casts_by_fly

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.

this is where I am too. When I’m motoring between spots I have side imaging on for sure. I know my lakes pretty well but you never know when a brush pile is going to wash in or you’re going to take a line across the lake you’ve never done before and find something new. I waypoint those and either keep moving or stop and check it out. I’m aiming for a very specific waypoint in the middle of a lake I will have maps on also so I can hit it on the first shot and not overrun it. If I am exploring something new or a thing I just found, I’ll cross it a couple times with down imaging to know if it’s worth wetting a line now or later. If I’m looking for the thermocline then 2d is super useful. I also like running side, down, and 2d at the same time when I’m going across the lake in 10-25’ of water. Each shows a little different of a thing and some things show better on one than the other. Then there is FFS which is a whole nother animal. My three preset buttons are ffs, side plus nav, and side/down/2d.

I fish straight braid on swim jigs, straight mono when throwing swim/vibrating/pitching jigs. I like braid in the grass where I mostly fish swim jigs, but also have no issues with straight mono. It just depends what all I'm throwing on the full set of rods. I don't throw braid to leader on a baitcaster. <also not a jig yoda>

aside from some specialty uses of Chirp 2D imaging, the transducer needs to move to change the image on the screen. I don't think you're vertical jigging and you've ruled out FFS, so plan that you need to move to use a fish finder. The shallower the water, the less useful down imaging is (including 2D and Di and their equivalents). The cone angle of the transducer is such that in 4' of water you're covering a bottom width of about 3' I think. and if you're idling over fish in 3' of water they won't be there when you come back. So with the above in mind, I would recommend side imaging. Side imaging will give you a good picture at 2.5-3x the depth with the smaller transducer types and 50% more (or more) than that with the more powerful transducers. That means in the same 4' you'll get a pretty clean image out to almost 15'. You'll get decent imaging out further depending on the bottom and the thing your beam hits. Things start to get fuzzy when you approach 8-10x the depth. The good news is that units with side imaging will also have down/2d imaging built in. So when you find something on Si in deeper water you can go back across it with Di and get a clean picture of what's there. I wouldn't go smaller than 7" on side imaging. I've fished with a 7" SI and its good and totally functional. If you're going to split screen with navigation or somethign else, then its not enough screen. I upgraded from 7" to 9" a year ago and its a massive change.

I'd go with that too. Its maybe not as warm as on a lot of mid march days, but we're mostly holding at or above freezing and everything is thawed. I need to get out next week which means fresh line this weekend.

Fishing only where I'm fising now? largemouth- buzzbait- my absolute favorite bait to fish vibrating jig- it just catches fish here year round swim jig- necessary for the amount of grass we get and can also be throw like any other jig texas rig (with all the plastics, yes that's kinda cheating) lipless crankbait- necessary for early season for sure and versatile enough to be my only 'crankbait' in the lot.

I too started fishing sluggos when they first came out 30 years ago. My dad and I fished club tournaments and my grandma had a bait shop. There wasn't the variety of baits available then and the sluggo was pretty unique. I still have some original packaging 4.5" downstairs in pearl and (i think) smoke. The baits themselves are a little stiff now so don't fish as well as a new one and I've retired them from the tackle bag. That said, I was away from bass fishing for so long that I didn't keep up on soft jerkbaits. Last year I posted here in BR some questions and ended up ordering a couple types to try. I'll be throwing them a lot more this year as they can fish like a walking topwater through all of the grass we get, but I can also drop them down into holes like a swim jig where bass tend to pounce on stuff.

