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Got 3 in under 15 minutes on the bama bug yum dinger…

I started bass fishing in 2020 and have been on the pursuit of catching one over 5#. Well, I was on vacation last week in northern Michigan and ended up accomplishing this goal… 2x! I caught my new PB, which is pictured below, of 5.24 and 20.5”. The following day, I caught another one over 5 at 5.15 and 21”. I caught both of these largemouth bass on a Zoom Trick Worm in ‘Candy Bug’ Texas-Rigged (1/4). ^ 5.24 | 20.5”

My son and I fished a private access lake Friday afternoon-evening, on invitation from a friend. My friend claimed the lake had plenty of 5-8# bass in it… but a 6# bass up here is a very rare catch and over 7# would be big news in the local fishing world. So I was excitedly optimistic, but skeptical. My friend fished in another boat with a buddy and not too long after we started fishing they had a big one on. We were only 50 yards apart and hearing “oh, yeah that’s a big one!”… “get the net”… “look at the size of the mouth!”… excited laughing… high-fives… Wes and I were riveted with anticipation for the monster to be revealed… then a fat 2.5# was hoisted high for us to see and “look at that one!” shouted to us. Right away I knew we likely had the only scale to ever grace these waters.🫢 All humour aside though, this little 8 acre oval provided good fishing and we caught several 1.5-2.5# fish which made me plenty happy after so many 1-3 fish outings. That said, the fishing was up and down through the day. This is a natural lake, fed and drained through a swamp/small creek on either end, the deepest hole being 15ft. the east end with most areas 6-10ft. The lake is rimmed with a fringe of lily pads, the bottom has submerged weeds everywhere… and bass seemingly everywhere we fished. I decided to start out by frogging the entire perimeter, with Wes throwing our go-to flashy swimmer with a paddletail as we slowly graphed most of the lake to get a feel for it. I only caught a few, but missed another half-dozen bites, a few of which looked like quality (3#+) fish. They just weren’t biting the frog well, but I was having fun. Based on my bites, I coached Wes to cast right at the edge of the pads and he started catching some, most almost immediately when his bait hit the water. After one round of the lake (about 2:30-3:30pm), the 4 of us had probably caught 20-ish fish, with a few over 2#. My friend and his buddy were seriously out fishing us, drinking beer and throwing “rubber worms” when I asked what they were using. They had one spinning rod each, so I was feeling a little stupid with 8 combos in the boat and not catching as many as them. I put the frog down and I started cycling through baits while Wes started throwing a wacky rigged senko. I threw a senko, Texas rigged 10” worm, flipped a beaver, a chatterbait, spinnerbait, whopper plopper… and we went through a painfully dry spell of probably 2 hours, even our buddy’s bite almost shut off. My buddy said this was the worst day of fishing they’d ever had, and I was was thinking yes of course because I’m here and I’m cursed this year.😖 But then he “mentioned” that one of the other owners on the lake (there are only three) had seven guys up fishing for the past week. So, 8 people fishing an 8 acre lake for 7 days straight. Adding at least 2 of those fishermen were on the water sunrise-dark every day.😒 That really burst my bubble, because I thought there were only 2 owners on the lake and only my buddy fished it occasionally. Oh well - I guess any lake you can drive to and launch a boat in ain’t gonna be untapped. I just didn’t expect the poor little lake would have been hammered by 600+ man hours of fishing the prior week. 😭 Anyway… our spirits slowly sank as the other boat enjoyed a beer fuelled dink fest. Then, I finally cracked the nut. Wes somehow got his line wrapped under the spool of his spinning reel and while I was fixing that a 1.5# grabbed his senko and I had to hand line it in. That was unrealized clue #1. I kept cycling baits with zero bites, then Wes blew up his bait caster and while he was trying to fix it a really good bass grabbed his paddletail off the bottom. Wes said “I’ve got one, what do I do!?” and I heard it jump, but didn’t see it. Wes went into panic mode saying it’s huge. I said just hand line it in, and there was a brief struggle then it was into the deeper weeds and gone (no hookset at all). Wes was frustrated, and now his line was a total mess so I said I’ll fix it. I didn’t realize his bait was still laying on the bottom and while I was trying to fix things another small bass grabbed his bait. That’s when the light bulb came on. I ended up cutting off a bunch of almost brand new FC Sniper (😩) then we were both back in the fight. I said the key is fish slow… like, deadstick slow. I tied on a weightless white fluke and we proceeded to cast onto/close to the pads and work very slowly back into the deeper water with 5-10 second pauses to let out bait sit. That was the ticket and we started catching ‘em. By now it was about 7pm and the evening bite started picking up for everyone. In the last half hour, I switched to a popper and got several bites by just casting it out and waiting 10 seconds, then if nothing grabbed it I’d give just a few twitches and long pause again. I only hooked half the fish that swirled on the popper, as the “bites” seemed very lazy. All in all, a good day. I do really look forward to trying again when the weather cools a bit - my fried still swears there’s much bigger bass in there.

