casts_by_fly

I hoped a single cable was the solution. Some units can do it, some can't and I don't know enough to say which since I'm a humminbird guy. Some of the newer units can also link via bluetooth with no cable required which is pretty slick. Lowrance has one that will do it because my dad just put one on his boat (though his other unit wasn't capable and he doesn't care about networking them).

Never got into those grubs but used to fish wax worms and meal worms all the time. Wax worms for trout, meal worms for gills. For gills, a 3x long shank #10 or 12 with the grub threaded up the hook is a good way to ensure they get the hook point and not just suck the worm off the end of your hook. Too big a hook and they will suck the worm right off without getting the point. we also used to pick ‘water worms’ in the spring before trout season. They were cranefly larvae and the trout would eat them well.

I love the og6 and ajay posted most of my colors on the right side of his box. I also like and carry live river shad as a clean water baitfish imitator. it runs true to depth on thin mono and normal long casts. I liked them so much that I picked up the og4 (tiny 4?) before last season but they are LIGHT! I couldn’t fish them effectively with the rods I was carrying. Just know that going in.

well that’s miserable. 2’ of snow spread over a week with accompanying 0-20 mph winds and 0-10 degree wind chills.

I can't comment on the others, but for the Zodias just make sure you're not going too light on the reel. The carbon rear grip lightens up the back end a bit more than cork. I found on the 6'9" that I needed about 8 oz. You can read in the other thread, but my old stradic was 7.9 and balanced well. The new small one was too light. Something like a 3000 size vanford would be too light but the 3k sized stradic is just right. You can of course go heavier if that's what you're planning to use. I put a 10 oz reel on it and it still balanced.

Maybe so. Its a neat rod for some things. As the name implies, if a weightless senko is your thing on lighter line/lighter hooks I could see that. I bet it would be a pretty good jerkbait rod if you prefer a softer action for one. Poppers too. Small crankbaits and smaller/lighter keitechs (1/8 oz and a 3.3 maybe) would do well. The 1/8 oz minimax chatterbait maybe. Its not my wheelhouse and prefer other rods for those things (mostly the 6'10" finesse jig for all of those things) but I could see it working.

I see in your signature "fishing dad". Not sure how old the kid(s) are but my dad's been dumping all of his unused stuff on me for the past 3 years now. Every time I'm home or he comes to visit I end up with another 3600/3700 box full plus a cardboard box or grocery store bag. This latest round is a 3700 box with half a dozen walking baits, half a dozen jerk baits, half a dozen crankbaits, a couple pencil poppers, and a couple other assorted. The cardboard box was 4 reels from the 50's for me to check into. I'm certainly grateful, but I'm past the point of how much I can carry in the kayak. @Munkin- compared to the past 3 years I've significantly pared down the new stuff for this coming season. The past 2 years I overindexed on crankbaits and plastics. This year I have a couple topups for plastics I used. I have 3-4 jerkbaits in a saved list (which might get eliminated with this latest box from dad). I have a little terminal tackle for places I had a hole while on the water last year. Other than that the big spend was a new rod and reel. Like in previous seasons I pick a technique or two to focus on more through the year and get better at it. This year its going to be spinning rod finesse (to go with the new spinning rod). I already have a bunch of neds and ned like things, so I'm just organizing them into one bag/box that I can carry when I decide that's something I'm doing that day.

none of the above. You're in the $200 +/- $50 range thereabouts which gives a lot of latitude. The JDM Zillion on Amazon is probably the best buy you'll find at $216.

I just bought a Zodias ML (see end of thread for my initial impressions) and I think I'm going to love it. I had to send this one back because of the guides/reel seat alignment but I just asked for a new one (haven't received it yet). Its just over your $200 mark, but the Curado is right there. The difference in the two is the guide set. Same handle and grips, same blank. I heavily considered the 7' ML Curado but decided I wanted the shorter rod. Separately my dad (long time shimano rod user) picked up a curado casting rod and said its one of the lightest he's seen.

Without knowing the OPs plan for the rod, I wouldn't recommend either of those blind. That Lowrider is the 'weightless worm' rod. Its pretty soft, maybe the softest MH in the falcon lineup which considering falcons are 'lighter than industry average' at a given rating it could pass as a medium for lots of people. If you want a lighter pond walkaround rod (this would have been a good rod for me 30 years ago) then great. A 3/8 chatterbait and trailer is going to tax that rod. The HD series isn't my favorite. Maybe at 6'6" it won't be so bad but they felt tip heavy and dead in the hand- great in a compound bow, not what I want in a fishing rod. Maybe throwing vibrating jigs and spinnerbaits on braid.

