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My fishing buddy and I have been itching to take the kayaks on a camping trip and fish for as long as we possibly can, and last weekend we finally got the chance. The weather and our schedules lined up, and on Saturday morning at 4:30am we rolled out for the upper James river. We hit the water shortly after 6:30 after loading the kayaks with gear and coolers, cracked a cold breakfast beer, and headed upstream. Our target was about 4 miles from where we put in, and we knew the first 3 miles, but really didn’t have a clue what we would get into in the final stretch. Most of the water we skipped over on the way except a few spots we know that have produced fish in the past. Not much happening this morning, but I managed a couple itty bitty smallies on the ultra-light, and one tiny spotted bass. Back to paddling we stopped at a few rock points and picked up a handful of 8-12” smallmouth, and I found a few small largemouth hanging out in the slack current. Not exactly what we’re after but still fun to catch on the ultra-light. And the same goes for the next few spots until we reached out first “big” spot, where the river re-joins at the base of an island. Lots of current there and a 15 foot deep hole that’s a favorite spot among locals who know what hides there. We both picked off a couple better brown fish here, but still not quite what we’re after. Heavy current on both sides of the island but one side is shallow enough to get out and pull the yaks through, while the other side is 6-8 feet deep most of the way up. We paddle on and we start getting bit more consistently in areas of current and breaks right off the current. We’re now in water that only sees jet boats on occasion, and not many people bother to paddle this far up. Once we clear the island our next big spot comes up in a few hundred yards, the outlet of a turbine house for one of the many small hydro-electric stations along this upper stretch of the river. Lots of current and big rocks scattered around for fish to hide behind. They weren’t in the rocks today. After fishing for more than an hour without a bite, I dropped anchor on a small point right on the edge of the heaviest current and tossed a 3/8pz jig into the foaming churning water coming directly out of the chutes. Swimming it back in the current and BAM! It gets hammered, I set the hook on the first good smallie of the day, about 2.5 lbs! I reset and re-tie, and a few casts later BAM, another good smallmouth! This one was probably 3.5lbs but it jumps right next to the kayak and shakes the hook. I cast in again and on the very next cast BAM, set the hook on another solid fish! I net this one and it weighs in at 3lbs on the nose! I’m onto them now, and I’ve got a pattern! We spend another 20-30 minutes there and I get one other smaller fish and have a few bites that only result in lost claws off my jig trailer, so we move on into the un-known stretch of river. Lots of big rocks and heavy current between them, and no way a boat is getting up this far. We have to get out and pull the kayaks through 4 or 5 more areas in about a half mile stretch. Along the way we’re flipping jobs and small swim baits into the current and picking off smallmouth! Everything from 10 inchers to 2.5lbers! It’s a little after 2:00 now and we’ve both started racking up numbers, probably 20 fish total between the two of us. Anywhere there’s current, there’s a fish! But you catch one, and have to move to the next current chute to find anoher one. We make it through Boulder City and round the bend and then we finally see our destination, Holcomb Rock dam. And the place is beautiful! Perfect current spilling all the way across the dam, and we can paddle right up to it to fish! We immediately found a perfect spot to set up camp, got the tent set up and took a short break to eat some snacks and have another cold brew. We fished on foot a few spots on the dam and we both caught several fish in the 2-3lb range. Then hopped back in the kayaks and fished all across the dam and down stream about 200 yards through the high current spots. We saw tons of good fish, and managed to catch a handful. The bite wasn’t stellar, but the spot sure was! Around 8pm we took a break to cook dinner and have another couple cold ones, and talk about the fun of the day so far. After dinner we paddled back over to the dam and fished by the light of the moon and our headlamps! Probably crazy AF but I caught one more 2.5lber and my buddy caught a couple good ones and lost a giant something that we figured was probably a catfish. It pulled him around for about 45 seconds but never broke the surface. 11:30 we finally hang it up and head for bed. Next morning 6am I wake to the sound of a train horn as it approaches a crossing on the other side of the river. It’s just getting light out, and that means top-water time! I crawl out of the tent, crack a cold ice coffee, and grab a rod and a whopper plopper. Nothing doing on that so I switched up to a buzz bait, and then to a hollow frog. Caught a 2lber on the frog so I kept that on and headed up to the corner of the dam. Made a couple casts into the churning foamy water and then about halfway through my retrieve on one cast, suddenly noticed my frog was gone! No blowup, not even a little splash, just slurped under and then I felt the line start to pull just a bit. I set the hook and immediately a huge smallmouth jumps 4 feet out of the water! I have to scramble to get down off the rock I’m on and into the water, and the fish is running and jumping all over the place. Not much room to work with between rocks and a tree trunk that’s washed up in the corner, but it eventually tired out and I landed my biggest fish of the trip! 3.9lbs and 19.5”! I’ve tried for a long time for a smallmouth on a hollow body frog and have never had one strike until this trip. Made it that much more awesome to catch a freakin stud smallie on the frog! We continued to fish top waters and then switched to jigs as the sun came up. My buddy got his big fish of the trip, a 4.0lb 19.5” tank, and by about 9am as the sun was fully up our bite had pretty well shut off, or the fish had wised up to us. We broke to eat some breakfast and cracked a couple more cold brewskis. We tried a few other different tactics and had limited success through about noon. At this point we knew the fun was over, and we needed to start packing up to head back. We fished the dam one more time and then started back downstream. Got a couple more smaller fish going through the boulder field, and I had about a 25” Muskie come up and crash a small swim bait about 10 feet from me. Way cool to watch it smash that bait, but the 8lb line stood no chance against those teeth! Driftint back downstream I couldn’t even get a dink on a micro-jig at this point, and then we rounded the next bend to find the wind coming out of the east. The wind was quite a bit stronger than the current, so if we stopped paddling for a few seconds it was turning us back up-stream. We had to fight the current getting there, and now have to fight the wind getting back. We make the boat ramp parking lot about 8pm. Load the gear and strap the yaks to the trailer and head for home. I finally make it home that night about 11:30, thoroughly pumped from the awesome catches of the weekend, and thoroughly exhausted. Trying to get photos sized down so they’ll upload... this may take a while

