HeavyDluxe

Jigs have become my go-to lure... I fish Siebert Outdoors 3/8oz brush jigs (with various hooks, depending on what's on sale) exclusively. They're just about as close to an all-terrain jig as you can get. I'm sure Mike at Siebert will help you with color recommendations, if you want. Or ask here.

Up to a 6'6 M spinning rod strung with 6-8lb mono. If I'm near 'bigger' or 'toothier' critters consistently, make it a MH.

We stay on the eastern bank of Bomoseen every summer (August)... I have great luck fishing many different depths with green/brown jigs or craw-ish soft plastics. Smallies further to the north - but below the bridge - and largies in the south and feeder creeks. Dunno if you have kids, but it's a panfish and perch factory, too. Message if you want more specifics.

My youngest (4-year-old caught) his first fish this past weekend. Simple is good... We use the cheap, Stuffmart bobbers above a decent-sized aberdeen hook. The long shank of the abderdeen gives me something to grab when the fish swallow the hook or take it deep. Since the kids are sometimes late on the hookset, this helps. My kids moved from the bobber quickly to a split-shot rig... Same hook with a split-shot sinker a foot or two above the hook. They let it sit a bit (with a finger hooked on the line), the jig it lightly, and repeat. It's more effective, especially for bigger 'gills and the occasional juvenile bass. I'd just add how mad I am about the quality of kids fishing gear. Most of the spincast rods in the kids' kits are trash. I'm spooling an ultralight spinning reel for my littlest to use our next trip.

We bought a GX2 combo for my daughter last year... For the money, it's a nice little setup. The reel is functional though clearly not stellar, and the rod is surprisingly sensitive for the price point. For most 'kid fishing' applications, it will be fine.

Haven't fished there, but I'll happily echo what @Mainebass1984 said... Standard presentations for smallies will work fine. I'd just add that I fish I similar sized lake further south in VT and we still have a fair number of smallies up shallow (though generally tight to cover) that time of year. So, you should be able to get on fish deep or 'target fishing' in around the banks if you need to...

I'm guessing, but don't know, this is in part due to the changing dynamics of what a kayak actually is these days. With pedal boats and Torqeedo motors, there's a bit of a perceived arms race around boat type. I'd bet that, at the root, people are scared that some trolling technique is going to be found to be beneficial but only open to those who have suitably outfitted boats. For a purist, is that even still kayak fishing?

One thing to add: While what you're seeing could be just a normal, healthy distribution of fish, it could also be that you're seeing a body of water where the bass are the competition for food resources is such that 'big fish' just can't grow. To make an analogy, there'd be way more skinny people in the zombie apocalypse. Sorry, was just talking about The Walking Dead. But, I think the illustration fits. While catch-and-release angling is a great way of ensuring that already large fish can grow larger and be caught again, it also means that fewer fish are being harvested by humans. And that means that there more fish swimming competing for a fixed amount of food/forage. That increased competition actually keeps the little fish from growing much and the bigger fish from reaching their maximum potential. A call to your local fisheries biologist might be interesting. It could well be the case that a selective harvest of some 'eater-sized' fish would lead to a better population of 'trophy-ish' fish. This from one of my state's biologists makes a similar point.

Siebert Outdoors Brush Jigs in Sweet Craw, Bluegill, Brown/Orange, and Black/Blue. It's as close to an all-terrain jig as I've found, and those colors cover just about every scenario.

Put most of your effort into understanding the fish so you can locate them and understand their 'mood'. Take one lure to the pond. "Today, I'm going to just fish a jig-and-pig." Fish it slow.

I am TERRIBLE at knots. For some reason the illustrations just don't always make sense to me, and my fingers don't have the trained dexterity to be good with twisting and flipping line. I fish mono exclusively and, due to my crappy knot skillz, use a Palomar Knot 99.9% of the time. It's a very simple knot and definitely seems to hold just fine. When I've had a break at the knot (which has been rare), I can always attribute it to having not done well on the knot tie itself or having had some abrasion near the knot that led to the failure. This year, I want to learn the Uni Knot and a couple others... especially because I might start experimenting with braid w/ fluoro leader and the uni-to-uni joiner seems simple.

Green Pumpkin (real close to most of the forage fish up here) Black & Blue (because, black and blue) Dark Pumpkin (best 'average' of native craw colors) That's about it. I have found that the days when they will bite "Motor Oil with Gold Nuggets" and not, at the same time, bite ol' "Black & Blue" are few and far between. Shad aren't the foundational forage up here, in most cases. But, we do occasionally have bodies of water where smelt play a big role. In those cases or when there are shad, I'll add a silver/grey color to the mix.

I'm going to be watching this thread for nostalgia... Grew up close to there and fished that little 'chain' of ponds and lakes all the time. This is decades ago, so I am sure things are radically different. Good luck.

That sucks... summer before last I had really bad wrist tendonitis that I couldn't keep in check. I play racquet sports (squash, mainly, and tennis) and have had the beginnings of TE before. I've found that consistently - and properly - wearing a good brace for it and some stretches really helps. Oh, and mainlining ibuprofen. Good luck. If I can help at all, holler.

