casts_by_fly

Fair callout, i missed the question. I'd say anything you can't throw effectively on a regular baitcaster. Practically speaking I think that's probably 1/8 oz total weight and under. BFS gear can go higher, but most all 'regular' baitcasters are going to struggle at that level. Using words and rod ratings, a medium is firmly in the non BFS camp. A light is firmly in the BFS camp. A ML will depend on the rod.

a trd weighs about 0.15 oz. A 1/16 head is 0.063 oz. That’s 0.21 in total, or 1/5 of an ounce. Just a tiny speck under a quarter ounce. Show me a medium heavy that doesn’t work with a quarter ounce, or better a medium that doesn’t work well with a quarter ounce. That’s not exactly the range that requires bfs. Now sure, a bfs reel on a lighter casting rod will certainly help that. But there are other non bfs setups that will do that too.

you mean a zman trd with a 1/16 oz head? That’s not even bfs level. That’s just lighter baitcasting. 30 yard bombs are no problem there @MediumMouthBass people have been throwing ‘bfs’ lures on spinning rods for decades. There isnt anything about ‘bfs’ lures that mean you have to fish them on a bfs rod. Bfs rods are just a way to throw light lures on a baitcaster. what you’re really asking is why don’t more people fish tiny finesse baits more often (and on spinning rods)? They do.

I think my groundhog has largely moved off. I saw him twice in the last 3-4 weeks and he's staying on the fringes. I think he's learned the rules so we can coexist now. The grass is in good shape. The dog yard is growing in thick and filling in the spots that washed out in the spring. I didn't expect the KBG in the mix to fill as much as it has but it certainly has filled in the chunks around the sidewalk that were bare. I might not even need an over seed for the bulk of the yard this fall now. I am dealing with some fungus though. Around the 4th the temps shot up, humidity went up, I didn't turn the sprinklers down enough, and we trampled a chunk of it playing lawn games well into the night a couple nights in a row. All of that meant damp, laid down fescue that didn't stand a chance. I finally treated it a couple days ago and have since turned off the irrigation. The brownspot has stopped so just need to wait for the fall and see if the KBG fills in enough. The other areas of the yard that were a mess are good and green now. Now its time to burn it all down! If my wife will deal with the mess and dead yard, I'm going to kill off everything around the pool and start fresh. The grass there now is a mix of blends from the past 15 years I think. I see everything from K31 and clumping fescue (1/2" wide dull olive colored blades) to some fine fescue that browns in the sun and the darker Rye that I over seeded with last year. It doesn't blend at all. It needs probably 5 tons of topsoil/sand to level it. Its going to be a lot of work but a nice stand of 1" dark Rye would look amazing there so I want to do it. I'll keep this thread posted if it happens.

@GoneFishingLTN what pat brown said. Around here this time of year we have plenty of 2-4" bluegills in all of the lakes. Almost always they are in <1' of water and often the skinniest of it where the bigger fish don't come. Maybe they are also deeper and we just can't see them. But a lot are very shallow. The big bluegill (7-8") this time of year are out of sight for me. That's 4'+ in most lakes. They are foraging for insects on the bottom and eating fry. They are big enough to survive 'out on the reef' so they can search for better food.

My standard buzzbait is the swinging sugar buzz from string king. It’s the only one I throw really.

Top of the knot, further part of the knot up the mainline. if you have it on the middle of the knot or on the eye it will cut the rest of the knot in two. I lube the knot with spit and pull both tag ends while the knot is very loose. You're not cinching anything tight at that point so the line slides with no damage. Then when it gets down to the last little bit snug them separately with the knot tightening first and then the loop that came over the knot last.

If it was from last year's spawn it wouldn't be fry now. it would be a small bluegill. 2-3" at least. Could even be 4" by now depending on food.

10 lb 832 is a great choice if you have some lying around. I'm hopeful to find something that can go lighter than 1/16 plus rubber if possible. I'd like to get into that 1.5g territory but since this isn't a rod I'll fish more than a couple times a year I don't want to go crazy on it. isn't that what we call bass rods? Ultralight musky rods.

