casts_by_fly

You guys have hit my triggers. Carolina rigs and drop shots are both things that I know work for other people and I want to love. Neither has done anything for me though. I’ll throw one once a year in an obvious scenario where it should work and get bored after ten minutes.

Very good point! A toilet mounted in the back to use when steering (tiller handle of course) that doubles as a toilet on board.

i change out my plastic when it no longer stays in place on the hook where I want it to be or if it loses function like a paddle tail. Ragecraw/bug/menace loses an arm? No biggie keep fishing it. Keitech loses a tail? That's a critical piece and I have to change it. Anything that doesn't stay up on the hook though is gone unless a spot of superglue can fix it. For texas rigged beavers that's why I really like palmetto bugs because the elaztech goes forever and doesn't move on the hook.

Last years early tournaments did well. April 22nd took 23 lb. to win and there were plenty of big bags. Mostly smallies then. End of may took 20lb of smallies though other bags had more largemouth. I’ve not fished it myself but I watch a couple NJ tournament trails and most seem to go there at least once a year. rick

My biggest fish the past two seasons have been on either a black buzzbait or a chatter bait. Biggest smallie was a lipless. Given some of the plans I have, I’m going to go with a big sieberts tremor and it’s going to be an April fish.

yeah, a 170 pro would need to turn a bit but it’s skinny enough to do it. That was my top factory option.

Patterns with red and craw in them account for half of my catch through the end of May. Last year it was a red/brown/black/orange chatterbait and a demon colored OG6. I picked my PB smallie on a similarly colored red eye shad, plus other fish. I grabbed some Siebert swim jigs in fire craw since swim jigs worked well last year on the whole. I have no doubt the rippin rap will produce for you.

I'm a little south of you here in NJ, but March is my usual start at ice out. The past couple years its been the first or second week of March . We don't have ice right now, but the water is ~35 degrees. I'm sure there are fish to be caught, but the water's been that cold all winter and we've not had any good air temps to keep me warm enough fishing it. When the water temps hit 40 and the the air is 45-50 and sunny I'll start. At least if I'm not freezing I can focus on not catching fish. As other said, a sunny afternoon, especially if its the second or third sunny day in a row without freeing temps as night, is where I'm targeting. That will help warm the shallows a couple degrees and get things moving around a little.

if I had a place to put it I would have done that 2 years ago. Then there is no question about what size boat or where it goes.

I like this idea. "Honey, I actually need two boats, not just one now".

Which makes perfect sense. I think in my case they cheaped out on the plugs. Instead of installing a half dozen GFCI across the outdoor and garage plugs, they put two in the basement (where they are needed anyway) and then ran lines to the other locations that need GFCI protection. So they would save about $100 on plug costs or so which isn't a big thing itself. However, they make a lot of houses. There are 20 on this street, so that's $2k. They have thousands going in each year. A thousand houses is $100k savings. We are redoing our outside right now so every plug outside is going to be a GFCI.

Any idea why the bathroom GFCI controls the garage? We have two GFCI in the basement which control the outside plugs and the garage outlet. Its a stupid setup. Instead of running GFCI plugs outside or near the outside plugs, they put them as close to the breaker as possible. So if you trip one outside, you have to come inside to the basement to reset it. I'm guessing something similar for your bathroom?

Thanks all for the suggestions so far. The issue isn't that she's on the boat and needs to go. If that were the case, a She-wee and bottle would be my solution for her. The issue is that the only boats she's interested in me owning are ones that are big enough to have a bathroom. Toxic hits the nail on the 'head': That was the implication on saying bathroom. Basically a boat with a head will probably have a bed too. At that point, you're pretty locked in to a style and that style isn't an aluminum fishing boat. BUT, she said bathroom so I'm eventually going to figure out something clever. At the last stadium concert/tailgating we did one of the people brought a tiny bathroom tent, maybe 4' tall, in case the portapotties were awful or a long walk away. This might be my lead candidate so far. The thought of a pontoon boat has crossed my mind. I can't fit a full size one, but the mini pontoons would be interesting. depends on the trailer a bit. Lots of newer boats/trailers have been moving the boat forward on the trailer and shortening the tongue. Then putting the pivot right under the nose of the boat. As gimruis noted, you get about 18" back that way. On an older trailer with a long tongue you can put your own pivot in and save a little more. At the end of the day though, 16' of boat plus 2' of motor is about the limit on my garage if I want to be able to slide past the front of it. Also, a 16' boat normally will have a trailer width less than 8'. When you start hitting 17 or 18' boats the trailers get wide. A tracker TXW 175 would just squeeze into the width and be a touch long (might fit if its turned diagonal). I really wanted a TV18 and was ready to get wheel sliders to turn it diagonal across two bays, but the wheels are right on 96" wide.