Fellow big guy and kayak angler. If at all possible, get somewhere where you can test some boats. They are all different, and how comfortable they are for YOU and how stable you'll feel will vary from boat to boat. Most of the major fishing kayaks (Wilderness Systems, Jackson, Moken, etc) will have the features and general stability you want. Find a demo day somewhere and paddle. It's really worth it, and there's no substitute. (I fish out of a WS Ride 115. I liked the Jackson boats, but with the seat in the high position I could roll it. And, even in the low position, the chines in the hull didn't bite the water the same as the Ride did. I couldn't feel the edge as well. The Ride, well, I can stand on the side of the hull and not tip it. I walked out with the Ride 115, but a buddy who's pretty close to me in build - just a little shorter - walked out with the Jackson Coosa. So, YOUR preferences matter hugely and will only be found when you get on the water in a boat.)

One other thing I didn't see mentioned that's worked for me... I go into highly pressured fisheries with the mindset that I'm willing to lose baits to catch fish. Most recreational anglers tend to fish the periphery of cover. They'll fish near a snarl of tree roots but not really get all up in there for fear of losing a lure. I decide that the trade off on pressured water is sometimes between saving money/baits and catching fish. Between the two (within reason), I'm willing to pay the price to hook some fish. So I throw deeper into cover. Again, this is simply meant to add to what everyone's said above. There's been some really great advice in this thread.

Unless you mean "Miami, Ohio", you need to just stop it. On average, any bass down your way is going to be bigger than the coldwater ones we have up here. ;-) You all have a glut of riches. (Note: I love living here in the frozen hinterlands and honestly wouldn't want to live anywhere else. And I've caught larger bass up here, too. But they're clearly not as plentiful as the waters of the south.)

Throw near cover, let it soak, drag or hop it a little, then shake it. And hang on. Just started fishing jigs seriously last summer, and now they're my confidence bait. Plan on being a serious line watcher. Sometimes you'll feel the strike, other times you'll just notice the line start to move, or stop moving when it should still be falling.

As others have said, downsize and slow down. If you're fishing where there's current, focus extra hard on finding where there are breaks in the current where the fish can rest. Remember bass are cold-blooded... If they're cold, their metabolism slows. They're not going to want to expend energy chasing food any further than they have to (in general) or fighting current.

I'd say it like this: There may be times when the bass will bite the a swimbait in neon-purple-black-flake and not eat anything else in any other color. However, the number of situations where that happens is so small that trying to PLAN to deal with them is a fool's errand.

I'm a keep it simple guy... I keep green pumpkin (which mimics bluegill and almost everything else), black & blue, and some brown/orange color on hand. If I fish a lake full of smelt or stocked trout, I'll occasionally pick up a grey/silver color. Sent you a PM with a link in it.

You're right, physically... It takes more effort to horse a fish on the end of a longer rod. What I was after was this: Let's say I'm twitching my hands to try to bounce a jig. With a 6' rod, the motion of my hands is going to impart a certain distance of motion to the rod tip and thus to the bait. If I extend the rod to a 7'6 rod, the SAME motion in my hands is going to move the rod tip MORE - because of the longer rod - and the bait will move more as a result. Same thing on hooksets... If I swing on a fish with a 6' rod, I'm pulling a certain distance of line tight. With a longer rod, the take-up of line is greater. So, I'm no engineer so I chose to call that 'leverage' instead of knowing what the technical term really was... Mea culpa. I repent in sackcloth and ashes.

That's a horse of a different color... My answer would be maybe. I've fished near otters and caught 'em, and other times not. Hard to tell whether that's the conditions in that spot or the otter. If you're not getting enough joy out of watching the otter to make up for the lack of 'catching', I'd try and move. I like watching them - and other wildlife I run into - almost as much as I like a tight line. OK, I like it quite a bit... but I prefer tight lines. Sorry for telling fibs.

If it was seal-like in the way it moved, it was an otter. Beaver dive and surface, but not that gleefully. Of course an otter's going to eat fish, but I'd prefer to look at what you're seeing as the sign of a healthy ecosystem/fishery. If there's a variety of fish-eating wildlife (and other, non-fish-consuming species) around the body of water, it means there's enough fish to keep them there. I'm sure an otter's not apt to have any more impact on the fishery in a year than a few anglers do. I'm no biologist either, but I get a chance to interact with some of the fisheries biologists from our state every month... And they are always quick to remind me that culling some bass is actually good for a fishery. So, the otter's take could even be a help to keep the population balanced and healthy.

Longer rods give you two benefits: More casting distance and more leverage on a fish/bait. However, the more you maximize these two things, the more you sacrifice accuracy in casting (placement) and subtlety and the ability to hide the rod when you're trying to sneak out of the house to fish-under-the-guise-of-running errands. Think of it in a context outside bass fishing. Surf fisherman use really long rods because they need to sling baits a loooong way and want to be able to quickly tighten a long length of line with a whip of the rod tip in order to set the hook. But, they have a pain in the butt hauling them around - or sacrifice a bit of sensitivity to use multi-part sticks. The same fish could be caught from a boat positioned more closely with a much shorter rod of the same power. I started with 6' rods, went to 6'6, and then to 7'/7'6. For most of my kayak fishing, I wish I had kept the 6'6s just because they were the best balance (to me) of casting accuracy and portability. I thought bigger was better, but it wasn't true for my tastes.