casts_by_fly

Falcon expert finesse jig would be my recommendation. 6’10” mh f though it’s pretty light on power and fishes a little slower than a fast action with a lot of power. Great all around rod for lighter than average techniques like you describe. The head turner is the other all purpose rod in the lineup but fishes best with 3/8 oz or more. The finesse jig does well below 3/8 which is what you describe. if you’re set on something more moderate, the 7’ 5 power all round is the one. It works for topwater (though I like a little shorter) and it great for crank baits of all types (my choice for that). Great all around rod.

Just go braid to leader.

If I’m fishing a spinnerbait like you’re talking, I’m probably fishing it medium to fast speed. For a 3/8 I’m in max 3-4’ of depth. If you worked hard maybe 6’.

I have probably 6 or 8 different variations of bluegill, bream, pumpkinseed, green pumpkin, and similar in both swim jigs and bladed jigs. I think most of the time there is a negligible difference between them and all of them would work just the same. Then again, there are a few times when maybe the water is just a little dirtier than normal and I want a flash of bright in it or maybe this lake has lots of pumpkinseeds and they tend to be more tan/purple. In those edge cases I'll adjust which one I put on. think about it logically though- in the instances where it doesn't matter you have 8 'bluegill' colored ones that will all work. In the instances where it DOES matter, you have 8 different ones to try. So for me, I'll have a little of each for the cases when it does matter.

Also good blanks. I've built a bunch of rainshadows, though all were in the lower lines. I've not done a high end rainshadow.

how long is a piece of string and what are you using the string for? There are a LOT of great blanks on the market (NFC being one).

very true. This was not the case for us (my dad carries his own extra heavy cord from his construction days) but a very important reminder to all.

back to this problem- what type of charger do you have, specifically how many banks and what amperage? A standard outlet is 15 amp. If you have a 3-bank charger that will give you 5 amps per battery being charger. However, if you have a 10 amp per bank charger and 2 or 3 banks then you're pulling more power than the outlet can supply. On a GFCI that will trip all of the time. We learned that the hard way the first time my dad came to fish. He had a 2x10 charger and had put a 20amp plug at home to charge it. When we got home from fishing we plugged it into my garage plug (15 amp GFCI) and left it over night. In the morning it only had what charge was left from the previous day but we didn't know that until we were a LONG ways from the ramp on an electric only lake. Fortunately I had grabbed my 80 ah lithium from the kayak just in case and we made it back fine.

That's a chunk. She's seen some things in her life. Congrats to your buddy.

I found some 'live' data. 2011 looks like it was rough. 60% full. Must have been 8-10' low https://waterdatafortexas.org/reservoirs/individual/toledo-bend

I forgot about a reverse sear story that I can share. About 5 years ago we rented a house in the outer banks for our families to get together. My wife and i were still living in the UK, so we thought it would be a good way to get both sets of parents and both sets of siblings/kids all in one place for a week instead of the usual Christmas week where we are all over the place. It was really nice in the end. Since we were coming from the UK, my mom asked what they could bring special that we can't get in the UK. I requested good steaks from their local butcher for one of the dinners. I wanted a double cut (which ended up around a 24-30 oz Ribeye that was just over 2" thick). if you know anything about rental houses, their grills typically suck and especially so if they are at the beach around saltwater air. this one was no different. In order to get the heat to sear, I decided on the 20x24" charcoal grill (the open top kind), but of course you could only fit 3 steaks on there at a time. So I planned reverse sear in the upstairs oven, bring them down 3 at a time to sear, and put them back in the warm oven to keep warm while the rest sear. It was a great plan. Except my brain was still working in Celsius and the oven was in Farenheit. Somehow I messed up the numbers. I think I had 105 as my target meat temp, but in my head that was C which I converted to F. I set the oven for 225 and let it go. That in itself wouldn't be a problem (I reverse cook at 225 on the smoker now) except that I was targeting 105C (220F) as my internal temp. When the internal temp of the meat hit 160 F I realized the problem, of course the meat was a solid well done at that point. I seared as planned and we ate it. It was the juiciest well done steak you've ever eaten. The excess fat helped to keep the flavor and liquid in the meat. And since it was reverse seared the outside was cooked beyond my liking but not absolutely killed like a regular seared well done steak would be. It was better than a lot of restaurant mediums I've had. Long story short- if you're one of those heathens that cooks a steak to medium well or beyond, the reverse sear will change your life.

For good reason! But the old website was cumbersome and the data sometimes limited (or the ability to find or manipulate the data limited) so I can see why a lot of people couldn't be bothered. is there a USGS or equivalent for Toledo Bend? I looked when I wrote the post above but couldn't find anything on USGS website.

