2earlye

I apologize. I came off rude. Tight lines.

Bones Fishing Travel paired with Daiwa Saltist PE. Love/hate this rod. It feels like a one-piece despite being a travel rod. Super light, sensitive, comes with Torayca carbon fiber ferrules, and beautiful carbon wrap aesthetics . The only downside is the reel seat locknut. Its sharp edges and small gap can snag loose braid after a backlash.

No offence but do you ever work? You're on here a lot. lol

I thought I was in the strike zone for a long time. Probably 10-15 seconds at a time before retrieving. But I'll give it a try the next time I head out there.

I probably set myself up to get skunked since I decided to a finesse only challenge. I did cast to areas of cover multiple times with no bites so it ruled out if Bass were in the area. I will have to approach it differently next time around and bring flashier baits for murky waters.

You may be onto something. Several lakes in my area have stocked Trout and I've seen a handful of anglers cast big swim baits to imitate trout to catch these Bass. But as for soft plastics it's nearly impossible to trigger a bite as I believe Bass are more keen to hunting Trout. Other murky lakes I've gone to that do not stock fish, and are self sustaining of bait fish, insects etc are easier to trigger a bite, but this is my opinion and could be unrelated to different regions and bodies of water. I have also avoided fishing when Carp are present when fishing for Bass. Like I said above in my original post. I saw a dozen boats fishing for Bass targeting potential structure points, using flashy, loud lures, and did not see a single person land one during my outing. Those that were targeting catfish, caught them but as for the anglers targeting Bass everyone looked stumped. Weird day for sure, but a skunk day makes me think on how to approach is differently the next time this happens. I hit it MULTIPLE times, no bite. I guess it was just one of those weird days.

Where do you think bass go in muddy murky water? Water had less than 6" of visibility and heard this lake stocked channel catfish a week ago. I figured the bass would stay tighter to cover so I casted shallow into weeds, tules, and into rock piles with soft plastics only. I casted out into dropp offs as well but not a single bite. I am using high contrasted baits in dark brown, black, blue. About a dozen of boats were out as well and no one was catching. I saw them casting top waters, blades, plastics, etc. Everyone looked stumped out there.

I'd rather throw a lure on a baitcaster under an overhang, tight cover, and have more efficient repeated short casts than a spinning reel, so there's that. But if others can manage the same with spinning then it's entirely user experience. For me I enjoy a light rod, a bfs reel and having fun catching 1-3 pounders on light line making it seem like giants. I caught a 5lb on a bfs setup. Pretty amazing what modern rods can handle now.

Hopefully the bite isn't slow for you. Let me know how it goes. Good luck!

I bank fished a reservoir today and noticed a lot of carp in the shallows. I’m wondering if they pushed the bass out because the bite was extremely slow. I usually do well here, but today finding a pattern was a grind, even though I managed to catch a few bass. Has anyone else noticed carp affecting bass behavior or pushing them out of shallow areas? Curious to hear your experiences and what adjustments worked for you.

Congratulations! Pound for pound how do they fight compare to large mouth? Being in Southern California we're limited to bodies of water that carry smallies and it's a few hours drive to locations that do have them. I will definitely making it a trip to catch one this year.

You can get a good enough hook set even with a light rod if you time it right. If you're using a 5" - 6" bait you're most likely going to have to let the fish take a few chomps at it. Feeling the weight of the fish, followed by reeling in the slack and set it. I lose fish with the T-rig when I'm too impatient.

If I had an x-ray machine to see how far up or down the sleeve sat within the reel seat I'd definitely drill it where there's a cavity and fill in with epoxy, so I'm not taking the risk of damaging the blank. Luckily I contacted the Japanese company I purchased from, and they are willing to ship it back at their expense to have Megabass JP look at the reel seat defect. I'm 100% certain I'll be receiving a new rod, but it'll take at least 1-2 months before I hear anything back from them. Removing the winding check was my first choice to get this reel seat fixed, but thankfully the Japanese company honored their services and offered to pay shipping back to Japan to have the rod looked at. Thanks again for the suggestions

The sleeve is loose to the blank.

The rod is a Megabass Levante and it has an original sprial architect reel seat. I dont know if the reel seat is snug fitted or not and i dont want to compromise the blank if I drill it. From the photos the reel seat is one piece so where exactly should I drill the holes? I was thinking along the center back of the threads. and maybe even the carbon parts. Once the epoxy is injected I can slowly rotate and use gravity to penetrate from the top interior down? If I'm drilling how should I proceed since I'm unsure what the inner workings of this reel seat looks like and if the blank is touching the reel seat. This will be my first time attempting, but was wondering how you guys would tackle this job?