casts_by_fly

I just checked some other plastics yesterday. The regular rage craw fits pretty well as does the space monkey. I’m going to give them both a ry next time out. They will certainly have action. The magnum menace rage trailer fits too. I think the regular 4” should also. These would be ideal since I carry them already. meanwhile, rigged and on the rod is a keitech.

If I'm fishing trebles, I will net basically every fish. Rubber bag net. Fish goes in and I give some slack on the line to put the rod in the rod holder, grab pliers, etc. The net is held by my foot so nothing is going anywhere. if its just one or two hook points I'll unhook them in the net with the pliers. If I have to grab the fish, I'll grab them behind the head like a pike.

Very true. Also which came first, the chicken or the egg? Neither. It was the dinosaur.

Its always a prime bone in ribeye cooked on the smoker/grill (reverse seared) with a bottle of cab or similar big red blend. I'd eat it twice a week and then just not eat the other days if I could. I don't need sides, but if you make me choose I'd throw on some grilled asparagus and some roasted baby new potatoes.

ha! Mine usually aren't diggers. We have 3. The 2-year old was a bit of a digger last summer when she was still a puppy but she's chilled out now. The 9 year old will get into a mood every now and then now, about twice a summer. There is a small sliver of woods inside the fence with a couple trees. One is half dead and hollow and gets mice inside of it now and then. They have chewed the outside quarter of the tree off now and dug a bit of a hole under it. Then again, I don't care what happens in that bit. In the woods is out of sight.

because I dont like to fish it. Probably because I haven’t truly figured it how to fish it, hence I don’t like to fish it, hence I don’t fish it, hence I don’t learn to fish it. Vicious cycle. Lay downs have clear and obvious ambush points. Standing timber is a 10” post by 20’ deep unless you can see branches. Nothing else to sight cast to so you have to target every one. Maybe one day I’ll put in the work and practice on it (thought only 3 places around have it-two are over an hour away and the other doesn’t open the gate until sunrise so no early days.

I did a bunch of rough leveling on the front yard a couple weeks ago. From the grass guys cutting the same direction for years it seems the yard had about 2” variance between the humps and dips and there were about 6 dips by 30’ long each. That’s too much to top fill in one go, so I did about half that depth and leveled as best I could. After a couple days of settling I seeded with some turf type tall fescue and I’m starting to see the growth now two weeks later. By the first frost it should be in good shape. Tomorrow is weed spray to knock a few back in this bit of the yard. The new dirt had a bunch of seed in it so need to nip it in the bud. The rest of the yard ranges from awesome dense to more weeds than grass. The pool yard area is awesome. Best I’ve ever seen it. Last year one third was bare dirt by now. It didn’t take much this year and it’s great. The dog yard is a total mess. We were supposed to have work done on the house and equipment was going to go through there. I didn’t do anything for the grass aside from weed and feed this spring since it’s getting torn up. The work hasn’t started and by the time it does it will be too late to do anything. This yard would get the nuclear option except it’s the main dog area and it can’t be left as dirt as they’d track it everywhere. So I have to spray, seed, feed, prevent, repeat.

this for me. Not brush piles, not standing timber- gotta be lay downs. The bigger the tree the better. The deeper it ends at the better. Some grass that stops a foot away from the wood? Ideal. We don’t have a ton of downed wood here so when you find it, fish it thoroughly.

Yes, but usually only in ‘stupidity’ scenarios and not safety ones. Safety scenarios I’m more of a two hands on the wheel and get out of dodge type. No room to honk, just drive. I have no problems honking at stupidity. Monday night I was driving home on a 2 lane through town doing 30 with a car in front of me. The car in front of my just stops completely to let a car turn in front of us. I had to jump on my brakes. We didn’t have a stop sign and it was clear behind me for the car to turn. Thats just the latest. In NJ it’s about every 20 miles driven I need to do that.

What you fish with most and the cover you’re doing it in will tell you what rods you need. We can’t tell you that. If it were my set and I was streamlining then I’d get rid of all of the spinning rods but one and all of the medium powered casting rods. I don’t use casting rods under a mh really and I practically never use spinning rods. YMMV.