Back to catching "normal-size" kicker fish. These are not quite 5 pounders (yet) but I tried to follow @A-Jay's lead, and caught the first one before it started raining, and the second one when it was pouring. Caught both of these on a JDM Nories Chibi Ebigaeru (apparently that means "little shrimp frog"). When everyone's fishing the same lily pads in the same little 75 acre reservoir with the same Spro and Booyah frogs, I think it's good to show the fish something a little different. (Caught a few on a Jackall Iobee too, but guess that's not as exotic.)

After two consecutive weekends of big frog tournaments, I went out with the intention of punching the mats, figuring the fish normally receptive to topwater offerings were recovering from being sore lipped. The fish were chewing, and I was really surprised when I put a 4.4lb and 4.1lber in the boat on consecutive casts. I pretty much had a solid #retiredguytournament bag at the end of the day, just wish these better fish were bitting on Saturdays lol...

Howdy folks! I haven’t been on much lately, I’ve got some catching up to do here, looks like a lot of nice fish being caught out there in the BR world! Life has has been a bit busy. Not too busy to fish, but for some odd reason I just haven’t made regular posts on the BR lately. I’ve lurked a few times though. Fishing hasn’t been exactly prime the last few months. After mid spring it has been a dink fest, but with an occasional nice 4-5lb fish thrown in the mix. Fishing some local ponds and lakes from the bank or from the kayak when I get a chance. I did just just get back from a stellar smallmouth trip, which I’ll make another post about with some in depth on how I caught my second largest smallie, and my best number of good sized smallmouth. I’ve had plenty of high number days catching 8-14” smallies, but this trip I got on some bigguns, and was able to keep a pattern going that caught me somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 smallmouth over 2lbs. Other notable catches are my biggest largemouth yet from the kayak. A 5.1lb 21” fish out of the Shenandoah river. I caught that one and two other largemouth out of the exact same tree all within 10 minutes of each other. The large bass may have eluded me for a while, but I was still able to pile up tons of small smallies and largies from some local waters. I think now getting into late summer I’m getting back into a groove. I’ve also been on the hunt for new fishing spots that get less pressure now that I’ve got comfortable on the kayak. Let the stud-fest continue!!!

The 5.1, and a couple other solid bass!

