casts_by_fly

I tried it in my truck a time or two. I have air bag suspension so can drop the bed down 2”. Trying to load it from the water doesn’t work. With the boat floating there is nothing to hold the back end in place while you swing the front end up. the only way is to go so far back into the water that the tip of the tailgate is touching the water and then pull it from the bed like you describe. I wasn’t liking backing in that far plus it only worked at a few steeper ramps. The shallower ramps around it wasn’t possible.

Check the spring that holds tension on the locking latch. I assume you’re using the clicker locking latch in the hard clicker position and not free spin. Check the spring is holding it tight and not letting the latch unclick temporarily on bumpy roads.

I was a big sugar buzz guy and still am. The accent wheeler buzzbait is a good one also, especially the smaller finesse one. Then my dad makes some up that he’s given me in a light bait which are nice. regardless of the bait, tuning and customizing are the first think I do. Wire tie the R bend line tie, scuff and flatten the blade where it hits the rivet, and pinch down the rivet. trailers- I’ve been using a spunk shad lately. A split tail is great but I only use black and zoom split tails in black are hard to come by. A glued on spunk shad adds a little more weight and something for the bass to suck in.

what line and cover are you throwing it in? I’m planning braid to leader and 10# fluoro. My other two have 6 and 8. is the 7’ more tip heavy than (swing weight) than the 7’2”?

I mean, they kinda do…

A 4.5” sexy dawg is my dad’s #1 producer on smallies year in and year out. He’s got a hurt thumb this year, but he’ll catch 200 or so on dawgs over a 2 month period in the spring every year. best fish to date was mid 6’s. Little ones like it too.

hi all, per the title, anyone have either of them? I have the 6’10” UL/M PA and the 6’9” zodias ML and like both. The UL/M is my jig head minnow rod primarily and the zodias for neds. The zodias is great, but there are times when I’d like to have just a little more power. But I don’t want more swing weight in the tip of the rod. The PA gets great marks for light weight. I’m thinking the medium power is probably the right choice to give me a little more flexibility over what I have but then again most of the things I’d throw on a medium spinning rod would end up on a baitcaster anyway. In terms of uses, I’m taking about ‘big neds’, 4” finesse worms on a split shot rig or similar, 3-4” Senkos, etc. Lighter worms Texas rigged where you need just a little more oomph to get the hook through the plastic on a hook set. The Zodias is great for open hook and pretty good for light wire Texas rigs, but every now and then I want just a little more.

This is where I’m at also. A 5” bluegill swimbait can look and move just like a bluegill for matching the hatch. A jig doesn’t look just like anything. It has a lot of characteristics that trigger fish though. Bass look at things in the water and decide if they want to try to eat it or not. With fast moving baits, they don’t get time to examine it. With baits that have a lot of ‘triggers’ that are moving slower the bass will decide that it’s probably worth eating and do. A jig has the right size and profile for something walking or pecking along the bottom. The skirt gives bulk but also movement like and creepy crawly might have. A trailer adds a little more in a different way. Having a little color that’s coherent with what they are eating is a little more. It’s the same reason why you might add a couple strips of skirt material through the middle of a plastic or why a dice cube with skirt legs catches fish- there are enough real like trigger items that an bass just says “sure why not”.

Keitechs aside, i think you’ll find that the clamshells inside a bag will end up taking up less space overall than moving everything to 3700s unless you're only taking 2-3 of any given color. I’ve done both now. I have a 3700 with ‘the basics’. When i was in the kayak i would always have that box. Then if I thought it would be a plastics heavy day I would grab my speed bags of bags of plastics. When that box runs down I won’t refill it. Speedbags are smaller and hold more. In the 3700s the colors do bleed among the same brand let alone across brands. Keitech clamshells take up space and if you use them a lot then a 3600 used for them isn’t a bad idea.

As in fishing line? Floaty mono. I throw 14 and 16# supernatural for walking baits and 17# elite for buzzbaits most of the time.

