Fishes in trees

I have one of the Curado DC reels and I think that it is better suited for reaction baits. Currently I use a 6'8" Fenwick AETOS rod, it has a MH rating but it is tippy enough to get some distance with spinner baits. I'm getting a little more distance with the spinner baits that I usually throw ( 1/2 oz) compared to the reels I used to throw the same bait with. (either a Calcutta 250 TEGT or a Curado D ). A few weeks ago I got down to Truman Lake and tied on a 3/4 oz spinner bait and that rod & reel combo made that bait fly. I could cast slightly less than half the spool out - fairly shallow water and I was getting bit 100 feet or more from the boat. Enough of a difference that I'm rethinking using heavier spinner baits more often.

War Eagle makes a bait that is the size of quarter ounce spinnerbaits, but weighs half an ounce. There isn't any need to sacrifice distance when throwing a smaller sized spinner bait. Had to go look up the name of the bait - Screaming Eagle.

I'd probably lead off with a wacky style senko in some shade of green pumpkin or watermelon. I'd probably use some chartreuse dye on the tail. I'd lead off targeting deep edges of weediness.

What with all the roads & such, kinda looks like a sub-division lake. That so? Any houses/ docks on the lake? How deep is the lake? Most guys, if they have a dock on a lake can't resist planting a brush pile, generally within an easy cast of their lawn chairs. If that lake has docks, that is where I'd start looking first. Where is this lake? That might help recognizing seasonal patterns. What is the lake stocked with? What is the primary forage? How much vegetation in the lake & what kind? The more information that you can offer, the more informed opinions you'll get back. What kind of boat do you have? My boat is an 18' Lowe, fairly heavy aluminum and a 12 mph wind, like you're allegedly going to have on Sunday, would blow my boat around quite a bit. If your boat is smaller, you will get blown around more. The weather print out looks like one from Weather.com. In my experiences, they have been known to fib about wind speeds often. The number that they print seems tol be the "expected average" wind speed and I wouldn't be surprised if it gusts to twice that number or more.

It is going to be your rod. Is there any place you can go where those rods are in stock, where you can touch them and feel them? If I'm buying a rod over the internet, it is to replace one I've had previously or get more of one that I like and already own. It would drive me nuts to buy a rod I hadn't messed with prior to purchasing. You're in California - how far away is that store that the guys on Tackle Tour are commonly promoting? Apparently they got everything there, or at least the guys on Tackle Tour write that way. Maybe they're like Bass Pro, in that they are supposed to have everything, all the time, but sometimes they don't. Call first.

Not a lot of difference between the " crappie pattern" pictured a couple of posts prior and any of a number of "shad" imitating finishes. Looks to me, a few minutes with a black sharpie and your "shad" bait can become a " crappie" imitation. Late 70's & early 80's, there was a kinda popular pattern called " Dalmatian" or " coach dog" that was kinda a crappie imitation. Haven't seen that pattern lately, though.

How weird - the banner head line says 1989. Toward the bottom of the page. under the "Meet in Person . . . ." headline, underneath that it says "See the first Indianapolis Premier of the 1981 Fishing Tackle, Marine & Boat lines . . Must be a typo - good to know that typos existed in pre- computer days. I'll take half a dozen each of the $55 Diawas and the $60 Shimano reels. I had one of those $20 Diawa ultra light combos. Almost 30 years later, and I still don't think that there is a better dock shooting rig available. Wish I hadn't broke mine. Lets go back in time - I wonder if they will take 2019 dollars?

Yes, the Ethos rods do go on sale. I own a few and that's when I bought mine. I haven't figured out any rhyme or reason as to when they schedule their sales. I found the Ethos rods closed out after Christmas. I got a couple of All Star Rods that were closed out in March or April - not exactly sure. There were some more close outs this summer, but I didn't participate, except for 1 All Star Carolina Rig rod, which I don't particularly like for Carolina rigging, but IMO it makes a great Biffle Bug rod. When you're looking at the Ethos rods, ( and they have several different grades of that rod ) look at the All Stars also. They carry several different grades of the All Star Rods, and Academy Sports ( according to the All Star web site ) is the exclusive distributor.

