MIbassyaker

Boom! Nicely done.

The need to car top has kept me away from pedal drives thus far, otherwise I would have one, at least for lakes. For shallow rivers, i don't want anything extra hanging underneath. It is typically no problem to free your hands while you fish by simply laying the paddle across your lap. Many kayaks also have rigging on either side that can be used to secure a paddle lengthwise if you want it completely out of the way for awhile.

I have, and use, all the usual culprits mentioned above. The last couple years I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the Yamamoto Dshad. Sinks better than the Super fluke and durable enough if you use the Owner twist-lock hooks. Another one I liked was the Berkley Havoc baits "The Jerk", which isn't made anymore.

Back on the water yesterday morning and today after a few weeks. A couple 17" buzzbait eaters, amongst a bunch of short fish on Lake 19 yesterday: This morning was a bit more interesting. I revisited a new place I tried for the first time back in May. It's an out-of-the-way backwater, publicly accessible only from a walking trail on county land. I've been aware of it for a long time, but only got around to trying it this year, as the extra physical effort of carrying down was not very appealing given I had other choices. But....of course that's true for everyone else too, so there was high possibility of a low-pressure situation. Fortunately the trail is fairly short, regularly mowed, wide and smooth enough to pull the kayak on a cart down to the water. On my first trip in May, I spent 3 hours, and caught 10, all in the 2-3lb class. Trip #2 today produced 19 more, most the same size. Once located, they were seemingly willing to bite whatever I threw, which ended up mostly being a buzzbait, frog, senko, spinnerbait and speed worm. I was greeted by some moody fog on arrival: Some of the better fish were these two 17"-ers on Cavitron buzzbait and Pad Crasher frog and two 18"s on a spinnerbait Bonus crappie on the spinnerbait too. No giants yet, but so far, the place seems like a bit of a hidden gem, and on both days I was the only one there.

If I lose an appendage, I keep throwing it until I start getting superstitious that the lost appendage is why I'm not getting bites anymore (but almost certainly just due to chance).

You changed things up, took a clue from one of Glenn's videos, applied it, and got one....sounds like the opposite of clueless to me!

I threw a scrounger rig for the first time on Tuesday and got bit on the first cast. Just a dink, but it made me go, "Huh. How about that?"

If you would like to experience for yourself the dinks, rock bass, and pike bite-offs that I contended with today, you're welcome to it!

Probably a different lake, but I was on your turf this morning too...

I think @Jar11591 is right that the 1% figure probably includes many bass that were sampled from standard survey methods, but would generally be too small to be caught on hook and line. My experience in MI (which has about the same average growth rate as the other nothern states for LM), is that individual waters vary widely in both the % of fish over 19" and how catchable they are.

just regular needlenose pliers. I haven't had a problem with the wire breaking. Definitely if it breaks, that's a good reason to retire it -- even if you manage to get a blade and rivet back on there, gotta wonder what's going to break next?

I replace skirts, blades and rivets. Actually ordered some components just last week for exactly this, from TW:

The weightless Senko is no joke, and the chartreuse tip is a bit of a (not so) secret weapon for plastics and jigs any time the water is a little dark or off-color. A dark body with a chartreuse tip is characteristic of bluegills, which have bright tails. Get a good look at an adult bluegill from above in shaded or overcast conditions, and you can't miss it.