Fishes in trees

You must be youthful - beer & pop tarts - really? Pick one - savory or sweet and go with that. Me - I tend to go with savory - a dozen or so waters, maybe a few session IPA's - a sandwich or two. A thermos of coffee along with a breakfast sandwich driving to the lake helps with the energy level a lot. Now, about the fishing - I would consider 2-4 feet visibility a significant stain. I wouldn't tie anything on - bring all your gear and make decisions once you've seen what you'll be fishing. I'd probably lead off with a lipless crank or a chatter bait, mostly because that is what I usually lead off with. You're probably fishing post spawn conditions, with the fish not really set up yet in summer patterns. That usually mean soft plastics to me.

My first guess would be that the spool is over filled. Second guess would be that you've used too strong a test. I wouldn't use anything over 8lb -6 lb would probably work better.

Welcome to the Ned rig, like every other bass fishing technique, there is a learning curve. All the advice about rod action is probably good advice - I wouldn't know - I use a medium - extra fast tip rod with the light braid, primarily because I like extra fast tips in general, I like how it casts, I feel like I know about strikes a little quicker with the extra fast tip and I just try to pay attention and not let slack line get out of hand. My experiences tell me that if you use sticky sharp hooks and get a good sweep hook set, the hook is much more likely than not to stay put.

Get the longer one. Get the one with the most power that you can afford. The slightly longer shaft might interfere with your casting once in a blue moon - get over it, learn a roll cast, or a pitch cast, or a side arm cast, maybe back handed. The longer shaft will let you drop the motor a little deeper when you're in a little chop. I assume that with the 15" Jon boat you're going to go with a 12 volt motor. The BPS 2019 Master Catalog, (one of my bibles and among the most favored of rest room reading material ), lists the Minn Kota Endura Max 55 ? thrust, 36" or 42" shaft, for $289.99 and the 42" shaft is $10 more. If they're out of the long shaft, get the shorter shaft, but I'd get the longer one. Be aware you're not done yet. While you're at it, pick up a few extra shear pins, most hardware stores carry generic shear pins, get one that fits if the store you buy your motor at doesn't carry extra shear pins. Keep the pins (and the necessary tools to change it out) in a bag that ALWAYS makes it into the boat. Got to have batteries - get the largest deep cycle trolling motor batteries you can find - when I was fishing out of a similar boat years ago, I had 2, then 3, wired parallel, so I still had 12 volts, but lots of spare power. Running out of battery power isn't any fun. Each boat is different, so you will have to find the best balance point in your boat on where to locate the batteries. It isn't always snug up against the transom. When you need extra wire, I've found the easiest solution is to sacrifice a cheap set of jumper cables of the appropriate length. Clips are bad, curt those off and rig all your connections with rings that tighten to the batteries with wing nuts. Much simpler - solid connection and are much less likely to come undone at inopportune moments. Those batteries will have to be charged. When I had a similar set up to what you've got, I bought a 2 bank charger, when I went to 3 batteries, I got a 3 bank one. These are marketed as on board chargers, but you don't have to install them, you don't need the extra weight on that boat - leave the charger at home. The multiple banks just make it much easier to charge all the batteries at once (and leave them charged) so that they are ready when you're ready to go fishing. 2 batteries & one charger just guarantees that you'll forget to switch it over and you'll end up charging one battery longer than the other and running 2 batteries with different levels of charge just lowers the life expectancy of both batteries. Learn how to take the prop off and change out the broken ( or most likely badly bent) shear pin and carry the tools in the boat to do the job. Most likely if the shear pin is badly bent, the prop ain't coming off with the tools you got in your boat, but that's a different problem. Good luck with your fishing. When you go from oars/paddles to trolling motor power you will get a lot more fishing done. Don't leave the oars/paddles on the bank because sooner or later you will need back up power. There you go - that's it - all I know, from personal experience, about attaching a trolling motor to a Jon boat. Nope, there is more - you will need to find a way to keep the batteries solid & stationary while you're running the boat, more importantly while you're trailering the boat. You don't want the batteries bouncing or sliding around while you're going down the road. What I did was to epoxy metal loops to the inside hull of the boat and used bungee cords to keep the batteries together and stable. Battery acid is an issue over time - just buy new bungees every season or so. Glad I could help you spend your money.