Slow this morning, only 3 on a wacky rig. Had a giant Snakehead rip a small bass off the hook right at the boat. Weather was hot and sunny, water temp 82*. This was the best fish.

It's good to see many of you still catching the heck out of them. I had a slow weekend. 2 Spots Saturday, and 2 Spots Sunday. At least no micro Bass. One was borderline micro though. They varied between 13 and 19 inches. They were all on points between 12 and 18 feet deep. 2 were on a Shaky head, 1 on a Spinnerbait, and the biggest on a XD3. I also caught 7 smallish Catfish (~3 pounds and under). I shook them off beside the boat so I didn't get slime everywhere.

Starting to wrap up my 40th birthday trip, we are driving back slowly starting today for 3 days. We arrived at grand portage, MN on Friday night to embark on the ferry ride bright and early Saturday morning. The ferry ride was pretty awesome with lots of great views on Lake Superior First stop on the island was McCargo cove where we camped for 2 days. They have a nice dock area for fishing. We hiked to an old abandoned mine that was pretty cool. Mosquitos were aggressive Didn’t have a ton of time but I struck out fishing the first evening off/around the dock in Lake Superior. Weedy and shallow waters that are ultra clear, and the boat captain told me there were no smallmouth bass in the area…… didn’t realize that was possible 😂. Sunday morning I climbed out of my tent and snuck down to the dock. I was using a small blade bait just trying to catch fish of any kind and got it stuck. When it popped free a fish clobbered it, my first catch in Lake Superior was a nice pike!!! Luckily some guys came down to jump into the lake and wash their clothes, one of them snapped a pic for me. I had my measuring tape with me but didn’t realize it so I let the fish go , I was pretty certain it wouldn’t meet the 24” minimum anyway. I made a notch on my rod and it turned out to be 22” so I made the right call. The other guys were shocked that I would follow a regulation in the middle of nowhere 😂. I then caught a little perch that I let go just because it was tiny Later that day we hiked to one of the nearly 200 inland lakes on the island called chickenbone lake. The hiking was what the locals called “car wash” with vegetation slapping you the whole time. The inland lakes are barbless only but don’t require a fishing license and you can keep 2 pike under 30” . I had one swirl on a fluke and just sit right in front of me. I showed it to my hiking partners and missed it two more times. They hiked on and I finally got the darn thing after missing it several more times and it biting off 2 lures. I then waded out to retrieve one of the lures and face planted in the water 😂. A little further down the trail I got another pike and just started hoofing it back to camp since I had my 2 keepers. We fried them up at camp they were delicious, I could have went home happy right then but the fish kept on coming We had to catch a ferry midday the next day, I really wanted my buddy to catch a pike so we hiked back to chickenbone in the morning and got skunked haha. I told him it was ultra easy no problem to catch one, apparently not although we didn’t have time to walk all the way to where I fished the previous day. We got on the ferry and headed to rock harbor where there is actually a lodge and boat/canoe rentals and a restaurant. We only had time enough to claim a campsite and eat at the restaurant, no fishing on this stop. Did do a little short night hike and saw the monster toads that live on the island. We had to break down camp quick and catch an early morning ferry but while we were doing so a fox came into our camp and took a dump right in front of 7 of us 😂 The early morning ferry then took us to daisy farm. I fished off the dock here a bit but it was strong wind and didn’t have any luck. Our campsite was 4 miles away at moskey basin so we had a little backpacking to do. The trail wasn’t steep but it was sure rocky and took longer than expected. We finally arrived at Moskey to another nice boat dock we had heard good things about but it was a bust other than a huge brook trout that a dozen people tried to catch but couldn’t haha. It looked to be