Never used either one of these rods, however, Academy Sports has an All Star cranking rod ( in the purple series ) that I think works great, as sub-$100 cranking rods go.

Every fall, I fish a charity tournament, the Fishing for Freedom event put on by the Leavenworth Bass Club & Long Shoal Marina on Truman Lake. The event is pretty straight forward - take active duty/ retired / whatever soldiers out on the water for a day of fishing. Most of the guys I've take out had minimal fishing skills but they wanted to learn or else they wouldn't have signed up. My better experiences at getting my boater on fish has been to set them up with the same or similar bait that I'm using and just go for it, trying to explain the nuances of the bait as I go. I've tried setting guys up with " easier" baits and after a half hour or so of not catching fish, the first question that gets asked is "If this bait is so good, why aren't you using it?" Early fall on Truman, my best presentation seems to be going back into coves looking for shad and then throwing square bills or spinner baits at them. Most of the guys I've take out seem to get the hang of throwing the square bill within an hour or so and once they get over the fear of snagging or losing the bait, they get to where they throw close enough to objects to get bit. So to answer the question, I'd assess the situation that day, decide what bait I'm going to throw that, IMO will get me the most bites and then tie them on the same or a very similar bait.

When I feel the need to go finesse with a drop shot approach, I use a medium action 7' St Croix Mojo rod. A smaller Pflueger or Shimano reel, 10 lb braid and a longish leader, generally 10 lb fluorocarbon, maybe 6 completes the set up. Hook choice varies. Much more often than a finesse approach, I go the bubba drop shot route. Currently that means a Kistler 7'5" Pitching/flipping stick (the telescopic one ) not sure if it is still available. That is paired with a Calcutta 50 reel filled with 20 lb Abrazx. I generally use a half ounce weight in this approach. Hook choices will vary.

if you're going to treat your reels like that, that's a good reason to buy low end reels. I'm guessing you don't tournament fish. Lose one or two decent fish during a tournament and you'll cop a different attitude about reel maintenance.

Currently I use a Shimano Calcutta TEGT for my deeper diving crank bait set up. On my other deeper diving set up I use an older Curado D ( a wider spool version of the Curado, no longer available, marketed in the early 2000's. ) I'm pretty sure that the TEGT isn't available any more either.

The velcro rod wraps are available at Walmart. I never had any issues with them.

I have a nasci - it is an ok reel - what I don't like about it is that it doesn't have an anti-reverse switch. I've got no experience in saltwater/fresh water cross over stuff, I'll leave that to smarter folds than me. If it was me though, I'd have separate fresh water & saltwater rigs.

Lots of options for shallow water baits. The whopper popper double buzzer floats. Maybe a Minus 1 or similar wake bait. Spinnerbait & worm approaches have already been mentioned. A bait that you seldom hear of ( or see in the store for that matter, not sure if it is discontinued or not) is the old Heddon Moss Boss - a top water plastic spoon of sorts.

Something about the original post makes me say , "Huh?" If you want the same feel through all your rods, then , buy all the same rods. Get a dozen, or two of the exact same rod. A decade or so ago, didn't Rick Clunn allegedly do this? And didn't he tell other people through Bassmaster magazine that this was a good idea? I seem to recall reading something about this in Bassmaster, again around a decade or so ago. By my reckoning, that decision ( to use the same rod for all different baits ) coincided with one of the longer losing droughts of his career. Coincidence? Beats me. You want the "same feel" through all your rods, do you really want your ned rig to feel like your frogging rod? Do you want your shakey head rig to feel like your Carolina rig? Why would you want your spinner bait rig to feel exactly like your worm rod? I could go on. Do you want the same sensitivity in your cranking rod as you do for your football jig rod? This thinking seems out of wack to me. You want your rods to all have a similar "look", like lots of guys do with their golf clubs? I kinda get that. This makes a little more sense and the previous page and a half of posters have offered lots of options, I really can't add anything in this vein. My advice is to find rods you like that do what you want within your price range. I think that warranty does make a difference. Fenwick has been good to me, their higher end rods, the HMG & Aetos series have lifetime warranties and I've broken some rods doing some ignorant stuff and Fenwick has replaced them. I know their policy has changed slightly over the years and it has been a few years since I've broken one, so I'm not up to date on their current version of their lifetime warranty. All Star Rods, ( back in the day when they were made in Texas ) used to have a GREAT warranty. Can't speak to their current warranties, they are now exclusively distributed by Academy Sports, I've bought a few on close outs, their actions are very similar to the old All Stars. I haven't broken any yet and fishing season is nearly over. Maybe next year . .

