Janderson45

While I don’t disagree with you, I don’t think that’s exactly what’s going on here. No doubt it would make a great float n fly rod and will get the nod for me for that technique, I think it’ll be an asset in a couple other categories as well. The timing of this rods release and the new Legend Tournament Bass series directly coincides with B.A.S.S. loosening their regulations on rod length. Until 2018 the maximum allowed length was 8’ - now its 10’ max allowable in competition. In response to this, st. Croix released a number of very long sticks in their LTB lineup, including a 9’11 flippin/punching stick.

If recent history is any indicator I doubt they’ll offer this stick in an SCV, if it does end up being offered in the LE or LX series that would be awesome though.. I own 4 SCV rods currently and this will only be my second SCIV rod... not entirely sure what I think of my other one at the moment, it’s the sweeper spinnerbait 7’MHMF model. Im with you on the Cobalt blue finish, and usually I don’t like split grips on my spinning (or really any) of my rods, but in this case I thought the split grip might help to off set the 4000 size reel I planned to use, at least a little. People will probably think I’m nuts for using a 4000 size reel too, but I think it has some fantastic benefits that most people completely overlook..

Glad I could be of *ahem* service.. Its due to get its first test run this Saturday on some fall New Hampshire smallies, I’ll be sure to update with my honest first impressions. It’ll be interesting to see how crisp the blank is and whether or not it will wear on me fishing with it for hours on end.

Headed out to Squam on Saturday I believe, will be interesting to see where the fish are located (if I can find em). I’m guessing water temps tomorrow in mid to high 50s but really not sure. Winni was 64-66 when I fished it 3 weeks ago.

I’m a braid with leader person, but my leader is usually 20-30 feet ?, so no benefit there. There was an adjustment period when I went from my original 6’8 dropshot rod to a 7’6 stick. There may be a bit of an adjustment here as well, we will see. For me, despite the sometimes vertical nature of dropshotting, the long rod is still a bonus. I cast and drag my dropshots fairly often, certainly more than I see most guys doing. I’ll fire it up on a hump or point and creep it back to the boat positioned in deeper water. As the weight falls off the ledge I’ll sometimes get fish hanging right off the ledge to bite it while it’s falling down. Other benefits I’ve noticed are that it’s much easier to see minor deflections in the tip on a long rod, indicating a soft bite that you wouldn’t otherwise feel or notice. This has helped me quickly get hooks into deep bedding smallies who picked it up off the bed and tried to spit it. If I waited until I felt a bite it would be too late, if I ever even felt a bite. Another benefit of dropshotting with a long rod is when a charged up smallmouth shoots up towards the surface in an attempt to jump and spit the hook. Once you feel them start to rocket up if you stick the tip of a long rod in the water they are not going to clear the surface, no matter how determined they are. Like many things in fishing it might just be personal preference, but I’m a firm believer that a longer stick has improved my dropshot game.

One piece rod. I’ve now got 5 rods in my rod locker that are 7’6” or longer for various techniques. This one is the longest.

Recently picked up one of the new model St Croix legend tournament spinning rods. The 8’6” MLXF Dropshot/Hair Jig rod. I paired it with a Shimano Sustain 4000XG spooled up with 10lb braid to 6lb tatsu leader. I’m excited to try it out dropshotting some fall smallies this weekend. My current dropshot rod is a 7’6 MLXF Avid, and I’ve really grown to like the extra length... I decided to push it even further with this new offering from St. Croix... will be interested to see if there’s a point of diminishing returns on rod length for this application. My first impressions are that it balances quite nicely with the 4000 size reel, but I think it would be too tip heavy with a smaller reel. Anyone had a chance to fish this rod yet? If so, what were your impressions? I’ll report back with more thoughts and a more thorough review if people are interested.

Nice fish Mike! I wasn’t aware you could still catch a sea-run Atlantic salmon up there, thought the pacific transplants and landlocked were all that was available, pretty cool. I fished Ontario in May for Kings a few years back, we struck out and ended up with some lake trout instead. I’ve been meaning to head up to NY for the fall spawning run but haven’t made it there yet. The sheer numbers of fish I see caught every year makes it look easy! Is it as easy as it looks? If I went up there for a weekend would I find Kings like that?