a solid 4 lber and everyone could see it for 2 days straight . We camped two nights at moskey. One of the days we hiked into an inland lake called Lake Ritchie. As soon as we got there, our friend Leah said she would be happy just catching a bluegill. I reeled in a fluke and saw 4-5 small fish chasing after it nipping the tail. I told Leah there were bluegill so I rigged up some tiny stuff and immediately caught a yellow perch, which I thought were sunfish. We then proceeded to catch quite a few perch and finally decided to keep some. I think we had 6 or 7 on a stringer and were discussing when to hike 2 miles back to camp. About that time my float went under and I set the hook and instantly hollered out “NOT A PERCH!!!”. Turns out a pike had eaten my 1 inch piece of a plastic worm on a tiny jighead! I got him up onto the shore to bolster the fish haul. We then hiked back and cooked them on the shore of superior, all decided that was the furthest we had walked while holding fish. The pike had a yellow perch inside its stomach The ferry was picking us up back at daisy farm 4 miles away at 8 am so we had to hike out in the darkness. Saw more monster toads and a pretty sunrise on the rocky trail, made it 30 minutes faster than we did on the way in. Saw some wolf tracks and poo as well This marked the end of our isle royale experience as we boarded the 8 am ferry. We still made several stops on the way out picking up other campers and got lots more pretty views but never set foot on the rocks again. Once making it back to our cars at grand portage, we pointed them towards Voyageurs NP and hammered down. Passed a cool sign We arrived at our rental home on Rainy Lake well after dark, which is very late in the north country. Dead tired, we crashed in excitement of all day canoe/kayak rentals the next day. Our boats were waiting at a launch in the morning and off we went. The wind was howling. We thought for sure we would have to stick close to the ramp. I missed a fish on a Johnson silver minnow in the grass right off the bat. Not long after that I boated a pike not 100 yards from the car. Shaping up to be a good day! Then an eagle was flying all around us while paddling. We caught several more pike in that area on spoon and fluke. 3 of our party were not fishing and paddled to a hiking trail that led to a big beaver pond. They sent us a location and it was across a wide open part of the lake with huge waves, I said multiple times that was an impossible crossing. Well I was wrong because we paddle right across it without incident, my wife was nervous but once we made it there and back she said it boosted her open water confidence. There was a nice dock to fish off of at the trailhead so I started casting my fluke. I hooked up on a fish and it turned out to be a big ole black crappie! More to eat, score. We had released some of the pike but thankfully i had earlier convinced everyone to have another fish fry. It was tasty! We then took a boat tour to a lake just southeast of Rainy called Kabetogama Lake. This was pretty cool and loaded with bald eagles. There was a spot they dropped us off to explore a rock garden one man had built entirely by hand over a 20 yr span. We also took a short walk up to a beaver pond overlook and had a frosty beverage When we returned to the rental house, I had a little free time to cast off the dock. Got a nice fat SMB that wrecked a fluke in shallow water, the locals said bass could only be caught out in deep open water. I was on cloud 9, didn’t think we had a chance at any bass This morning we had to pack up and check out but I fished off the dock for maybe 20 minutes. Caught a bass on my first throw that ripped my fluke into pieces. I had only one other lure in my pocket, trophy scum frog a la @Pat Brown I tossed it into the grass and lightning and thunder hit, I looked upwind to see what was up. Looked back at the water and my frog was gone, turns out a little pike had it haha caught both bass back in the little cut near the pontoon. Also saw a little velvet buck on the way in Now I’m just riding shotgun headed slowly back home with 3 more stops along the way. Not sure if there will be fishing but I will take pictures if there is