It does take a day or two to get used to the transition lenses. I've had mine for years now and I remember feeling clumsy the first few days I got them. There are the transition lenses that replace lined bi-focals. The same term is sometimes used for the lenses that can change color out in the sunlight. I have that on my indoor glasses, for the times when I have to step outdoors for a moment and I don't want to get a headache, or if I'm fooling around in my fishing shed and then step outside for a moment or so. For fishing & being outside for an extended period of time I have a pair of regular sunglasses, with the no-line bifocals, as dark as I could get them and I buy the polarizing process. The dark tinted polarized lenses let me see down into the water pretty good. I like the dark grey tint, but really I haven't tried any other tint. I think that my sunglasses cost less than $500 with my insurance, but I don't recall exactly right now.

I believe the original Eakins jigs had a 2/0 hook. That's all I got. Question, - "Do you remember what you bought them for?" I asked myself that question, because I got some 2/0 regular & wide gap hooks, in the boat, in the back up bin and right now I can't remember what possessed me to buy them. I think it maybe was that I just had to have some of every size. I used to use 3/0, 4/0 and 5/0 Gammy wicked wacky weedless hooks on my bubba drop shot rig, but currently I use 1/0 because I like the lower profile I get with the soft plastics that I nose hook. I suppose if I went to some slightly thicker plastics I might go to the 2/0. I got more bites when I dropped down to the 1/0 hook size, but mostly I think that is because I got smarter when & where I deployed that particular rig, and not necessarily the smaller hook size. Maybe tx rigging small worms, like Brewer Slider worms in a creek or something, 2/0 hooks might be more appropriate, just because more often than not you're fishing for smaller fish. I wouldn't throw them away though, because sooner or later some outdoor writer with a deadline will write a story about how 1/0 & 2/0 hooks "fit in the fishes mouth better" and then there will be a trend toward using smaller hooks, but you've already got yours. Same for me, I think that a half dozen packs of the 1/0 & 2/0 worm hooks are a lifetime supply. . . . ..Just remembered what I bought the 2/0 wide gap hooks for. Back when I was into pitching tubes ( which I don't do that much of anymore) sometimes a 3/0 hook was too big, IMO and the 2/0 wide gap hook with the 3/16 internal weight gave me the drop that I wanted plus there was a little more plastic to skin hook the point.

You live in Orlando, Florida. There are probably several mom & pop tackle shops in town, that's where I'd go for advice first.

I wouldn't do it. There are times when I do fish the same bait most of the day, but not because someone told me I could only use one. Something about sticking with the same bait when you KNOW you have options, I guess.

On the subject of bargain opportunities, don't neglect pawn shops. Just like mom & pop fishing stores, I can't drive by one and not stop. Most of the time you don't find anything worthwhile, however a couple of weeks ago I was in Warsaw for the Leavenworth Bass Club's Fishing for Freedom event and I found a very cool old Diawa Light & Tough rod, the white/silver/grey one with the deer foot lower split handle. They had the same model in a cranking rod, but I didn't need/want that one.

Oh my, just googled the distances. I didn't realize that it was such a long drive. I'd do it though - make a day trip out of it. Earlier this year, when I was off work recovering from knee surgery, I drove 4 hours to Springfield, MO, just to drop off a few reels at the Outdoor World Rod & Reel repair store AND wander around the original Bass Pro for a couple of hours. I really enjoyed the drive there & back - set the cruise control - crank up the stereo & go.

I'm a recreational tool user, not a professional, but I like owning and using quality tools. I think that the Crescent tools are good, but I've become convinced that the West German Knipex pliers are better. Of course they cost more.

You're in Wisconsin, I'd be joining the St Croix cult and be making regular pilgrimages to the St Croix factory store.