casts_by_fly

@CaughtMeABiggun - Also, if you wait a couple weeks TW is due to run their 20% site wide sale. That would bring that expride down to $265.

Throw in another $30 and you’ve got your choice of lengths in an expride.

have you read all of this thread:

@gim - point taken. My assumption is that it will melt the way it usually does here in NJ- a warm rainfall coming up the coast. The ground is frozen hard and our temps are in the 20s as a high for the next week plus. But at some point we'll get a warm blast coming up the coast which will nuke a bunch of the snow. It might be a little early in winter for that but that's the norm here. Heck, we're forecast for another 6" this coming weekend. We might end up with well over 2' on the ground for the next couple weeks. That's the level of melt off that would help.

@Jar11591 - same here. It was ~10 degrees while it snowed so it was the nice fine dusty snow that you can blow with a leaf blower. Until it starts coming down at 2" per hour... We got about 12-14" of that to start and as I was making my last snow blower run for the afternoon it started turning to pellets of ice. We got somewhere around 6-8" of that on top of the snow. That stuff was like silica beads. It looks like we got another 2-4" of that overnight that I have to go clear this afternoon. It's the most snow we've had since we moved here in 2019, but like you said it is super light and fluffy so it blows away really easily. And, a foot and a half of snow on top of the 8" that was already here should help fill up the reservoirs a bit.

leadhead- You are correct on all counts. There is a power draw, but minn kota says 1.6 mA in sleep mode so basically nothing to even consider unless you're leaving it for a year. Over 4 months you'd use 5 AH.

I like your style Glenn! Take the good or the bad, no matter what comes, with people who want the same thing. I’m right there with you. We were in the UK in 2008 when the Steelers went to the Super Bowl. We found an American BBQ place that was staying open late and was hosting a Super Bowl party. They were even steeler fans. For 30 GBP you got ribs, 2 sides, and a whole bunch of beers (maybe unlimited). That was also the night when London got 4-6” on snow which happens once every 30-50 years so we walked out of the bar after a steeler win at 2 AM local time to find empty roads aside from a couple cabs, and an all while city. One of the wildest nights ever.

Tearing down and rebuilding existing rods is one option. But I don’t recommend it for a first timer. Yes, you can usually get the blank pretty clean but some of the factory epoxies are a real pain. You’ll probably have to wrap the guides a little longer than strictly necessary to cover scratches from removing the old epoxy. And then you have the risk of residue that you can’t quite see. I would instead recommend that for your first build you start from a fresh blank. You can learn the basics of building a rod without the complications of stripping one down in the first place. There is a learning curve so don’t make it steeper by adding trouble you can avoid. Also, you sound like you’re pretty specific in knowing what you want. The rod you have now is heavy, you don’t like the grip, and the guides aren’t in the right place. Why put any more time into that setup to marginally improve it? Just get the thing that works for you. Even if you don’t do the best job with the wraps or epoxy, you’ll still have something designed just how you want with a better blank and components than what you have.

Congrats @Glenn ! Now the big question- are you a watch the game with others or all by yourself locked in a closet type guy? My buddy and neighbor is from Boston and has an awesome basement and bourbon collection. I tried to instigate a SB party in his basement with open bar. He wasn’t having it. He’s a closet watcher kinda guy.

At those temps it should be too cold to snow. That’s just not fair. It was 3 here as the sun was coming up and the wind was a solid 15-20 so I think that works out to something minus single digits wind chill. Our bathroom off the bedroom is always chilly because I don’t think there is a good heater vent supplying it. But i never knew how drafty the windows were until I just saw frost on the inside. A line of ice right above the joint on the upper pane. I think i need to inspect the seals a little better. Meanwhile, it is single digits humidity inside overnight. I’ve been boiling water on the stove like it’s a Victorian birthing hospital. About a half gallon per hour out of a 3 gallon stock pot. After an hour or so it is tolerable and after 3 hours it’s up to normal. Lather, rinse, repeat every day. Man I can’t wait until this winter stuff is done.

Spinnerbaits, jigs, vibrating jigs, buzzbaits, etc all have the weight based on the lead head, not the total bait weight. Figure a quarter ounce or so heavier for the total bait weight. Maybe more if it is bit willow leaf blades. I applaud the interest in the technical detail of your gear. But what is your practical intent? I’ve weighed a few rods out of curiosity and have a pretty good idea of what my rods are rated for, but logging in a spreadsheet? Not unless my insurance needs it for a claim and that’s a spreadsheet my wife isn’t seeing.

For a first baitcaster, I’d recommend going to 12 or 15 lb big game mono to start. Big game is plenty abrasion resistance, plenty cheap when you need to cut out birds nests, pretty good line overall and great value. Get through a spool of that first and then look at other options.

