07Rapala

Thanks for the input thus far folks. I am a bit surprised to hear 5-6' is normal. My pumpkinseed jigs seems to disappear so quickly! I have always imagined these finesse techniques in the clear lakes up north or Great Lakes. So just "finesse" colors like pumpkinseed, green pumpkin, minnow imitations should be fine? Or should I go a bit darker, but subtile visual lures are still OK? PapaJoe, yes, we have both Essox species. Effectively no open water above the weeds. Had not thought about how pike/musky would effect bass positioning, but it does explain why I catch so few small bass in these areas (not complaining, I just thought it was odd). PapaJoe brings up a question I have had about docks. All our docks are raised a couple feet above the water and are supported on narrow metal poles (they are seasonal due to ice). Are these still good cover? How shallow can they be and still useful to the bass?

I live a few blocks from a natural lake, Lake Monona, WI, which gets a lot of fishing pressure, and thus the bass are discerning. The water clarity is not good, typically about 5-6', but it can vary. Also, I'm fishing from a canoe with no electronics, other than this fishing map on my phone. Bottom is sand or silt, lots of vegetation in the right depth band (3' to 8', which is mostly coon tail, cabbage, milfoil and algae) which I can find fairly easily and I can usually get close to drop-offs and such with Navionics or Fishidy. After failing with some other presentations, my current thinking is to try a drop shot rig and Carolina rig, as these can keep the bait out of the filamentous algae that covers the bottom in many areas, and drag and shake them, working the outer weed-line. Also, I may try a wacky rig with a weedless hook, either dropping into holes in vegetation, or again, at the weed line. Maybe a frog over top of the thick weeds? But I feel like these sorts of presentations really need to land right on-top of fish to get noticed in this water. And I can really only find the general area of good bass habitat. So I kinda want to use lures with flash, noise or vibration to search for fish, but my experience has been that fish are wary of such presentations. TLDR: I feel stuck in that the fish can't find my lures and/or are wary of the lures that they could easily find.

Thanks for those that reply. I’m not new to bass fishing, but coking back to it after a ~25 year abscense. I mostly fished rivers, streams and ponds as a teen, so a big lake is still a big empty box of water from my perspective. Plus with poor water clarity and high pressure, I didn’t know if I should fish fitness lures, that fish might not find, or big flashy lures that fish may not be inclined to bite. Anyway, we had a great morning on the water despite catching only a few fish. I thought my dad went it fishing a lot more than he does, he had never learned to use the fancy fish finder my brother got him the Christmas before last. I had to teach him how to Texas-rig a senko. I hadn’t been in a power boat fishing since I was a teen. So there was a lot of learning involved, we called that a success. it was a pretty slow morning overall, my dad pulled in two decent walleye early, we moved to a mid lake hump where I Immediately caught a very ambitious rock bass… then nothing for over an hour. After a break we reworked our strategy and finally got a coupe of the bass we were looking for as we worked our way back to the dock… including an 18” smallie on a 25 year old pink sluggo.

Update: visibility in the lake is about 10’, water temp is about 70. Most people seemed to be fishing at about 8’ of depth, outside of a spawning flat, or at a mid lake hump. Modest amount of weeds in these areas, I’m going to need mostly weedless or shallow running lures.

On Fathers Day I’m getting out fishing with my father for the first time in probably 20 years. We’re going to target smallmouth here on Lake Mendota in southern Wisconsin. Spawn finished about three weeks ago. we had a couple bad storms last week that put some extra silt and debris in the water, reducing visibility, we’re probably at about 6 to 8 feet (will check in the AM). We’ve had two weak cold front come through in the past 24 hours, one on Friday morning, and the second overnight Friday into Saturday. No change in weather with these weak fronts, other than cooler, drier air and blue skies. I’m guessing the air pressure is up. I guess my question is, what should be our approach on Sunday? Are we too late to hit the season where it smallmouth are hitting on large eat fish imitations (swim baits and jerk baits)? Since it’s high pressure and clear skies, should I go with small finesse baits? Or perhaps larger jigs/tubes that will be more visible to the fish? Any advice would be appreciated.

king fisher, can you explain this a little more? I am a Garmin Connect user (for cycling) and I can't seem to find any lake maps anywhere.