I started 2 years ago and won’t go back. Same reasons. After a couple months a standard wash doesn’t work anymore. Look into either wetsuit cleaner or athletic clothes additive. Both have enzymes that help break down the biofilm and they really do work better than a wash. It got me a second year from the gloves I was wearing. After the second year it was new gloves which are a great Christmas list item for nieces and nephews to get you. I put sunscreen on my face and ears so what’s left gets rubbed into my fingers and hands. then I glove over (and have long sleeves most of the time). The gloves help with the little bit of slippery from the sunscreen on your fingers until it runs in. Similar when it starts to rain or you handle a couple fish.

looks like a slider head I have with the screw lock removed. This is close and will work the same: https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Charlie_Brewers_Original_Pro_Series_Slider_Head/descpage-CBOSH.html

I'm similar to ranger jockey on this one. I prefer moving baits so I'll start there to cover water and see what the fish are doing. If they are chasing but not comitting or if they seem to be down in the column then I'll go with a texas rig or jig down in the column but still moving, though maybe a little slower. If the fish are in a particular area and they stop hitting that, then I'll drop to a ned for some more cleanup (after a rest usually). If I've done all of that and not had luck I'll throw something big and/or fast like a 6" magdraft to get a reaction. At least show me that you're there type of flash.

The zoom split tail with a touch of glue works. @Swamp Girl- When the fresh of the year baitfish start to become the main forage later in the year, look at the compact also. All of the same features and likes as the cosmic, but in a much smaller package. I know you like quiet entry and the little compact is as silent as they come, especially on casting gear (which I know you don't use). You won't get a zako on one but a 4" Zako is already bigger than most of the compact spinnerbait let alone the hook you'd put it on. A little twister tail or split tail is the answer if you want a trailer. A mini fluke with a half inch cut off works too.

belly boats are a pain. Don't forget that you'll need waders and fins with them also. A pontoon is a better choice to me. get one with a minimal frame to pack in and skip the waders. Plenty of options on the market and guys will hike them into high mountain lakes for trout.

we have so many turtles and so few logs that EVERY log in every lake I fish has at least a couple on every single day I fish it. I'd have to stop fishing like 6 trees if I didn't fish when a turtle flopped in.

every day of the week and twice on sundays. I also saw a couple largemouth that were significantly bigger than that and would have topped 4# for sure, probably pushed 5. Also, hence my other thread this week. thanks! It’s just to clean up unhealed tendonitis but it’s still getting poked with some needles.

I’m getting a minor procedure on my elbow Friday so I needed to get out one more time in case it doesn’t go well. Sunday night at my largemouth lake saw water around 69 which was 5 degrees higher than I expected. So tonight I went to the biggest, coldest lake around…. And found 63 degrees. Since it’s a smallie heavy lake I figured they would be on the beds and I wasn’t disappointed. I had planned to fish moving baits since sight fishing the beds isn’t my preference, but the wind and clouds in the forecast didn’t materialize and it was bluebird flat. So when in Rome, make lemonade. Or something like that. I’ve never properly fished this lake. I have been on it 4 times and two of those had water 40-46 degrees. I had a plan of where I wanted to start but halfway there I said “this looks pretty good” and shut the motor down. Two casts in, 3-05, about 19”. I fished my way around and ended up with 12-15. A pair of 3+# 19” fish and a couple more 17+”. The smallest was still over 13”. All in a pretty good night. I caught my first fish on the Cara BFS rod and man is that rod sweet pitching tiny bugs to targets. It was also the first real night of just go fishing and don’t worry about the boat which is nice. And to top it off, I nearly was able to get the boat into the garage with the truck which is no mean feat considering you have to bend the trailer back more than 90 degrees and the garage door is only 8’ wide. I got the wheels up over the lip with the truck and that’s the hardest part to do by hand. All in a solid night.

it will be a garbled mess on the screen. The processing unit won't be able to put the picture together properly. it will think you're in 60-100' of water depending how deep you are. Lots have tried, none have been successful. If you're looking for a poor man's live imaging just get the cheaper fisheye unit.

You can slow drag them, dead stick them, straight retrieve, and lift and drop. All of those work for some people some of the time. For me, if I'm going to a ned (that's my primary finesse bait) I'm treating it like a cross between a texas rig and a swim jig depending on the cover. Usually cast it out to a target and let it sit a second. Give it a little hop or lift. Then swim it back near the bottom.

we have to be incredibly selective in what toys we bring in. We have 4 dogs and 2 of the 4 are toy destroyers. Two are retrievers on land (like Ajay's). Two of them swim (one is a diver also). Three of them will eat the fluff out of a soft toy. If it squeaks out of the pack it won't in 3 minutes or less. So all of that, there are very few toys that actually last in this house. Everyone loves tennis balls but because there is always that 'one ball' that everyone wants it is a constant whine or fight over that one ball so we hide them most of the time (yesterday I threw 4 of them in the pool so everyone had something to do). Nylabone toys have survived (only the hardest ones) but the dogs are less interested in those. Soft non-squeakers are okay for a while but once they start pulling fluff out we have to take the rest of the fluff out so the dogs only get carcasses. Recently we have gotten a few in bark boxes that are a hard nylabone type toy inside a carcass and they like them well enough. the carcass doesn't last long but the inside does.

some yes, some no. Keitechs are maybe the worst so I only load as many as I need into a 3700 with my general plastics. Rage bugs and similar I leave in the clamshells because they don't take up that much room. If the plastic is of a design that kinking would cause problems (like running a spinnerbait true) then its either 3700 or clamshell. Jig trailers not so much.