I don’t really want to follow up that beast of a sheepshead but somebody has to do it. My girlfriend’s mother loves catfish and we are headed up to their house next week so I’ve been trying to stock up. Thought about going fishing tonight but most of my friends were wanting to hang out at the local watering hole. Oh well, one night no fishing is ok. But alas! The watering hole is only 50-75 yards from the river so I set some hillbilly hand lines tied to a sunken dock and somehow we got one! Small frozen gizzard shad baits, actually had one line dragged up river but snagged and broke off

took the daughter out for a "boat ride" as she calls it. was a beautiful night and not going to get the chance to fish again for a bit. the bite was slow (non existent). water level was low maybe a draw down or something. hard to juggle appeasing a 4 year old and focusing on fishing. i was throwing a bone whopper plopper because i recently saw an episode of mlf where a contestant decimated the field using one. got this fish to finally bite when i casted right on its head. there was a reaction right when it hit the water and then a couple cranks later she was on. only fish of the 2 hours or so we were out.

Gen 1 MHX HM DS Winn butt grip Kigan XLA weight keeper Alps seat Titanium Minimas A few cork grips. Progress pics. Silver RodGeeks Yellow RodGeeks Eternity

Something I learned this week creek and canal fishing. The more expensive the lure the better the chance you are going to lose it. I lost 6 of my Panther Martin Classic gold in-line spinners this week. Still have my $1 Walmart ready 2 fish one though ? Can’t lose it if I tried!

150 yard run is nothing for many saltwater fish. Even a Bonefish can take that much line in an initial run. Yes you can land a fish that takes well over 150 yards of line. Happens all the time in both salt and fresh water. In open water a person can land very big fish on light tackle, as long as you don't run out of line and time.

Anything Champion ?

The Husky Jerk and Shadow Rap are pretty "normal" as far as suspending jerkbaits go. For floaters, there's the basic Original Floating Minnow, which you can still get everywhere. Hard to get more normal than that.

If you wear western apparel, does that mean you're ranch dressing?

I've told this one before, but it's a good one. My son and I were fishing and not catching anything so he breaks out the iBobber portable sonar, hooks it up to his line and tosses it out there. Within the app if a fish greater than 18" swims by the fish icon is green and if it's smaller than 18" the fish icon is red. Anyway, he's calling out, "Red. Red. Green. GREEN!" as fish are swimming by the iBobber. I cast out there and I'm not getting any bites at all and he's still calling out fish and getting super excited when a big fish swims by. Still not a bite. So I ask him to bring me my phone so I can see what he is seeing in the app. It was on demo mode. SMH

Ya got a choice to make Do you want bass in your livewell or lures in your tackle box? Ya can't have both! ?

Boudreaux and I were pretty intoxicated this weekend, but we still managed to rescue this poodle. And we have an open discussion on setting and harvesting crawfish traps on the Forum, too.

Champion would be first for best riding boat ever. next would be a Ranger 361 or if you can find one, a 390 or 391. good luck on your search.

With my first search of stratos I find a 1995 with 2016 150 e tec Evinrude for 10k obo... you might have opened a whole new can of worms for me haha!

HI Bass Resource, Recently posted a video on the proper way to rig a drop shot for fishing around cover. Thank you...James Niggemeyer

Well it turns out almost nobody in South Dakota has ever owned a champion! (99% walleye fisherman) So it wont be easy finding myself a champion, or any decent glass boat for that matter. I'll definitely keep champion in mind though.

My favorite older boat, is my current boat! '93 Champion. I couldnt imagine a better ride than a Champ...because there ain't one!

Even with the o-ring a Senko can rip with one aggressive fish. I have had days Senko fishing where the bottom of the boat was littered with ripped baits. I started using the creme stickbaits, sold at walmart. they have nearly the same action as a senko and only cost $1.25 a bag.

I'm sorry honey, its not you, its me...I just can't be with someone who believes they out fished me.

For jig craws, I only use SKRT craws. Tried some Christie and Papi craws, but I didn't feel the love like the Rage craws get. There have been a number of days this summer, however, when they were preferring a Pit Boss/Sweet Beaver...so there may well be some other subtler, wider craws that would work well some days

Had a 100# tarpon do that. Nearly spooled me. Fortunately, we followed him on the boat. In 45 minutes. He was boat side. It's a Mod-Fast swim bait rod...

I have had the Rage Bug outproduce the Rage Craw on a swinghead jig. I buy Strike King plastics more than any other brand but I've had the Keitech Crazy Flapper outproduce both!

No, they do not lose effectiveness. Generally, I replace the Senko when it is lost or torn.

With it the Senko Wacky Tube Rigged I’ve had a single Senko last nearly all season. When I do lose them is when sunnies nip the ends off or pull it through the tube.