In general I would think the larger fish would hang back (or down) a little bit while the smaller fish would be the more aggressive feeders, but certainly not always the case. Keep in mind it can also be tough to tell the size of fish you’re seeing on traditional sonar returns, longer or bigger arch doesn’t necessarily mean a bigger fish, there’s a lot of factors that go into the kind of return you’re getting from the transducer pings. that said, a bigger or flashier bait can sometimes temp the bigger ones into striking your lure when “matching the hatch” won’t. Im headed out to Webster tomorrow I believe, I hope I can find some of the same schooling fish and produce some results.

Little video of mine out on Lake Winnipesaukee the other weekend, been meaning to do a video walk-thru or review but haven't gotten there yet, been too busy fishing! Will have a video review posted up sometime over the coming weeks.

Drove out to Barton Cove with a buddy on Saturday. We were hoping for a nice scenic fall day full of smallmouth on the northern CT river. The sun never broke through as it was supposed to, and temps never got out of the low 50s with persistent cloud cover. Water temps were 60-62 degrees, and the bass were definitely in a bit of a funk. Air temps had gotten down to into the high 30s the night before and I think the first real cold night shocked the fish a bit. Water levels were also a bit higher than usual from what I could gather. We were on the water for 7AM and ran north towards the border quite a ways, once we got to a spot I thought I liked we proceeded to cover lots of ground with topwater and chatterbaits. Hooked up with one largemouth that slurped a whopper plopper but that was it for the first ~2 hours or so. Next spot I set up on was some bridge pilings near the Rt. 10 bridge, marked lots of bait and tried to coax what we assumed to be smallmouth with Ned rigs, dropshot, and finesse jigs. All that yielded for another hour or two was and handful of rock bass. Frustrated I ran back down towards the Cove and tried to fish some weeds for largemouth, no luck with the area I targeted for that either. After that we headed back up north a little ways and finally found some active smallies, proceeded to have a slug fest on dinks from 6-10", not quite what I had in mind. Eventually we found a few decent smallies mixed in, and finished up the day fishing weeds near the ramp where I connected on a decent largie on a frog and missed one on a jig. All in all a bit frustrating, but enjoyable day on the river. This was my first time ever fishing the CT river and it was a learning process to be sure. Next time will be better I hope.

I saw that listed on the state website as well, not sure what the deal is but am going to look into it. That would be pretty poor planning on the organizers if the ramp and parking is all closed!

Appreciate the info! Spinnerbaits along the weed edges was no doubt going to be part of my game plan regardless, but glad to hear you confirm it.

Anyone fish Cochituate recently? Thinking about entering an open tournament there in a few weeks but I hardly know anything about it.. it's never been high on my list of destinations for whatever reason but apparently there's some decent largemouth fishing there. I plan to at least check it out once before making my final decision, but any info about the lake would be great! Bottom composition, water clarity, available structure/cover and any hints from previous success are welcome. Thanks in advance. Heres a few more pics and a short video from this weekend: Day 1 weigh in: Day 2 weigh in: Running to my fishing grounds on the morning of day 2:

I purchased mine at Thayers Marine in Norwich, CT. They will certainly put an Evinrude on it for you, but it will cost more than a Mercury.

Fished my first tournament in the new boat this past weekend on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Didn't catch any lunkers but did land a whole bunch of healthy smallies. Here's a picture from each of the 3 days I fished: -Practice day, turned out to be my best bag naturally: Day 1 weigh in: Day 2 weigh in (yes I'm wearing the same outfit) : Caught them as shallow as 2' and as deep as 50', very interesting! The majority of the ~50 or so smallies I landed over 3 days were caught in 40-50' of water still. Only two of them broke 3lbs and they were both in practice (of course!)

