casts_by_fly

Yes they do still! I'm full mono aside from my couple braid rods. Suffix elite and sunline supernatural are my two. Both are super limp with minimal memory. I hate coiling line. Elite is basically the same size as big game looking at the specs. I don't think I ever realized that but they are.

Hi All, I'm running 50 lb braid on my heavy rod (1/2-2 oz rated) for pitching into grass and the occasional laydown (there are 6 within 30 miles of me). I'm throwing texas rigs and jigs in the 3/8-1/2 range most of the time. I had set this rod up to be a light punching rod since we get some heavier lily pads here but for the most part the fish haven't been in the heaviest of them so I don't really need the heavier braid. As a result, I found that I left that rod home (or didn't use it much when I did take it) as often as I took it. I think I might like it better with heavier mono. I also fish it with A-rigs in the spring and it would be a good carolina or big texas rig dragger. I prefer how mono casts to heavy braid for these. I know a lot of people throw 20-25 lb mono and fluoro for what I'm describing. But what diameter are we talking? If I look at supernatural (a preferred line for me), 25 lb is only 0.016" which is fairly thin. I use suffix elite 17 lb on my less heavy bottom rod and its the same diameter. I'm not sure that its quite enough for the bigger rod. Then again, I know lots here use the japanese lines so talking about 25 lb japanese line is more or less the same. So for those of you pitching with heavy mono, what's your line test/diameter of choice? thanks rick

that was us last year. No rain for two straight months. Maybe an inch over four months. The big lake dropped 25’ in the end. After the first month grass was brown. After the second it was hay. By the end it was like walking on dry pine needles everywhere. It will bounce back. Some cool weather and a light rain will color it right back up mostly.

White. Dark stuff works too but a white frog at night has always been a producer.

I'm not that bothered about it. Pickerel are the most common for me and they just tear up the baits, not so much cut them off. Musky are the next frequent for me and they get one or two a year. Not enough that its worth dealing with wire leaders or heavy fluoro.

'tis the season! Grass growing season that is. We've been blessed with a very mild summer here so the grass was never truly stressed. If anything, I needed to cut back on watering because I had some fungus problems. That said, things have been looking pretty good all year. Until The end of august when I killed everything next to the pool. It was a project I've had in mind for a while. You'll see in the pictures that the level wasn't good. I think the retaining wall was slowly moving out, plus its all been there for 15 years now (long predating us). The sprinkler hoses and heads were very exposed in places. It was lumps and bumpy all over, making it hard to cut evenly. And there was a real mix of turf grasses, crappy pasture grasses, and noxious weeds like poa triv. The only solution was a full renovation. I killed everything off in the middle of August, intending to level and seed labor day weekend. With my mother in law passing we were away for a lot longer than I wanted. When we finally got home two weeks ago I had 11 tons of soil/sand delivered and two days available to get it spread, leveled, and seeded. It ended up being nearly 100 industrial wheelbarrow loads trekked 40 yards each way-- fortunately all downhill. I managed the first 75-80 loads on friday afternoon and finished early saturday morning. Leveling, seeding, spraying (starter fertilizer and weed preventer), and top coating took me another hour or two. Fortunately, I was putting down a 100% rye mix which germinates and grows fast. Six days after seed down I had the makings of some fresh new grass. I'm now 6 more days on and about ready to cut it for the first time as its a solid 2" already. There is still a long way to go, but at this rate I should be good and full well before winter rolls around.

I'd start with something else on the pond. For me, I always approach with a moving bait of some type. Type depends on the water and the day, but it could be a frog, a small topwater, a spinnerbait, lipless, or equivalent. Make a round catching the easy ones and note where the fish are hanging out that day. Fish the super shallows on the first round as once you've walked past them they usually clear out. Then I'd slow it down to a swim jig, fluke, or similar moving bait that's less aggressive. By now you'll know if the fish are chasing, up in the column, on the bottom, etc. From there I'd go into a texas rig or other bottom plastic rig (depending on grass, rock, depth, etc). Make a round but move quicker where the fish weren't with the moving baits and spend more time where they were. You could try 'active' plastics like a rage and less active ones like a straight worm. By this point you should have a pretty good feel for what's happening that day. If you want to go to a really finesse presentation like a ned or dropshot then have at it.