Go with all your regular gear and make the decision based on what you see when you show up. I've found red shad to be a decent muddy water worm color. For chatterbaits, I don't think you can go wrong with while/chartruese. I've used many different trailers trying to find "the one". That being said, I go through 2 or 3 bags of BPS Cajun trailers in the white/chartruese tip color nearly every year. If you want a little longer trailer and if you can find them, Gene Larew Ring Shad has had its moments for me.

I like the cylinder weights. They seem to get stuck less for me. As I tend to "Bubba Sot" more than a finesse approach I nearly always throw a half ounce weight - the notion being that the drop shot is a bottom oriented approach and half ounce gets me to the bottom asap. I have a couple of rigs that are excellent for drop shot fishing, I just don't use them that much, probably because I think that if a finesse drop shot approach is working, a shaky head or a slider worm or a ned rig will work just as well or better. Once I get spanked a few times by a drop shot expert, I'll probably change my mind, but that hasn't happened yet.

I've used 14 lb Fireline Crystal (allegedly the same thickness as 6 lb mono) in creek fishing situations. As it is kinda white on the surface, visibility is excellent. I've tried it in fairly low water situations on the Gasconade in Missouri, both with various weights of fluorocarbon leader and straight to jig head, leader didn't seem to make much difference. Same situation, I've had similar results using Berkley nano-fil. So there are a couple more higher visibility options. Both these line options are basically Ned rigs. I would point out that on the few trips I've had, in a low water river/creek situation, all but one of my best fish (14-16" small mouths) came on War Eagle Screaming Eagle spinnerbaits ( half ounce weight, quarter ounce size ) , 14 lb mono - greenish in color. Line visibility had nothing to do with bites - throw the bait upstream and bounce it off rocks, slow as you can without getting hung. Of course, wouldn't you know it, the big fish of the day (20" small mouth" came on a ned rig thrown into a slack eddy. I seriously out fished my buddy on those trips, he was primarily using 6 or 8 lb mono, so I currently think that light braid is the way to go for low water creek fishing. In my situation the Gasconade was very clear, and line visibility didn't seem to affect things. Another option, if you're going straight braid and fishing consistent depths, maybe dyeing a section of the line with your chartreuse marker is an option, IDK.

I have a Curado DC and I like it for throwing reaction baits, especially where casting distance matters. For pitching t-rigs & jigs ( normal weights 3/16 - 3/8 or so) I think the reel is overkill. I like a lighter reel for this, most of the time that is a Curado or Chronarch 50. That being said, that's my opinion right now, I only own one Curado DC and reaction baits is how I'm choosing to use it. I think that should you get a Curado DC and use it just for pitching, I think you'd like it. I'm using 15 lb mono right now, but I think it would handle any lb test of fluorocarbon you wanted to use.

On the subject of weedless wacky hooks, the ones that work best for me are the Falcon K-Wacky weighted weedless hooks - 3/0 size. I haven't found that the mouse trap style wire weed guard costs me any fish. I always use senkos with an 0-ring. It has been a dozen years now, and I still haven't decided if a single 0-ring ( which puts the hook point in line with the bait) or a pair of 0-rings crossed ( which puts the hook point at a 90 degree angle to the bait ) is better, so sometimes I do it one way and sometimes the other. I generally use the 1/16 oz weighted hook. My strike to landing percentage overall is in the 70 to 80 % range, and of course that varies from day to day. I've had those days when I couldn't stick anything and I've had months when I seldom missed. It is a mystery. Sometimes I will fish with one buddy of mine, who seems to be opposed to the whole notion of wacky rigging, he will fish all brands of stick baits tx rigged and he lands & misses fish in roughly the same percentages as I do. Even more of a mystery.

I haven't experienced the hype of the Red Eye Shad personally. I still have 4 of the old Berkley Frenzy lipless cranks and I'm going to keep throwing those until I lose them all.

I don't use backing very often because I don't like the idea of an extra knot and I don't like the little bump that it makes when you're spooling on top of it. I don't have any rational or scientific reason for this other than the fact that I just don't like it. Most of the bait casters that I use expensive fluorocarbon on are small 50 size Shimano - Curado or Chronarch, they don't hold that much line, so price isn't that much of an issue to me. I have the smallest Calcutta filled with 20 lb Abrazx on my Bubba Drop Shot rig and as long as I remember to douse it with KVD line treatment from time to time, it works fine. I'm not distance casting here, just pitching, maybe 40 feet max. My 200 size reels - Curado, Chronarch, Calais, Calcutta, I just go ahead and fill them up with mono, these are more for reaction baits and generally I'm looking for distance here.

