casts_by_fly

Flying high- If you are using a snap or aren’t changing lures all day then an 18” leader is okay. Throwing braid to leader for top water with an 18” heavy mono leader and a snap? Great. But if you tie direct then you’re losing 2-4” each change. Change twice and 18” becomes 12”. One more and you’re at 8”. Next thing you know you need a new leader which is a time consuming pain in the butt on the water when the bite is hot. Make that a 14’ mono leader and you can retire all day without making a new leader.

AJay’s logic turned me onto longer leaders. I want a couple turns of line on the spool when a fish it boat side so that the knot isn’t going back and forth through the guides. (Spinning equipment that is, I don’t throw leaders on casting rods). So that’s a 20-25’ leader. It also makes casting smoother as you already have the rod straightened out before the knot is singing through the guides. And, a longer leader means fewer new leaders from losing line to tying knots. And no, you don’t lose the benefit of braid.

That looks like about 20-24 bladed jigs in a 3600 sized box with now trailers on them? Is that about right?

Sounds right. When you feel a tap, start reeling up the slack and if there is weight when you come tight sweep the rod.

I thought that crawling a crankbait was the answer for so long. Then you watch the pros during a tournament or some other experts and you realize just how fast they are cranking them. At first glance you’re like “no way a bass is hitting that”. Then you do it and it works well and you realize why they are doing it. You cover so much water and create so many reaction bites that you can’t help but catch fish. And then once you realize what it happening and why they are doing what they are, you can slow down and pick them apart (or not and keep covering tons of water).

I mean, 10-12” gills are more fun… But 8” gills are the fillet size so…

I love how dialed in you have this bite. Location, timing, conditions, prey, etc. It’s a super cool thing that once you start to understand it (truly understand it), it’s a beautiful thing. You still have to put in the time, but you know when it’s right even before it happens. My dad has that on two of his lakes (one brown fish, one green fish) and I’m figuring a couple things of it out here that are similar, but man that’s a beautiful thing.

I picked up some Tatsu 15# and 6# when TW ran it on sale at Christmas. The 6 was for the BFS rig since I was loving straight mono and hating braid. The 15 is finally going to get used in anger tomorrow now that my Cara head turner is here. What I’ve used of it so far this year says I’m going to like it. And I know how much A-Jay loves it for the same purposes as I’m using it so we’re giving it a go. Tell me more about Invisx as a crankbait line. I picked up some shooter 12# since I use a lot of sunline and it feels good, but I haven’t fished it yet. I debated invisx but since I knew shooter I went there.

I’m with Susky. I’ve migrated to 7 and 8 ratio reels for just about everything. My 7’s are general purpose. The 8’s are for crankbaits, topwater, and bottom contact. Only exception is a 6 speed met I got as part of a package that’s going to be my spinnerbait/bladed jig reel for the rest of this year to evaluate it. There are some times when throwing them I am going a little too fast and not realizing it until I see it riding 3’ below the surface on live scope when I want to be 6’ deep.