@T-Billy- we are the same today. Warm rain all through the night just killed all of the snow we had. Streams and roads are flooded and that only leads down to the lakes. Now we have 5 days of sunshine on the way (a change from yesterday) and colder temps (also a change). Gonna just have to play this one by ear and see what days are usable for what. I cleaned and lubed all of the reels last night so they are ready to fish (with last year's line). I'll put new line on some of them when Feb rolls around.

I unscrewed the hood entirely off the reel seat and slide it up the blank where the logo is. I also put a paper towel between the hood and the blank. Not my first rodeo. Had one little spopt where the glue pushed between the carbon cover and the plastic nut that was easily sorted with a finger nail. I must have used just a little more glue a little closer to the plastic nut side than I intended.

So funny enough, as I was pulling all of my reels to clean them tonight I heard the dreaded pop as the carbon hood cover came loose on my own rod. Slightly different seat to yours but the same hood nut. I used gorilla glue because I had it handy. It’s drying now and will be good to go in the morning. I was surprised at how little glue was used in the first place to hold the carbon cover over the plastic. Just a couple minuscule specs not much bigger than a pin head.

Must not have caught much on it... Or have pickerel around you. I love a 3.8 keitech on a swim jig but they do break easily. Even glueing them in place. The heads rip and the tails rip off.

Are you hard set on 6'6" As others have noted, the trend is away from that and most of the 6'6" rods on the market are older designs or cheaper rods. Moving up to 6'9-6'10" opens a whole lot more doors. In practical use, the only time I find my 6'10" even close to too long is tip down walking baits and even then that's my preferred rod. My 6'8" is better geometrically for tip down twitching but I miss the extra 2" for casting distance and line gathering. If you're stuck at 6'6", the 'Herm' in the Falcon Bucoo lineup is a good all purpose rod. Its similar to a lot of 6'6" rods I used growing up and is a good value for the performance. 1/4-3/4, MH/MF. $100 If you are able to up the length just a little, the Lowrider Head turner 1/4-3/4 is a fantastic do it all rod. Falcon rates it H/F and maybe its fast but its lighter than some other's MH rods. If you are worried by that, then the 'Finesse jig' model is the same length and lure rating, but a little lighter in power. Which is better will depend a little on what you're throwing with it but both are great rods to do a lot of things.

110V straight to the terminals for a couple quick bursts?

same here I just typed this in Ajay's thread but I think this weekend will be the last open water around here for the winter.

Same here, maybe not quite as cold. I was contemplating going out Thursday after a full day of sunshine because its the last chance I'll have in January I think with the temps next week. We have skim ice around on all of the lakes right now which should clear tomorrow but 5+ days of sub freezing means guys will be ice fishing in 10 days' time.

I would suggest 'yes' to a networked unit. Instead of a marker buoy, as you drive past you drop a pin on the console unit. The console unit and bow unit can share waypoints, so then you see it when you're up front. If you don't network them, then as you're driving by with the big motor your bow unit won't have a transducer in the water to show you the brush pile plus you'd have to run up to that unit to make a mark. I don't know Garmin's setup for networking two units but I think it involves a black box so you'll have to factor that into your costs. Though, if you're only using the front for GPS and have connected uniuts, then you don't need a second transducer for the front and can get a head unit only model which will save some money.

Ditto. But if you're talking full retail spending there are better options too. The SLX DC is $199 on TW. Keep an eye on stock levels, but you can get a Bantam MGL from japan for basically that same price. Amazon US used to have them shipped from japan for $215 but they are up to $268 now. Or, there's the JDM Zillion, bought from Amazon USA for $216. I also prefer shimano but have one of these and there's not much in it for ergonomics between it and a Bantam. And its a far better reel than a curado or an SLX. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NP3F5MV/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_6?smid=A3GZEOQINOCL0Y&psc=1