Hi gents, Growing up, largemouth lived in grass and trees and smallies lived in the rocks. That was the gist of the differences in where to find them and there is a good bit of truth to it 30 years on. Of course smallies love a good lay down, especially if they are on beds and they will use plenty of grassy areas. But what about standing timber? When I think standing timber you have the lake Fork classic looking timber with broken off trees and navigational hazards. And you have the drought stricken lakes where brush and trees have grown during dry times and then the lake filled up to give high density cover along the shore. Anyone fish standing timber or submerged timber for smallies? How do they relate and use it? I tend to think of smallies and more nomadic and predatory while standing timber fish are more resident (but that’s largemouth). thanks rick

I went through this a couple years back so I’ll tell you where I settled and what I did. I had an autopilot so red and green lights up front were mandatory as was the white rear light which you’ll need. I used one battery. That powered my helix 9 and mega live and front and rear lights. I didn’t put lights on the interior (more on that later). I went straight to a 30 ah and that was enough. You’re not going to have the lights on that much and LEDs draw minimal power. I’m a cheapo and a DIYer. I considered the yak power setup. It is slick for sure. But I wasn’t spending that much money on it. I bought a pair of waterproof surface mount rocker switches from Amazon- one for the front and one for the back lights. On the front I used LED strip lights. You’ll probably run into a whole lot of “are they USCG approved”. You won’t get a definitive answer and on a kayak the way you mount things affects the angle of visibility. So with the USCG regs in mind for angle of visibility and how far you can see them from, I got a set of 18” strip lights and mounted them appropriately. On the autopilot that means below the line where the front hull changes from angled out to angled in. I think your PDL has the same mold shape so you’ll get it. If you mount them above the line they will blind you. Similarly, the strips almost touched each other on the bow of the boat so that you could see them from the front (a kayak doesn’t have much front facing faces of the plastic). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SGWXB3P?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3&th=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YNX9FTL?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2&th=1 On the back, I got a folding nav light. I didn’t want it up most of the time and you can’t reach where it needed to mount from the seat. So i went with a folder and fabbed up a plate from an old cutting board I had (you could use starboard) to mount it to. I used the existing power pole screw holes that were already in the autopilot. If I needed to put the light up after dark, I could use my net to push it up. Was it higher than the highest part of the boat? Not if you include me as part of the boat but otherwise yes. It was bright as anything and there was no way you weren’t going to see it from a mile away. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H9JF1FJ?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1 I considered interior lights. When I fish at night, I actually don’t turn on the nav lights most of the time. I was fishing smaller waters on electric only lakes that had no one else out. They are bug magnets and messed with my night vision. So when I was going down the bank fishing they were off. If i was crossing the lake, navigating around obstacles, or anywhere around another boat I’d turn them on. For interior lights though, I almost put in red button lights in the footwell. They would have been nice for tying on lures and handling fish. In the end I went with a headlamp with red and white options since it was easier than wiring up more lights. I have a similar logic on USB charging. I mean if you need it then you need it. It’s just easier to have a USB power bank with you instead. An integrated plug is clean and only charging one battery is nice, but is it worth the extra cost and time to put it in? For me the logic was/is no. 12V is simple. get a fuse panel and run everything to it. Every ‘thing’ gets two wires from the panel to the thing. I used 12V wire I had leftover from my pool lights (which are a wet system) and ran all of the wiring inside the hull.

Yeah, I don’t have any problem with that at all. Here, the course was proctored and in person which was annoying, but there were plenty of places around that did it such that I had no problems picking any given week to do it. The studying was online. For me, I read the pdf course book and then took a bunch of practice tests. The info is generally good. If you’ve never boated before and didn’t grow up fishing out of one there is a lot of just basics that you wouldn’t otherwise know (mandatory equipment, rules of the road, lighting requirements, etc). Sure, I didn’t need to know about the intercoastal waterway rules or anything about running a boat with an enclosed cabin but it never hurts to know more than you need (unless we’re talking about the NJ drivers license test and having to know the difference in what 16, 17, and 18 year olds can do with and without an accompanying adult considering I don’t and will never have kids).