Was on a guide trip in San Diego on Canyon Lake. The guide was a cool guy and I had told him my primary goal was to catch a big fish. We had fished all day and the biggest we had caught was just over 3. He kept saying throughout the day that the best chance to catch a big one was to go night fishing. Being such a standup guy, he offered to keep the trip going after a dinner break. The strategy was to chuck weightless black senkos at the "seawall" of the lake near the docks. Its very dark so its difficult to see where the bait is going. It had been about an hour and we had caught one fish about 2.5 lbs doing this. I make a cast and as I start to drag the senko, I feel a subtle tug back. I set the hook and start feeling the head shakes. BIG STRONG HEADSHAKES. I start getting really excited as I start to fight this behemoth, telling the guide that we did it, saying "this is the one". I'm fighting this thing for a solid 2 minutes slowly making progress, when suddenly then boat bumps into the edge of the dock. It spooked me so I released the tension on my line and the line goes slack. At first I was devastated because I thought the fish had come unhooked. I reel up the slack to find that something is still on the other end. It still feels like it pulls back, but is definitely not swimming... turned out to be a dock cable and my progress was me slowing pulling the boat toward he. The guide and I had a good laugh about it. Never ended up finding one over 4lbs in CA.

I haven't been leaderless in over 43 years. That is how long I have been married.

Since I started building rods, I have either sold or given away a bunch of my factory rods. i had to look at the rack to see what I had left. Five Daiwa(two Steez, two Tatula, one TD-X). seven St Croix(one LE, three LTB, three Avid). Five Setyr rods. Seems I still like St Croix and Daiwa. Setyr is out of business. My personal builds are on Rainshadow Immortal, St Croix SCV and SCIII, and MHX gen1 HM blanks. I have used several other blanks for customer rods, but those three are what I build for myself.

My story happened today. I was fishing brushpiles on a local lake. It was a good day until I snagged a sunken christmas tree. As I was maneuvering the boat to get a different angle to free my bait. The rod slipped out of my hand. I watched a Dobyns fury 734 with a Tatula SV sink in about 10 foot of water. I grabbed my portable anchor and threw it in the brushpile. luckily it hooked the christmas tree and I was able to pull it up with my rod still attached. There were 2 older gentleman catfishing about 50 yards away, while this was all going down. They thought the whole ordeal was pretty entertaining. Both of them were shocked I actually got the rod back. The rod was unharmed.I stripped and cleaned the reel and it is no worse for the wear.

One morning I was fishing at a reservoir in San Diego. Middle of the city. I was at the end of a metal dock and I heard the clank of somebody walking onto it. I turned around and there's a deer walking onto the dock! We stare at each other for a minute and it proceeds to jump off into the water and swim across the lake. I don't remember if I caught any fish that day, but I sure remember the deer.

Spoke with Lew's today. Great customer service. They are sending me out a new drag and drag spring so I can take care of it. I asked about a carbon fiber drag for the LFSs, to which he said it can be done, but would require a new main gear (with notches for the drag) and a new drag stack. I didn't ask about the cost but assume it wouldn't be worth it. New Rulon drag should be here next week.

Well, I live here so I don't need speed or to launch it but once a year. It's made from a repurposed SolCat sailing catamaran. 18 foot pontoons. I refinished them, put a deck on, two 35 lb thrust minn kota's two 100 amp solar storage batteries with built in charger. The steering is a linear actuator, basically electric steering. Garmin striker V, and a quick retract canopy for open bow fishing and other bells and whistles. Goes about 6 hrs at 2.5 mph or much longer at slower speed. Trolling is good at about 1.5-2 mph. And yes that is a cord in the water charging the batteries. And a link to the build on instructables...

If you get scared half to death twice, do you die? It's not strange to think about sleeping 8 hours a day, but it is strange to think about sleeping 4 months out of every year.

Isn’t it scary that Doctors call what they do a “practice”?

I’ve posted several questions about knot tying and the majority of responses stress wetting the knot before cinching it down. So.....Years ago I was fishing as backseat in a club tourney at Oroville in CA. It was raining so hard that I could barely see the boater in front! He had to break off a snag and asked me to hold the boat while he retired. I turn around and see him putting the knot in his mouth to moisten it and asked him what the *@&! are you doing that for? He almost fell out of the boat laughing!

Spool washers are a common adjustment. That’s why good reels come with spares.

