casts_by_fly

Two of the three big ones I caught saturday hit before I made a first revolution of the reel handle. If you have the pattern dialed in to where they are feeding (no cast was too shallow for me saturday) and you're fishing for active fish then you're putting it right in their zone in the first place. Active fish + accurate cast to fish = getting slammed.

I've been fishing it a bunch this year and I've caught fish every time I've fished one. It has been my numbers of fish lure and my save a skunk lure. Almost all of it has been with a trick worm with minor work done with a janitor and a finesse worm. I'll echo shallow cover, anything down to 15' really with different weights. I've been treating it like I did a ned the past couple years- rigged weedless and throw it into the grass or brush. If I'm fishing it that way, I'm throwing 10# fluoro and I haven't lost a fish to the cover yet. The VMC weedless hooks don't hang up hardly at all. I get more grass that wraps around the worm at the crossover ring that I get on the hook itself. I've not been snagged on a lily pad yet. Brush is tougher but it still comes through better than you'd expect. My mentality on it is if I think the fish are around the bottom, not chasing, and aren't eating a texas rig, then they are probably on a finesse bite and the neko is now my first choice. cast it out near/into the cover, let it fall to the bottom, give it a jiggle, reel in and repeat. Occasionally if there is a spread of cover I'll work it all the way back.

Digitaka

Nice. We are going in October, though I wasn’t planning to fish. Just a relaxing beach vacation.

A 2500/3000 stradic is my default now. They are so smooth and durable. I’m sure a twin power would be fantastic, but for $135 I’m not sure how you don’t pick up the 2500 stradic that’s on sale. I’m considering buying one right now.

This is the downside of using straw as your seed covering. It’s a grass too and wants to germinate in the perfect growing conditions you’ve created. I’ll deal with it because I have to have the straw for the dogs and to keep my house from being a mudball, but it will be annoying to pull them all over the next couple weeks. This is just after a week that the straw seed heads have germinated and developed 2” roots.

I fished 10lb 832 braid for 2 years and then started with it again this year before I swapped to straight mono. The braid is super light weight and the wind just blows it around. It was fine on calm days, but anything more than 3 mph and it would just blow around. I swapped to 8 lb supernatural and am much happier for it.

I’m running an ultrex 80# with a 24V 50 AH LiTime. To do it again, I’d get 12V batteries. I have a 12V LiTime for electronics and a 12V lead acid cranking battery. On board charger. There are very few onboard chargers that will do a 24V bank and 2 12V banks. Many many more 12V x 4 bank chargers. The pair of 12s would take up more space (the reason I chose 24V) but I have enough that it would have worked anyway.

I’ve fished more than a few early mornings this summer (launching around 4 or so). In years past those were my best buzzbait mornings, often catching a half dozen or more before it even starts to break daylight and then shifting to other lures to catch more after. I don’t know that I’ve caught a buzzbait fish on my home lakes this year. Still haven’t. In fact now thinking about it, I can’t think of a topwater fish (any topwater) I’ve caught on my home lakes this year either. This morning I got to the lake about 415 with 3 different topwaters tied on (buzzbait, rage shad, jitterbug) and 30 minutes in I decided today wasn’t going to be the day that broke the seal either. The water was slick calm and there was nothing stirring it. No bluegills sucking, no bass chasing anything baitfish, nothing. With the full moon being early last night (it set as I was launching) I figured they had eaten up all night and were starting to settle down for a bit. On this lake that means no surface lures. If you’re lucky they will still be eating if you put it on them, but it has to be subsurface. I gave a buzzbait a go for 30 minutes just in case, but decided that wasn’t happening. In the past I’d have kept at it hoping for that one big one but today I pivoted quickly and it paid off. I started with a spinnerbait and managed the first one (3-12) but I wasn’t feeling like that was the best choice. That fish barely hit it (only just felt the blade stop) and I had no idea of the size until I tried to boat flip it and couldn’t. I must have put it right on the fish and it reacted. A quick swap to a vibrating jig did the trick with a quick dink to build confidence. I proceeded to fish a quarter of the way around the lake and picked 6 more bass in about 400 yards of shoreline including a 4-09, a 4-03 and a pair of 2-2.5# fish to make out a 17# bag. And just like that they shut off. I stuck around for another hour or so throwing plastics on the bottom (picked 1 keeper on a neko) but I could tell it was going to get tough. That plus the wind kicking up and 5 other guys fishing on 120 acres meant I was content to go home. 4-09 3-12 4-03

Thanks! I’ll give a purge a try. I have had to relight a few when they are down around the nub so maybe that’s contributing.

So i need some guidance from the cigar regulars. What I’m finding is that I like the first half or so of lots of cigars. The initial light and smell are awesome. The front half is usually great (for the ones I like). The back third is always the problem. The last third or so and especially the last 20% is always bitter/acrid/flavorless. For the first 10-15 cigars I smoked, I almost certainly smoked them too fast and too aggressively- got them too hot and burned through the core too much. I’ve slowed way down, fewer/shorter drags, not lighting the tip so hot in the first place, etc. It’s gotten better, but that last 20-30% is still too sharp. Is that something I need to expect will just happen or am i missing something in technique? Tonight was the Liga Privada t52. It was pretty good, but not enough that I would get another. I think what I am finding for me is that as much as I love deep dark rich flavors in a lot of things, cigars and women is not the place for that for me. The big maduro wrapper needs to be balanced by a much lighter center (the acid 20 Maduru for instance). rick

Not quite 5 full days after seed down in the dog yard and my TTTF is already well germinated. Pic below was yesterday morning. It is almost an inch now, less than a week after seed down. if it can keep up at this rate I’ll need to cut it this week.