I lost two this morning in the 2 to 2.5 range, bummed me out. I considered giving it up but I decided to stick with it and 30 minutes later this big mamma struck and gave me an amazing airshow. She splashes me good upon release and gave my thumb a good munching. Did not have a scale with me, but got a girth and length. Length was 20.5 inches and girth was 13 inches. Using the estimator on this site with those data points, it estimated it at 5.35 lbs. I was stoked. That's my biggest one of the year and pushed my PB. Held her up like a WWE title belt at one point 😂 I lost two this morning in the 2 to 2.5 range, bummed me out. I considered giving it up but I decided to stick with it and 30 minutes later this big mamma struck and gave me an amazing airshow. She splashes me good upon release and gave my thumb a good munching. Did not have a scale with me, but got a girth and length. Length was 20.5 inches and girth was 13 inches. Using the estimator on this site with those data points, it estimated it at 5.35 lbs. I was stoked. That's my biggest one of the year and pushed my PB. Held her up like a WWE title belt at one point 😂 I lost two this morning in the 2 to 2.5 range, bummed me out. I considered giving it up but I decided to stick with it and 30 minutes later this big mamma struck and gave me an amazing airshow. She splashes me good upon release and gave my thumb a good munching. Did not have a scale with me, but got a girth and length. Length was 20.5 inches and girth was 13 inches. Using the estimator on this site with those data points, it estimated it at 5.35 lbs. I was stoked. That's my biggest one of the year and pushed my PB. Held her up like a WWE title belt at one point 😂 I lost two this morning in the 2 to 2.5 range, bummed me out. I considered giving it up but I decided to stick with it and 30 minutes later this big mamma struck and gave me an amazing airshow. She splashes me good upon release and gave my thumb a good munching. Did not have a scale with me, but got a girth and length. Length was 20.5 inches and girth was 13 inches. Using the estimator on this site with those data points, it estimated it at 5.35 lbs. I was stoked. That's my biggest one of the year and pushed my PB. Held her up like a WWE title belt at one point 😂

I fished this morning with a pal and didn't count the fish or take pics, but we caught at least 40 and he had a great time. Lots of 2.5 to 3.5-pounders at my pond. I take pride in putting a pal in the bow and putting him on bass. He caught the majority because I focused on positioning the canoe, but I caught the two biggest, both just shy of 18 inches. We're going again on Thursday morning. I'll get some pics then.

Yes. In the summer I’m targeting 8-15’ of water, and looking for milfoil or hydrilla. Then I try to locate the outer edge of that hydrilla or milfoil. I throw a 3/4oz all summer to make sure I’m fishing it deep enough.

Here’s my fishing report for today…. 6poundbass did get one pike and one dink LMB.

Northern swing pics. Isle royale and voyaguers national parks. Probably hammer out a separate report. Thought it was going to be all pike but finally caught 2 bass. first bass , fluke in shallow water with st croix rod seviin reel and 33 lb seaguar JDM braid, gamakatsu nano alpha hook second bass, fluke on first throw this morning same spot back by that pontoon boat. Rolled out of bed at the rental in the same clothes as yesterday and BAM! He grabbed it off the surface got lots of pike too, here’s some samples. They are delicious. Had to hike a few miles with them On a stick at isle royale 😂

I've had this reel for about 2 years now. Time for a review. I buy these super cheap reels off Aliexpress or Amazon just to try them out and see if they are any good. Basically to see if there is a better reel for under $60 than a Black Max or any other plastic Walmart reel many end up buying. This Histar reel is the same platform as the Kastking Royal Legend II and many other reels if it looks familiar. I don't know if Histar is an OEM or yet another brand using this reel but theirs has an Aluminum frame and handle side plate with 3 spools for $60 and sometimes as low as $50. Getting an aluminum frame reel at this price let alone one with a handle side plate and double supported pinion is almost unheard of with the Johncoo Ares 300 being the only other reel I can recall. I also own the graphite/carbon fiber (plastic) frame version of this platform under a different brand and it feels horrible compared to the Black Mamba. That aluminum frame and side plate deaden the gear mesh vibration and give the reel frame a high rigidity when cranking in high resistance baits. Histar does put the gear ratios behind a trim level pay wall meaning cheapest configuration will be a 6 gear reel with the high trim being an 8 gear. I have the 6 gear reel and have been using it as a chatterbait, spinnerbait, buzzbait. plopper and 6 inch Cullshad reel. I like it and for under $60 I can recommend it if you want a 6 gear reel for moving baits. You can get Tatula 100s on Aliexpress right along side this reel for around $110 at times so it's hard to justify spending over $60 on this reel. The Tatula is just as solid feeling winding under load but is far smoother with the Hyperdrive gears and lighter. That said, I'd take one over a Back Max by far.

I like bream patterned baits around wood and moss in the summer.