A beetle spin is pretty light, but if I remember correctly its normally a 1/16 lead head, plus plastic, plus the wire and blade. I bet you're around 3/16 all in. With a medium light rod you should be able to get there. You want something soft and flexible to come off the reel with minimal effort. 10 lb 832 braid is on my comparable rod and is a good choice. For bream and moving baits I wouldn't even use a leader. 6 lb mono like a trilene XL or sunline supernatural would be worth a try also. Neither is expensive to try.

I'm with @you on this one. I don't target them specifically, but all of the skinnyfish are fun to catch as bycatch. What I don't prefer is bait stealing. Whether its tails off swim jig trailers, crankbaits from northerns, or (a first for me this year) a musky rocketing across the top of the water like a tuna to take a hollow body frog clean on 50 lb braid. I'll lose a couple lures a year to them- some witnessed, some just a bare line when you set the hook (musky and jigs are good for that). But if ever you're having a tough day on the bass and just need to get the skunk off, throw something baitfishy around the weeds and the pickerel are around.

You’ll love induction. It’s a completely different animal than glass top electric. We had one in the UK on 220v. We could take a big pot of water from faucet to boiling in about 3 minutes. That’s half the time of gas (we have the same pots on gas now). Temperature change in your pan is practically immediate. Cast iron and enameled cast work great but some of the benefits are lost. Cast is great for holding heat. But some of the times you use it to hold heat are because a gas or electric stove can’t keep a regular pan hot enough. Induction is much better in that regard in how much energy it imparts. when our current stove craps out in 5-10 years we’ll move to induction without hesitation.

Chain pickerel.

You can only know by trying it. The lakes I get algae on aren’t spinnerbait lakes for me. I throw a chatter bait on those lakes to good effect though.

I didn't know you had pike as far south as south carolina. Sure it wasn't a big pickeral?

I wouldn't say 'love' but throwing a texas rig to cover water (as opposed to pitching targets) has been fruitful for me this year. I never used to do it because it was too slow for me, but actually its not slow if you don't want it to be. It is methodical though so you're not covering as much distance/water which I think was my mindset.

The second and third pictures were the same day/same lake (hence how its tough to tell from a picture). If that's what you're fishing, then the green pumpkin chartreuse or black and blue would be my starting points like a said above. If you have the right bait and presentation I'm confident they will work. The grass growing back is actually helpful to you. That will help collect the bass in the areas where its growing and give you some better starting points than a plain mud bowl. I'd work plastics on the outer edges of it first and foremost.

Mayflies are a great family of insects to learn about. They require some of the cleanest water and are a keystone species. There are so many variations in size, color, habitat, and behavior that you're always learning something new. Little summer blue winged olives and tricos have bodies that are half the size of a grain of rice. Tricos in particular end up forming mats of dead and dying adults that the trout slurp in gulps. You're fishing a size 20-24 hook and 1-2 lb tippet just hoping for an accurate cast exactly when a trout comes up to eat. Conversely, Hexes and green drakes are huge. Their bodies are are an inch to an inch and a half long and then the tails are that long again or more. They are practically the size of a dragonfly. When they are hatching, pretty much nothing else will be eaten on the water. These are the flies you plan trips around. The green and brown drake hatches in the east happen in May which is prime time for water conditions (still plenty of water usually, but not spring floods), fewer casual anglers on the water, and the trout are still very hungry and not picky yet. In between you've got the whitefly hatches where it looks like a blizzard, green olives, blue wing olives, tan march browns, and every natural shade in between. They will hatch when the water hits 45 degrees or so which is usually march in the north east and keep going in some form all summer. In lakes you get a lot of the same species, but you also get others. Mayfly nymphs in streams are largely crawlers and burrowers, either under rocks or in the silt. In lakes and streams you also get swimmers that have longer bodies and evolved swimming 'appendages'. And like noted above, the adult mayflies only live 24-72 hours depending on the species. Some hatch from a nymph, fly up to a branch to dry a couple hours, and then mate that evening and die. Some stick around a little longer, but not much. Some hatches are timed to occur over such a short period that its easy to miss it by a day or two (whitefly and hex hatches for two). Some mayflies continue to hatch throughout the year like olives and fish will eat them year round. The fish can get suitable picky (or not) also. At times, if you haven't matched the hatch down to the specific hook size they will not take it. At times you have to match the specific shade of the body but the size doesn't matter. Sometimes a hatch is so thick you can barely see the water but the fish will eat anything BUT that fly. Think bass can be picky? Trout can be real buggers. However, one thing is usually true- a big fish likes a big meal. If all else fails during a hatch, throw a streamer or another baitfish imitation and make it look wounded. They usually can't refuse.