No, this isn’t the bait. Well it was supposed to be but not in this case. I dropped a minnow trap with dogfood pellets in here Wednesday and checked it Thursday. One crayfish. I saw fish swirling, so i put some bread in and left it soak another 24 hours. 2 more crayfish. I took a pole with me (UK graphite pole equivalent of a cane pole) with some small hooks and bread. Only took two casts to catch this one and then caught a few more for good measure. All about the same size. No wonder there were none in the trap with a 1” hole. The intention was to have some 3-4” shiners or minnows for stripers and a chill soak in the sunshine this weekend but that isn’t happening tomorrow. Found another spot that I could see some 3” shiners and we’re letting it soak again tonight.

sssshhhhhh.

That’s how it started. You have to rig your own release mechanism but a downrigger clip should do it.

Make sure you're cutting the leader material tag end absolutely flush. After tying an alberto, I add two half hitches and then cut so there is no leader tag showing at all. You can add another half hitch to fill the step up from braid to leader also.

drones for saltwater is to get the bait out past the last breakers where it is too far to cast or you're pulling a bait that is to heavy to case like a tuna head for sharks. In the UK carp guys will use bait boats for a similar purpose on the big reservoirs. braid and circle hooks largely solve the hookset issue.

The top 70 are always safe. Then the bottom 30 are ranked by career averge AOY points. So if you were top 10 AOY for 4 years and then placed 99th this year, you are probably safe still even though you were 99th. That career average AOY position is now the list of cut order. 10 EQs get a spot in the elites. 1 bass nation winner gets a spot. So that is 11 cut right off the top. Then any medical exemptions may alter that number. Also, if anyone retires or withdraws that will alter the number and cut line also.

That’s not a bad thing to check, but just keep in mind that not all LEDs are created equal. There are various ways to measure what the light output is, but CRI is a pretty basic way that most measure and report. CRI = color rendering index. It is a measure of how well a light replicates the color spectrum the way the sun would. A lot of LEDs struggle to put enough red into the output beam. Some overcompensate and miss out on another color in the spectrum. So CRI is a 1-100 measurement meant to measure it. Look for one that states ‘high CRI’ and has a number over 90 if you want to use it for color rendering/checking. A very direct example that hit me was using LED lights to track deer that have been shot. I have a hand held spotlight that is incredibly bright. It will light up a deer across a field at 300 yards. If I’m tracking a deer, it lights up the woods and it is great. Except if you’re looking for blood. It is not a high CRI LED and it struggles with reds. If the blood trail is good then I can see the difference in grey tone between dark red blood and red/orange leaves, but the blood basically shows as a dark grey splotch. I image that is similar to what a colorblind person sees. If I am trailing on hands and knees looking for a spot here and there then it isn’t enough. I have another light that is actually a diving videography light that is super high CRI and the colors just pop with it.

I would suggest that you can go lighter on spool tension, especially if the dial is fairly high like a 4+. I read your statement as “if I tightened it a little more, the lure wouldn’t fall from the rod tip”. If that is true, then you can back that off a good bit more, especially if your goal is maximum distance. using spool tension where the lure just barely falls is a good way to learn to cast and a good way to cast ‘casually’ by which I mean a nice relaxed casting stroke that is smooth from start to finish. A nice soft sidearm cast for instance. The reason is that the spool tension is pretty constant through the cast so it is always grabbing the spool just a bit. Brakes are better at controlling the spool speed when it is really spinning high RPMs. The higher the RPMs, the more it pushes the brakes out and slows the spool. If the spool isn’t spinning fast, then you don’t get much braking. So in that case you control the spool with a bit of spool tension. In your case, you’ve got a lot of spool tension so then you don’t need any or much brakes unless you’re really trying to whip it in which case you’re getting double braking at the start of the cast (brakes and spool tension) and then while the brakes let up through the cast the spool tension is sticking around and slowing you down. I’d suggest backing off some spool tension and if you’re getting fluffing at the start of the cast turn the dial up some more.

I’m totally onboard with bird hunting being more fun. If we had birds here to hunt, I would have trained up my gundogs. As it is, we have overcrowded WMAs with stocked pheasants and that’s about it. There are a couple woodcock that come through for the 2 weeks the season is open. Grouse season was cancelled 5 or 6 years ago due to low populations. The nearest grouse are a solid 3 hours. I went out into the woods today for 2 hours. I had some cameras and steps still in the woods from last year that needed to come in. On the way I walked a few trails to see what was happening in the woods. call it micro scouting. If I do hang in a tree for an evening it would be in one or two of these spots. One looked alright with fresh scat and torn up trails. The other was overgrown and had no sign of deer.

7'3" is a great length for pitching and light punching. I've got rods from 6'8" to 8' that will all pitch a nice bait. For general purposes, that 7'3" length is a nice balance of not too long and wrist tiring but still giving a lot of control on the cast. When it comes to punching, a little more length is nicer, but you can get by if you're under an ounce or so.

I'm pretty sure Milliken didn't qualify to stay on the elite tour. Last I looked he wasn't.

Either 3/0 or 4/0 twistlock light depending on the specific bait. The last fish I caught on the 4/0 was a 12" crappie and it didn't tear up the mouth any more than a #2 jig hook.

How do you have it set up? Brake blocks, brake dial, and spool tension. You said 3 on 3 off for the brake blocks above, I'm assuming you kept that. I find for my own reels, I am 4 on 2 off most of the time and then keep the dial turned down to a 2 or 3. Then for spool tension I have zero. Do you have spool tension on?