J Francho

Carolina Rigs have traditionally been 1/2 to 1 oz. weights, plus all the beads, swivels, brass washers, and other trinkets associated. Add in a hook and plastic and the weight is usually over an ounce.

I go dry. Zero maintenance and unaffected by freezing temps. If you add grease, you only want a vapor thin coating.

Yes, as can their rough gill covers.

Thanks goodness! For so long I was alone on here. Everyone said you had to have a special "kayak" rod to fish from a kayak. If whatever they're marketing for kayaks works, that's cool too. I wouldn't want to have to own a separate set of rods. I will say I prefer to leave most rods over 7-6 behind, but that doesn't mean I don't bring an 8' swimbait rod with me sometimes. Those 8 footers are a pain to transport in anything other than rod locker in a bass boat.

Don't worry about it. It's safe, it's in the cloud.

The Ragetail hat in my avatar is signed by the entire team, but I wear it so much they all faded out.

My preference has more to do with what I'm throwing, where I am fishing, and how I'm fishing and nothing to do with being on a kayak.

P.6 has the statewide limits. They count toward your total sunfish creel. https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/fishguide.pdf

My initial experience with weedless Hudds was nothing short of heartbreaking. You really need an x-heavy swimbait rod for these. The Okuma Guide Select A Series 7-11 XH is what I use, and is great for this.

Well? Not really. The LTB medium/fast tapers are much better at this. Yes, pretty much anything in the listed weight range will work. It's a good middle of the road fast taper, with a stronger than usual medium-heavy backbone.

No manufacturer uses Carbontex brand washers. They are available through Smooth Drags. From speaking to the owner, she says there is a proprietary coating to the carbon fiber that other washers do not have that is supposed to add to durability and smoothness. Every reel that I purchase gets a Carbontex upgrade as SOP.

Keen leave the best lines ever.

No.

Woa!

Thrift stores aren't the same as pawn shops. Thrift stores are a great source for clothes, especially kids that go through them in a few wears. There's a couple here that specialize in jeans, and you can get what I would never spend on jeans for much less. I don't think I've ever seen fishing gear at a thrift store, and I've been to many of them.

Don't worry about it, we put it in the cloud...

Who hasn't caught a fish on half a senko? Or at least tried?

That makes sense. Is that a weighted swimbait or a like a plastic paddle tail?

Love VMware.

If it helps, a Jika has pretty much replaced T-Rigs, except for when I want that sliding sinker slowish fall. That is only super prevalent in spring and early summer. I don't think I've actually bubba shot in a couple years either. Jika Rigs plus my Jika Punch rigs above cover most of what I come across cover wise. If not, a jig usually works, and I prefer them anyway. The bubba shot was in reference to heavy cover, and totally relevant to which is better at punching through cover. I get the idea of suspending a bait above the bottom, but why is a fixed length of wire with a weight better than a drop shot?

I'm not trying to take things out of context in order to imply anything. I'm trying to isolate the points that are all mixed together. It's just my analytical way of figuring things out. Thanks for the answers. The wire doesn't make anything suspend, neither does the dropper tag in a drop shot, nor does the pencil weight in a Jika. I feel like that isn't really isn't the main purpose of the either the Jika or Tokyo rig. It's a heck of a lot easier to tell that you have your bait off the bottom than trying to balance a pencil weight or weight on a wire, so if that was the difference, I guess I'd just tie a drop shot if that was the need. This is the part I'm getting at - there seems to be no benefit at all from the wire that I can see. The only thing that might be better is if you use wire just a little longer than the weight and some kind of hollow, narrow weight that you could easily swap out the weights by bending the end. One point I should make. Sometime around 12 years ago when I first tried Jika rigs in a casting pool at a show, I was putting a small fluke on the hook, and retrieving it with a darting action. Both myself and the crowd thought it was pretty sweet, and I probably sold a bunch of Jika rigs that day. I tried this many times in many waters, all with biting fish present, and did not get a bite. I did hang up quite a bit, though, and anywhere there were weeds, it was a not so weedless as the usual vertical penetration approach that the Jika is so good at. Not sure if that adds to this.

Good news!

I don't remember the exact model, but it was from Deeper. It was bluetooth paired with an iPhone, and the TD was on a gooseneck attached to the bow of the kayak. Full color display, and I'm 99% certain it had GPS/maps.

With the Jika, you run a much lower risk of losing the weight, and it's just one self contained item to tie on, like a jig, no threading the tag, no attaching the weight, no wires, no fuss. To be clear, I don't consider the Jika or the Tokyo rig even kissing cousins to a drop shot. The function and bait delivery is closer to a Texas Rig - put the bait in the weeds where the fish are without bringing back a clump of weeds. It's all just a device to penetrate weed cover, all the other positive and negatives are side effects of the rig. Every rig is a compromise of some sort. In all three rigs, the bait swings freely from the weight, so that debate is moot. Yes, you did say that the purpose of the wire was to aid in punching. How is wire better? You say that having the bait a few inches off the bottom makes a difference. That's also a fair and valid point. How is wire better? Those are the questions I wanted answers to. I've looked at this rig, and dismissed at as totally unnecessary, but if there's a compelling reason, I'll try it.

How so? Are you saying the wire does something to help it get through the weeds? I must be missing something, I thought it was gravity and mass of the sinker.