casts_by_fly

I just noticed you’re in NJ. Are you north or south? Happy to help in person if you’re in the northern/western bit.

If you haven’t already, go to lure parts online and they usually have size charts with inch based measurements for a lot of their components. Also, if you are wearing out buzzbait blades you need to buy better buzzbaits. I fish them a lot and will use the same one or two constantly. I have yet to bend or break a blade. The wires bend out and eventually you’ll not be able to get them back into shape. But the blades are pretty tough.

Some fish that blow up and miss (either you or them) I've found will not hit anything else or even the same bait a second time. Buzzbait fish are notorious for this. With a buzzbait you're creating a reaction strike and once you've had them react they won't do it again. Fish in super shallow water that spook when you set the hook and miss are another (I had two of those last night). Most of the time they will high tail it out of there and are gone. Otherwise, I've found that speed is of the essence. Maybe it's just me and I'm targeting fish that are moving around, but a fish that misses the lure or that I miss isn't sticking around long so getting a cast back over to it quickly is important. For that reason I'm throwing the same lure back at it most of the time.

@detroit1- they have a 13' version like you describe. Basically a short rear bench that has two hatches, tiller motor, and a front deck like a bassboat. Neat little thing and if you fish alone all the time not a bad little option. Only 400lb or so.

welcome to my world. Had to do it last night at a ramp where there isn't a 'ramp' per se. It is more like an embankment. And since the lake is pretty flat at the water line and in, there are all kinds of troubles- you can't see the waterline when you start to back up, you lose the back of the boat over the embankment and out of your mirrors, when the back of the truck finally falls off the cliff you can see, but you need to bring the front wheels of the truck over the edge also so there is no fine adjustment in pulling forward or back. And this ramp also has a left right bias, so I have to back it out to where the rear guides are submerged and hope it floats centered when I start to pull out. Last night it was fighting me due to 10 mph cross winds. I've found it really comes down to the specific ramp. I have one ramp that is nice concrete way out into the lake. Unfortunately it is such a shallow angle with the low water we've had that the front bumper of the truck is 4' from the water line out INTO the water. Another one has a good incline angle, but it gets washed out with any hard rain so there are ruts all through it and you never know when you'll put a tire in a hole. For all of them, I've learned how much of my bunks need to be submerged to get the boat to glide up to about 3' from the bow roller. On the shallow ramp that means fully submerged. On the 'good' ramp that means about 1' of the front of the bunks. YMMV. I want the boat to stop gliding about 3' away as I've found at that point the bunks have enough 'bite' on the bottom of the boat to put it in the right spot as I winch it up. Back in until they are fully submerged and then pull up to the level you want. Also, I'm in a pickup and young/sprightly. So before I back in I'll drop the tailgate and open the bed cover most of the way. I also drop the driver and rear driver windows of the cab. When I slide the boat up and it stops, I can step down onto the trailer and swing my butt around onto the tailgate. Crank the boat up and hook it. Then to get into the truck I swing a leg over the bed onto the top of the tire, next foot goes onto the running board as I'm grabbing the 'oh crap' bar in the rear of the cab. Then just two shuffle steps along the running board to sit down in the truck and pull out. In an SUV or in a boat where you can't step down onto the trailer I don't know if you could do this.

they don't produce a tighter wobble in and of themselves, but they are typically found on baits with flat sides and with geometries that make for a tight wobble. So they are associated with that style of bait. A rapala OG6 (or OG4) is a good example. A little john also. The OG6 is balsa, silent, tight wobble, circuit board bill. All of that makes for a great colder water crankbait if your fish are in the 4-8' range.

@WRB-2.0- except in this case I think the southers are lighter or equivalent compared to an equivalent decked aluminum boat. Using the souther 450 and comparing to my own decked aluminum crestliner which is an all aluminum boat (no wood). The Souther is 280 kg hull weight (616 lb). My storm is 610 lb so basically identical. I have a 75" beam, the souther has a 74.8" beam. I'm exactly 16' long, the souther is 14.92 so let's call it 15' which visually looks like it has come from the rear deck with a same cockpit/front deck. I top out at 50 hp, the souther at 60. So dimension, weight, spec are practically identical. The difference then will come down to material characteristics of glass vs aluminum and price. The glass boat certainly looks cooler. And I like the interior layout of it a little better than mine. But they are not available in the US and I believe are $30k+ boat only whereas my aluminum boat only was $9k. I would also be a little more leary of putting a glass boat in some of the places I've put my aluminum (shallow, rocks, trees).

