casts_by_fly

Went bass fishing tonight (separate report incoming) and twice got fooled on what I thought were bass chasing shad. Two separate rock piles I had marked ages ago when they were dry both had fish and shad all over them. After throwing all manner of hard baits with nothing to show for it i grabbed the spinning rod with a jig head minnow and was rewarded with… a 13” crappie. Like the last time I fished this lake, there are a LOT of nice crappie in it. This will be the lake I take friends to that don’t fish and just throw a minnow under a bobber for them. Since that rock piles was covered in crappie, I went to one 75 yards away and found fish chasing shad. On FFS you could watch them come off the bottom, up 15’ to grab a snack, and then ease back down. Some were just cruising open water at 15’ or so. I thought for sure smallies, and after some chasing finally hooked up…. To a 5# hybrid. Great fight on a 7’2” ML spinning rod. The fish was about 22” or so but was 5# exact on the scale. Later on I found more fish that could have been bass but after the first episode I figured they were probably crappie but I needed to catch one to be sure. Yep, I’m sure. At least now I’ve got a half dozen places on the lake that hold 12-13” crappie in schools.

A 5 lb hybrid and a couple 13” crappie confirmed that I really like this rod tonight. The tip is super light and will fling a 1/8 oz jig head minnow, but there was plenty of butt to fight a big angry hybrid.

5 pounds of hybrid wasn’t too much for it tonight. It was actually a pretty great fight. 10 lb 832 with 10# fluoro. Yes, it was open water, but a medium with this fish in cover still wouldn’t have been enough.

It’s funny, a friend just asked me almost the same question and this was the answer I said for a $300 budget. A low rider for $130 plus a Tat SV TW JDM for $170. The swim jig is probably the model I’d go with also, with mono. With braid I think it’s too much for some of those things but with mono it’s a great choice.

I was fishing an 8 tonight. It’s not ideal, but you can make it work. You just have to turn the handles slower. It can be harder to do and you might find yourself getting carried away but if that’s what you have you make it work.

just going from doing nothing for years to a light, regular exercise routine (walking, jogging, weights, about anything) will do wonders for health, especially when combined with good dietary changes. Blood pressure, cholesterol, you name it. For the 2022-2023 period I had basically dropped off my exercise routine (first since 2009), got lazy, got sedentary. I was at the eye doctor and she could see the cholesterol build up in my EYES is was so bad. Doctor confirmed with bloodwork that I was off the charts. 12 months back on the wagon of exercise and negligible dietary changes and I'm back to the normal range now, no drugs needed.

hang a lure through the other end of the swivel (stick the hook through the swivel hole) if the holes are big enough. Easy little trick. Similar one, on a double pitzen knot to an empty hook (like for a texas rig), I just hang my clippers on the hook while I tie it for just enough weight.

I love fishing 1-2' visibility and I rarely have that here. Most of my lakes are natural lakes or reservoirs with small streams feeding them (or no stream feeding them) so water clarity is usually 5-8'. Two lakes around here will have 10-20' visibility depending on the day. When the visibility is a little reduced, the fish are a little less wary but they can still see/feel a bait from enough distance that you don't have to comb every last inch of the lake. Lures with vibration and noise play a little more which means using more moving baits or plastics with aggressive kick. All things I prefer to fish. But, as noted above if the fish are used to 5'+ clarity and it suddenly drops to 1-2', the first day or two can be tough. Better is when the visibility drops to 1' from a storm and then a couple days later it clears to 2'. That's when the fish will start to get aggressive again on clear lakes. If the water is always 1-2' of clarity then all the better. In your case, I think you might have hit the tough day. In that case, a spinnerbait or vibrating jig until you find where they are holding (shallow/deep, tight in cover/edges of cover, etc). Then you can tune from there. I'd expect them to be holding tight to cover in this situation. If that means grass then a spinnerbait can get tougher to throw efficiently so a swim jig with a flappy trailer can work (and also fish up and down the column). If they are tight to cover and you can pick out the right cover then a big chunk of plastic on a texas rig can be enough to grab their attention.

I get them bad here and I fish dark times a ton starting around now through the end of Sept. A hat, long pants, long sleeves, fingerless gloves, and shoes with socks as a start. My fishing shirt has a neck gaiter and a hood. The neck gaiter is snug fit and helps a lot. I might pull it up to my chin and over my ears if they are bad, and the hood comes up if they are really bad. That keeps the bites to a minimum I've found. I use deet based spray on my pants, sleeves, and hat. I'll spray it on my skin also if needed. We use rechargeable thermacells at home and they do work. But they need to build up a bubble of repellant so if it is lightly breezy or more their effectiveness is limited. I'm going to throw one in the boat anyway for those still nights, but I rely on the clothes first and Deet second.

doubtful. Ick is fungal I think and needs a fungicide to correct it. Do some web search, but I think it is copper/silver that does it.

yes. On a spinnerbait you up the weight for a couple reasons. One is to get down like you said while keeping some speed on it. You can drop the blade sizes for that also. The other is to throw a bigger blade for thump without blowing it out of the water on top. If you put a big #7 colorado on in dirty water but still need to get down to 3' you need a bit more weight.

