Donald Tyson

Yes I need to try them out. Used them as a kid but got away from them in lieu of live bait or soft plastics.

Spanky you're bad tryin to get this old man over the weeds with those nice lures on lite gear, lol. your tryin to bankrupt me. Seriously I may need a 3700 Plano full of them soon.

Now that is weeds! I think this is often the case for me. It is what it is. Light tackle works for me but it takes good decisions on how to drag them out of these areas.

That’s what I do. Spinner baits, Texas style minnows and minnows on jig heads. Helps me get more Pickerel and not so many small bass.

I've only caught in th lanes and outside the weed line. Never while slowly pulling over the top. I may sound negative but I'm having a blast. Just want to up my game.

Yeah I do all that with light line and gear. I only hook up along the pads and never over. The pads have plenty of spaces in btw. I catch the Lions share of the pickerel on 4" Keiteck or 5" Zoom Pdltails. My light gear is Spincast and Baitcast as I can't use a Spinning reel for health reasons. hand strength won't allow me to use heavy rods for long. I've gotten or am getting better at hooking these. I guess Pads aren't for me and that I'll stick with what I'm good at. I also use some Vintage gear because I really enjoy it. Never lost a fish due to weeds outside of pads. By the way, I use 10, 14 and 20 lb Advance or Siege/Elite. I was using Sufix pro Braid but I'm so new to bait casters that it is still not unusual to have to cut off. It gets expensive. I almost never have to cut off Advance but I don't mind as much as it costs somewhat less. On the Spincast Reels I use modern grease/oil/line, they have excellent drags and are not your old 202's. My inability to handle repetitive casting with a heavier pole is what keeps me in the light weight gear category. Plus I love the finesse arena.

Say maybe a 1/16 or 1/8 jig w/4" kieteck or similar. I guess that is what is bothering me. In five yrs I've not had a single hit on worms, minnows and frogs drug across pads. I guess I ain't Matt Allen. My gear is not strong enough to punch . One of the main reasons I tried frogs was not necessarily because I thought I'd catch in higher numbers but because I want larger Pickerel and I've come to assume they are in there under that canopy of pads. But maybe not.

I live in Eastern Pennsylvania and I fish a lot of lakes with heavy cover including lily pads. I've heard that you can fish right over the top of these pads with frogs and worms and other plastic lures. I've spent hours doing this and for years I have never gotten a hit, not over the pads, and never have I gotten a hit on a frog of any sort, not over pads and not over open water. And since I know that many of you do very well with frogs I can only assume that it's me that's doing something wrong and I would appreciate some help if you care to offer. I've also been dragging worms hooked Texas style over the lily pads but to no avail. I've never caught anything, nor gotten hits over the lily pads in five years of fishing. I catch plenty but not over the pads. I keep hoping to have a bass or a monster pickerel charge right up through and grab my bait but they don't. I'm not content to only fish the front weed lines or open water. I want to catch them all, lol. I fish relatively light gear as Arthritis keeps me from the heavy rods and reels. Punching and heavy drops hotting is out of the question. I only fish over the top. Could it be that the water is too hot in that upper area and that they're simply aren't any fish up there. My target species is large Pickerel, Bass is the rewarding bycatch. If a few of you could chit chat about this for a few posts I bet I could get "with it" quickly, I'm embarrassed to even ask..... But remember I'm limited to light gear.

I'm finding that out.

I have poor Rods. Where I fish and what I fish for I should mostly use 6.5 - 7' M power Medium action. I need to make purchases but am not ready. I like some fiberglass. I like making rods, but I'm not ready. Recently I placed reels spooled with 8lb Advance onto Rods made in the 80's for Daiwa Spincasters. They are 6' light action and are made from hollow fiberglass I believe. They don't have the power to launch baits a mile but they are very accurate and easy on my casting abilities. I'm mentally exhausted and will stay in this safe place for the rest of summer at least.

What do you do, just spritz the line every now and then.

Pretty Much Nails it! I was hoping to hear this. It works well on My ZO3 and also my Bullet MG. Line Conditioner....I don't doubt it. I'll look it up. I would expect it to be important with fly main line but will read how it helps casting line. It can be a can of worms served when the fish aren't biting I bet....

Good morning Tom and bulldog, I applied a little bit of both of your suggestions and went out pool fishing this morning. I found there are no fish in the pool but I had a great time casting anyway. My pool is 29 feet long and a surrounded by considerable decking so I can cast of various targets and check for accuracy in my casting. I removed the 40 pound braid fishing line that was on my royal legend too. Now remember I'm drawing from my own inventory rather than going out and making purchases to try out different concoctions. Bulldog: I placed 25 yards of 30 pound mono on the real for backing. Then after connecting it with an Albright knot, I filled the real almost full with 6 pound viscous line. Which is what I had an inventory for trout. Onto that I placed a 1/8 and 1/32 conehead sinker and #4 EWG medium wire hook. The bait was a normal 2.75" Z-man Ned bait. After adjusting the reel I consistently made accurate 50-60' casts. At first it was kind or sketchy but I turned the magnets to 2 or three and lightened the tension 2-3 clicks more than it took to stop an overrun when dropping the bait to the floor. It kept my thumb pleasantly busy and there were no backlashes. I have 8lb suffix Advanced Mono on the way. I beleive the a better scale lightened up spool may just be 20 or 25 yards of the 17lb XL and 50 yards of 8lb Advanced or Seige/Elite. I'm not sure how 8lb advanced will perform on a baitcaster but it was wonderful on my Spincast collection. I remain hopeful for the future and I thank you for your help on these matters...