For you guys with the 'light', how light can you throw on it? I picked up the kastking reel used on these forums and put it on an older lamiglas I built ages ago. It a 1/8-1/2 blank with a moderate (maybe moderate fast) action. I'd call it a ML power. It will fling a TRD+1/20 a long way. I can throw a 1/16 head and 2" crappie shad a good ways (about 1/12 oz total weight). It won't load enough with a trout magnet or little hair jig. I'd like to try lighter and the 1/8-3/8 rating on this appeals, though I'd prefer 1/16-3/8. Thoughts?

I'm picturing a full on bass boat with powerpoles down and a hammock strung between the front and back pedestal seats... Sounds quite nice to me.

If you mean the pro 116 then that doesn't look like a half bad option. On the surface it has a lot of the same features and layout as the old town paddle. If you're talking about the Tamarack 120 then I wouldn't waste your time changing from what you have now until you've figured out what you need/want/like.

I can't speak to the size there now, but if you want scenic and beautiful head towards the west branch of the susky up towards Sproul state forest. We have a cabin about 90 minutes from there and used to fish all of the streams that lead down to the west branch for smallies in the summer. You'd catch more than a few fish. I don't recall 4 lb fish, but 50 fish to 15-16" in a day was no problem. And you wouldn't see a single person or building the entire way.

That is the correct way to run it. Power to a fuse block and then run everything to that. You'll be fine.

You're going to struggle to get a good rod recco here. Basically everyone is north america (mostly USA) and fishing for freshwater bass. The rods you can get in the UK are very different and you're talking saltwater bass which is a different animal yet. In generic terms, you'll want to look for a moderate fast action rod rated somewhere 1/4-2 oz. Something like the wychwood agitator 7' 10-40g (3/8-1.5oz) is the right size if that's the weight range of lures you're throwing. yes, that's what he'll be talking about. In some parts of the UK you can fish the beaches for them reasonably well. Not sure where wonderboy is but when I lived in East yorkshire there were plenty of beaches that held them. Think small stripers in the surf and you'd be pretty close.

Tom explained bottom oxidation. Drawdowns work to greater or lesser extent depending on the specific aquatic weed, the length of drawdown, and the conditions during drawdown. For instance, if you freeze most aquatic vegetation seeds they will die. That means extremely cold temps or just very cold temps for a long time, enough to freeze the lake bed down to the seed level. We have a lake here that was about 20' low over the winter when we had the 0F conditions around christmas for a week plus. There is no aquatic vegetation in the lake this year. None. Other lakes in the area draw down 4-8' over the winter to knock down some of the weeds rather than use chemicals. It works somewhat for us (primarily milfoil and pondweed), but there is still more weed in the areas not drawn down and it only takes the spring for it to spread again back into the shallows. Lake fertility just means that the oxygen can go to better uses than breaking down the junk on the bottom.

completely. The roads weren't crowded and the people behind us saw it in action so they slowed down traffic and stopped it. The highway was shut for probably 2 hours. Even more, when the truck went off the road it was an embankment that if we had gone over top of the barrier we would have gone 100-200 vertical feet down over a hill and stopped at a swamp. Fortunately the barriers were the extra tall versions. The front tow hook was what hit first and it hit so hard that the tow hook bent back over on itself. I've never seen a bent towhook before let alone one bent in half. Incredibly lucky.

We wrecked the truck and boat a number of years ago due to fatigue. We were fishing Erie all day which is a 2-2.5 hour drive. We did it as a day trip and had done that and similar NEPA lakes plenty of times. Part way home my dad asked me to drive so I started putting away all of my fly tying kit (I was tying on the front seat). Before I finished he had drifted onto the gravel verge, woke up, and jerked the wheel to get the truck back onto the road. Of course the boat didn't like that so it pulled the truck part sideways. He compensated but the boat wagged the truck and we ended up 90 degrees to the road, went straight into the barrier and rolled. the ball rolled out of the trailer and the boat popped straight up in the air in the fast lane. We heard later from the nurse in the car behind us that it skidded down the fast lane like an airplane coming in for a landing. The skeg was toast. After losing the boat, the truck rolled two and a half times to land on its roof in the slow lane. He didn't have his seatbelt on because he never wears one (unless I'm driving). I didn't have mine on because I had just taken it off to put stuff in the back seat and hadn't reach to put it on yet. Luckily, I realized what was happening and grabbed the door handle and seatbelt buckle latch to hold myself down into the seat. My dad drives with his legs so far up under the steering wheel that it held him in. Luckily we got away with a few scrapes from crawling out of the window to get out. All that's a long way of saying- pay attention to fatigue. If you're doing long drives after fishing, consider a nap before you do it or even staying overnight. As for me, I'm lucky to have a dozen lakes within 45 minutes and half are less than 30. I'm more than happy to fish multiple days, though my limitations are either my shoulders or my back. If I am power fishing with the big rods and heavy baits then that's a lot of casting and will make my shoulders sore.