I'm with tom on this one. Sunline supernatural has impressed me a lot. I actually went up in diameter after trying 12 because it was so thin and limp. The 14 is even as thin as some lines 12 or 10 lb. 8 lb supernatural would be perfect for a spinning reel.

Are you getting the same twisty loops as the OP when trolling? Like noted above, the primary cause of excess line and casting it. If that's not the problem, then the bail issue is the next cause. Twisting lures will also do it, but you need slack in the line when its cast out for the twist to build up deeper into the spool. I'd think with trolling you're just letting line out slowly and not casting.

I agree for a normal swim jig. I have largos in the box. For this swinging swim jig though they aren't long enough. The hook ends up back in the skinny bit.

I fished the SK blade minnow for a bit last night. I can't say I love it in the water. It gives a decent profile but the action isn't there for me. If you are adding a lot of action through the tip of the rod and especially if you're going erratic then great. Stroking a jig I think it would be good. At higher speeds in the water it will give the erratic swimming action, but at normal reeling in speeds its just kinda 'there'. It didn't have any body roll (I didn't really expect that) and it didn't have a tail flick (I thought it would). For how I fish a swim jig I need one of those two things so this isn't the one for me.

Because when the line isn't tight and the reel flips the bail over, there will often be a loop on the spool face that isn't on top of the other line loops. Then when you crank the bail a rotation it just gets pushed around the spool which causes 1 full twist in the line. Do that a couple times and you've got a concentration of twists on the spool that you're not usually casting out (you're probably casting about the same distance across a set of casts). Do it all day and eventually you're going to have a wind knot tangle. A really long cast every now and then will release it if you're lure's not adding twist.

Given these three statements, I'll throw another one out there for you to consider if you're open to it. The Falcon lowrider 7'4" heavy cover jig rod. 7'4", 3/8-1 oz, fast action, heavy power, split grip. They are $129 retail and you can get free shipping. Some places you'll find up to 15% off for first orders. I was fishing the Cara version last night (same taper, different graphite) and the action and power on it are just right for a longer jig rod. I was fishing 17# FC and throwing a 1/2 oz jig with trailer. Last time out I was throwing a 1/2 oz swing swim jig and a bigger trailer. The falcon description is right now- light tip for accurate placement with a 6-power for pitching and flipping. A falcon 6-power is on the lighter end of other companies 'heavy'. Falcon also makes a 7-power which is on the heavier side of 'heavy'.

Temps have been dropping a little and we just got some rain the past 48 hours so I thought the fish would be chomping. Last weekend had similar and the fish were eating. Tonight, I was wrong. Maybe I picked the wrong lake. Maybe I should have sat in my tree stand. The guy pulling out at the ramp said it was tough and he managed two dinks on a drop shot between 10 and 4. The rain this evening came later than called for so it was sunny and still. My usual answer is a swim jig dropped through the grass so why not here too? I managed a 16” bass and a 20” pickerel in the first half hour. A couple casts later a pitch into the pads was rewarded with the telltale tink on the rod and the line darting for the deep. Of course when I set the hook all I had was a bit off jig and cut line (probably a pickerel). That was my last GP swim jig and for whatever reason they didn’t want a bluegill skirt. So I swapped to a GP purple dredge jig from @Siebert Outdoors which has been doing well lately and started picking them back up. Not the gangbusters night I hoped for (and absolutely nothing looking up for topwaters) but I’ve come to love the telltale tick of a bass sucking in a jig and the inevitable hook right in the top of the mouth.

Again, heavy dose of scepticism. 'Never' is an absolute word. I go scuba diving. Spiders don't come with me.

this. They didn't forecast enough the last time they made them. The demand right now for tube hooks must be miniscule, especially if that one is a special one or not normal (I don't know that hook). So why produce it now when retailers aren't going to order it and then have to sit on it and warehouse it for 6 months. it takes up space in your warehouse and sits on your financial books as stock in hand (instead of cash in hand if they don't make it now).