Growing up in western PA, it was primarily bass (we fished tournaments when I was 10 or so), but around the same time I learned (and my dad got back into) trout fishing in the creeks. We’d also fish carp in the ponds and creeks, walleye when they were around, and anything else that was fun and interesting. My dad still says ‘whatever pulls my string’. A few times when fishing up north (st Lawrence direction) for bass we’d see long nose gar and swap things over just to catch them. I got into fly fishing for any species we were targeting and wasn’t bad at all. Shortly after that I got heavily into steelhead for a few years which meant fly, spin, and center pin setups and I lived up on the lake for a year. I even have a 9’ casting rod that I built rigged as a steelhead float rod downstairs. All of that is a long way of saying that I just like to fish I and catch fish. that all translated pretty well when we lived in the UK for 12 years. Bass aren’t a thing there so in the warm months it was carp and coarse fish. In the cooler months it was trout and grayling. I even did some boat fishing for cod, ling, mackerel, and other stuff. Having done all of that, I feel pretty okay going to any water body and being confident that I can figure something out. I would carry a travel rod (usually fly rod) any time we went on vacation to the beach. The last trip I did that I was close to DIY bonefish in the Bahamas and caught other little things (and got bit off twice by a 4’ barracuda). who knows what I’m best at or where. I’m just happy to be trying wherever I am.

you could do that, but I suspect a lot more of it will turn into casting practice than actual fishing. I'm of the 'pick a lure and tie it to your arm' camp. Pick what you think has a reasonable chance of working and go for it. I've done it a couple times now, to the extent of leaving all other lures in the truck. Here was one writeup. Before that trip it was unlikely that I'd put any soft plastic on ever. Forcing yourself to fish the place you know but with lures you don't will make you adapt. I learned a few things that day and since to the point that I always have a texas rig tied on somewhere. In the past I'd only throw a jig if I was bouncing into cover, but a plastic on a texas rig is probably better for 90% of the time I'm fishing. it also takes more than a couple hours to become a 'jack of A trade' let alone learning a couple things in a day. For me, I pick two 'things' per year to learn from scratch and get to at least a proficient level with them. I'll pick one or two more to dabble in which might become the next thing for next year. It was swim jigs a couple years ago. Plastics 2 years ago, jerkbaits and NEDs this year. I've dabbled in A-rigs, jerkbaits, plastics, blade baits, neds, and others. Some have stuck around, some I'm not going to bother with (A-rigs and blade baits).

Too late. It melted over the past 2 hours and is gone now.

We got more snow last night, but its the prettiest snow I've seen yet. About 1-2" of the stickiest snow ever. its clung to all of the tree branches and trunks. Its covered the ground such that you can just barely see the grass tips above it. But on sidewalks, driveways, and roads it just melted on contact. I have to say, I thought i was done with snow for the year, but this one isn't so bad. rick

@Catt, @A5BLASTER, MLF kicks off this week I think. Now that they are back to every fish counts but are fishing a lake giving up 50lb bags, how much weight do you think it will take? Are there just schools of 4-6 lb fish to target a dozen of them in a day? Are the big girls 8+ worth being the targets and only catching 5 of them? What about 30x 2 lb fish? What are you predictions? Rick

I have a 7'6" and a 7'3" in that power range, plus another 7'4" in 1/2-1oz. None have extra long rear grips, so its a roughly fair comparison (14-14.5"). For me, I prefer the shorter end for pitching. I love a shorter rod yet for pitching lighter stuff (6'10") as the shorter length just works with my pitching style I guess. For overhead bombing I like the longer rod, but not as much for pitching. My 7'3" is a Cara Amistad (1/2-1.5) and previously I had the expert version (1/2- 2oz). More or less the same power between them. I use them primarily for pitching grass as that's what we have here mostly. Its about as long as I want to go for that purpose and I love it for that. I fish my 7'4" for a slightly lighter version of the same and it fishes similarly. I can notice the difference in length and fish it, but the shorter feels just a bit better to me.

The gamakatsu ewg is my standard for plastics. I carry 1/0 to 5/0. For swim baits I go to owner but for general ewg I don’t have any reason to switch from gamakatsu.

true on the plopper covering more water and I'll swap between them at times. If its an otherwise 'loud' day like wind, boat wakes, etc I'll go more to the plopper. If its more still I'm throwing a dawg. if I'm around a bunch of wood or grass I'm throwing a buzzbait. And if its too grassy for a buzzbait we're into a toad. Lots of good topwater options and I love them all. I should probably dig the torpedo's and devil's horses out for this coming season too.

