a day fishing/boating, came back to a flat with no spare or a siezed hub. Left a buddy with the boat while he ran home to fix the trailer. You can see the flashers on so he's going slow. And the license plate is a British plate (or previous British colony).

@PhishLIyeha, that's big. Length specs can be deceptive some times and I think that's only 4". If you think about a 4" senko its like nothing. But that has some bulk to it. Not sure I'm going to pick one up just yet, but I'm going to keep my eye out when on the water when I might want to throw it.

awh, come on guys. I thought I was done buying hardbaits. And I just reorganized my tackle bag for the year. Now I've got to find room for a couple 3-4" squarebills... And a 1.5 oz crankbait? I might need a new rod for that now. On a more serious note, what timeframe/conditions are you guys fishing these magnum SBs? For me, a SB is a cover water, near some kind of cover (rock or wood), usually in the start of the year up to the spawn. same for the magnums? I have both sizes of Hybrid hunter. Its supposed to come through grass clean too, but I'll dispute that. The bill alone catches grass pretty bad and then it hooks up all through the trebles before you can rip it out. I could see it being good around rock and maybe wood.

@12poundbass same here in NJ this year. Did you pull that data from a website? I'd love to do the same for us. We had a solid 2 weeks of 'grey'. sometimes wet, sometimes foggy, never sunny. Rick

this is actually the best way to do it. The site: nomenclature is official google text for searching. I’m too lazy to type it all out so when I just put in bassresource it gives 4 or 5 links with “more from bassresource.com” below it in case the first couple aren’t it.

Google is also your friend. Instead of using the sites search function, just go to google. Put in bassresource, your name, and the word you want. It should hit it in the first couple links.

The zillion sv tw is the reel to use. Zero adjust on the spool tension and turn up the brakes. I’d go with one of the MH instead of the H. I found that a little more moderate side of fast was easier to learn on. Make sure your lure weight is enough to load the rod properly, even to the point of overloading it. You don’t want to feel like you’re forcing it. The first rod I was able to skip on consistently was a MH/MF crankbait Shimano Crucial. I threw a 1.5 oz single hook soft swim bait on it. The soft bait and single hook meant there wasn’t anything to catch water and slow down. The extra weight loaded the rod up where I didn’t push it and then maintained momentum as it skipped across the water. After getting consistent with that I went to normal sized jigs and soft plastics.

I fish a 6'8" all the time for topwaters and jerkbaits. I have a pair of 6'6" downstairs that i built ages ago. One has a BFS reel on it now (it's a 1/8-1/2 ML casting rod), the other is a St Croix 'crankbait' rod in medium/moderate that's a great light cranking rod (and which I just realized I should pull out because I was considering buying a new medium). I have a 6' with a pistol grip that I keep for taking kids fishing (it has a zebco 33 on it). And, I have a 5'6" Fenwick Boron that was going to have a go with for topwaters. I fish walking baits and jerkbaits tip down so the shorter rod is really nice for that. They are also nice for close in roll casting. At times its almost like you're underhand tossing a baseball they seem so short. This is correct. The first spiral wrapped rods were saltwater for that purpose. Under heavy load, the guides give the line a level arm effectively. The line uses that to twist the blank. The most stable place to have a load on a bent rod is the inside of the curve. When you're talking about a 130# class rod that's pulling on 1000# tuna, you need it to be as stable as possible. I think Rich forhan was the first to popularize it on bass rods with the "Revolver" series (late 90's maybe). Same general idea- when the rod is under load fighting a fish the blank is in the most stable position. Sometimes you can get away with fewer guides (depends on the blank and the action). You can certainly get away with smaller guides as you aren't trying to hold the line off the blank under load. Both of the 6'6" rods I mentioned above are 'revolver' rods.

The Lew's might be a great reel but for $350 there's no way I pick it over a zillion and the extra $125 in my pocket .

