casts_by_fly

If you're location is accurate (NJ) and you're going in the next couple weeks, then you're probably planning for grass. That means swim jigs, frogs, texas rigs, etc which are all a shorter heavy for me. I like my 6'10" head turner for a lot of that and for versatility. I can throw 3/8 swim jigs or 1/2 oz chatterbaits/spinnerbaits. You can pitch with 1/8 oz and plastic or go up to 1/2 oz and plastic if you want. Short enough to skip things, enough backbone to set double frog hooks. For a second rod, that depends on what you like to fish. Your tag says it all- "it's not what's best it's what's best for you". I don't carry a spinning rod, but a medium spinning rod would give you the most versatility for what comes your way. Lots of boat docks on a lot of NJ lakes so skipping a weightless plastic under them is a thing. Its summer and some fish have moved deeper on the bigger waters so dropshotting should be kicking in. If none of that appeals to you (it doesn't to me) then I'd grab another baitcaster and make the two a little more specialized. One for throwing moving baits and one for pitching a jig/plastic. That's how I arrive to the water this time of year (though I have more than 2 in the kayak). What lake are you looking at (or what part of the state)?

My favorite is whichever one I have in my hand with a fish on at the moment. My rod buying centers around consistency so most all of my rods have the same 'feel' even if they are different lengths and actions. They are all falcon and either expert or Cara aside from 1 or 2 bucoo I carry now and then. That said, the expert head turner with a JDM Met has a really nice feel about it and when I pick it up it just feels right. If I were ever to have multiples of the same rod it would probably be that one.

getting into that price bracket a custom could make a lot of sense. if you decide off the rack, the Falcon Cara heavy cover jig is a nice rod. 7'4" and designed to drag football jigs through rock and brush piles. I don't drag but I do pitch and was doing that with it last night. Light tip to feel every little thing but it has plenty of backbone (I set the hook last night into the biggest tree I've caught so far in NJ!). The Amistad is another nice jig rod (and is my heavy pitching in grass rod) but I'm not sure how it would be for casting jigs. Its a great pitching rod though.

It was bad here yesterday. I'm about 40 miles due west of NYC which by yesterday evening had the worst air quality of any city in the world at that moment. the air was thick. I was out fishing for the evening and it was as if there was a house on fire just below the dam. Of course that was the air quality for the entire region. Its cleared a little today. The air is still thick and it smells like a campfire outside but some of the haze has settled down. These are different ones yet. These fires are in Quebec and Nova Scotia but the way the jet stream is flowing the air is eddying back down across toronto and into NY. We should see some relief this weekend as the wind forecast from the north is dissipating and the wind from the south west (our primary wind) is picking up. It should push it all out to sea. We're also due some rain over the next 7 days and that will help us too if we actually get it. I think we've had a half inch of rain the past 45 days now. Its like last summer and we're only at the start of June.

Kinda. The spine is a line down the blank that has just a little more or a little less resistance to bend. Its subtle and varies by blank. I've had blanks that had a spine that a blind man could see just under the natural weight of the rod. I've had blanks that you couldn't find a spine at all. While technically you're right that there is a difference in the bend (and thus the action) if you bend it along the spine or perpendicular to it, the variation relative to the total power of the blank is not that much. To find the spine, you're only flexing the blank about as much as a light lure would just hanging there. When you cast or set the hook you're adding a lot more force than that. Also, some builders/companies ignore spine entirely and build on the straightest axis.

pad crashers (junior or regular) are a good choice and readily available. One light, one dark, and go from there. You'll want to watch which pads you're throwing around. Some of the pad fields here are pretty thick and you'll struggle to pull one out of it to shore if you get wrapped up. The lighter stuff and grass is no problem.

Well I made it out tonight for the annual all plastics outing. I probably didn’t pick a good night for it. The wind was 10-15 mph most of the time which meant anything light and slow was practically impossible to fish. I went to the same lake that I did last year, though with quite a few more trips there since. This lake is 50 acres and fishes like a big pond more than anything. It goes to 30’ and has big muskies in it, but it’s very weedy (pondweed, milfoil, eelgrass). There is some overhanging brush with <2’ of water under it that also holds fish. For the most part, the grass and the variations in the grass re what hold fish. tonight, I figured the bluegill would be on beds (they were) which means the bass are usually close by (they were). This is a good swim jig lake so my first port of call was a ‘swim jig’, aka a Texas rigged keitech with a skirted punch weight in front of it. It was also one of the things that you could work in the wind. I put a little time in with a sluggo, a couple different Texas rigged plastics, a toad and a frog. I made a few casts with an unweighted yum dinger to fish that swirled or that I saw before they saw me. The fish were short striking a lot tonight. A couple times on the swim jig they slammed it, but didn’t get the hook. I landed two on the swim jig but had another half dozen that would have been in the boat on another day. i also threw a buzz bait a little bit. Yes that’s against the rules. I wanted to try them on two different rods for an evening session before I loaded them up for a 3am session soon. I landed one on a buzz bait and had a couple more hit it but still miss the hooks. Talking to two guys at the ramp, they said this lake has been fishing poorly the past two weeks. I think we need just a bit more heat to get the fish into their summer patterns. i also had a nice musky swirl on the swim jig right at the boat. It flared its mouth like it was going to inhale it but didn’t. That would have been a nice bycatch.

nice.

yes, the blades can get chipped and the edges can roll over on them, just like a kitchen knife. You can check that just by looking at them and it can start to cause wobble. If its just a rolled edge you can hit it with a fine file or a tough nail file to take the roll off of it. Or, they are cheap enough to just buy a new prop and keep the old one as a spare (always keep a spare). If you fish around weeds a lot, the weedless wedge version is awesome. You lose a little top end speed, but I'm guessing you're not using the TM for primary propulsion anyway.

