Janderson45

I've recently started working on my baitcasting reels myself, a little bit of research, time and practice goes a long way. Perhaps not for everyone but now that I've cleaned/serviced and replaced numerous parts in my Reels I can't see spending money for someone else to do it.

I hear you, I use the cal-coast fishing "donkey leash" for this purpose, works very well. I catch the fish, lip it and remove the lure, put it on the leash and back in the water while I grab my phone, measuring tape or scale. Haven't lost one yet!

@MassYak85 I plan to hit A1 on Saturday, glad you at least got some decent action. were you fishing straight braid? I don't fish a lot of big flukes but I do fish a lot of big paddletail swimbaits rigged with 6/0 thru 8/0 weighted swimbait hooks. Straight 50lb braid and a 7'8 MHXF rod are essential to my success, I swing so hard and the long rod moves so much like I actually have to back my drag off to compensate. Used to run the drag pretty much locked down as I didn't think I'd ever break 50lb braid on a hookset.. well I did. Down in Florida this spring a 6 or 7lber chomped down hard and I broke her off on my hookset, since then I run it just a tad looser. I also never use a net when kayak fishing, tried it out a few times and lost more fish doing the awkward rod/line/net dance at the side of the boat than it was worth, personally I'm confident I land more without it, but that might say more about my net skills than anything else.

thats a stud @Dunks N Dinks !!! Well deserved ?. I haven't been out in like 3 weeks now, think I'm taking my boat home this weekend or next, will be a whole new ballgame!

Whole heartedly agree with everything in this post. Versatile bait that works best around the spawn in my experience, but it will catch shallow bass all year long. More subtle and realistic than a topwater or a fluke, largest issue for me is the wind and cover heavily dictate when and where you can throw them.

Got out on Norton reservoir yesterday with 3 of my buddies, we beat up on the post small males pretty good from about 9am to 2pm, then the sun broke thru the clouds and the bite died pretty quick on us. probably 20-30 bass caught between the four of us, nothing that broke 3lbs though. Wacky rig was the number one producer, but paddletails, jigs, Texas rigged tubes and topwater all caught bass as well. The Lund factory resumed production on June 18th, so I believe my Renegade is on the assembly line as we speak. Not sure how long it takes them to build it- hoping that I will have it from the dealer in mid July, but really not sure.

For what it's worth- I don't fault or think less of the FLW guys for using it, it is currently legal and if you're not using it you're not going to win on a June tournament at Champlain.. I just can't foresee it being legal in tournaments for much longer. Bed fishing isn't going anywhere, and that's fine by me, but in my opinion the use of the flogger in these top tier professional tournaments on Champlain has gotten out of hand. The same exact scenario played out last year.

It's far tougher to see actual fish on deep beds with even the best electronics. These guys are actually hitting spot lock on the Ultrex, laying down on the deck, spotting large females, dropping a bait down wit the bail open on a spinning rod, and hand-lining the fish on dropshots. Don't believe me? Look at the recent photos FLW has published, and read the recent articles, guys aren't shy to admit they are actively fishing for spawning smallmouth while watching their every move through the flogger. AJ- im with you on most of it, im considering buying one and accept/understand that that fishing for spawning bass has gone on for a long time and always will. I just worry about a large field of professional anglers all doing it for a multiple day tournament... they're literally all doing it, every single one of them.

Post spawn to boot, that's a heck of a catch

Been following the FLW on Champlain, seems like the entire field is fishing deep beds for 4+ lb smallmouth using a flogger. Also known as a bathyscope. For those of you who don't know what it is, essentially a large tapering plastic cone with a slot of glass at the wide end, it is inserted into the water for greatly improved viewing of underwater habitat. Using it allows an angler to spot deep spawning smallmouth from 8 to 20 feet depending on water clarity and weather conditions- they can not only spot the bed, but the actual fish on the bed and even determine it's relative size and whether or not it's worth spending time on during a tournament. Being well aware of how pulling a large female spawning smallmouth off of a bed, sticking her in your livewell for the day and eventually releasing her in an entirely different portion of the lake... it's a sure fire bet that if she had eggs she aborted them and won't spawn again until next year.. and if she was guarding fry they're as good as toast. How does everyone feel about this? As a tournament angler myself I understand but I'm pretty torn and feel these "floggers" should be banned by the FLW.