Yes, but the fx is changing. It was 140 a couple months ago. It’s now 130 or so. A zillion was $225 in the fall. It’s now $255. The USDM version is $369. Still plenty of bargain, and still a very good buy. But not for long.

Hi gents, thought I might give some humor and also stimulate discussion on this one. I love my kayak, but given the option I would have a tricked out decked aluminum instead that matches the waters here. I have considered a boat a couple times. We have a 94” wide garage and only 19’10” long. That’s a major limiter of what can fit in the garage. My wife is an adamant no about storing a boat outside. Realistically a 16’ decked aluminum with an electric 9.9 is what I need. Given no other constraints I would do that. That said, I don’t think my wife wants me to get a boat. She didn’t when I got the kayak. However, she imparted a condition of ‘if it has a bathroom it’s okay’. Not because she goes fishing with me and needs it but because boats that have a true head are in the size range that she’d enjoy spending a day on cruising. So here’s your challenge. If you were going to build a 16’ aluminum boat with an enclosed bathroom, how would you do it? My initial thought was to use the space between the driver and passenger seats and build in a jump seat bathroom. Of course you couldn’t use it without a screen/cover/tent so I was thinking a pop up camping shower that’s mounted into the floor somehow. Any other creative options? thanks rick

You might have already ordered but one of these mounted to starboard which is itself mounted to the rails might be a good option. https://tbnation.net/products/graph-mounts-tbnation?pr_prod_strat=use_description&pr_rec_id=fd1858a90&pr_rec_pid=6688661635207&pr_ref_pid=7363218374791&pr_seq=uniform

I’ll confirm this. I have a jdm met. I filled it with 17 lb suffix advance and it might have 70 yards on it. It’s more than enough line, but on a long cast you start wondering some times.

I’m about where most of you are, 25-35 trips. I start in march and finish around October, normally getting out once a week or so. I have a flexible job (which was a little light on work last year) so get to pick my days and if I have a free afternoon I just run out for an evening session. Some weeks I get two or three days, some weeks I don’t get out. my best year was when I lived in Cleveland doing a year in industry work placement. I was 5 minutes to the river and I averaged 6 days a week that year. September through April was steelhead. Then it was smallies and carp for the summer.

If you can’t get at the nuts, can you put a wood wedge between the mount and the boat to try and get some friction on the nut? Or worse case can you get a hacksaw blade in between to cut them?

I’ve tried to like sake. We drink tons of wine and like you said, it’s just another type of wine. Our friends did the wset sake course (plus wset level 2) and he loves sake. We’ve done tastings, pairings at Michelin restaurants, and all sorts of stuff. Some of it I can tolerate but given a choice I’ll never choose it. For me, too many choices in wine to pair with about anything you could ever want.

I don’t know about others, but I can’t wear one on my face and that goes for hunting also. I’ve tried but I just can’t stand breathing through one. That said, wearing one around your neck is a game changer for warmth. On a recco here last spring I picked up the academy long sleeve hooded shirt with the neck gaiter built in. It’s light enough that I wear it up to 80 degrees or so but on those mornings where there is a slight chill the neck gaiter keeps the chill off your neck awesome. It also means I don’t need sunscreen on my arms most of the time which is convenient.

I love the double message here between the balloon surveillance and the moderator surveilling this thread…

Yep. Since you already have both there’s no reason not to try it. You already know garmin from your bass boat so there’s no learning curve either.

I can only carry 5 rods in the kayak so they all have to do double duty unless I know I’m going to have a specific thing on all day like a frog or a lipless. Even then, the rod it’s on will do something else on a different day. you’re thinking above is pretty solid. My amistad is largely a grass pitching rod with braid but early season I throw a-rigs on it, at lakes with muskies and less grass I have a 7” keitechs on it, and in a pinch I’ll throw a frog on it. My Hudson special is my summer buzzbait rod but in the spring it gets a lipless crankbait. It will fish a chatter bait just fine, but since I usually have one tied onto another rod that I prefer it on I don’t fish one on the Hudson. no reason you can’t do what you’re talking about. Just figure out what action like like for a given lure type and weight and then cluster them together. A medium heavy moderate fast and a heavy moderate fast will cover 90% of what you need on a bait caster.

that was exactly the conundrum I thought through. Since the helix can’t do live anything, I have to buy a head unit plus live transducer regardless. I considered just adding a 93sv for dedicated live scope then leaving the helix for everything else. Or, a 93sv and taking off the helix to run one unit. Or, just get the helix 9 and mega live and replace it one for one. I’ve settled on the last of those because I don’t want to give up the side and down imaging from the helix, and since I don’t have a live option to compare it to ANY live unit will be a major add. if you decide to run two units, my plan was to bring the helix 7 back as far as possible, maybe even using the rod holder adapter mount since I’d be using it while in the seat and moving. Then leave the live unit towards the front of the rails and up high for when I’m standing.