casts_by_fly

So many choices. This isn’t the best picture but this is my personal most beautiful fish. It was pretty and large, but more important it was my first smallie over 4 lb and also my first smallie from this lake. I tried all of last year to catch a smallie because I knew they must be in this spot. This was my first one that proved the point (with an exclamation point!) this largemouth was fin perfect and super pale prespawn and cold. I hadn’t caught one this light in a really long time and loved it. the fact it was almost 4 lb helped too. and this smallie is one of the best figured fish I’ve caught to my eye. Fin perfect, great color, and aggressive as all the best ones are. Amazing what a 3 lb smallmouth fights like. It wasn’t where I would have targeted smallies but I learned something and now will.

Yep. that would work for me!

Did you get a high flow compressor to do it? I bought a pancake compressor for all the other reasons you mentioned. It is super handy to have one. I watched the guy blow them out last time and picked up the fitting to do it. I did not do a good job...

I don’t close my irrigation for another 4 weeks or so. I’ve still got new-ish grass and I’m pushing growth as hard as I can before frost. we normally close mid to end of October. It’s about 78 right now and we normally have one fall time party where we crank the heater up to 90 for the evening. I also like to close it when the water is sub 50 because algae can’t grow at that temp. So as long as I open and close below that there is never green algae. i blew out my system last fall but didn’t do it well enough and had a bunch of splits from the cold winter. If you do it yourself, you need a pretty high flow compressor and a fitting to attach to the system.

I’d probably go the zillion hd. I don’t prefer dc reels and the zillion sv would be a little light on capacity if you want to fish mono. i prefer a faster retrieve for frogs, so 8.X:1.

Outside of huge swimbaits, NO bait needs a specific rod. If you rigged up a mh, a h, and a xh you could fish any lure all in your box day long. There is absolutely no NEED for a dedicated rod for most all bass fishing. WANT or PREFER maybe. That’s up to you if you love fishing a specific technique and want to dedicate a rod to it.

A whopper plopper doesn’t need a snap or swivel. The main body shouldn't spin and if it is spinning then that means you have grass or something else between the tail and body that’s causing them to rotate together. Dead milfoil strands are bad for that. i will use a snap on occasion with a plopper especially if I’m also throwing Crankbaits that day on the same rod. I forget the exact size, but I think they are number 2 and the heaviest wire I can get. We have large toothy critters here and I’ve had them straighten a snap.

because smaller ones are usually more aggressive and got to it first.

This. You don't need any type of sensitivity. You need a light enough tip to cast accurately and walk a frog with enough backbone under it to haul one out of a mat (assuming you're using the rod for both open water walking and skimming over heavy mats). The reel doesn't have to be special, it just needs to hold enough heavy line and be durable enough. Frogs are typically a half ounce so more than enough weight for any reel to throw. If i were to build a dedicated frog rod right now (I have considered it) I'd look at the Falcon Expert Bayou. I use the Amistad for heavier frogging right now and the Bayou is a 4" shorter version designed for this exact purpose by Jason Christie. There is a Cara version as well, but for a frog rod I would save the $50 and put it elsewhere. My expert amistad is a great rod for frogs in heavier stuff and will bomb with the best of them. Its a bit long for walking and a bit heavy if I'm only fishing lighter cover. I throw the 6'10" pitching stick for lighter stuff and its a great rod for light cover frogs and walking. The Bayou would be the perfect combination. For a reel, the worlds your oyster and personal preference dictates brand and feel. I'd probably go a Bantam since I like Shimano and the deeper spool would let me run heavy mono if I wanted (I prefer braid). The extra weight of the bantam wouldn't be noticed on this heavy of a rod and I fish a similar weight reel on my amistad now, a revo SX gen4)

What the heck is that? it looks like it has tubeless tires but no clips or cages. Seems like a lot of contradiction in needs.

I've only got a couple dozen hours on my zillion so getting used to it coming from shimano MGL and Abu (all of their brake systems). I still fish minimal spool tension on all of my reels and use the brakes to control things. A backlash at the beginning of the cast normally needs more brakes, one at the end needs more tension (which I'll sub in thumb tension instead usually). What I find with the zillion is that the brakes have the ability to control higher initial spool speeds better, i.e. if you really zing one with a pretty quick/responsive rod it will help manage it. The MGL spool just doesn't need that 'zing' coming off the rod in the first place to get the same distance. Set up identically (minimal tension, mid-level braking) and cast identically (I've swapped the reels between the same 3 rods a couple times now) they behave pretty similar. If you're a hard caster and trying to really whip the rod then a bit more braking is called for and I think the Zillion might be just a better reel for that.