That's a good idea. I've been getting ready to cut up some PVC as rod holders, and if I could cut an "L" shaped slot for the leg of the reel to rotate into, that might be some cheap insurance, not perfect, but better than nothing. Now I just need to figure out the best way to attach these tubes to the boat. Could use a milk crate but not certain I want/need one.

I just lost my favorite rod down to Davy Jones rod locker. I have a solo canoe and I am still working on setting it up for fishing. I have just been setting them behind me in the boat. But today I snagged one while casting and managed to toss it out of the boat. How do people SECURE their rods? Do those yak attack tubes have a retainment feature of some kind? I tried a DIY rod float, but it was kind of annoying, are the commercial ones better somehow? Do people use rod leashes?

Thanks islandbass, Once I got up in the morning and had a fresh brain, your first post made more sense. I have starting to recognize that I may not be loading optimally with each cast (and now I know the term for it!). I also bought a light, medium-action, rod recently to try out with lighter lures and was having trouble with it at first as well. I soon realized that I have been using pretty similar rods for a long time and need to adapt my technique somewhat for rods with different characteristics. Again, I may have some to improve on the technique, but I suspect the rod is too stiff to load well with these medium-weight lures. I'm pretty convinced I need a different rod for what I am doing. I am trying to figure out if a better quality (or just more expensive?) rod would improve things or if I just need to step down a notch on the rod power, or up a bit on length. My suspicion is that a better rod would be more sensitive and durable, but not necessary cast any better, all things considered. Or might a better rod cast better too?

It may be a bit over-spooled, but I haven't had any issues with birds nests or anything like that. Yeah, I wish I knew about those a couple weeks ago. Already bought a spare reel (for $60, they used to come free with the reel!... but I digress). Had to order from Japan (or Taiwan?) because there was no stock in the us. Its still on the slow boat over here. Can I get the same effect by starting to spool the rod with cheap monofilament and then finishing the last ~100yrds with braid?

In some ways, that does make more sense than what I was going to do, is paddle forward to make some slack and then disconnect and pull it up, but if I'm only anchoring off the bow then I can only cast into the wind, I usually prefer to do the opposite, all other factors aside.

Can you explain this a little more? I will say that I can cast these sorts of lures just fine with my Sedona 1500 reel on a 6.5' Fenwick HMX medium-heavy (rated for 1/4 to 3/4oz lures) medium-fast rod. So I don't think its 'spinning reels' per se. I do recognize a casting reel may be better. King Fisher, yes "technique" is m bullet point #3 up there. I realize it could be me. I'll check how-much line is spooled on there in the AM.

Yeah, I realize most people use bait casters these days. I haven't been serious about fishing for about 25 years. Back when I was a teen I bought a Quantum bait caster and tried to get good with it, but I remember just struggling with short casts and bird nests. I'm just slowly wading back into thing this year so, not ready to take the time to learn something new yet. Just want to focus on catching fish for now. Maybe next year, but not yet.

I am just getting back into fishing and am mostly focused on finesse techniques. I have been a long-time spinning reel user and I'm not yet ready to learn something new in a baitcasting reel. So I wanted a little heavier spinning reel to handle bigger lures like spinner baits, jerk baits, pike spoons, etc. I bought a Stradic 3000 reel and a 7' Fenwick Eagle Heavy, fast-action rod, which is rated for lures 1/4oz to 1oz, which is exactly the range I'm looking to use it with. Currently using with 15lbs braided line. However, I'm finding that my casting distance sucks with this rod. I haven't thrown anything really heavy on it yet, but distance with a Zara Spook is only 'ok' and distance with a spinnerbait or buzz bait is poor at best. FWIW, I'm doing my casting sitting in a solo canoe. I guess my question is, what would work best for what I am doing: Should I have gotten a longer rod, a lighter rod, a medium-fast rod? Or is this lower-cost rod not going to perform as well, and I'd be better-off with a Fenwick HMG or St. Croix Mojo Yak? Or maybe I could improve my casting technique with such a stiff rod? Or, would a casting reel/rod be significantly better casting larger lures longer distances? (I'm not ready to go there yet, but maybe next year).

Yeah, I think the anchor trolly is probably unnecessary for me. I'm going pick up a drift sock and anchor soon and experiment with tieing them off to points as far forward and back as I can reach, as well as ropes tied to the bow and stern. Thanks all.