True, but if that's what and how I'm fishing that day then I'm going to pick a popper instead of a spook in the first place. If I'm throwing a spook (or any walking bait which in my case is a sexy dawg), its because I'm covering water and fishing for more aggressive fish. In that case, its speed that wins for me.

walking baits have one mode of action and two speeds. It's walk the dog and fast or faster. If you slow it down they get time to look at it and decide. Fast means steady walking at a decent clip. Faster means as quick as your wrist will take it and that you can maintain the walk. My only semi exception to this is when I want to work one up under a dock or out around a clump of something on the surface. Then instead of a steady 1.2.1.2.1.2 cadence I'll give it a 1...2.1...2.1...2 so that it glides a little further on 1 which will let it glide up under a dock or around a grass clump. Its still steadily moving, but the pace is a little different because I need it to glide a couple times. There are other things you can do to vary what the bait does in the water, but the retrieve is not it.

I'm going to put some focus on finesse baits this year- neds and equivalent size/style baits. I've done basically no finesse work the past couple years since I hate spinning rods. A new rod and reel will help with motivation (wanting to play with a new toy) and success will make me want to throw them more. My other is jerkbaits. I started throwing them last year and ended up catching fish early and late in the season. I lost a new PB on one last spring. I know they work, I just never had faith or patience in them. So from ice out to May I'll have one tied on for every trip I leave the house.

A measuring tape works. So does a pair of magnets and some light string. Pull the string through and then use it to putt the wires. I went DIY on my wiring setup. 30 ah lithium inside the boat under the seat. Velcro to hold in place. Power to a fuse panel mounted on the vertical hatch wall near the battery. That’s everything fused. Then power wires run from each item back to the fuse panel. That’s a helix9, mega live, and front and rear lights. I think it’s also the minn kota puck. I put two switches on the right gunwale for nav lights. If I were to put a micro power pole in I have space on the fuse panel for it. The main battery is in the box and has the battery meter shunt hooked up to it. I used ring connectors to put it all on the battery. Both the main battery and the fuse box also have a Noco genius plug end hooked in. I don’t pull my batteries to charge- I have two plugs under the seat on the starboard side that I just plug the charger into.

this fish looks like something from an aquarium. The type where they just get fat because they aren’t actually doing any work. Incredible fish.

16 lb supernatural mono. I fish supernatural on lots of rods and for all techniques already. 16 lb is thin. it ties great knots.

We had a mega hatch when I was in college and working in a fly shop. Must have been 2004 or so. I wasn’t bass fishing at the time but I can tell you that every fish in every stream around was eating them. Trout were the biggie for us but carp and bass in the creeks would annihilate them. At first they would eat anything even close to one. A plain black foam chunk was close enough. After a week they got more selective and the other guy that worked there and I would tie up our best attempts. That’s all we’d do all day- tie up cicada patterns and sell them. a small black jitterbug will get you close for a start. A hula popper would too. If you find a tree with them around your lake, fish it. The fish will key in on them when the hatch is heavy.

I’d be at 14-16#. Anything lighter and cover starts to be iffy.

im with you on that, but it doesn’t work for all of them. At least not for eagle claw. The eagle claw 3’s I have here are more 1’s on the chart. I think the chart matches the strike kings though.

Hi all, I’m flying tomorrow and back Sunday. Then we have a few more trips planned the next couple months. My wife started listening to podcasts last summer when she was driving back to Pittsburgh herself a lot. When we took a couple long trips they were good for a break from music. There isn’t much on Netflix and no good new music. I’ve hit all of the classic albums already (downloaded). any good podcasts that are must listens? Outdoor or not outdoor. rick