Did you read my whole post or stop after that line? At the end I addressed small/medium = more bites, large might mean a bit less quantity but potentially better quality. Additionally, I said a hungry smallmouth won't pass up a good meal regardless of the size or time of year. I haven't fished live bait in freshwater for years, but I do apply the same general theory to artificial baits as well. Young of the year baitfish or the previous seasons hatch are both much smaller and available in vastly greater quantities in the fall than they are in the spring. Lots of young baitfish won't survive their first or second winter due to predation or lack of food. Smallmouth gorge on the large schools of small baitfish in the fall, at least up here in the northeast they do. I downsize my swimbaits, spinnerbait, jigs and topwater in the fall. In the spring, when fish are breaking out of their winter funk, is when I throw larger baits for weary and sluggish fish that are more apt to expend the energy on a bigger meal. I was under the impression that this was a pretty widely accepted practice? Ive seen 10-12" golden shiners and 18" gizzard Shad used as bait down in Florida, would you throw those for smallmouth too? Obviously not, the whole idea is to "match the hatch" and appear as natural as you can? Different strokes for different folks I suppose, but I stand by everything I said.

Speaking in vast generalities, bass are feeding on smaller baitfish in the fall and larger baitfish in the spring. Of course there's always exceptions to this as bass are opportunistic feeders. A hungry smallie won't pass up an easy protein rich meal if it's presented in the right way, regardless of the time of year. Small to medium sized minnows will get you more bites, larger minnows might reduce the quantity of your bites but might also tempt a much larger fish into biting. good luck!

Ha I know! That sentiment was in my mind on the final day, the guy who came in second is a darn good fisherman and I knew he'd be going after largemouth. I contemplated making a gamble and running all the way up to Lees Mill in search of greenies but decided against it. Figured I'd need about 15lbs of smallies to have a shot and "if it ain't broke don't fix it". Turns out 12lbs of smallies was all it took. Glad it worked out ?

Got my first tournament win in the new boat this weekend on Winnipesaukee! Caught a bunch of smallmouth during practice and the pattern I figured out on Friday carried me through Saturday and Sunday. Nothing overly impressive weight wise, but bringing in 5 healthy smallies both days helped edge out the competition that struggled to find fish at all, especially on Sunday. The key for me was fishing deep offshore structure in the middle of the lake, I had numerous humps and deep points all to myself, not another fisherman in sight for 3 days. Water temps were 65-68, the majority of my smallmouth came out of 45-50 feet of water if you can believe it. I found some shallower in practice, but the deep spots were producing with a lot more consistency. Top producers on Sat/Sunday for me were a dropshot and a football jig. Smallies were very particular on color, a 3.5" dropshot bait in smoke/purple was the ticket for me. Went through 3 packs of em and they landed me probably 40-50 smallmouth over the 3 days. I think the deep smallies I was catching were primarily feeding on smelt. All in all had a blast, Winni isn't as good as Champlain, but it's a fun lake with tons of fish in it's own right, with beautiful scenery to boot!

I use Seibert outdoors and have also recently purchased some tungsten jigs from Beast Coast Fishing, they have some real nice tungsten football jigs. Satisfied with quality and performance of both!

Tough fishing yesterday with the passing of a pretty good cold front the day before, bluebird skies, high pressure and air temps in the low to mid 70s. Managed to squeak out a small limit of largemouth on lake Nippenicket while breaking in the new boat and motor. Not a great pic or great fish but a few of the first to hit the deck on the new boat! Everything i caught came on a jig in shallow heavy cover. My buddy caught a couple on a frog as well.

I'm loving the hydraulic jack plate on mine, being able to trim down while raising the jackplate at the same time helps find the sweet spot for whatever conditions and load are. I haven't run my rig without one so it's tough to say, but I would guess it adds a MPH or two to my top end speed. The 1875 Renegade only drafts 11.5" (manufacturer stated) or closer to 10" (measured with half tank of gas and no passengers).. Still very much a new boat owner but I was running WOT on plane @~50mph in 2-3 feet of water the other day. Jackplate was raised a little more than halfway and motor was about fully trimmed. I wouldn't do that unless I knew the fishery and hazards like the back of my hand though, just so happened that was the case.

We probably went to the same dealer, thayers Marine in Norwich, CT. Lund and Evinrude dealer :).

Straight from the factory minus all of the mods I suppose. You'd be very hard pressed to find another one quite like it I think. But yes 2019 model year boat and 2018 model year engine. Lund and Evinrude is a rare combination, I added a hydraulic jackplate as well. 4 blade stainless steel prop with a 21" pitch, should roar out of the hole I think, even with the group 31 batteries powering the Ultrex ;). Will post up a comprehensive review for everyone once I break her in.