I was fishing the swim jig a bunch last night. I think its my new favorite buzzbait rod for a 3/8 buzzbait with 30 lb 832. Since I picked it up its mostly had a buzzbait, swim jig, or light texas rig on it. Sweet 'little' rod with a pretty fast tip but also not a ton of power up high on the rod so it has a lot of great flex. It's like the all-round if it had a more refined taper- lighter and better tip, more support in the mid section for that tip, and about the same total power in the butt. I threw my heavy cover jig last night a lot in a way I've never done before- as a spinnerbait rod. At 7'4" I would have though it a bit long for that but it wasn't. My head turner was occupied with a chatterbait so I figured why not. I'm coming to really like the HCJ for a lot of things now.

you're overthinking it. Its not necessary. Keep the electronics and motor on separate batteries. Keep the transducer wire away from the motor as best possible. You'll be good to go.

this is what I typed in the other thread: As DB said, that's not the point. Kayak fishing is its own sport. If your hobby is kayak tournament fishing then this is a very real ready to go option for a high end rig. Think about a top end tournament bass boat and you're over $100k fully rigged. This gives you much of the fishing functionality (spot lock, live scope, dual graphs, powerpoles) at a tenth of the cost. Of course you give up space and speed, but then you gain back storage at home and towing weight. You also don't have to rig all of these things. Skip the newport, a powerpole, and make it a single garmin and you're down to $10k. Livescope is very optional as well, though a nice option. For a non-tournament angler this is a lot of kayak. I will say that its not far off my autopilot which is a lot of kayak for a non-tournament angler. can you rig a small aluminum for a similar price and have more space and functionality? Yeah, probably. Not a new aluminum but certainly with a used one. Not everyone wants a full on boat though. And, there are some parts of the country where you can put a kayak in and not a boat.

No experience with the so cal. If you want an interesting one for the heck of it, the swim jig is a great rod.

1/4-2 isn’t a medium heavy. That’s a true heavy for most all manufacturers. And, that’s a really wide range. Normally 1/4-3/4 is a medium heavy (maybe up to 1 oz), 3/8-1(or 1.25) gets you a lighter heavy. Then 1/2-2 is a true heavy. What are you planning to throw on it (bait weight range)? I use a falcon expert amistad which is 3/8-2 rated and a true heavy. 7’3”, fast action. Definitely fits your description except it’s $200. The low rider version though is $120 and 1/2-1.5. Possibly a good choice for you. They also have the heavy cover jig which is 3/8-1 in the low rider (right in the middle of your range) so depending your plans might also be a good choice.

I don’t know, I don’t have an extra heavy. The regular certainly isn’t too fast for that. In fact I think the regular amistad would be a perfect rod for the 6”.

I don’t fish a magdraft but I do fish bigger Keitechs. My regular expert amistad will go up to about 2.5 oz well enough. If you’re talking about the 6” magdraft at an ounce and a half then either of the amistads will do that. If you mean the 8” then it will need to be the extra heavy or the superduty. if you want to replace the Diablo, the Hudson special is basically the same power and lure, though more moderate fast than fast. It’s like a more powerful all round. If you want a bit more power for chatterbaits then the cara heavy cover jig is a really good rod. 1/2-1 oz rated, 7’4” fast action but not super fast. I was throwing a 3/8 chatterbait with it last week and it was fine, but it’s a great rod for a 1/2 plus big trailer. I also pitch with it a lot and it’s the same rod I landed the 40” class musky on from my last trip report.