casts_by_fly

Mono for all of those except swim jigs. That’s on braid.

hi all, I've not been a rod sock user before because I'm not carrying that many in the kayak and they stay separated on the kayak racks. In the boat though its an open rod locker and I can see the line/guide/tangles coming. I'm going to need about a dozen or so, so a $15 sleeve might be a bit much in bulk. Any good reccos for a cheaper buy effective rod sock I can stock up on? rick

It depends a lot on what lake I can go to. A few of my regulars here are trout stocked and shut until early April. I'm also not going to them the first 2 weeks of trout season. The lake I'll spend a bunch of time on this year that I know is 20' low at the moment and the ramp is out of commission. With ice out in 2 weeks possibly, I don't think its coming up 20' without catastrophic rains which would make it unfishable anyway. The two big lakes around would be more of a boat ride than fishing time, though I could see FFS playing into it. The small lake I normally start on doesn't have a public boat ramp (but does have a car top launch) but I might just have to pay to use the marina ramp for the first trip of the year. In that case, I'll have on some crappie jigs because there are BUNCH in there.

the motor came in already and the boat is on site. They were trying to work out a rigging slot. Since I was able to get these in, it might rig up next week which would imply picking it up next weekend.

Originally yes. Not weed free, but not for heavy weeds with the light line and open hook. However, keep the weight light and it will float over the weeds rather than bury. And when you are still hooking up weeds every cast then grab a couple packs of these and thank me after. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Bass_Union_Weedless_Ned_Heads_3pk/descpage-BUNWNH.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Bass_Union_Weedless_Darter_Heads_3pk/descpage-BUNWDH.html

the water temp at the bigger lake with a monitoring station is now reading 3.5C. That's enough to get the ice melting plus the lake level is coming up a couple inches every day now with no rain which will help break up the ice. Now we just need a couple good storms to bring it up another 20'.

we'll have to wait and see how it plays out on the court. I'm leaning your way discochef that it was bad from the basketball perspective. But from a people management perspective and also a business sense perspective I agree completely. He zero'd into one player and didn't maximize his return. And he didn't manage the player in any way. If he didn't want to pay Luka then fine. But he got a lesser player from it and a worse team now and in the future.

I'll echo the comments about the FS mount. I like it, it's fine. For the price it is probably the best option around. After 2 years of use, I would have preferred the sniper or another rail mounted option that can pivot up. when I am traveling in the AP, I have to pull the entire arm out of the FS mount and lay it along the motor at my feet. There is a good bit of flex if you are running over 2 mph with it that I don't like. That said, would I pay double to have a pivoting arm? maybe. That's all just convenience at that point.

It’s getting real now…

Ok, so you're largely in the same place as me. I'm throwing the same sized baits (yum sonar minnow in 3" and 4", tiny flukes, 4 1/4" freeloader, etc and 1/16-5/16 heads). The past two seasons I've fished the Zodias 6'9" ML for this and neds with 10 lb 131 braid and a fluoro leader. I've not had any issues with distance, though I'm mostly targetting fish in the 50-60' range. Casting in that range is an easy wrist flick. Going further than that accurately or if using the lighter side of the baints (3" and a 1/16) I will swap to an overhead cast to load up the tip. The sweet spot for this rod is probably a 1/4 oz and 4" bait. My dad has the 7' medium and it would be a good choice also for that same range, though I think the lighter end would be pretty similar to my ML. The 7'2" ML+ is what I would order if I was doing what you are talking about and wanted more casting distance with them. I don't have it, but from what I read of it, its a stretched and little higher powered butt version of the 6'9". I also have the 7'1" phenix ML casting rod with a BFS reel on it. I didn't fish it for this purpose last year, but I will be this year. It's an ML, but rated 1/4-5/8 and that's probably right. Its a little heavy for true BFS, but 1/8 oz plus plastic and a BFS reel is a good shout (I fished it down to a 1/16 plus a light ned plastic last year). Its going to be my FFS jerkbait rod also.

also a good way to do motor break in on a new boat in the early season.

I’m in the same place as you guys. Nice warming trend to kill the snow. Ice will thin and keep thinning. It won’t be early ice out but at this rate mid march. Talked to the boat dealer and they might have a window next week to rig it so….

yeah, they call them drift socks. But I find them a little snug.

guess you kinda just have to go along for the ride? I'd love to see one but we certainly dont have any here.

The mirror color I find doesn't make much difference. But having a mirror does. FWIW, i got a pair of prescription sunglasses recently that were amber with a blue mirror. A bit custom, but they are for driving and other times when I'm wearing glasses but need sunglasses. When I'm fishing I almost always have contacts in. Since these were more casual and the frames were silver, I didn't want gold/green mirror but having the amber lens was mandatory. Turns out rayban has an amber/blue mirror option.

This is me on my 1 or 2 lakes that i guess you'd call my home lakes. I know the depths in any given spot on the entire 100+ acres of my main lake that I fished last year to the point that I stopped carrying electronics for most trips. Just throw rods and tackle into the boat and go. Other lakes I don't know any better are different.

I fish amber exclusively. Amber helps to contrast greens, browns, and earth shades better and those are all of the colors where I fish. Grey/blue is great for bright open water, but I don't fish that. Also, amber is also very good on ocean water (I wear them when we are diving or otherwise in the ocean).

lipless, slow rolled spinnerbait (< 2' visibility), slow rolled paddle tail (>2' visibility), ned rig

What depth/weights/baits are you throwing? A 1/16 head with a 3” yum sonar minnow (which you might or might not consider hover strolling) is a big difference from a 5/6” bigger bodied bait with 3/8 ounce. I know those are extreme but size matters…

yeah, you'll find that there are bands of latitude that will be similar. And similar type of bodies of water will be similar (highland reservoirs vs smaller natural lakes). But once you check a few monitoring sites vs your own lakes you can build up a pretty good idea. And frankly, I mostly only use it for the first couple weeks of the season to see if ice is off and if the water is warming. Once the water is up over 45 degrees the actual number on the gauge isn't going to make me go fishing or not go fishing.

What is the foam with holes for? Worm weights?

I use the regular USGS national water dashboard. In some areas they have good coverage for lakes and in others not. If I just want to look at water temps, I use the filters in the top right to take out the water levels and everything else. Then the yellow icons have different shapes. Circles are streams and rivers, squares are lakes. There are also springs and saltwater/estuaries. Once you start checking your local lakes you can get a feel for how other local lakes compare against the ones tha thave USGS monitoring. Spruce run is a local one for me and I know that site tends to be 2-10 degrees colder surface water temp vs a lot of other lakes in the area. https://dashboard.waterdata.usgs.gov/app/nwd/en/ Depending on the USGS probes and the monitoring sites, some have temp at depth readings also which are quite helpful. This specific site is one of my locals and like you note, the surface can be a good bit warmer than the 4.5m probe (15') on sunny still days. Even the 2m vs 4.5m will show a difference.

i cleaned and lubed a couple weeks ago. I wait to line them until closer to the season normally, but I had a free saturday where I had to stay home and had nothing else to do so I started the process. Still one or two more that I haven't decided on the line I'm going to use just yet, but if I had to go fishing right now I'd be in okay shape.

I am guessing you had the negligible rain low clear water summer like we had up here also. I too caught the majority of my fish on finesse neds, even though it was my first real year of fishing them. My biggest fish still came on other stuff, but numbers were finesse.

I mean, if you like odd stuff then sure. But for me I'd save $50 and just get the zillion with the same physical profile if you like Daiwa. I prefer shimano and would (and have just done again) go metanium for what you're saying, but that's not exactly a 'unique' reel.