My initial thoughts of what I might add this year were pretty close. I just added the Cara Head turner (arrived today) and after just a little bit of pool casting I can compare it to the expert version. For reference, this is the new 2026 HT. I ordered it back in Feb/Mar in the TW sitewide 20% off sale. I stacked the christmas 10% off gift cards on top, so got 28% off. Also, I ordered it before the prices were changed. They had changed some, but not all of them, so I ordered it at $250, minus 28%- $185 all in. From first impressions, I wish I had ordered two. It's even a little lighter in weight than the expert, but I think that's just swing weight not total weight. The action in the top 12" is about the same as the expert, but in the next 6" it is just a touch softer. Cast them side by side and you'll feel a difference. Cast them blind and you'd have to have thrown both a lot to tell which was which. Can't wait to get some time on it. Moreso, I wanted to review the Cara 7' All Round. In the initial post I noted the 7' trapcaster which is the Bucoo SR version of the 7' MH/MF 1/4-3/4, aka the all round. It's a little off of an action combined with the bucoo blank. I fished it a lot and it was my trap rod with braid for a while. I loaded it with mono as a <10' cranking rod. I never felt quite right with it though. It's a good rod, but putting it next to the experts and Caras it just didn't quite make the cut most of the time, especially in the kayak where I was rod limited. Even in the boat I would carry it if I thought I needed to throw a crankbait. I always wanted to try the expert or cara versions of the rod though. The cara is jason christie's primary crankbait rod so it has to be decent, right? Right. I found one lightly used from TRL and have been fishing it for a month now. It has changed the way I think about crankbaits and this rod combined with a strike king kvd 1.5 squarebill has given me something new in the arsenal. I could fish them before, but on the trapcaster it was more like a chore. On the cara it's a pleasure. The rod is springy and light and will absolutely launch a 1.5 KVD on 12 lb sunline mono. It has just the right action for me for a crankbait. It isn't fully moderate but it's on the lower end of MF. The crispness though makes it rebound on a cast to really fling a bait. It is similar to the Hudson special, only a little smaller and a little lighter. And it has plenty of oomph in the bottom for decent fish. I caught a lot of 2.5-3.5# angry smallies on it the past couple weeks. Some were hooked across the mouth with both hooks and 5 hook points. Some were just a single point on the side of the mouth. I didn't lose a single fish though. Can't complain about that. The other thing I've come to appreciate with this rod and the hudson is that a more moderate rod with a crisp response needs a very different casting stroke compared to me crisp fast rods. The head turner is a flick of the wrist rod. I keep the brakes high on the reel to tame any excess but that quick, hard flick is what launches a bait. On these moderate rods, you have to really let the rod load up and do the work. Trying to force it too much will backlash you. That's one thing I didn't like on the hudson until I put a zillion on it which helped immensely. I threw another zillion on the all round and set it up the same way. But in the course of throwing them both, I relaxed the stroke a little and gradually dropped the brakes. I'm down to a 6 (out of 20) which is getting pretty light now. I was throwing the hudson with a met and fluoro which would have been a problem before. Now- both are lovely rods and have a place.

Trout have better marketing. No, seriously. Trout live in beautiful streams that allow people to get away from it all. They are also stocked in marginal streams across dozens of states to give millions of people access to them. The popularity is there so manufacturers have a broader audience to sell to. That makes for a broader range of gear. Consider that some fly rods are in the $1k bucket now (which is absolutely stupid), that makes for a high end market. So the like of St Croix and others have created high end trout rods to fill that niche. To your question- if you have good trout gear then just use it for panfish if you still have it. A light power spinning rod in the 7' range with a 2500 reel and 4-6lb mono is a great choice that will catch a lot of fish (as you're seeing). If you're going specialized like jigging bushes for crappie or targeting dinner plate bream in 20' of water then you might need something different but if you just want to catch fish you don't need anything more specialized for weight and length. In that case, you are just looking for lighter, more responsive, etc. I don't know your price range, but something like the St Croix 7' light in the panfish series is a great rod at $150. If you step up to the Avid budget at $250 they have the same 7' light and I've built a couple of those over the years. Great rod. Reel-wise, you can go light, but I still like a 2500 size. A JDM miravel for $100 with the shallow 2500 spool? Put that on the 7' light st croix and that's a sweet setup.

i had the same. I was logged in on one device already but trying to log in with a second device (which had a cleared cache while the site was down) wouldn't work. I reset the secret question answer (to be the same as it was before) and it's fine now. All the recovery emails, secondary options, reset options, etc all worked as they were supposed to.

On top of what you did and the advice above, I start WAY outside of where you think it is. Brushpile, laydown, you name it. There is more wood than you think there is. FFS has taught me that. And, depending on the day bass will relate to the cover differently. One day it might be post frontal, high bluebird sky, and they are burried as tight into as they can get. Then some days they are just roaming and only loosely using the cover as a guide where to swim. If you think the brushpile is a 10' circle, I'd start 30' away from it. Start out and work in. To your other question, if you fish it and catch a couple off, then make a lap around the lake, there should be some fresh fish an hour or two later if the fish are moving around. If they aren't moving around then maybe not. But I would definitely fish it again. Texas rig and even better a jig are great to pull through it or fish the outsides. A neko is pretty good too. Once you get a really good idea where it is in the water you can fish swim jigs, vibrating jigs, and spinnerbaits around it pretty tightly and treble hooked baits a little more loosely. A squarebill is good for the edges.