If you're pond fishing, consider this. Shorter is better for the trek from your vehicle to the pond. IMO longer is better when you're actually fishing from the pond, it lets you reach out over the vegetation better, making it easier to parallel the bank. Perhaps, really gnarly banks are the exception, but when I was a pond fisherman, I found that a decent machete wasn't that much extra weight and several whacks and you had an easier area to cast from.

IMO - baits where the finish has been marred by swinging hooks are better than new baits. Here's the logic - There must have been something about this bait which made me tie it on in the first place. Now, I've fished it enough that swinging hooks have marred the paint somewhat. I must have gotten bit at least occasionally, because had I not gotten bit, I would have changed lures, so the finish wouldn't be as marred. Here is a for instance - I have 5 Lucky Craft Pointers in my favorite color - Table Rock Shad. I didn't buy these all at once, Lucky Craft has slightly changed the Table Rock Shad color from year to year. 4 of these baits are brand new, less than 15 minutes of usage between all 4 of them. The 5th one is stuffed everywhere, The chartreuse sides, originally all one color are now a blend of chartreuse and ivory ( the underlying base plastic color ). I've changed out and swapped weights of the stick on belly weights so often that from the lip and 2" back on the bait is a mottled black & white left over glue pattern .. In other words, this is a used bait - not used up but used. The stick on eyes have long fallen off - been replaced and those have fallen off also. Currently it has one eye - I think, don't remember. Guess which one I grab when it is time to fish jerk baits? Unless, for some reason I believe that I need a deep diving version, the skuffed up one is the one I grab and will continue to be til I lose it. This is all very logical, right? My recommendation is that you have a skuffed up bait, use it til you lose it.

My current Ned rig is a 5'9" Fenwick HMG with a small size (10?) Pflueger President reel. I try lots of different lines, if you're really serious abut Ned rigging, I don't think that you can beat straight 6 lb fluorocarbon. Of course, that is not the line I currently have spooled, I'm trying 10 lb nano-til and previously I used a 10 lb braid and I don't remember the brand. Braid worked ok, both straight to the bait and with a short fluorocarbon leader. Switched to nano-til just to try something different. Truth be told, haven't got the new rig wet yet, health issues. & weather & weird work schedule have only allowed me to twice this year and next week doesn't look good. But hey, it is in the fishing truck, locked up in the fishing shed, rigged up and ready to go. p.s. Should you not have a fishing shed to keep your gear out of the sun I DON'T recommend keeping a lot of gear in the truck. Summer heat inside the Explorer can get weird and melt stuff.

What bait do I use when? I know this sounds like a bs answer, but I don't know, it is whatever I decide to use at the time. When I leave the dock I have 20 or so rod & reels rigged up with different baits. I might have some pre-conceived notions of what could work, might not. Just start trying stuff. In the parking lot cove of the lake I fish the majority of the time, there is a row of trees that go due west for 200 yards or so, from 6 to 16 or so feet of water. That normally screams "throw a square bill" to me. Then after a conversation with the conservation agent who manages the lake pointed out to me where he put an assortment of brush piles - 8 to 10 feet in front of the tree line, that says, "son, you might want to be throwing a tx rigged stick bait or something similar to the brush piles rather than running over the top of them and throwing a square bill into the trees" The best advice I can give is to access the current situation, make your best informed decision, go from there. In my case, there have been days where my best informed decision was "I really don't care if I catch any fish for the next couple of hours, I'm going to practice throwing spinnerbaits." This is as much an exercise in boat control ( weaving in & out between visible stumps & trees, foot on the trolling motor, varying speeds, making low trajectory casts at various objects) as it is trying to catch fish on a spinnerbait. I don't know, I ought to be able to give a better answer to this question, but I can't. This is probably part of my evolution as a fisherman ( making better informed and successful starting decisions at the beginning of the fishing day.)

I liked the action of the Aetos spinning rods I've seen, but I didn't like the handles. So I didn't buy it. Maybe you'll like it, I don't know. On further review, looking at my current collection of spinning rods, I don't need another spinning rod right now. Looking at my current collection of spinning gear I don't like many of the handles. All of them, with the exception of an old Diawa 6'3" LT )Light & Tough) have been modified. I use tennis racquet over grip tape to build up the handle a little bit, so it fits better, gives it a better grip and so that the ridges beneath the handle nut don't rub my palm. I like the look too, all my spinning rods have different color handles.