The lunkerhunt yappa frog is a direct JB knockoff in a hollow body frog design. With as much as I loved fishing a jitterbug and a HB frog it was a no brainer to buy when I saw it. The reality is a bit more mixed though. On a steady retrieve it will waggle and burble, but nowhere near what a jitterbug does. The soft bill isn't crisp enough and I think the tail dampens the waggle. I might try cutting the tail off one and see. Its also light. I know the spec is 1/2 oz, but it fishes like something that's 1/4 oz. Its also temperamental about the retrieve speed. It needs 'slow' to catch the waggle rhythm and that can be good some times, but sometimes I want to cover a little more water with it and it can't. It also doesn't fish well as a frog. Too heavy of grass and the lip catches worse than a popping frog. I wish it was great, but its just not there. I've seen the hissyfit, but for $10 plus whatever the trailer adds, I'm not sold that its going to light up my world. SHHHH!! Don't tell anyone else.

found the holder I was thinking of. They have a couple options. https://yakgadget.com/products/flexrod-stager-system-pair?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=51c50997d&pr_rec_pid=6753703428253&pr_ref_pid=7407703785629&pr_seq=uniform

I will be testing this plan either Tuesday or Wednesday this week. We iced out a week ago or so but I couldn’t get out. This week I have one or two afternoons open and am going to enjoy some sunshine. I’ve got the place picked and the rods rigged. I’ll be sure to share pictures of 3+# fish here as they come to hand.

I could see the FA Amago being hot in the Great Lakes in the spring. That looks a ton like steelhead poults that get stocked in the tens of thousands in march and swim into the lake shortly thereafter. The walleye hammer them as they are coming in to spawn and I imagine the smallmouth wouldn’t shy away either.

Braid or fluoro/mono? You’re basically talking a light to medium saltwater rod. A 4000 sized reel would be okay with 50 lb braid but if you’re going fluoro/mono then you’ll want a 5000/6000 size for line capacity.

I’m also in the 50 lb camp. I run suffix 832 which is bigger diameter for a given rating compared to others but I do the things you’re talking about and 50 is fine.

im fortunate that all of the lakes around here that I’m fishing (except one or two) have boat ramps so I just back the truck down to the water and unload. The other downside of this kayak compared to a bass boat is that the kayak gets unloaded at the end of every trip and reloaded before I can fish. Motor, fish finder, live transducer, rods, and tackle all have to come out.

in terms of pure energy capacity, a 24v 50ah lithium will have more capacity than all but the biggest 12v lead battery. It will have more usable capacity for sure. If you’re not using the motor for running spot to spot or holding in river current then it should be fine.

Im talking specifically about my setup. My kayak with motor and batteries is about 175 lb. I’m another 220 and I have another 30-40 lb of gear. That’s about 425lb. I stand to fish exclusively. It’s a stable boat (admittedly not as stable as a bass boat). I have a spotlock trolling motor. I might soon have a powerpole. I run a 9” fish finder with live imaging. Rods are laid down horizontally and can be picked up and swapped easily. If a fish gets behind me I just turn around. If I don’t want a big fish to pull me into the cover I’m fishing I hit the spot lock button. In terms of the act of fishing, it’s about as close to a bass boat as you can get.

This is where I'm at with it too. I grew up fishing out of an 18' stratus with my dad. Still fish in his tracker a couple times a year which, while slower, still gets around 5x as fast as the kayak. Getting back into it, learning how to fish for myself (dad always managed navigation and boat control) and doing it in a kayak mean a certain focus like you've laid out. I'm sure when I eventually move into a boat the focus will stick around. But it is nice to be able to call an audible and run down the lake 3 miles in a couple minutes. Can't do that in the autopilot. The fishing aspect is the same or just about the same as a rigged bass boat, but not the to and from.

very nice. I'm not much of a crappie fisherman and all of my bigger ones have been while fishing for bass. But I'm hoping to be posting a picture of two of crappie in the next week or so. We're ice out and my ice out lake gets a run of them coming up into some docks. I grab 10 a year (daily limit) of 10-12" fish that are perfect eaters. I'd love to get into a mess of 15" fish- I'd probably only bring 3-4 home at that rate.

that's a cool little crank. Any idea the depth rating? If 1-3' that would be a great little creek lure. I used to fish the rebel craw crank catt noted above but that was even a bit big at times. Two other tiny lures (one still made I think) are the zara pooch (discontinued 15 years ago i think) and the Teeny torpedo (still made I think) The pooch is tricky to walk because its only 2", but when fish are eating minnows it can be killer. The teeny torpedo is similar though its only 1.5" and 1/8 oz. Fun little lure.

I don't know if its true for the champ you have, but dobyn's also is known to add weight to the back end of their rods for balance purposes. Absolute lightness is not their priority- balance and feel are.

Thanks. And thanks for the review link. I did miss it the first time around. A couple things in it already being implemented here on the desk.

I’d love to hear your initial thoughts about why the mini was different for you vs the regular. I remember your thoughts going into the season why it should work. Was the regular size a good bait for you last year? apologies if I missed your usual year in review post and covered this.