That stuff is SOOOO Expensive though. There has to be a lower-priced option. Then again, I guess for $30 I'd have a lifetime supply of leaders. Can you tie a knot with it or is it too thick? From what I am hearing, sufficiently thick Floro will also kill lure action, but has the advantage of being harder to see at the expense of not guaranteeing the fish still won't bite it off. Is that right? My situation is that in the last couple weeks I've hooked muskies twice, once caught the hook at the edge of his mouth and I was able to land her, and the other bit me off (just a senko so no great loss). When I go up north the water in gin-clear and has a lot more pike. I would like to have landed that second fish, and I'd also like to target pike and small muskies if I can, but based on how the leader effects the lure, I'd be limited to spoons, spinners and some crank baits that are little effected by a leader.

I'd like to try out some fluorocarbon leader to defend my lures against pike as I don't like the way effect the moment of certain lures. Can I just buy 25 yards (or similar) of ~50lbs floro line and tie my own leaders? I'm having a hard time finding heavy leader line, outside of pre-made leaders that have the snaps and swivels that I'd rather avoid. Can anyone recommend anything in particular?

Can you draw on Navionics? I'd like to map the weedlines.

What app do people like for logging their catches? I am trying out Fishing Spots, but its a bit cumbersome, lots of hoops to jump through to log each catch, but it gets a lot of info and I like that I can record exact position compared to a spreadsheet.

I think my situation may be a bit unique compared to a fishing kayak. My boat is only 19 pounds empty, and has a pretty significant freeboard above the water line to catch wind. Any light wind and I get moving pretty fast. That may also be why the staking pole is not so effective for me (so far). I'm definitely going to get a drift sock and just attach it wherever for now to see how well it works. I like the idea of DIY-ing it with a tote bag, but I don't think my wife wants me cutting up any of her totes! I may try a DIY anchor as well, at least temporarily. I like the idea of a claw anchor that is small and light (and they don't cost much) but for now a milk carton filled with beach sand would work. Heck, I've got some dumbbells I don't use much, should I use 5lbs or 10lbs? ?

Hey, I feel like I can actually provide information instead of asking for help for once! Anyway, I have a QuadLock case for my phone. Basically its a system where the case can lock into a number of accessories mounts, and they also have a stick-on universal adaptor so you can use it with phones they don't make a case for, a tablet, etc. I have a QuadLock clip on my PFD so I can just clip I there when not in use (I use it a lot for the lake map and photographing fish). And I have a small retractable tether attached to my phone and PFD. I also have a QuadLock tripod mount attached to a YakAttack PanFish Portrait Pro (say that 5 times fast) camera mount, mounted forward in my boat. That way I can see the lake map hands free while I'm paddling or fishing, it could be used to take a photo of me and my fish as well, but I'm still figuring out the best position for that. Basically, my phone is either always on a mount, or a tether, or both. In the photo you can see, well, first and foremost the 18" smallie I caught during a quick after-dinner outing last night, and also the two tethers on front of my PDF, and you can just barely see the QuadLock clip in front of the bass's pelvic fins. I think I can get a better camera angle if I'm better prepared. I'm still trying to work out the best way to secure a rod so I don't loose them all in the drink though. I have tried a home-made rod float and found it annoying. I feel like tethers for each rod would get messy quickly (and I only have 3).

Does Navionics always not show any detail in less than 5' of water, or is that just because I don't have an account?

Don't. Perhaps I misspoke or wasn't clear, but I've seen a lot of musky/pike videos where they pick the fish up out of the water by grabbing under their 'chin'. Is there something wrong with that?

I just shot an email to Northstar to ask them what they thought was a good idea with this super light boat. As a few of you have suggested, I have considered just putting in some tie-off points as far forward and back as I can reach, and also potentially using the grab rope in the front. FWIW, the one time the stake-out pole did work for me was when I made a loop in my grab rope, put the pole through the loop and then stuck it in the sediment (firm silty sand) right next to me where I could put more force into it, and then let my boat just hang off the rope and drift back and forth. Seems I could do something similar with an anchor or drift sock line and carabiner or something.

Thanks for the input so far guys. Does Navionics or FishBrain allow you to log catches? Or is there another app for that?