casts_by_fly

me too. No doubt my favorite time to be on the water is the 6-10 hours before a front rolls through. This year that hasn't been the schedule I've been able to keep though.

They didn't do low end because you can't make american made rods with a decent profit margin that compete with imported rods. There is too much hand work and manual work in building a rod such that the labor rates make a significant difference. Any industry that requires people as opposed to machinery will have a higher emphasis on labor rates in the market. If the extra manual labor gets you a more premium product AND you can charge for it then you can make it work. Above the $200 price point you still get performance improvements, but the gains become incremental relative to the spend required. Going from $50-100 is a big jump and you get twice the rod (or more!). From $100-$200 I'd say you still get twice the rod. From $200-400 you're not getting twice the rod.

I went out Saturday evening and fished 6-12. The wind kicked up and the front rolled through about 11 PM and the fish shut off completely. Before that I'd have a hit every 5-10 minutes. After I had two fish in an hour come up. They definitely reacted to the storm.

Welcome. I'm just around the corner from you in Chester. We should compare notes some time.

Pad crashers are fine, but they do come with really long legs. I cut mine to about 3/4"

I don't know the old falcons, but I've got a bunch of the new ones and I'm going to say that for $199 you're not going to find a better rod than the expert line. And $250 for a Cara is a steal. I don't have enough basis in other rods to say that it will compete with $500 rods, but others will say that. I also don't think you can get twice the rod of a Cara to make $500 worth it to me.

depends on how thick the cover and how you cast them. If you're lob casting then you're going to hang up a bit when the frog flips over mid-air and lands hook down on cover. Sidearm casting is better since it goes tail first but you'll still have some flip over. if you can land it in open water it will right itself and then you can work it over cover just fine. Docks and light cover is just fine.

Do you have tails on your frogs? The longer the tails the more they parachute and stop the sideways movement. I fish them tip down and twitch them just like a spook, except that the motion is a lot shorter and crisper. A spook is a lot more forgiving to walk since it will glide on the water more. A shorter pull of the frog will let it almost walk in place. Cutting the tails really short or even off entirely will make walking easier and get a little more of that glide.

If your boat/trailer will allow for it, put the trolling motor down so that you can turn it on. Hook up each battery individually and test voltage before and after turning the TM on. Its a poor man's load test but if there is something very wrong with one of them you'll know without having to pull them.

so its a rage craw with a hula grub skirt on the back. Wobblehead anyone?

downsize, sharpen hooks, and/or try a slightly different color. Like catt said, frog fishing is awesome, but they won't eat every one. Saturday night it was about 50% for me- 50% of hits actually converted into hookups. I even lost a fish that was hooked on a frog which was a new one for me (it had both hooks in the roof of its mouth).

I use the Jason Christie method. When all else fails, grab a spinnerbait and start going down the bank that the wind is blowing onto. Wind creates current. Current moves algae/insects/biomass. Biomass pulls baitfish. Bass follow bait. If the wind has been sustained for a day or more, then fish the back sides of points that are windswept. Think of it like a current break in a river and the fish stack up behind it waiting for batifish to pass.

Mine is set even for a tiny bit of side to side play. The only time it changes is if I am throwing heavy stuff and don’t want to wear out my thumb. Then I’ll add a bit more. Otherwise 1/4-1 oz I don’t adjust anything.

definitely true and another reason why I do it. tonight it was a 3/4 moon and almost cloudless. Plenty of light to go around. Fish were up and moving. Landed 6, lost a couple more at the boat, and had twice as many blowups that didn’t get a hook. All topwater. Then the wind came and everything shut off.

I just drove along some major lengths of the upper susky from Sayre up through the New York reaches until it crosses back into pa south of Binghamton. I don’t know about the fishing but it was beautiful mountains. Obviously there was a highway along one side of the river for a lot of it but it’s beautiful area.

Shorter rods were far more common 20+ years ago. A 7’ rod was long. A 6’ rod was fairly common. But with a short rod you don’t want to take up a quarter of it with a grip and seat, so you use a short grip or a pistol grip. If this rod is whole, then try it out for baits in the range the rod handles. You might like a short rod and grip. Sounds like a good walking bait rod or a tight quarters spinner bait rod.