Theoretically, I’d take a kid fishing every day for a couple weeks to a bunch of different nearby lakes and keep every bluegill caught. Get a thousand bluegill in there to start. Let them have a couple spawning sessions to get established. In parallel I’d be sieneing a limit of shiners as often as I could. Baitfish is the base of the pyramid. Get it established and steady. Then think about bass. Then when you want to have trophy largemouth in the pond, go catch some at the nearby impoundment and move them over.

Yeah, that’s the plan. A couple passes and it should be all but blackened, but still reversible later.

our forecast keeps shifting (to more snow) and we're up over 14" forecast now, starting in 48 hours. Also happening over those 48 hours is the drop in temp from the current 46 degrees it is outside to a friday night low of 3. Of course everywhere is cleaned out of salt.

If you don't mind a little bit more thickness, grip tape like you'd use on a tennis racket is very grippy and cushioned. It would add somewhere 1/16" to 1/8" in radius to the grip.

@Peninsular - yeah, if you have a helix on that will be way brighter than the puck light. I have turned my FF off entirely at night. I used to run them on night mode, brightness 1, but that was still too much. It draws bugs and glares my vision.

Another minor benefit of them is if you lose power in your house they work as a pretty big power bank to keep phones, computers, etc charged.

@Peninsular - yes, the white minn kota puck about the size of a hockey puck. It's bright as anything at night. The LEDs on the trolling motor switch are the same. I put black tape over them too. When I'm out at night, I want zero artificial light and any little light it noticable. My apple watch is in night mode which swaps the display to dark red font over black background. My phone is burried away. I leave my nav lights off assuming it is safe (and it is on all the lakes I night fish). @Jig Man - yes, the older ones are red. I'd prefer red.

It was probably ajays post that you saw it in as I know he just posted about it. I keep one in the truck at all times, plus jumper cables. I haven’t found the need to take it in the boat, but I should probably get another one. They go on sale on amazon for 40% off or so around Black Friday and the other amazon days.

I used to fish steelhead throughout the year and since I lived in Cleveland i was a 2 minute jaunt to the nearest fishing holes. Temps were all over the map but the wildest was a cold winter day in the single digit range but we'd just had 3' of snow so the stream went up a foot and dirtied. That also lifted the ice sheets from the bank. So it was a foot high, dirty enough to not see the bottom and where you were stepping, single digit air temps, with sheets of ice the size of a car floating down the river. And I'm out in it drifting egg sacs on a baitcaster float rod for fresh run steelhead. Stupid.

About UsOur Story ... was started with a simple idea: to provide a local grocery store where you can find everything you need. What began as a small, family-run store has become a much-loved community essential. Our mission is to provide high-quality products and exceptional service! Um, yeah I'm not ordering from that.

AJay- double as in a double hookup on one bait/cast?

hi team, I've been running this same length of 30# 832 for about 4 years now. It's in great shape (been reversed once) and I intend to keep using it. However, it's getting short. I bet I'm down to 45-50 yards of it now after tying and retying for 4 years. At the end of last year I was casting the full length and getting into the backing when throwing a big walking bait or plopper. It would be fine if I was keeping this as a swim jig setup, but occasionally I need it for bombing walking baits. Anyone add 30-40 yards of braid under the existing braid (but above the backing line) to get the length back? the knot wouldn't come into play most of the time and a double Uni with 30# 832 would be plenty small enough to cast through the guides when needed. I'm not seeing any real downside here but wanted to sense check. thanks, rick

I can confirm that it works perfectly well. We got a foot of snow this weekend over a couple stretches. I also was planning to fish Sunday morning so had some boat organizing/rigging to do (ended up not going). It takes about 15 minutes to get the temp from 35 to 'liveable' which I would guess is 55-60. Another 15 minutes and the boat hull is warm to the touch and the air is upper 60's. It isn't heating the concrete slab, but I didn't intend for it to. When I was snow blowing, I turned it on when I left the garage so that in 20-30 minutes when I came back in the garage would be warm-ish for the blower to melt the remaining snow off and for my outer garments to dry out. If the plan was to have a garage workshop in this scenario where I was spending more than an hour our there at a time or if I was working in heavy metal equipment that holds the cold, then a wall mounted heater with a thermostat would be a better option. Once you get the walls and floor warm it could kick on and off with air temp changes and the metal equipment stays fairly warm. The propane heater doesn't have the wattage to heat up a UTV for instance if you needed to work on it. But pulling in the front of the truck to change a headlight? Yeah I'd just put this heater on in the area and take the chill off.