NorcalBassin

The Loomis Warranty has been great and hassle free for me the 3-4x I've used it over the years and much better than the 60% of retail price for my Megabass replacement. Back to the rod- I really like the 894 for jigs over 3/8 and the 893 for 3/8 or 1/4 oz.

Did the least amount of fishing in years these past few months and hoping to get back on track with weekly trips very soon. After a dry start to fall we're forecast to get 5" of rain the next few days. My home lake is down >170 ft right now, so hopefully this starts turning it the other direction.

We're starting to forget what that looks like in CA...

893 is tops for me with the 852 being a close second.

There are quite a few out there but my recommendation would be Ross England. He has an excellent reputation, charges a modest amount, and always seems to be on fish. Also appeared in a few videos with Matt Allen over the years. http://www.clearlakeguideservice.com/

I have that same setup with 7# Sniper and haven't had any issues with break offs (drag is backed off a bit). Granted I fish clear open water with that setup most of the time, but the smaller diameter line gives me more confidence in getting more hits.

CA's precipitation is highly variable based on latitude and elevation. I'm in the lower elevations of the Sierras (3500') and we average 40-45" of rain/yr. Problem is nearly all of our rain falls between Nov-April, so things dry up real quick in the summer especially when there's not much of a snowpack. Going from nearly full to 160ft down over the course of just a couple years has been much in part due to gross mismanagement of the state's water storage reservoirs. Lots of politics involved so I'll just leave it at that.

They're definitely one of the most consistent baits out here when the shad are schooled up in the fall and the bass are hanging around or actively feeding. Coolbaits underspin (1/O) with a 2.8 or 3.3 Keitech has put hundreds of fish in my boat the past couple years (up to 6 pounds).

If anyone wants some hints on how to catch dinks on a 110 jr+1 I'm pretty sure I have it dialed. Pops with the only scoreable bass of the morning. Most entertaining part of the morning... fella really wanted to get into the boat with us.

Had a fire right near town a few weeks ago... too close for comfort.

I won't be filling it up all the way

One of my all time favorites. Truly didn't give a rip about going against the mainstream cultural or political narratives... never knew what he'd say regardless of who he was around. I had no idea he had cancer the past 9 or so years and was shocked to heat he'd passed of "natural" causes. RIP and thank you for all the laughs.

That's a heck of a first fish on the first day you ever threw a bull shad... congrats!

That's the only silver lining, especially now that most of the lake lice is off the water there until next summer. It is a nice change to go there and fish a lake nearly at full pool. Tuttletown is already well down the 3rd (lowest) ramp and there's only about another 22 feet before it's out of the water. If they don't slow the rate they're sending the water through we'll likely be losing lake access from this side in late October/early November.

I use straight FC on most of my baitcasters and spinning reels and change it out once/yr unless I have a nasty backlash or start to run low. I've never had any breakage issues... change more for peace of mind in case I cross paths with a giant.

Melones is almost 160ft below full pool at this point. When it got even lower than this a few years ago I found the fishing to still be really good as long as they weren't dumping too much water. Right now it's going down 4-6"/day and the fishing has been tougher than usual most days. The water level at Clear Lake is much more stable (less loss/day), and having most boats and tourneys off the water should make for great kayak fishing.

Well done!

She went way north up to Montana. I'm going to have to dust off my fly rods when I go back to visit. ? The dam is something like 625 ft high, which seems pretty crazy when you think about it while you're fishing the riprap right along it. Thankfully the river channel is steep and deep, so there are still a lot of places that have over 300 ft of water.

I think you'd be happy with any of those 5 choices- all great rods. I use an Addermine for those techniques but, as you mentioned, they unfortunately discontinued those. Since you don't like the recoils on an NRX I'd recommend the Legend Elite or just eeny meeny miny moe your finalists.

Had these fellas hanging out and grazing on the grass at work the other day. For their sake hopefully they find somewhere to hide the next few weeks. ?

I was surprised to see this on an end cap at Target and figured I had to at least try it. I was expecting it to be more beer-like similar to the Guinness version of beer coffee, but it tasted just like a sweetened iced coffee from a shop. Never would have guessed it had alcohol (or was PBR) if I hadn't poured it myself.

Hadn't been out in a while but had to make sure I squeezed in a trip before sending my daughter off to college. Lake is getting ridiculously low again, loses a foot or more every couple days, and is now down 161 feet from full pool. Definitely need a wet snowy winter out here. Anyhow, trip was a lot of fun and it was great making some memories. Best bait for us was a 2.8 or 3.3 on a 3/16 head. She was struggling to catch anything over 10" and then on her last cast, boom, biggest fish of the day. Awesome seeing her get the only decent fish of the day and it being a walkoff. Good times!!!

First time out in a few weeks and since our home lake is down 140 ft from full we decided to give a smaller lake that's at full pool a shot. A major dinkfest ensued, but it was great being out on the water and catching some fish. I'm not sure I've ever caught so many of these sub-12 inchers before... Pops was on a roll methodically donating tackle to the lake and was kind enough to spot me a 31 fish lead before he finally hooked up with his first fish of the day. Little fella but pretty much any size fish will put a smile on your face when it erases a skunk. When it got too hot to be comfortable and we ran out of water some decent fish started hitting. Fish 71 of the day... #73 Last fish of the day, #74...

That's terrible and I'm sorry for your loss... looks like he was quite a splendid fella. Approximately 3 years ago we lost all 3 of our dogs over the course of a few months and it was an absolute gut punch to the family's gut. Planted a dogwood tree out back for each of them and still think of them often. RIP Teddy.

Dobyns has a great lineup of swimbait rods but we'll definitely need to know which types of swimbaits you'll be throwing. The Baccarac is short for a swimbait rod, and if you're getting a dedicated SB rod I'd definitely recommend something longer so you can get more distance. If you're limited to taking just a few rods with you and need them to be versatile the Baccarac would be worth the purchase.