Adding shims or washers is quite common. As is removing them, to get proper line lay. That why they include them. I think all spinning reels should include extra shims. Some cheaper reels dont include them so if you get bad line lay on the spool, you're just out of luck. Even different lines will lay different on the same spool. I've had to remove or add shims when switching line sizes before, so it doesn't bunch up on the spool.

The affordable health care tax was written by insurance companies and health care providers to provide government subsidies to the insurance companies and health care providers. You were fined $1800 for not paying a tax. Lobbyist groups rather than constituents control our government officials. Until that changes, nothing will change.

First I'd like to preface this response with this - Disagreement is not the same as disrespect. Is it dangerous to take a small boat on a big lake? This is something you have to decide. There is no set rule as to what size boat should be on what size body of water. Knowledge and experience dictates that decision for each boater. Just like any new venture, learn as much as you can and seek Professional advice. When people tell you over and over how they take a very small vessel out onto a large body of water all the time and they are fine so you'll be ok - I say check the statistics. You don't want to be one of them. What people are really saying is that "I have been beating the odds so far." During a career in the US Coast Guard with Search and Rescue as my primary responsibility and teaching boating safety to people from all walks of life, it always amazed me how intelligent, successful people were willing to routinely risk their lives and the lives of their families and friends day after day, trip after trip, for some fun in the sun. The question is - do you want to? I look at it this way ~ "Is it a good idea to drive much faster than the road conditions actually allow or much faster than the vehicle is designed to go" ? Yes you can do it and often times you will be ok but there are many who have not been ok - they're just not here to talk about it. Rhino provided the link to a site loaded with info. One portion of the site includes Boating statistics of every type. It's allot to digest but this portion is applicable to you. Year after year the number 1 reason for marine fatalities is capsizing. The class of vessel that capsizes the most are vessels less than 16 ft. That's not to say smaller boats are unsafe, or that larger boats are safer, they are not - it means people are making the choice to navigate their boat into a situation that either exceeds the limitations of the craft, their own skills or both. And it's done more by people who own smaller boats. But it's not the boats fault. People in larger vessels have made the same decision with similar results. Right job needs the right tool. So the question you should ask yourself every time you go out is "Am I making a Safe and Smart decision and am I putting myself (and my passengers) in harms way voluntarily?" Fishing is fun but not worth a life. Every time we go on the water it's a potentially life threatening situation, but as others have mentioned we just have to be safe and smart about it so we can live to catch another day. A-Jay

Hi, I'm Dan. Glad to be here. I live on Mousam Lake in Southern Maine. It's a 4 1/2 mile flooded river that is still dammed up from when they were needed for woolen mills. The river forms a chain of 22 lakes and ponds. The one I live on is about 1/2 mile wide. I live in a family home on the lake. It was built in the 50's and I fished here as a kid a lot. Moved in to the place in 2002 and then retired a few years later. I'm 64 yrs old as of this writing and just started fishing again seriously about two years ago. The lake has bass, crappie, and pickerel. They stock it each year with trout and salmon. I don't catch the stocked stuff much but when I do they're big for this area. 3-5 lbs. The bass run about 1 1/2 to 4 lbs. The crappie, particularly later in the summer are dinner plate sized. I currently am using two dobyn's poles one glass, a shimano spinning reel and a new Curado dc bait caster that I'm getting used to. I have a fishing platform that I made from an old 18 foot sailing catarmeran pontoon boat. It's all electric. I'm here to learn and share some. I love this topic. Thanks in advance for all your advice.... The view this morning from my front porch, 6 am. It was a good fishing morning.

UP

I have a catamaran platform boat with a large canopy. The wife likes to go for a ride once and awhile while I fish and she has her own pole and gets excited when a fish gets on it. But she doesn't fish much. Then there is the other part of all this.... ~Hon, I'm going fishing.... "okay, be safe. Wear your preserver." ~Hon, I'm back (4 hours later). "Oh good, any bites?" (and she actually listens to all the fish tales and looks at the pictures." ~Hon, I'm thinking about getting my first casting setup. "That's nice." It's gonna be a bit expensive. The DC reel alone is $249. The I go into detail what it's all about, and she listens. "Sounds good." This is one of the things that make my better half better. The downside of all of this is I have to control my fish spending urges on my own. I can afford it but we're fairly frugal so I feel super guilty if I don't. I do pretty good checking myself though. She's a real gem.

Better yet, sinkers in various colors to blend in to the bottom you are fishing. Now you have to carry a dozen colors of six sizes of sinkers.

Chicken necks tied to the bottom of the trap is effective too.