think of power as just that- how powerful the rod is as both casting and fish fighting. The power for casting is normally in the top half of the rod and the power for fish fighting is in the lower half of the rod. An ultralight has a very small amount of power to cast lures and is designed that way (for lures under an eighth ounce or so). An extra heavy has the casting power for multiple ounces. Similarly, an ultralight doesn't have much power down low in the rod (backbone, heft, horsepower, etc). An extra heavy isn't going to bend in the bottom quarter unless you're winching up a hundred pound blue cat. Power is normally described as ultra light, light, medium, heavy, and extra heavy or combinations of two). There are no hard cutoffs and no definitions, so its a spectrum. Action is where the rod bends (normally for casting purposes). A faster actioned rod will only bend in the top portion of the tip of the rod while a slower actioned rod will bend further down for the same lure/effort/cast. There are no agreed industry standard numbers but custom rod builders have a couple measurements to put data to it. Just remember, its a relative measurement. How much the top is bending relative to the middle and relative to the rest of the blank. So in a theoretical scenario with a 6' pool cue that you put an 12" buggy whip on the end- the 12" would flex under casting but the pool cue wouldn't. So only the top 15" of the 'rod' is flexing which is a very fast tip. Similarly, if you had a 7' buggy whip, the bottom of the whip would start bending with the first little bit of force. That would be a very slow action. Action is normally described as slow/medium/fast/xfast or some combination of the two. There are no hard cutoffs and no definitions, so its a spectrum. Taper is specifically the change in material dimension of the blank itself. Taper is a large part of both power and action, but so is the graphite, the glue, and the scrim in the blank (not to mention processing conditions). People will use taper when they mean action. What you use a given action and power for are up to you and your preferences.

I always take any 'facts' with a heavy dose of skepticism, especially if linked to social media in any way. If you read something and think that it sounds wild, then it probably isn't true (or at least wholly accurate). For instance, the swallowing 4 times can't be patently true unless there are some hidden conditions. I can drink a quart of apple cider straight down and it takes more than 4 swallows. I can also touch my right shoulder with my right palm without too much difficulty. Flaying definitely has historical data since humans are awful at times and there are records of it being used for torture and punishment. But you're not going to live for 6 days while fully skinned Dehydration alone would kill you, let alone the blood loss.

sounds like the foot is flexing like you said and that's binding up the spool. I assume that's with no spool tension on the knob. Is the reel foot noticeably thinner or have a shallow taper at the tips? Not sure if that reel has a foot you can swap out to confirm, but if it does and you have two reels that you can swap you could try that. Absent that, a layer or two of thick card material like what a case of beer comes in between the foot and seat could give you some height away from the seat. That would let the seat nut grip further up the reel foot and cause more 'downward' force into the blank and not 'along side' force the length of the foot. All of these are just to diagnose the problem. Personally, I'd probably take it back and show them in store what's happening.

There aren’t many 5.X:1 reels on the market. At the same time, a 6.X:1 is just fine for big spinnerbaits. By big, I’m talking 3/4 oz and up with two big blades. A great value option is the revo SX gen 4. I have the 6.X:1 as a chatterbait and crankbait reel. Built tough and reels smooth. You can get them for $120 if you keep an eye out. the STX gen 4 is on sale a lot of places right now. TW has them for $179 right handed (if you’re a lefty just buy it now for $129) and that’s a good price but you can get them for $150 or so on Amazon.

some lures and presentations will require certain gear. Throwing big swim baits you need a big rod that can handle multiple ounces and a reel that can handle all of the heavy line required. That rod probably won’t have another use in your lineup. A BFS rod is going to throw tiny finesse lures and that’s about all you’re going to use it for. Everything in between is a free for all. Having a lure specific rod is great if you always have one of those lures tied on. Then you can fine tune what you like in a rod for that lure and get exactly what you like. Otherwise, a 1/4-3/4 MF and a 3/8-1 MF will cover just about anything you want to do.

if you’re referencing my recommendations, I only mention the lures because that’s what I’m fishing on those specific rods. All of my rods are multipurpose. I will use my head turner as my primary chatterbait rod and it’s great for that. It also is a nice lighter pitching rod for jig and Texas rigs. It works well for bigger walking baits. I throw spinnerbaits on it. It’s my primary swim jig rod. It’s also a good rod for frogs in light cover. you don’t need a dedicated chatterbait, Texas rig, or most any other technique specific rods. But if you always have one tied on then it might make sense to have a rig a bit more specialized. From April to June and even until now I will usually have a chatterbait tied on one of my rods and it’s usually the head turner, hence I call it my chatterbait rod.