I'm not DVT, but I've fished frogs on rods from 6'6" up to 7'6" and for the most part I settle in at the shorter end. My current is the 6'11" falcon eye crosser which was designed for frogs. I fished my Amistad 7'3" heavy for a time but the length is draining on the wrists if you're hopping it back to you and its too long to fish tip down and walk it back.

1- you'd be screwing into the sealed housing of the TM lower unit. Any leak and the lower unit is filled with water. 2- you don't need to. glues and tapes work just fine and are far easier.

That's a jig rod or cover pitching rod any day of the week.

no need to sink one. Just texas rig a rage menace, zman goatz, a solid body toad, or any number of frog looking plastics. It might not look exactly like a frog but its close enough to make a bass say 'food'.

i guess its browser dependent for the link. Either way, go to google images and drag and drop any of the three images from the original post into the drop area. It brings up the listings that MN fisher have there and that I see on mine as well. Reverse image search in google is a really powerful tool for things like this.

my guess is something got bumped out of place. Great that you don't need it, but I'd still want it fixed if it was mine. I've lately started turning all of my brakes on, but dialing them down to near zero to start. Then its easier to add a little more on the water without opening up the reel. I'm probably 50/50 on my reels now with half being all on and half being half on.

Not had that problem with mine. Can you see anything out of sorts with that brake? It sounds like when you are turning that brake on it must be running against the side plate and catching something. Maybe the brake is being held proud by the locking clips and that's holding it against the side plate. A picture of the brake in the engaged position might help diagnose.

Trolling is a skill of its own. You've got the 'finding fish' part, lure selection, boat control, and then getting the lure down to the right depth and keeping it there. There is no doubt its effective. Its just not for me I don't think. I've tried it a couple times here. We have a couple big lakes with various trout species (including landlocked salmon and lake trout). You can see fish on the fish finder hovering at depth. I've pulled minnow baits through them behind jet divers but still not caught anything. After an hour of riding around I get bored and want to cast. I've been on trolling boats inshore for saltwater species and its much of the same. Fine if you're with a group of people you have fun with and are drinking some beers. Not something I'm going to buy a boat set up to do it myself.

https://lens.google.com/search?ep=gisbubb&hl=en&re=df&p=ATHekxcBF2wWwKYFGmDeJoLolyqLFyyEx3l6h8yC1U_NUZYuAnCYy1Lex3fEZwS3DWmtecIbUe4iZJeupOtW7WlqWOtlyLoEKO5yy2vNWQiat5YGHjX-66J0FTprVeZEQqUtFTC3yO3jB-Rks8O3Eo5zQMXOYSlZfJ4vXCo80JvmLz63hW1NlvZV7QNWRJb6MMl9puOj1fTUwv_wS3TUVb17T3YG_kboXpsWdDE6MPdeht6ppCdPVwze-0HmVlAtij-2OZnaV3WMfEmB1FyxttFjdqbdWnnQDMu6i5LhjGlAp4V__puYF973ny4B#lns=W251bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsIkVrY0tKR1JoTVdVek1XRmhMVEkyTW1NdE5ERXhPQzFpTnpNeUxUZ3lPR1kxWXpFd1lUQTRNUklmZHpoMVIyOVpUVGh3WkRCWlJVWkRjWGQ0VEhKTVVEWkxObWhuVUdsU1p3PT0iLG51bGwsbnVsbCxbW251bGwsbnVsbCwiMy0xIl0sWyI4MmM5ZjcxMC1hM2FkLTRlODctYTA1ZS03MjdiMTVkNGYzZTYiXV1d Google images reverse image search is your friend.

Did you end up ordering one? Now that I've fished it a bit, I can confirm that the 7'2" swim jig rod (cara lineup) is a great choice for what you want. Its a little bigger and a little faster than the finesse jig which makes it a better t-rig choice. And its a great rod for 1/4-3/8 swim jigs.

Count me in the amber/copper brigade. I started it when I was trout fishing WAY back in the day and it makes such a difference if you are around anything green on the bank. Grey lenses cut glare and lower total light. Amber/copper do both of those, but they change the color spectrum and around trees and bushes in particular it really highlights underwater. Yellow polarized works great for low light but once the sun pops up I don't find them useful.

How far is ‘as far as I can’? are you talking about braid or other lines? are you limiting it to baitcasters or spinning also?

Where are you in jersey?

a wide mesh rubber net is the answer. Then net every treble hooked fish and don't worry about it. very occasionally I'll boatflip a little one if I can confidently grab it behind the head on the way into the boat. I'll never try to lip one that has trebles anywhere near the mouth until its in the net and has started to calm down. Even then I'll usually pop the hooks with pliers first while the fish in the water in the net. I have no interest in swapping out to single hooks for bass on hardbaits.

About a foot most of the time. Thats enough to get some load up but short enough to roll cast standing from a kayak. Pitching is obviously different and its enough for the lure to come down to my reel (which will thusly vary depending on the length of rod I'm using)

before you go down the cheap freshwater reel route, consider a cheap saltwater reel instead. I killed a sahara with sand and salt. I'm sure it would have been fine for salt spray and water, but dunking it in the surf and getting sand inside the gears was killer. I wouldn't do that again. At least cheaper saltwater reels have mechanisms and designs to account for that.