When the wind blows fish a spinnerbait around wood any time. Wake a short arm Colorado blade spinnerbait on a calm summer evening right before dark. Start by reeling the bait fast enough for the blade to break the surface, then slow the retrieve down until the blade causes a wake, but doesn't actually break the surface. It takes some practice to get the speed just right, but when done right, it can catch giants. If your bait goes by a log, or other visible piece of cover, stop the retrieve for a split second and hang on. Waking a spinnerbait was the most popular way to fish the bait, before buzz baits became popular and is still very effective.

I usually choose to fish swimjigs over spinnerbaits in the summer, but this year the water has been high and off colored for weeks straight. I've had good luck slow rolling compact spinnerbaits w/out trailers in 10-15 fow. I usually slow roll down the hydrilla tops on breaks, but also do well paralleling the deep weed lines. Unfortunately, I've had 3 pike bite offs and 2 mangled by frequent catches and I'm down to my last war eagle and out of sv-3's. This is the first time on my water that a spinnerbait has been this effective during the daytime in june/july for me and it's been fun. I think I've been mimicking shad, but I'm catching in areas full of juvenile bluegill, so I don't know. Lots of fun by catches too.... scott

Schoolie size striper

Coming soon -the 300hp Suzuki Stealth! https://www.suzukimarine.com/

Caught 10 fish yesterday with most on a Rapala DT16 in citrus. Its been pretty cool to do things to try and trigger bites. Pauses, pauses then a jerk, burn pause, slow sweep, fast sweep, and long pause. Surprisingly a long pause where the bait comes float back up is triggering a lot of bites too. Found this out yesterday when i would stop and mess with something on the kayak.

A few more photos to show off. I set the mag brake casting 2-g with 5-lb UG mono. Final brake-set result casting 1/4 oz to 140', which nails my shore fishing target, and I couldn't make it backlash with intentional wrist snap. Happy with this result on mediocre pack rod. Also got the braid loaded, but haven't cast it yet with my 3-g low-end target - not worried about it, fixed brakes are set. Nobody has asked about fishing non-level-wind (CT surf) reel, so I'll volunteer it. Line management depends on getting a good tight hand-LW base wrap when you first load the spool. If you're fishing mono, you under-fill the spool, may need to correct line lay some during fishing. When you get down to PE#1 threadline braid, narrow spool with a capacity of 100 to 200 m, this gets a lot simpler. The concave (hourglass) line lay is intentional, and goes deep in the 4-mm spool. You can fish your working line mindlessly, because it falls to the middle of the spool and self-corrects on wind. The only time you need to re-do the hand-level-wind (when you get home) is after a big fish takes you deep.

Kayak river fishing is probably the best thing to ever do in fishing, in my area the guys at the lakes for hours and hours are catching maybe 4-10 bass, mostly 2lbs. The guys on the river are either coming back with nothing, or bragging about doing 30-75. But thats when fishing for smallmouth, largemouth in a river system is much different, not sure if its better or worse, only have smallies in rivers near me. So i cant help there, buts here some advice i have. Dont take any kayak on a river that you arent able to replace. River kayaks are specifically made to handle not getting destroyed by rocks, my Shoalie for instance is made for this (and the bottom still looks like a cheese grater went over it). A regular kayak would work but you risk damage to the bottom very easily from how curved and rounded they are, unlike the flatter bottoms meant to cruise over shallow rocks. Depending on the river you are fishing, you will either be able to turn without issue or keep crashing into rocks from turning to slow. River kayaks are meant for fast turns to dodge rocks or boulders if the need arises. If theres no rocky spots in the middle, or bad current any kayak will do fine. Also dont take any pedal or motorized kayak in the river unless you know the river. This is the main reason people keep ruining their kayaks, the river i fish goes from 10' deep to 1' in the middle within just a few feet. And if it werent for me wadding in that spot years ago i wouldnt know. And there goes your pedal system. And also in my river a spot will be clean and clear, no snags, no rocks, and after 1 rain in new york has our waters flooded and filled with trees. After a week that clear spot is full of things that will get line broken off, and if you run a kayak dragging something along with it (like pedals) it will take it with it to the bottom. As for the anchors, DONT!!!! These will be extremely dangerous on unfamiliar river systems, even familiar rivers can be dangerous to have one. One jet boat or a change of current could land you upside down rather quickly. And not sure how that river is, but the Susquehanna near me has caused way to many drownings, very dangerous river to be in. But if you have to use an anchor use a trolley system with a quick release. Your best bet would be to try to find a kayak shop or a rental guide place and ask them to give you a quick breakdown of that local stretch of the river, and then decide if the pros are worth the cons. But even after all the above, theres no place id rather fish than a river, and nothing id rather be fishing it on than a kayak.