Growing up fishing a pond I watched my dad catch a 5 and an 8 (both sizable for a western PA pond) on consecutive casts to the same spot on the same laydown. There is a reason why the bass were there so it makes sense it would hold more than just one. Fast forward to this past thursday. I pitched a jig into a dock/lily pad corner and pulled out a bass. I rerigged a new trailer, pitched back in and caught another one. Unless you know the bass are strictly cruising and you're catching random one here/one there fish, I always make a couple casts back into the same spot I just caught one in. There is a reason why that fish was there in the first place, and that reason isn't specific to that bass only.

50 cent piece vs two quarters. The dawg has more spit out of the box as it sits more tail down (you can change a spook's rear hook so it does the same). If you're trying to learn how to walk a bait then either one will tell you what you're doing. This is one instance where using a snap will help you. It gives the bait a full range of motion if you're not letting off the pressure with the right timing. I don't fish the 3-hook versions.

For the boat, I stand by what I suggested above. A G2 or G3 helix with GPS and a 5 or 7 inch screen should run about $250. For GPS tracking in the boat, you'll have the ability to zoom in and out like you want. It automatically records your tracks so you can follow back if you get lost. If you're trying to find a cuthrough in a lake with islands you can pick the right one. In a boat its the right way to go. In the truck, google maps is your friend assuming you have a smartphone. The database is the most updated of any out there and will constantly update on your phone. I don't know why standalone GPS devices like a tom tom are still sold given how many people have smart phones with far superior mapping. The trick if you're going into a place with limited data service is to download an offline map before you go. Google makes it pretty easy to do. You can select an area of the map to download and it just stores it in the background in the app. I do the same for my home area as well as it speeds up map loading (all the phone needs to load over the air then is latest traffic info). If your vehicle has car play all the better. If not, a vent clip for your phone (I prefer the ones with a magnet on the clip and steel plate for your phone) and its right in your line of sight.

Hi all, Welcome to decorating season. Today I realized that we have entered that period of the year where there is a holiday coming up just about monthly. My wife likes to have festive pillows, throws, wreaths, and plenty of other decorations for most all of the seasons to a greater or lesser degree. I get complacent after Easter. When you put away easter you pull out summer/red white and blue and it stays until September. That’s 5 months or more of decorations in one set. Now I’ll have 6 changes before I change back to Easter. So that brings me to the thread title-sustainable decorating. no, I don’t mean low electricity, earthy materials sustainable. I mean how can I sustain the pace of changing decorations and not want to throw them all away. It takes a lot of effort to pull them out of storage, unpack, pack the ones going back in, get them in place, remember where they go, hang things, etc. We’ve only owned a house for the past 3 years (we’ve moved a bunch of times, mostly internationally) so I’m still working out my way of doing things and minimizing how much work has to go into it. i want to hear and see what you all do and maybe share a few things that might be helpful for others. A couple of my learnings: Labels (in my case sharpie) and write it on every side of the box so you can read it no matter how you put it away shelving. Stacked boxes are a pain and make me not want to dig into them. I put Costco racking in for decorations and bought a bunch of plastic bins for Christmas stuff (then set the shelf height to those bins) vacuum bags! Life changer for pillows, throws, and anything soft that compresses. We have at least one bag for every season. those three things mean I can walk to the basement and easily pick out all of the things I need quickly with minimal energy expenditure. To remember where things go, I’ve got reference pictures on my phone that I took when decorations were in place. what are your ways of keeping sane with decorations?

If it’s just for using in a boat, pick up a used, older model fish finder like a helix g2 or g3 gps model with no transducer. You should be able to get one for $250 or less.

And supernatural comes in orange if you want hi visibility.

you could push a 3.3 up on it, but you’d want to glue it in place.

Rapala DT 6 in bluegill for me since that's either the primary forage or that color is close enough to the primary forage. For sub 55 degree water I grab the OG6 instead. I actually found on in a tree this spring and have yet to fish it. That color too.

Siebert 1/2 oz compact (two colors) vs Siebert standard 1/2 oz vs strike king 3/8 and 1/2 oz models. Total length difference is about 1/4-1/2” shorter to the end of the skirt. The skirts are a bit thinner I think. They certainly fish smaller, maybe thinner wire and compaction in the water. Smaller blades for sure. my only downside is that the tail of the lead head goes further down the hook shank than I’d like and almost eliminates using a trailer. To be fair, if you’re fishing a compact spinnerbait you probably only want a small trailer or none.

Beat me to it. Give me 20 minutes.

really hard to beat the value right now. MSRP $400 reels for $225 delivered. There isn't a $225 USDM reel to touch them (zillions or high end Shimano).

Given the exchange rate, I just put in another reel order to digitaka. I like the zillion, but I think I'm going to like this one more. Shimano Metanium 20. Will update when it comes in (in like 3 days).

im fishing 2/0 for most every wire bait.

I’d start with a half ounce strike king burner with razor blades (thin double willow). You can burn them pretty quickly. Then let the fish tell you why that’s wrong and what they want.