I just realized that we are Neighbors. I was working at Greentree Nurseries way back when the announcement was made to drain Leaser Lake, Must've been 91 or 2. Rumor, and this may be all it is, rumor is that a worker dropped something into the gears of the gates and they ceased to function. That prompted the drawdown. I have trouble believing rumors but they are fun sometimes. Then I gave up fishing until 2018. Now I fish Gouldsboro and especially Spruce Run. Spruce Run is a multi species lake and I caught my first Hybrids there. Sometimes I fish the Nock, Mauch Chunk, and Giving Pond but this is rare rare.

HaHa. I fish that often just never hears it called T-Rig. Thanks you so much!

Hey Tom could you explain the T-rigged Soft plastic? Are you talking a Senko on a bare hook, wacky style? 15-25 yrs exceeds the requirement for anywhere I fish. I found out the hard way, early on, that you can't whip bait casters. It's more like artistic lobbing.

Learned enough off of you when I learned Flyfishing how many years ago, thanks, so I'll be trying this soon. I don't know about the bearings though. I think I'll need new bearings. I can tie the Albright and Dbl Uni but I actually have have the best luck with 4 or 5 surgeons knots. I've read something recently that dry and undersized (read small) ceramic bearings are best. I'm new to all these choices and research comes first.

I guess I should have stated: 6 yrs ago I developed very painful arthritis in my right hand. After a successful surgery I lost some of the definition in my grip. it is indistinct. If I shake your hand it feels less accurate. I had to give up my beloved spinning reels of some 50+ years and rather immediately found old Zebco 33's, and other golden oldies were easy to use in my left hand. They lack the retrieval speed I was after. So, at 66, with no experience, I'm learning baitcasting. Its going well, thanks for the help....everyone.

Part of my issues are that all of my baits and lures were sized for my considerable collection of Spincasters, old and new. Then only this summer I began using Baitcasting rigs and my sizes of lures are out-of-whack to these new reels. I should have bought BFS reels at the beginning and I wouldn't have these issues.

Bingo!!! it was the rod to a large degree. I have four rods online. Two work okay and two suck with anything less than 1/2 oz. To experiment with your suspicions I took two old style, dept store quality rods, one medium and the other Light Action. I put the Royal Legend II and the Lew's Xfinity Speed spool onto these rods and tried them out in my swimming pool. They both were very different rigs than they were with the newer and slightly heavier rods Summary: The Royal Legend II, with 40lb ProMix Braid, on the Classic pistol grip Daiwa had a 1/4oz jighead wearing a 4" zoom paddle tail. Casting was effortless, easy starting and accurate. Over time I'll try a 3/16 jighead with a 3 1/2" Kieteck Minnow as these are my normal baits. The Lew's on the other hand, with its 40lb ProMix, mounted on a cheap Shakey Alpha 6' Medium Rod. It tossed a 1/8oz conehead sinker with a bead, heavy hook, and 4 inch Kieteck shiner. It was not quite as authoritative as the other rig but it was much improved over the 6'10" MH rod it came off of. Below are a few pics of the old department store that proved your point and saved the day for my future purchases. Thanks for coming ups bat on this subject. I'm quite impressed with the Royal Legend II. What do you mean by gen 3. The Abu Black Max is okay, a bit less authoritative, but okay. I plan to get the Kestrel by next year.

That makes sense and will do that. Gotta get to the bottom of this. I'll have to look at that later in the day and sort of be scientific about it. I get back on this later.

Okay, I'll fiddle with that. Two of my reels are Royal Legend II's. One with 12lb Seige and the other with 40lb Promix. The Abu is the entry level Black Max wearing 8lb. and the last is an almost Identical department store quality Lew's holding 40lb Promix. I noticed the too much braking causes the line to careen off to the left on lob casts. Too much tension and the bait jumps upon casting...not sure what that is. For all of these Once I add a 3/8 oz weight or more and a large bait they cast great. Problem is, I've been fishing NJ and Pa for 5 years and have never caught a fish on a bait larger than 1/4. Never on a Crawler on a football, never on a Ned. Clearly doing something wrong there but the post is the smaller the bait the more my success with hookups increases. So it follow that I wan to be able to cast 1/4 or so and down. Gosh I see guys casting jigs and baits the size of trucks and yet I never see a hookup.

When you say Loading properly you mean flexing to assist the cast instead of just strait poling? It does seem that my lighter sized and power rods provide a better result and the newer heavier rods feel as though they are not fully engaging when casting. My favorite bait is a 3/16 or 1/4 oz Jighead with a Kieteck 4oz shiner. It seems that the two rods with 40lb ProMix cant do it but the reel with the 8lb Seige on it can chuck it fine.

Good morning, I'm new to this world of bait casting. I have finally had some very good outings along with the expected disasters and snarls of innexperience. There are some gray areas that I would like answers to at this point which I think would help me along my journey a little faster. I am using medium sized big casting reel's, specifically Lew's, KastKing and Abu. Two of them have 40 pound ProMix braid on them and the other two have 8 pound Siege on one and 12 pound Siege on the other. I have them adjusted pretty well but it seems like they don't dependably cast less than 1/2 (total) oz. Is this about the norm? I had hope they would cast as little as 1/4 ounce. But they don't. Would they cast less weight if lighter line were installed? If so how light. I plan to move into BFS reels by next year but for now this is what I have and anything lighter gets tossed with some well loved and worked over spincast reels.

Looks hopeful. I’ll likely convert a few of what I have.