basically any 70-150 sized reel will pair with basically any 'normal' sized bass rod. The reels will have differences in form factor/shape and will vary in weight from 5 to 9 ounces but they will all be pretty much mix and match. If you go to the extremes (rods approaching or over 7'6" or 6'6" and under) then you might want to stay on the end of the ranges (I wouldn't put a 70 sized reel on a 7'6" flipping stick) but it sounds like you are talking general bass fishing. So first pick your total price point. If you're coming from a $100 total price point combo, doing to a $200-250 'combo' is going to be a lot nicer. The two piece rod will be limiting a bit, but there are some out there. I'd start your search there for 2-piece rods in the $70-$120 bracket. Similarly, I'd look at reels in the $100-125 bracket. A shimano XT will be there. I think Lews has a good on in that range. When you find a few options that are interesting and fit your style, search on this forum for reviews of those rods and you'll find all the info you could want.

Swap out that group 27 for a 100 ah lithium $200 for a LiTime on amazon with the 10% discount currently offered. You’ll save 30# and gain twice the capacity.

Every one of my reels has backing. I’ll have 75-90 yards of working line on top of the backing. I replace the working line as needed. And I know if I am out making some long casts on the water and I can start to see my backing knot on the reel then it’s about time to respool. It minimizes how much line I’m putting on each time, but supernatural is pretty cheap to that’s not even a consideration (it is for my braid and fluoro reels).

This won’t be the mass, rather the springiness of the fluorocarbon line. I learned this one earlier this year. Because the fluoro is springy, it helps the spool to unwind and requires a touch more tension or braking to hold it back. I normally run zero spool tension on everything, but my fluoro reels I have to add a bit back for control.

AI can be useful but it depends on the data it has been trained on, the specific of the question asked, how it was asked, how the question was refined and finally the specific AI you use. There isn’t an AI out there that will answer bass fishing questions correctly all the time. Think of it more like guidelines and not absolute answers. personally, I think this forum will provide much better answers from actual experience and users and will be more direct than any AI can be right now. If it were up to me, I’d ban answers on this forum that start with “AI says…” when the user is just using ai as the source of answer only.

There was even a bit of sun when it first popped over the horizon but hadn't risen above the clouds yet.

I had a brief look at them (and some other similar tiny glass boats) when I was buying mine. At the end of the day though, an aluminum is going to be a better choice for most. They are lighter to tow and manage, usually cheaper, and have more options with better support after the fact. The tiny glass boats are cool, but a decked aluminum will do all of the same things.

@herder- it was glorious weather. I launched before sun up and was across the lake casting before the sun was thinking of breaking. The wind was 2-3 mph at the time on one side of the lake and zero/glass on the other side due to being in the lee of the mountain. I never caught any rain on the water and it just started to mist as I was backing into the garage. I believe the 92% number, though with the lake so deep in the middle you can lose a lot of height without losing a tons of area or volume. It was a solid 2-3' low based on the more vertical banks/rocks that show the old water line. I don't expect they will fill it back up now, rather they will wait for high water in the spring and pump some more back in. I really want to figure this lake out but it's a tough one. The one thing I haven't done yet is to pitch all of the standing timber. I'm sure there are largemouth in it, but I really don't want to do that. There is more milfoil in the lake that I thought would be there though. I found another grassbed saturday that I didn't know was there and was the size of a basketball court. Given the location there should be fish in it, I just wasn't in the mood to pick it apart saturday.

I assume you've put fresh spark plugs in it?

One model or one maker/lineup with different lengths/powers? I did the latter with Falcon and have a full stable of them now. The Lowrider models sit right in your price point and would be a good choice. Specific models will vary but the head turner (6’10” 1/4-3/4 fast action), swim jig (7’2”, 1/8-3/4, fast), and Amistad (7’3”, 1/2- 1 1/2, fast) are a pretty good set that will cover just about everything.