Do you have the regular Amstad or the extra heavy? The regular is the one I recommended in your other thread for 1-2.5 oz swim baits and arigs. It lists as 2oz, heavy, fast but it’s a little more moderate than a true fast and has the power to throw about 3oz as a top rating. The extra heavy is bigger, heavier, and stiffer. It’s meant for pitching heavy stuff into dense cover and being able to horse a fish out. Two different rods despite the name.

you’re right. But it’s the natural juices that keep the surface of the steak wet. When you pull a steak out of a Sous vide it is fully wet on the outside and no matter how much you towel it off it has that moisture on the outside and just into the inside of the meat. When you reverse sear, you are actively drying the outside edge of the steak and starting to form the crust. Dropping a damp steak onto a hot pan means that you have to evaporate the water before you can start searing the steak. A reverse seared steak has the outside and just into the meat already dry so you’re straight into searing. It’s a slight difference but it is noticeable.

sous vide and reverse sear are similar methods, but not the same. The biggest difference is that a sous vide is a wet cook and reverse sear is dry. I do both, but a reverse sear gets a far better crust and outside texture. You can never get a sous vide steak dry enough for searing. That said, a sous vide steak gives you flexibility on the cooking time if you’re entertaining people. Anywhere 1-4 hours in the sous vide is mostly the same so if you want to have an extra beer and finish the story before starting to cook you can. With a reverse sear you have to keep an eye on the internal temp since you’re heating it with air higher in temp than your target.

it is the only way that I cook a thick steak anymore. I also only cook thick steaks anymore. the reverse sear also works well for doing a whole loin roast. Take an 8” piece of whole tenderloin and heat it to 100-105 or so on the smoker/pellet grill. While it’s going, get your broiler hot and prep an 8x10” metal pan that you don’t like anymore. Put a couple cloves of garlic, a stick of butter, a couple sprigs of thyme, maybe some rosemary in the pan. When the tenderloin is at temp, put it in the pan and stick it under the broiler. When the butter starts popping, spoon baste the meat with the butter juices to build a crust. When it’s crusted, put it on the cutting board, slice, and serve.

A reverse sear is when you heat a steak slowly until the internal temperature is just under rare. For me, I normally go to 110-115. You take it off the heat and crank up your pan or grill as hot as it will go. Then drop it in the pan and sear each side to a nice crust. That normally takes about a minute or two per side depending on your grill/pan. I use my smoker for a reverse sear and also add just a touch of smoke but I've done it in the oven and then onto a cheap charcoal grill. With a standard sear, you cook from the outside in. By the time the center of the steak is at the right temp, the outside is overcooked. There is negligible room for error. Here's a pretty authoratative tutorial. https://www.seriouseats.com/reverse-seared-steak-recipe

Yum. Snake river farms wagyu strip steaks? ?

Yes, very true. If you have a desktop, the desktop version of google earth allows you to roll back time and see the lake when it is low (which you can then correlate to USGS water data). I can't do that in google earth for ipad and I can't install Google earth on my work desktop so I forget about it.

we had a very good year last year as did my wife's company/group. she won't max, but she's on a much bigger base. I think we'll max out which is a one-time payment of 40% of annual salary (less taxes). I haven't had one of those in 18 years at this company.

I was about 3 also and it was Stroh's, but I used to run around my grandparents, grab my grandfather's beer and take a quick swig before anyone could say no. I was so cute about it. One day I did that before I realized he was using it as an ash tray...

Oh, those count? I thought this was just the gear forum and not the electronics forum. In that case, I'm waiting to see how my bonus comes out this year but if its what I think it is (maxed out) then a Helix 9 and megalive might be making an appearance this spring...

I wonder if its crawfish. That's about the only thing I could think of that would regularly be on them since they'll burrow in them. And of course they are sitting ducks if caught in the open.

if I'm throwing a finesse jig like that, its because the fish are not in an eating mood so I'm using a trailer that's pretty tame. The mini d-bomb is a good choice for that and what I have rigged. if you want an even smaller profile a small zoom super chunk is tiny. If you want a little more action but still small profile the Zoom swimmin chunk is nice. These all have full length skirts and need a trim, but are otherwise straight out of my box and ready to fish.

this is the answer. Fish are where you find them. The more I fish with other people on other lakes or on my local lakes the more I see fish caught in places or in ways that I wouldn’t have done myself. It’s forced me to just put my head down and fish at times and I’ve had plenty of surprises. Areas that I thought were too shallow or too featureless gave up fish. Here’s a 4 that came from a mud bank in 2’ of water with not much else around. I was moving between ‘good’ spots (which didn’t produce anything that day) and just casting down the bank.