Fishing soft plastics, there is a steady cost through the day as you fish them. Between fish eating, popping through weeds, swing and miss hooksets, etc you are constantly wearing them down and replacing them. The individual cost might not be high, but as soon as you rig one up you've incurred cost. Hardbaits (and wire baits) cost you once when you lose one but it hurts a lot more. That said, I couldn't tell you the last time I lost a hardbait/wirebait to a snag or tree. In the boat/kayak it's just too easy to ease over and pop it free. I had a buzzbait break on me last year. I lost an OG6 to a pike 4 years ago where I pulled the snap open. And I lost a red eye shad that I had been digging in rocks when the braid got cut on a mussel. That pretty much covers the past 5 years, and I've found 3x more hard baits than I've lost. Meanwhile, last trip out I went through the equivalent of a bag of soft plastics between fish and lost fish. Some will get repurposed as trailers or neds, but I have a fistful of plastic sitting in the boat right now. The trip before it was jighead minnows in a brushpile. I lost two yum jigheads before I remembered I had plain lead ballheads in the boat and swapped to those and a 3" twister tail.

I’ll let others with better knowledge advise you there. I’m sure it is worth a look though.

I don't have any experience otherwise with a neko so I wanted to start from a proven solution and just went straight to the full VMC setup. That's the size that TW lists for the 6.8" flickshake so I think that's the right one. I got 4 and 5 since it was going to be for smaller worms. I might end up with some 6's eventually but let's catch a few on it first.

Glue them to the jighead and they will last a lot longer.

fair enough. I'm sure it will be a good choice. I'm up in Morris county and fish Spruce and Round valley a good bit. If you get up this way drop me a line.

a helix 7 MSI G3 (you don't need a G4 or an 'N' model) is a good choice. They have been clearing them due to the xplore models coming out and they are down to $500 or so now brand new. It is a good balance of big enough to see things but not so big that it is in the way or that you're limited in mounts. It is a big jump to get to a 9" from there (I did that upgrade myself) and unless you know you need it for some reason it adds just 'more' to everything- power draw, cockpit real estate, cost, mount size, etc.

Not so fast good sir. Where in NJ are you? I have the 7'2" ML Poison Adrena and was just fishing a neko with it last week here in NJ (got skunked that day, but not the rod's fault). On Friday I was fishing it in PA in another grass lake catching nearly 4# fish and it was fine. My dad was throwing the zodias 7' M right next to me and while it does have a little more backbone the difference in fighting a fish was minimal. You're still talking about 8-15lb braid and 8-10# leader. You're not going to throw either up into heavier pads and either one might require you to go to the fish if they wrap you in a big chunk of milfoil or pondweed (our two most common weeds here). I know I've only had my PA for a little while, but I also have the 6'9" ML zodias and the 6'10" UL/Medium PA plus a few other spinning rods that I've been fishing a bunch lately. I'm pretty confident that even as the grass thickens over the summer that the ML will be just fine here (10 lb 832 and 10 lb fluoro leader for me). If you're up this way you're more than welcome to try mine out for yourself.

yes, the weedless in a 1/0 I think. On a crossover ring and a janitor.

No worries. A full size pickup is more than enough for any boat you're going to want for bass fishing. Since he's still pretty young, I probably wouldn't go over the top with add ons. Get a good trolling motor and modest electronics. Leave it for something to upgrade in the future. Some people upgrade every other year, some keep the same kit for 15 years. If you're tournament fishing, you might want to be on the shorter side of that time frame, but the electronics available now are so good that there isn't a whole lot more you're going to eke out of them without some big jump in a new tech. So play with ones on friends and other competitors boats and see what feels right. In the past I would have said to decide on live imaging first because there was a clear leader and lagger in the market. But now mega live 2 has caught HBird up to the rest and the Xplore series has touch screen in the entry model (with serious CPU capability). So pick the brand that feels right and learn it. Skeeter, ranger, Basscat, phoenix, Stratos, etc. If you're looking at a boat that's a couple years old (past 10 years) then all will have similar construction (no wood) so you're buying based on the condition of the boat, trailer, and motor. Accessories are wildcard so unless the owner has upgraded everything I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock/value in them. Find the hull that fits your needs (length/width/layout) in good condition and go from there. welcome! you've found the best forum from the start, so mine the info here.

I fished a neko rig last week for a hot minute. Didn't catch anything on it. Then again, I didn't catch anything on anything else that evening either so there's that. I can see the appeal. You can fish it fairly fast if you want to cover a little water, but it is still a finesse presentation. I think I need some slightly heavier weights. I have 1/16 oz and that was fine for 6-8' or less and no wind. When the wind kicked up or if I wanted to come out to 12-15' I started to lose bottom contact. Easy solution there though. I will say though that it came through grass like no one's business. I was throwing to the back side of the grass, bringing it through and out the front and I can't think of an instance where I had to clean it off back at the boat. Between that and how quickly you can scoot it across the bottom, I can see why it's won a bunch of tournament money.

That makes sense. The spool is spinning under the line and the line just can’t get out of the way fast enough.

At one point I was at the point where a 3/8 weight plus rage bug wasn’t even falling. I could still cast it 40 yards that way which was plenty more than needed.

Yeah, that’s the conditions on this lake. No grass, various levels of flats, humps, drop offs, etc and all pretty hard bottom. Plenty of interesting bottom all the way down to 40’ but pretty soon the thermocline will set up around 15’ or so. The lake has changed a bunch lately and I I haven’t put as much time in there over the past three years. With the new boat able to get me around better, I can put the time in. A c-rig can cover a bunch of water so I’ll have to fish one more. I’m also a fan of a wobble head so there will be one of those on as well.

Keep playing. I’m normally a zero spool tension and plenty of brakes guy and that didn’t work at all on this bantam with fluoro. Mine is 18 lb sunline shooter. I don’t know if the line is acting like a spring and accelerating the process or what, but it takes a good bit of spool tension to hold it back. Once you find the spot (and it will be more than you think) it will be a whole new setup.