The difference is preference. Have a look through this recent thread on bladed jig preferences. My bladed jig rod is actually a bit faster than the rod I normally throw jigs on. Not because it needs to be but because those are the rods that feel best throwing what I throw with them.

I went to the valley today and it was 2-3’ low at least. A lot of other boats out. Managed one good one, missed a couple more.

I’m still very much a ribeye guy, but the past two nights are swaying my confidence. My wife is traveling and when she goes (especially when gone on a weekend) I’ll freezer dive, bulk buy, or do random stuff for dinner. Weird and wonderful. Odd cuts. Things we threw in the freezer for ‘later’ and forgot about. I hate waste so I like to use these as opportunities to clear things out. This trip there wasn’t much in the freezer aside from some frost burnt corn (which I’m eating with this dinner) so I hit the local meat market yesterday and the supermarket today. The meat market is a ‘best in NJ’ type of butcher. They are voted that yearly and the quality is awesome. The prices are high, but for a treat yourself type of meal it can be worth it. Yesterday I got a double cut pork chop. Sous vide for about 2 hours to a nice medium rare and then grilled hot. Maybe the best pork chop ever. I’d do 90 minutes instead of 2 hours next time but holy cow. Today I swung through the grocery store. They normally have some family packs or other interesting things. Tonight they had pork loin rib ends. Kinda a combo of pork chop, spare rib, and country rib. At $1.98/# I couldn’t say no. Half of them don’t even have bones so it is almost all meat. Trickier to cook since the two meats cook a little differently but I dusted them with a fresh dry rub (mostly paprika/chili powder, garlic/onion powder, brown sugar, salt/pepper) and stuck them on the smoker at 220 high smoke for an hour before turning it down to 160. They finished around 145-160 depending on the piece and part of the cut. I made a glaze of hot honey, ketchup, and pepper jelly with more of the dry rub thrown in. They are pretty spectacular.

Glad you’re loving the Cara. I had a couple good days with it earlier in the season and then picked up a poison adrena spinning rod that’s almost a duplicate for power and action so the Cara has sat more than I thought it would. Mine wears an aldebaran and you’re absolutely right about that being a steal. if you like throwing small but not tiny topwaters, have a look at the strike king mini sexy dawg. The Cara fits it perfectly.

My wife is traveling for work, so I had to do the early morning session to get back not too late for the dogs (they just go back to sleep in the morning). That also coincided with the dry and less windy portion of the day before this nor’easter kicks in. I wanted to target some fall smallies which means one of two places. Ended up only landing one and missing a couple more on top. At least it was a pretty good one in a beautiful place and on a topwater. Also glad I went early because the place turned into a real snit show on my way back in. DEC stocking trout at the boat ramp taking up one lane. People who don’t know how to launch or load taking up space elsewhere. People running 60-90hp motors across the lake at 30+mph on a 9.9 restricted lake. And coast guard doing safety checks at the top of the ramp.

I fished the new single Colorado last night in the lake and the scenario it was intended for, my home lake where I’ve caught a ton of bass around sunset with the harts. Didn’t catch any (had two swipe at it, but I think both were pickerel) but the spinnerbait fished pretty well. I only fished the #5 blade on a 3/8 head. Split tail trailer. It looks great in the water and the thump is incredible, maybe even more than the harts. However, those blades have so much lift that you have to go really slow. It was hard to slow myself down enough. Partly that will be because I had the 8.5:1 zillion on that rod, so dropping back to my normal 7:1 will help. Even still, I’m going to play with some heavier head weights this winter and cook some up.I think a 1/2 with the #6 should fish with enough lift to fish super slow still but have better attitude in the water. A 1/2 with the #5 will be a 2-3’ deep lure whereas the 3/8 is a top 18”.

The super duty is way overkill for what you want to throw and will not cast them well. You need something lighter and smaller. If you want to spend roughly the same amount of money, a JDM zillion is $230 right now and would be an incredible crankbait reel.

I don’t know Manasquan. The lakes further north that have downstream aquatic plans, i.e. forced released through the summer, are pretty low. Spruce is almost 20’ down now. Wanaque (not fishable, but has outflow plus water reserve) is the same. The other lakes are about 2’ low. I’d expect at least that much at Manasquan. I was out tonight at one of the natural lakes around and it was 18-24” from normal full pool.