for 4 hours and assuming you're not making long runs at full speed then you'll get by at 4 hours but you will have to keep an eye on it. I don't know the xi3 power draw, but the minn kota in the autopilot was 45# thrust and the autopilot boat is heavy. At full speed it was drawing around 40A. If yours is similar, that would give you about 1 hour of full speed run time and have 14 Ah left. I don't remember if Dakota publishes the total capacity or usable capacity but the difference is 10%. Assuming they are rating on actual capacity, then you lose about 10%, so 5 Ah. That means 9AH for 'fishing'. For reference, one of my lakes is an electric only and a bowl that I start fishing from the ramp and never make a run 'across' the lake. So it is just fishing speeds. I would burn 9 ah in a 4 hour morning of just moseying around the lake with modest wind. That would cover about a mile to a mile and a half. Add that all up, and you could launch, motor at full speed for 30 minutes (1.5-2 mi), fish around a bit, and motor back. And your battery would be empty at the end with no buffer. For me, that's too tight but you know your lakes better than me. I used an 80 ah. looks like you are considering the 54ah compact at 14#. LiTime offers a 100AH 12V ultra compact that is only 19#. I know that's not swapping the offer you have, but something to consider.

Hahahahaha! He suggested a dropshot to you! Congrats on the 5. That’s a great chunk- you use have some good baitfish on that lake with that kind of belly on that fish.

Very nice. My dad is contemplating a similar standalone since his lowrance units don’t network.

There is no benefit to not tying it to the spool. It’s very marginal that it will ever be important but there is zero harm in doing it regardless of line type.

On one of the smallie trips last week i was motoring between spots and good old 2D sonar said there were some fish in the rocks in 30’. I thought it was going to be post spawn smallies that backed off the beds so I dropped a marker and swung back around with FFS and a minnow. It only took one cast before I saw multiple fish come up off the bottom. When one fish comes off the bottom to look at a minnow you have a 50/50 shot it will eat it most times. When 1 comes off and then a second follows it, I’ve seen a just about 100% hit rate. This looked like and then felt like a nice bass. When it hit the surface my jaw hit the floor. Over 15” and the longest perch I’ve ever seen. Probably the heaviest too. Now knowing they are there I might have to go catch a handful for the table. Then during one of my unremarkable bass trips this week (different lake) I pitched a rage bug up into some grass that has always held bass. Halfway to the bottom the line started swimming off so I swung- and the rod doubled over. I thought I finally had my 5+ NJ bass because it felt heavy and was swimming off like a big bass does. I’ve caught a bunch of 4#+ bass on this setup and this was a bit bigger. It only took about 10 seconds before it came up enough and I saw what was going on. I immediately about crapped my pants first. Then I had the sense to back off the locked-up drag a little because while it was cooperating right now it was going to get angry in a sec. Smart move. We ended up doing 3 rounds around the boat with a couple drag pulling runs before it finally rolled on the surface. I had it hooked right in the corner of the mouth with a 4/0 flipping hook (right where a circle hook would be) so I was fortunate to not be anywhere near a tooth (or heavy cover). I managed to just squeeze it into my XL bass net which it promptly ripped a hole in. I put the whole thing onto my silicon landing mat which was wholly inadequate for the task ( @A-Jay -now I see why you have, and I will soon have, the oversized one). It barrel rolled in the net and wrapped the line around itself so I had to cut my line to get the rod out of the way. Of course it was rolled in the direction that was hiding the hook so I had to grab the gill plate to straighten it out and it didn’t like that, giving me some scars for my effort. Eventually I was able to grab the hook from the point side and take it out point first from the outside. Of course it felt like a lifetime but it all happened in a minute before the fish was back in the water swimming away. I don’t have a tape big enough but I stretched my hands across its back and it was a couple inches over 36” (four hands) so I’m calling it 38”. I weighed it in the net and it was just over 13#. After all that, I am reminded why I don’t want to catch any more of these things. A fun surprise 24” fish is great. A 38” dinosaur is a lot of work. Can’t imagine what a 45” or bigger fish would be. Definitely not my ambition.