Some good points brought up here that I'd like to emphasize on. Bass don't act that much differently during the night as they do during the day. There are slight differences but not a whole lot that I've noticed. They feed in spurts, or bite windows, just like they do during the day. They hit most of the same baits. Preferably black but I've caught them on ALL colors. Another one is stealth. One of the biggest advantages to the angler at night is stealth, masking the presence of the angler. But don't presume that just because it's dark that all is well. Bass can see a LOT, day or night. Even though it's dark, I dress in dark clothing. I sneak up on my spots motor off. Not wake or waves. No ripples. My fish finder is never on while fishing. My cast are deliberate. I try not to impress any such harsh movement over the water. One thing is clear: BIG bass feed at night and anything out of the ordinary, any such bang on the boat or smoking or coughing or talking on the phone, any artificial light, any such oddity and they are GONE GONE GONE OUTTA THERE!

Right now my fishing gear only takes up one corner of our condo, but the Monkey and I have bigger plans.

Night fishing can also be skunk city. The bass can go to sleep and never wake up until the sun comes up. I've had nights like that where the bass wouldn't hit a thing, no matter what time, no matter what was tossed at them, and even in seemingly ideal conditions, they just didn't feed. It can just as easily be like that in the daytime, the exact opposite. So both worlds, night or day, can be very unpredictable. Night or day, catching those bite windows is what it's all about.

A bunch of kayaks were torn up this weekend on the susky at the bass master event. River fishing can be the greatest or worst thing you ever do. I have never river fished in a kayak but, here are some general river fishing guidelines. i would take the motor but, you need to make sure it can be easily retracted. You will hit bump and rub things. The biggest thing wether in a kayak or boat you need to learn to read the water in a river. Not only to find fish. This will keep you safe. It will be the different of you damaging your yak or possible capsize. Always have an escape plan. Also on the safety note. Look for any dams broken dams talk to people who fished it. Lowhead dams are like trains. They don’t move but, if you risk it they will win. Disclaimer: right or wrong if a jet boat blows your doors off it’s usually for one or two reasons. Reason one. He didn’t see you. Reason two that is where they need to be to operate the boat and/or cannot come off plane for risk of hitting.

What a great trip!!

Sounds like a good place to try weightless plastics/dropshot/subtle topwater/jigs/t rigs/C rigs. What I often like to do on super pressured fisheries is find out what works the best for most people when fish are super cooperative and then tweak that presentation so that I'm doing it differently from everybody else and that usually racks up the bites pretty quickly. If a frog is good on a lake I'll throw a tiny frog or a giant frog and fish it very fast or very slow. If a worm works well and everyone says throw a T rig - I'd find the worm that no one in your state has ever thrown and order a couple bags and throw them on a c rig. Fishing pressure usually just means the fish have seen a lot of what is sold at the local Walmart tackle section etc Sometimes you don't have to be good - you just have to be a little different.

The Packers signed Jordan Love to a $220 million/4 year contract extension. $75 million of that is signing bonus and his annual salary comes out to $55 mil/year. Seems a little steep to me given he's only played one full season there.

I’m not certain. Larew held the patent on salt in plastics for many years, but they did license it out to other companies. Zoom wasn’t one of those, as they bristled at the idea of a salt patent. That’s why a lot of their packaging had a “better than salt” label on it. Once the patent expired, that opened it up to all companies, Zoom included. If he thinks it’s Zoom, they did make a 4” C Tail worm (pictured below) that kind of fits the description. Zetabait/Gillraker also had a longer ‘double action’ curl tail, but I’m not certain about their salt content. BPS also knocked off about every popular plastic, and they added heavy salt externally to a lot of their baits.

Slow along the bottom with a Zoom Finesse worm.

Not like I need more top water stuff but oh well. Shiny!