I think jmac summed it up best a couple posts up. Then the decision you make depends on your circumstances. If fishing tournaments is important to you then that will send you down one path. If you have fairly big or fairly small lakes then that’s another path. You’ll have to figure out what’s right for you but I can tell you about me. I’m in a big kayak. I’ve posted before here why, but in short my wife didn’t want me to get a boat for some stupid reason so I went kayak and went with about the ’biggest’ one available. I’m in an autopilot 120, pretty fully rigged. I don’t fish tournaments and have no interest in it but the boat could do it. We have a lot of smaller lakes here. The two biggest are 2700 and 2200 acres but they aren’t that interesting for me to fish. Next down is 1200 acres and then we have a lot in the <300 acre range. We also have motor restrictions on most, either 9.9 hp or electric only. For the most part, a motorized kayak is great for me. I’d like it to go faster (top speed 4 mph) for some of the lakes but it’s not critical. I stand to fish 100% of the time. This kayak is super stable. It will tilt to the side about 10-15 degrees and lock up. I stand to pee and put one foot on the gunwale unless it’s whitecaps. I’ve stood in wake boat waves and stood to motor across big coves at 4 mph. Since it has a motor (with spot lock and cruise control) it makes fishing and moving easy (maybe too easy since I should fish slower). A pedal kayak would limit that a little but would be just as stable for the right one. in your budget range you could just about get a used bare bones autopilot. You have electronics already so that would be alright. For a pedal kayak you have tons of options, new and used. all that said, as much as I love my kayak and it’s really a fishing machine, I would swap to an aluminum if I could. Loading and unloading the kayak every trip gets old. Not having good dry storage or excess storage is limiting. Sitting and standing are fine in the kayak, but you’re not going to walk around in it. The ideal boat for me would be a decked 15’ aluminum with a rod locker and dry boxes. On the front I’d still have a spot lock motor and on the back I’d have an electric 9.9. I might consider having a bigger tiller like a 35 for the couple lakes I could use it but it wouldn’t be necessary (more like if I found a used boat that had one I would keep it). I’m not a tournament fisherman so speed isn’t critical but I’d like more than 4 mph.

Crown apple over a bunch of ice is a good summer sipper

I’m going Saturday night. I always start right at sundown to get that last hour of daylight and get into a rhythm. I might go all night this time until sun up. No where to be either day. Too hot to fish in daylight.

I too have a semi flexible schedule and work from home. The main thing is the job gets done. If that means that I do a couple extra hours during odd times to make up for being away at normal times then so be it. Getting up early on a weekday morning and fishing until 9-10 gets some good hours on the water. I've been known to listen to a global 'town hall' type broadcast from the boat with headphones in. This guy ate while I was listening in one morning last summer. Bottom bouncing jigs I take it?:

if the swivel and split ring are gone, check another one for the split ring itself. A split ring is an easy place to save money except if you use too light of one and the wire is flexible. Then the split ring can straighten out a bit and even pull through if its too soft of wire. Also need to look at make sure that the wire loop is closed on the split ring so it can't just swing off. I've seen some with wire loops open enough to do that from the factory (all brands).

It all depends on the type and amount of grass you have. Up here we have a lot of pondweed and milfoil, plus pads. Very clear lakes. The grass gets thick and deep when it grows. It makes it tough to throw any treble hooked baits around it a lot of the time. You can fish the outside edges if its a clean edge, but casting through it is tough. If your grass is more sparse then just carry on and run a crankbait through it. Lipless are great for <4' for me. A squarebill is a good choice too.

When I asked about it here some time back, the zillion 10 was based on the old zillion which was a 2014 (or thereabouts) release. It was basically the same price as the new zillion TW SV and a no brainer to get the new one. The new one with the 8.5:1 is plenty fast for me.

One of the only good things about living here in Jersey is that we have a plethora of non-chain restaurants of every category of cuisine. Most are one-off, single owners. Some are tiny mom and pop, some are fancy chef and his buddy (who could be wife, business partner, etc). The ones that survive more than a year are typically pretty good and will outclass any of the chains. Red lobster is the biggest chain struggle for me. My MIL loves it and I can't take it. None of the fish is fresh or cooked well. When that's literally the game you're in (a seafood restaurant) and you can't get that right then I'm out. I'll order the burger or fried chicken on a salad.

I just went outside in the 80 degree heat and 85% humidity of this morning to refresh my palette on it. It has a fruity nose and if you pour it over a glass of ice cubes I can see where it would work for some. If it were ice cold and diluted well it would still have some of the spice from the rye and the fruity nose. My bottle is 59.11% alcohol so unless you're a regular barrel strength neat whiskey drinker you're not going to be drinking it straight too much, and in this heat I wouldn't at all. Its rum, madeira, and apricot brandy casked. It certainly pulls the fruity sweetness you'd expect from that cask set. I don't know how long in each, but I will say that they've done a good job on the blend. On the nose, the alcohol drives off the fruitiness. Apricot/stone fruits for sure, certainly from the apricot brand barrel. Its clearly high proof Rye to start. You get the typical rye spiciness. On the tongue you feel the alcohol- its bitey. After its in your mouth a second or two you get a lot of barrel type flavors- sweetness, caramel, some oak- plus the rye flavor. The aftertaste gives a lot of the madeira cask. It almost goes to a vermouth flavor with oak/wood and earthiness on top of the madeira wine which kinda sticks around in your mouth a minute. Overall its a really nice whisky and I like it a whole lot. Mine was a gift so I don't know the price but at $50-60 it would be well worth it. Its just not that light and easy summer drinking whisky that you asked about. That said, if you like a manhattan served on the rocks then I think this is the whiskey for that. I prefer mine up and it will be great for that too, just not in the heat of summer.