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Remembering an Old Friend tonight A-Jay

My retirement plan.

Since nobody has mentioned the elephant in the room, I'm just gonna state the obvious. It was a Manatee bro.

Just finished up this build. Got the blank back in early summer and took this long to decide what to do with it lol. Rainshadow Eternity 6'10" Medium Extra Fast blank with Minima guide train. I turned the reel seat from a walnut blank. Bought a laser engraver during this project but had to get the good old wood burner to get the small mouth on the grip. Turned out great can't wait to get it on the water.

One night huh? They call that January and February here.

*cough*

My ever sassy 2 going on 20 year old baby girl... My son's mug shot aka school picture the week before he decided he wanted to cut his hair short And of course i can't leave my 4 legged friend out of the mix...

Should I bring my hat?

A good finish to a sporting weekend, a nice wander down the canal for perch with friends and the dogs.

Turtle would be my guess.

I'm guessing your winter is better than my winter, lol. Around here it's called ice fishing, lol.

We have a old saying fish top water when bass are looking up, so what does that mean? If the prey source is on or near the surface the bass are looking up. If the prey source is near or on the bottom, they looking down. Bass do both in the same body of water, it comes down to what the predominate prey source is, crawdads aren't surface critters, frogs are for example. Tom

Retrieve speed. Slow is walking, medium is jogging and fast is running, dead stick is stopped and burning is a sprint. Tom

I'll give four topwater examples, slow to fast: popper spook (walk the dog) buzzbait toad Hopefully others will follow with similar lists.

If I wasn't in a rush id also wait and grab a fury. I have a fury and it's my favorite rod paired with a Daiwa Tatula type r.

You know this is a LMB fishing site, yes? ...

I find it sometimes I want to make the bass bite what I want to fish with. As an angler, it's our goal to give the bass what they want instead of what we want. So if they want jigs instead of topwater, well jigs it is. Maybe try to find a different pond or lake for a better topwater bite?

Carbonite 2.0 7' M/H with the 8.3:1 matching reel. On sale right now for 80 each, hard to beat for that price.

The most important thing for me in crappie fishing is a Bobby garland baby shad with a straight tail. Put in on a 1/16th is jighead and you no longer need minnowS. Hang it under a regular bobber or just fish it without one. 4lb line is the second most important thing ......

Why didn't I think of that? I think it's pretty obvious what it was now.

How far are you to Canyon Lake? If you wanna do demo drive, I have pescador pro 100 10' kayak. You can try fit on your car and try fishing with it. It is small and stable enough not standing thou.

This year the top water bite down here was limited at best. Despite what we think...the bass will do what they want

This is the TCS model I would get for cranking; TCS-C-701MH A 8-15 LBS 3/8-3/4 OZ 9+TIP 7'0" MH M/MF Personally, I don't like a moderate action for bladed jigs (I don't fish swimjigs much at all), but others do. I think it really depends a lot on personal preference. I felt I missed a lot of fish on the moderate action and feel I need more a jig type rod with the big single hook.

I'd guess a big catfish. Even a really big snapping turtle doesn't fight very hard, especially in cold water. I've caught some 20+lb snappers and it's just like dragging in a log, even on fairly light gear. A big catfish will swim off slowly and would be hard to get the hook to hold if you stuck it in the tooth pad in the roof of it's mouth. The other wild card would be a beaver swimming through your line. Happened to me last winter with a jig and I couldn't slow that sucker down even with 20lb test and a heavy jig rod. Thankfully the hook didn't penetrate it's tough skin and it just popped off.

I think my wife and I are a bit ahead of the curve here. Two 401k maxed out yearly since we started our careers at 22/23, max contributions to Roth IRA each year, an investment fund and three 529 funds getting good chunks each month. I’d had wanted to sit down with a financial planner since I was around 30 but just never did it til 35. I wish I did it sooner, and I would recommend this for younger folks. Don’t be fooled into thinking you need a huge portfolio to do this. Bring the data on your current financial situation, talk about your financial goals and work together to assemble a plan to get there.

Nadine! Glad you brought us along by videoing it ?

To quote Takahiro Omori, “I knew it!”

My first crappies of Canyon Lake ????, using lure above with bobber about 2' down. I know it not big only 10" but I hope more to come.

Cassidee has been going with me almost her whole 6 years. Chloe is only about 6 months and still getting the hang of it, but once she calms herself down and starts relaxing like Cass does the whole time, she'll be good. Cassidee is an expert in boat relaxation though.

Here is one of my Daiwa SV105HS reels with some Hedgehog Studios "dress up" parts, red SV spool, PX-R cast control, RCS corks, Zaion star, 90mm handle, etc. This and the TDZ/OG Zillion/SV103 platforms are two of my favorites. I still may add a gunmetal mag dial screw. Best wishes on the water!

Always heard great things about them. Always 100% inspect a kayak that’s shipped to you, no matter where you buy it. Plenty of em get destroyed in transit.

Line ratings on a freshwater rod are next to useless. Use even a modicum of common sense and you'll be fine.