Committed an afternoon to some old school Carolina rigging. I picked off a few fish on rocks in 12’. I caught the big fish of the trip off a newly discovered rock pile. Always an exciting moment when you feel the line swim off while probing a new piece of structure.

Took it on the chin two days ago, not even getting a bite. Got a chance to sneak out to the lake for a few hours this afternoon and try and redeem myself. Fortunately, things went better, as I was able to figure out a pattern and bite. Hooked up with half a dozen bass, about twenty crappie, two channel cats and half a dozen white perch. Landed 4 of the bass, losing a small keeper when it jumped near the boat, and had a much larger fish hooked for a good while that eventually just pulled off.

River kayak fishing is the greatest but I wouldn’t dare take a motor or pedal drive where I go. Granted that’s probably specific to each river

Those pike a fun and tasty! Wolf tracks, i think it’s mainly just wolves and moose on the island, with foxes and red jimmies and beavers

What a trip!

Correct Daiwa's aluminium gears have been used in steez for yrs with no problems. Have had a jdm Zilllion since they came out and it is just as smooth as the day I got it.I think a lot of the aluminum gear problems where with Shimano's mm aluminum gears.

I'm far less concerned with this than I am bumping into one or 2 guys that see me as an opportunity with certainty there will be no witnesses. I now carry pepper spray, might get a night stick soon too Can you PM me how to obtain this? @Catt when you two say that, you mean you prefer to fish when the moon is above?

I'm trying to remember who was highly salted. Maybe @Team9nine can shed some light.

Here's my current combo list: Daiwa 7'3" MHF Bass Casting Rod, Daiwa Tatula 100 7.3:1, 40# Power Pro Daiwa 7'4" MHR Tatula Elite Casting Rod, Daiwa Tatula CT, 15# Seaguar Invizx Daiwa 7' MF Tatula XT Spinning Rod, Daiwa Fuego LT 2500, 15# Power Pro Daiwa 7'4" HF Tatula XT Casting Rod, Lews Tournament MP 7.5:1, 50# Power Pro Basspro 7' Carbonlite 2.0 Casting Rod, Carbonlite Reel 6.3:1, 12# Yo-zuri Hybrid Basspro 7'1" Platinum Signature Casting Rod, Lews Tournament MP 7.5:1, 12# Seguar Invizx #1 is my new favorite all-around setup. The rod has more tip than other MHF I have used, and with the braid gives me the flexibility of throwing some moving baits while being great for jigs and t-rigs. I think if I went straight fluro with this setup, the rod would be more MH Moderate Fast than Fast. Using a fluro leader gives me flexibility to throw more reaction style baits while also throwing jigs and t-rigs. #2 is my chatterbait rod. All my biggest bass have been caught on chatterbaits and I love a chatter for locating fish. I can burn it, work it slow, jig it, etc., and it's my favorite technique. #3 is the spinning setup I've wanted for a long time. Super light, throws light baits well and still has a good backbone for fighting fish. I landed a 5+ pounder on a wacky rig while in Florida with it and the drag on the reel, speed for reeling, and control with the rod were great. #4 I got this rod for a frogging/heavy jig/t-rig rod. I don't do a lot of that, but it's good to have in the arsenal. Most of the places I fish, if I throw a frog, I can get away with the MHF with braid listed above, which is why I often leave this rod at home. #5 This is my dedicated crankbait rod. Most of the places I fish I throw light crankbaits and topwaters and this setup excels at that. I can, however, throw them on the first three setups, so unless I know I'm going to be spending a ton of time with top waters or cranking, I leave it at home. #6 I loved this rod and the reel is one of my favorites but it's not as flexible as the Daiwa setup I have in #1. If I know the water is crystal clear, I'll take this one for t-rigs and jigs. Since I don't always know the water clarity in some of the ponds I fish, I can leave this one at home or in the truck.

Sounds like a 4" Culprit? Again I don't remember them being heavily salted.

This coming weekend around the new moon I think is going to be dynamite fishing here

Nice write up @TnRiver46!

I agree on a JDM Bantam. I just received another one For $217 to my door in 4 days by FedEx.

I fish a Spinnerbait year round. It depends on water temperature on what cover i fish.

@Ryanralston07 I for one would like to hear about the rest.

1/8, 3/16, & 1/4 oz. ? also...