Man, I’ve been having so much fun the past month plus I had to look back at the last time posting. I kept riding out the lake that was hot until this past Saturday. I might still fish it again but I think I’m giving it a break. My last post was about the 2-morning catches of smallies plus a few bonus green fish. Well, after that post I went on vacation for a week so ended up losing 2 weeks of time. Turns out the fish were still going strong. Over the past two weeks I made a couple more trips in evenings and mornings and I don’t even know how many fish I caught. Every trip was at least a dozen, usually more, sometimes a lot more. A spinnerbait stayed hot and was my default for checking that the fish were still around. A squarebill came on strong though! I’ve never been much of a squarebill user given the grass we get here but holy moly it can come through wood surprisingly well. Burning it on an 8.4:1 reel draws some aggressive hits. I’ve caught a couple dozen of them that way the past two weeks. And once, just once, did I have the conditions for a topwater bite and I took full advantage of that. Watching 3# smallies come out of 6’ of gin clear water to smack a bait out of the water on the surface is maybe the most fun fishing you can have. I made a couple trips elsewhere for variety and caught some fish, but nothing exciting to post here. Until last night. Last night I got a later start and then had to take a long call from the water so had to sit for an hour just watching the world go by without fishing. When I finally could fish, the clouds were getting dark and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be out. Didn’t matter- only took 4 casts before my Evo tungsten stopped dead and I set the hook. I felt the headshake and didn’t think much of it. It started to come straight out of the grass towards the boat and I thought i had a big clump of grass on the fish since it was pretty heavy. Then she rolled and I saw how big she was. She looked to be hooked pretty well but even still it took a very tense minute to slip the net under her. A quick trip to the scale and bump board read out 5-02 and 21” for a new PB. Finally my NJ 5# fish. That now gives me a limit of largemouths for the year between 4-03 and 5-02. And the big one

Yes, but with nuance. An aldebaran isn't rated for a bait weight and is very palmable. But it's a BFS reel and I wouldn't want to put more than a half ounce on it. That's extreme, but there are other examples too. A 200 sized shimano isn't a great choice for baits under 1/2 oz. In the 70-150 size bucket you can largely get by, but when you start hurling over an ounce and especially when you get into that 2 oz bucket you're putting a lot of force on the spool and thus the spool axle/pinions/bearings/etc at times. Some reels are better equipped to handle that than others. The Bantam and Zillion HD would both be good choices and what first came to my mind. The bantam 100 in particular is a small reel, very palmable, and great value if bought JDM. I think Shimanos (70-100 size) are more palmable than the zillion and fit my hand better, but I like the zillion over the 150 size.

Not saying it's the be-all-end-all answer, but I'm throwing squarebills on an 8.4 bringing in 37" per crank and cranking about as fast as I can spin the handle at times to draw a reaction.

thanks for all the hard work Glen! We knew we'd all get there so thanks for trudging through all of it for us.

Maybe. Since you have it you can try it and see with no major investment. But a separate battery for the FF is going to ensure no problems.

A plastic kayak or an aluminum canoe are as trouble free as you can get. The old Grumman canoes have been beaten up, sunk, burried, and still keep going. I assume you’re only looking at sit on top kayaks. Regardless of your specific choice, look at primary and secondary stability of the models you’re considering. The old town sportsman series have really high secondary stability. That means that while they will start to tip when you lean, they will ‘lock up’ when they get to a point. On my autopilot I could stand on the gunwales on either side and couldn’t flip the boat. The opposite is a boat that doesn’t tilt at all, until it flips. If you’re standing to fish it makes a big difference.

And if we’re not feeding the knife monkey but want to feed the mental knife bank, I give you my favorite producer from England. I’ve been using an original Savernake (7” Nakiri shape) for 10 years now (shape second from bottom) that I customized with a rosewood handle and black liner. The only time I grab a different knife in the kitchen is either (a) I am cutting through a lot of bone/filleting or (b) I am opening a package. I use it almost every day for veg, meat, herbs, etc and have never sharpened it- just a steel to touch up the edge. The edge is still mirror finish. I got my wife the nimble chopper which is a mini santoku (5”). Same steel, little smaller and different shape, but perfect for her hands. Red liner with black/grey/white marbled grip. I keep wanting to order another one, but haven’t found a need for something I can’t already do with what I have.