I fish everything from an 1/8 oz Sk tour grade light SJ up to a 1 oz meglodon from Siebert. I started fishing them a couple years ago to good effect around here. Depth of water and thickness of cover are what determine my jig type, weight, and trailer. Mostly we just have milfoil and pondweeds. Lost of 'frills' but no real substance to them. I like a lighter wire and the pointiest nose I can get there. It seems to come through cleaner. We also have pads and the occasional 'other' type of grassy cover. Also some docks and wood here or there. In those cases I like a heavier weed guard and I'm less worried about the nose. Pad stems and wood dock posts will have enough resistance to compress a lighter weed guard and get you hung more. Weight depends on how deep I'm fishing, but usually I'm in the 3-5' range and that's a 3/8 oz for me mostly. If its a deeper weedline I'll go heavier. If I'm generally fishing the shallower water but I know the lake or stretch of water has some deeper edges I'll bump up to a 1/2 to make the deeper easy but just keep the rod tip high in the shallows. I rarely go lighter than 3/8 oz but if there is a lot of < 4' water that I'm fishing or I want to fish them slow I'll go a little lighter.

We got about 8" here saturday night followed by rain/sleet at 33 degrees, followed by 2" more snow on top of what the rain just compressed at 30 degrees. It made for a semi crust layer on top that you can't walk on and the dogs hate with a frozen slush layer on the bottom that you can't get a shovel or blower through. Glad I sorted the driveway while it was still snow. The slush the next morning was rough. All of that combined with the 28 degrees and windy suddenly makes me want to come inside and sort tackle rather than thinking about taking the boat out Thursday.

i have a bantam on my heavy flipping stick but I still use an Abu STX gen 4 on my frog rod. More drag than you could ever use and smooth to fish. Not quite as small as a small size shimano but its a 150 sized spool so line capacity is never an issue.

My story pales in comparison to some of these but I’ll tell it anyway. I lived in Cleveland for a year during university when I did a year in industry instead of classes. I lived 5 minutes from the Chagrin river which had steelhead from September to May and smallmouth from April to September. It was flyrod and light line heaven. One day in June I grabbed a small 5 wt and a handful of smallie flies after work. Wet wading, no net, just a small chest pouch. I’d caught a few small bass in the sub 14” range but nothing special. There was a railroad bridge pier halfway across the river and the channel was on the far side. The pier had a ledge about chest high from the water to stand on so I waded my way over and climbed up onto the ledge. As I crept around to the channel side I could see them. It was an entire school and they were big. And feeding. Except it wasn’t steelhead or smallmouth. It was carp. I carp fished for a long time and have caught a lot of carp on the flyrod. I’ve caught a lot of big carp too. Plenty of fish in the 36”+ range. This was a school of them, maybe 2 dozen fish, all in that same size bucket. I hung back for a minute to see what they were doing and eating. Turns out it was the cottonwood bloom and the carp were eating the white seed buds that were floating down the river. Every so often a cluster would float down and whichever fish was in line would grab it. I grabbed a white Clouser minnow from my pack and hurriedly threw it out there and… nothing. Again and again I drifted it through to no interest. After watching a few times I could see that it was sinking too fast. I broke the lead eyes off and drifted it through. The lead fish in the school nosed up and sucked it down like a brown trout on a mayfly. Now I have a problem. I am 4’ above the water line on a concrete pillar hooked up to a very large carp on 5 lb tippet with a click drag reel in a river that doesn’t end for another 80 yards downstream. It took the fish a minute to realize it’s options I think. At first it just kinda sat there. It went upstream 20 yards to the head of the pool, settled down into the middle of the pool, and then woke up. It made a sprint to the bottom of the pool. I’m not sure if it could have gotten out of the pool but I wasn’t taking the chance. When I was halfway through my backing and losing ground quickly I had to make a choice. And the choice was to run after the fish. Except I was 4’ up over 3’ of water and now 80 yards from the fish. I worked as a lifeguard for a long time so I did my best giant stride into the water while keeping the rod up. I collected my bearings and then collected as much line as I could tighten. I then sprinted to the shoreline and downstream as fast as I could through rocks and water. I made up 3/4 of the line pretty quickly but still had a very large carp 20 yards away in current. By this point I think the fish was just tired of having my line in his mouth pulling in the current. I managed to get side current to her and the fight was all but done then. Heavy side pressure got her the rest of the way and I was now touching the biggest carp I’ve ever seen in person. Her head was the size of a basketball and she was pushing 48”. Conservatively I would put the fish at 30# but if you told me she was 40# I would believe it.

same here. But we also have unlimited antlerless deer in my zone and a couple more. So if I shot all of the buttons while I was hunting does this year that would have put a decent hit on the balance. Then if lots of others did that because button bucks are dumb….