The past couple of years my best big fish bait (over 20" is my standard) has been a 10" worm, closely followed by a brush hog. I'm fishing from my boat. You're fishing from the bank. If it is warm enough to wade, go wading. I'd drop a wacky senko next to the deepest weed lines I could find - and that's all I'd do, over and over. You will get bit. Senkos are all fish baits, they catch little fish, medium fish and big fish.

If the reel says Shimano on it , it is hard to go wrong. I've got a. Curado 70, I like it. IMO everything that has been written about how the 70 is harder to get dialed in is true, at least it was harder for me to get it dialed in like I wanted. Now, after a year or so, I like it and I've got a decent, inexpensive rod that it works good on. Don't have a K, so I don't know. Got a Curado 150DC fro Christmas and I've fished with it twice (annoying health issued have kept me off the water for a while, I will get better). Like the DC a lot for throwing spinnerbaits, so far that is all I've thrown on it. I think it would be great for throwing any reaction bait.

The notions about weedless spoons are good. Back when I was a meat fishing bush hippie I read a book "On Slider Fishing" by Charlie Brewer. He described a technique called "polishing the rocks", but it really applies to any bottom of any pond, lake, strip pit, whatever. He means coming as close to the bottom as you can without touching it, or hanging up. Takes a while to learn, but if you're a bank fisherman, it is the ticket to more fish, most of the time.

I learned this a long time ago, that one on the best investments you can make as a bank fisherman is a decent pair of hip waders.

I've always had the bug. When I was a kid my day took me a couple of times, but he wasn't into it. Later as a slightly older kid, he bought me a Zebco 202, and there was a carp pay lake nearby and I took a few whippings when a 12lb + carp bit my dough bait and shredded the gears of that 202. I got serious about fishing when a year and a half after I got out of college, (mid 70's) I went to Walmart & K-Mart and dropped around $200 on a rod & reel and various gear. I still have that Mitchell 301. I bank fished exclusively for 5 or 6 years and then fell in with some professor pals who had boats and then I was seriously into boat fishing. I bought my first pond prowler in 1982 or so and my next one in 1998 and in 2002 I got an 18' Lowe. When I get some spare money I'll get a bigger/better boat. My plan is to fish til I can't no more.

Yeah, I think that 12 lb mono on a spinning reel is asking for it.

the previous post about either buy Diawa or Shimano and don't look back is good advice. I would add if you decide to buy Diawa, go ahead and look back, but I'm a Shimano guy and that's what I'd expect myself to say. The Shimano SLX is a great starter Shimano reel. When you get your nerve/wallet up to your next bait casting reel purchase, go for the Shimano Curado 150 DC. This will become your primary reaction bait reel (spinnerbaits, chatter baits, square bills, crank baits ) for a LONG time. Something to remember when purchasing bait casters, when you buy quality, (A) these reels last for a long time and (B) parts that wear out are easier to come by 10+ years later when something wears out. Glad that I could help, I'm a helper. . . .

I've found the Bucoo Trap Caster to be very good for any reaction type bait. That is the only rod in the last 10 years that I've paid list for - came across it at Walmart of all places, liked it and bought it.. I use mine exclusively for lipless cranks, but I think it would work great for chatter baits. If I would change anything about your set up it would be the line and maybe the reel. I think you could go a half ounce bait and 17 or 20 lb line and lose very little in terms of casting distance, number of strikes, and ability to fish it high in the water column. What you would gain is less line stretch. Because I'm an old guy and I remember when 5-1 was a "high speed" reel, that's what I'd use. (Also that is what I have laying around). Currently that is a Calcutta 250 TEGT which has a 5-1 gear ratio. I'm pretty sure that is a much heavier reel that your Shimano SLX, but I'm ok with it. It is just when I'm throwing "feel" baits that a reel bigger than a Chronarch 50 feels heavy to me.

Paul, you're in the KC Metro area, go to Rogers & talk to them. Communicate what you've got and what you need that is different than what you've got. They will hook you up and I've found their rod prices reasonable, for the most part. Over the years I've probably bought over 2 dozen rods from them. Things to ask about: spinning or bait casting - bottom contact rigs or reaction bait rigs, high end vs low end vx mid-range. What reel are you going to put on it or do you need another one of those also. Do you have a rod brand that you're partial to? Me - I'm partial to Fenwick & Falcon brands, but I have more than a few Shimano, All Star and Daiwa rods. I have a few Kistler and Loomis and St. Croix and Carrot Stir. Reel wise - I'm a Shimano guy but lately for spinning reels I got a few Pflueger spinning reels ,