But bigger bass though? My experience with dragon flies is that its mostly the 10" bass or so that are eating them. Still fun to catch, but not usually the fish I'm looking for.

it depends on which insects are hatching IMO. Like you saw, midges and other small stuff will get the baitfish fired up pretty well and forgetting their place. The bass will usually take advantage. If its bigger bugs that the bass are also eating then like Ajay says it can be a hard row to hoe. I was a fly guy for a really long time and would track and wait for the big hatches each year. Big mayflies in July/August were fun, but there were so many around that its like fishing when there are schools of millions of baitfish. Fish would eat if you put it on them, but they weren't going out of their way for anything. When the Cicadas hatch or grasshoppers that's a different story. The fish get big mouthfuls and especially early and late in the hatch they will swim across a river for a fallen cicada. Every other fish does too and it makes for a fun evening on the water.

@TriStateBassin106- always hard to tell just from a picture. That picture doesn't look too bad (relatively speaking) as I can see some aquatic vegetation still. From this airchair it looks 1-2' but you're on the ground and see it live. I'd still be more or less in the same color set to start though. Something in the black realm and a green pumpkin, maybe chartreuse highlighted somewhere if its that dirty. A chartreuse/black back lipless would be my choice for a moving bait. Here are two local lakes over the past 2 years. This is what I consider pretty bad. Both had visibility <6", though I caught a few here or there. The lake I was fishing with my dad earlier this summer also had a bad bloom. It was 12"-18" depending on the location in the lake and we made out okay with what I noted above.

I spent a year in Cleveland for an internship in college. I managed to fish 250 days that year. It was steelhead from late august or early September through April or may. Then the smallies would run the river and be there for the summer. One day targeting smallies with a little 5wt I saw carp eating like trout. It was the cottonwood tree seed dropping time and the carp were gobbling them up. I threw on a light white clouser and caught the biggest carp of my life. It was well over 30# and 40”. I used to fly fish for carp a bunch with bread flies and nymphs and caught a bunch of double digits but nothing like this before or since. Carp are awesome.

if I'm throwing treble hooks I am netting basically 100% of the fish I catch. Its not worth the risk of a hook in the hand. Single hook baits I will boat flip into the kayak at times, but I don't prefer it unless the fish is small enough to grab in the air- basically under 12". I am a strong believer in a wide mesh rubber net. Mine is a Yak attack leverage because that was the first one I found that fit just right in my kayak. In 3 years with it I have had one hook actually stick in the net and that was a treble that penetrated at the intersection of the mesh thick spot. Every other hook is a simple removal, even with heavy barbs. Rubber nets are better than nylon nets by a mile for the fish's benefit. They are far better than nylon or fine nylon mesh nets for hook entanglement. They are more expensive and heavier. If you're carrying it in, you might want to look at a folding net and a back magnet. That's how I carrier a steelhead or trout net for the longest time. I don't know if you're wearing a vest or backpack, but you just clip it on and let the net hang behind you all day. Simple to use with a fish on- just pull the net.

Yeah, that's a goner. Razor blade take it all off, clean the blank, and redo it. Don't use the heat like that next time.

If that picture is current, then you're pretty clean. Even if the color is like the earlier ones, the fish are used to that color now. So the real answer is 'they'll be where you find them'. Its a small pond. There's probably a bunch of silt across the bottom, but if you can find a hard spot or something different on the bottom they'll congregate there. If there's a good bit of pressure I'd expect them to hold off the bank most of the time, but again- they'll be where you find them and you just have to keep working. Color wise, if its clear like in the second picture then that's a green pumpkin or variation. And that looks clear enough that I'd be in the no flake version and probably scaled down. Great that the grass is gone- that opens up options. if you can't find them with a texas rig I'd swap to a lipless crankbait and try to get a reaction bite. At least then you might find one or two and give you a place to work over more.

I went with the fishing specialties mount which I think Frydog also went with. Its a solid mount and I like it for my Mega Live setup. The only thing I don't really like is that when I am making a full speed run I don't like to leave the pole in the water. That means I have to take it out and lay it on the deck next to the motor. I've got an AP120 so you'll have an extra foot of space to work with, but on the 120 the front well gets a little cramped when I do that. There are other mounts that allow you to rotate the pole 90 degrees in place that I think might be better (but that I haven't tried).

We just saw one a month ago in obx. We were coming back from a beach fire and saw it. Didn’t know about them but my brother in law did. Pretty cool.