I would highly recommend Ack. It seems I heard that the company might have sold recently, and it has been a while since I have needed anything, but I've ordered a half dozen times from them and was never disappointed. Unless something has changed, Ack is top notch. Ack's order fulfillment process is unbelievable. I am not certain how they do it. I once ordered some accessories for one of my kayaks a few years ago and the package was sitting on my front porch the very next day. I tend to buy my kayaks "in person," but for someone who might be remote, need to order one, Ack would be a great source. Brad

Only in tournaments. Use MegaStrike. Since I set the hook when the bass hits the crankbait I have no idea if the MegaStrike does anything to improve the hook set. But it can't hurt.

Love that bait, fun to throw and attracts bigger fish.

Yeah that line rating on the rod is referring to mono line test. For your 50 LB braid, that is compariable to about 12 lb mono

balances well with a light reel, in front of the reel its a 7" rod. has the same crisp feel as the other 2017 Destroyers i own. i like it for 1/2oz walking topwater and jerkbaits of course. i did not like it for lighter walking topwater, i like a little more tip for those. havent fished much else with it. if youve never fished that line you should check out the FMJ and Daemos. they have become 2 of my favorite rods among GLX,NRX,CNQ,Legend Elite and other MB rods. neither would be my first choice for jerkbaits or topwater however. selling a like new oneten soon if anyone is interested. i just dont do those techniques enough to justify the rod. gotta try that javelin!

Good advice @Brad Reid If I told you how much money I make, I don't think you would be impressed. I don't think anyone would be impressed with the six year old truck that I bought used, my 2300 sq foot home, or my aluminum bass boat with a 90HP outboard. You might however be impressed with how much money I have saved for retirement. My truck gets me where I want to go, our house is bigger than we need, and if I don't catch fish it's not because of my boat. I've lived modestly and made savings a priority since I got out of college. I work, my wife works, and our savings work. Most years, our savings makes more money than we do. Compounded investment returns can make anyone rich. Credit card interest can make anyone poor. It's a lesson everyone learns eventually. It seems like most of the post on this web site are from people asking for advice on what tackle to buy. I assume the goal is to catch more fish. My plan for catching more fish is to retire in my fifties and replace working with fishing. That sometimes means I have to smack the bait monkey upside the head when he starts messing with me.

As I stated, I have only been out a couple times this year. I had several other new rods (and reels) with me so didn't get to spend much time with any of them. It is a well built rod. Not fancy, just solid. I like it so far. Bought it because it is suppose to be a very versatile rod. Been working a second job for over a year now. Even though I wanted to get out on the few good weekend days we've had I was just too tired. Doesn't help that I have to drive 35-50 minutes (depending on where I go) to get to a lake. I don't have a way anymore to take my Porta-Bote with me so I am stuck fishing from the bank where fishing pressure is very high. Which means I don't catch many (if any) when I do go. Very depressing.

We have the Lund Fury XL and love it. If you want, send me a message with a phone # and I'll answer all your questions and give you my thoughts between the two. Jim

Started out this afternoon determined to improve on my spinnerbait game. Cloudy, cool , and nice ripple of breeze again.Got 2 on it in probably an hour. Gave up and started with the zoom pumpkin lizard , to follow last weeks pattern .Good bite with them for another hour or so, except none on top . Just like last week, I started for home and fished the good eel grass beds on the way. Ued a new yum dinger color ( alabama bug? or craw ? )Anyway the fish were all over them, I caught 3 fish on consecutive casts. Caught 12 total. The pics are not in sync with the story this time for some reason

Was on Silver from 7am-4pm today, and it continues to be a slow grind. I caught 7 bass all day. 6 smallmouth, and 1 lone idiot largemouth. The pattern was....fish something until your about sick of not getting bit...then throw it a little more for a lone bite. Put that down, pick something else up and repeat the process. The six smallmouth came on six different things, in 6 different areas, from 6 different depths of water....and it was a bite an hour for...you guessed it....6 hours. Smallmouth #1, a 2lber came shortly after I started on a 4" GYCB hula grub fished in 15' on a 1/2oz football head. Smallmouth #2, a 3.5lber, came an hour later in 7 feet of water on a ned rig Smallmouth #3, a 2.5ber, came on a 4" Keitech swing impact slow rolled over rock/grass in 9-10 feet of water. Smallmouth #4, a 2.75lber came on a tube dragged in 18' feet of water over a point. Smallmouth #5, a 12"er rat keeper, came on a drop shotted GYCB shad shape worm in 22 feet of water off a tire. And Smallmouth #6, a 2.5lber came from 25 feet of water on a 1/2 oz blade bait. The lone largemouth, a 4lber, came on a swim jig in 4 feet of water That's a solid pattern there LMAO

Brees is so accurate it is ridiculous

Tatsu if you can afford it, InvisX if not. On a side note, zero reason to use fluoro for the applications you described imo. Save yourself some money and get a good mono or copolymer for cranking and moving baits.

Old 4+ year old thread with the same outcome. Tom

Well worth the wait...

Rod holders are made with 1-1/2" ABS tubing. They just wedge into the well in the front of the V-Tube design. Sonar is a Lowrance M68c ~8yrs old now. Transducer is portable, mounted on a section of PVC electrical conduit, It attaches to the side of the tube via a large Velcro strip. This way I can also put it on my kayak. That Premier Plus looks good, very similar design to mine. V-Tube and a high seat. It'll be comfy. I use the well in the bow (behind the seat -everything is backwards in a float tube ) for the rod holder and as a live well to hold a fish or two I might want to take home. Although I'd be careful with large, spiny critters in there!