Interesting discussion, I'm playing around with the idea of using a Vexilar for on plane depth readings and real time depth changes... also saw earlier this year how a pro I fished with down on Okeechobee used a flasher to locate bottom and bait in heavy vegetation... if I don't end up using a flasher I'll definitely look into the alumaducer for thru-hull 2d sonar while the boat is one plane..

Check out the "eastern ma fishing reports" thread under the northeast region sub forum here on Bassresource- myself and many others have contributed some very useful and detailed reports over the past few years. I would definitely recommend renting a boat to get away from the shore and fish some deeper water. This time of year I generally look to find and catch smallmouth in 25-35 feet of water at the Quabbin, but a number of variables can definitely make an impact on where they are holding or feeding. Later in the summer I catch them as deep as 50 feet, but that's not the norm for me. There's a lot of water out there and it helpful to have a depth range as a starting point when studying maps to eliminate water that is typically unproductive this time of year... there's always exceptions of course. Shoot me a PM if you want with more specific questions and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction. I've fished there quite a bit over the past few years, not as often as some guys on here that live closer but certainly enough to know what I'm doing. Here's a link to the thread I was talking about, I think I scrolled back far enough for the posts to be from this time last year, but search through the pages and you'll find plenty of Quabbin reports..

Quick question for you guys that own an 1875- what is the measurement (length) from console to the front of the TM tray? Trying to figure out if I can get away with 10' Ethernet cables or if I need the 20' cable to link console and bow Humminbirds? I have 2 helix units to mount on the boat and am likely going to buy a third and link them all in with the Ultrex... haven't quite figured out my placement preferences yet other than the helix 10 Mega SI that's definitely going to be mounted at the console (on a precision sonar mount). Additionally I have a helix 7SI G2N, and am likely adding a third graph that's either 7" or 9"... what would you guys recommend? If I stick the helix 7 SI at the bow would you supplement it with another 7" graph, or at I better off having two graphs at the console and one larger 9" graph at the bow? How important is SI at the bow? Since I've got the Ultrex w/ link I plan on taking full advantage of the auto pilot and follow the contour features, I'm thinking SI at the bow would be quite useful since the Ultrex would only be making small incremental adjustments? But maybe I'm not looking at it right.. Original plan was for a 10" and 7" graph at the console for constant SI, CHIRP and maps, and then a 9" unit for sonar/maps and DI at the bow... I still can't decide if this is what I really want or not though! What I really would like is the helix 10 Mega SI at the console and the bow but that's out of the question at the moment as I've already blown my budget for this boat out of the water (no pun intended)

Finding good spots next to or near the city can be a little tough sometimes, typically I like to head towards more central mass or southeastern mass. Closest spots to Melrose that I've fished and could recommend are Spy pond in Arlington, the Charles River (from watertown and points west) the concord/Sudbury river (might be a decent bet in a kayak or with waders) and the Sudbury reservoir (make sure it's the right reservoir lots of them are illegal to fish). Attitash is a respectable fishery that I've been to a couple of times (it's all the way up in amesbury) other than that I've never fished any of the north shore lakes or ponds, I'm sure there are some good ones though. I live on the south shore and work in Watertown+Boston so I've been trying to figure out some nice quick and easy spots along the way to fish before or after work.

What's a salmouth? At the end you asked "do you think they will live?" Which implies that you already did it... If this were hypothetically true, as AJ points out- this would be hypothetically illegal and punishable by a large fine and/or revocation of fishing privileges. Hypothetically speaking of course.

5300 RPMs does seem low to me.. if set up properly I would expect to see closer to 5800rpms at WOT- but I'll let other guys with a lot more knowledge and experience about outboard performance chime in... I put an E-Tec on mine and will be interested to see how it compares to all you guys with the Merc XS.

Now learn to walk a spook and a hollow body frog and you'll really be hooked on topwater! Whopper ploppers are great fun too..

Id want a 5/0 super line EWG and about 50lb test braid for what he's talking about doing. Very large worm and very thick cover (weeds and stumps) looking for big bites only . I actually use pretty much all straight shank hooks with my worms, but if I was fishing a real big worm I'd go for EWG.

I've pulled two over 5 there a few years back but nothing even close to that the past two years.. seems like it's loaded with 2-3lbers though. I'm sure there's some Bigguns kicking around still but I haven't figured out any real effective way to find or catch them yet, I missed a 5+ on a jig last there last summer and proceeded to snap my rod in frustration.. lol. The amount of cover limits what you can throw for much of the year (as you know) which might have the older wiser and larger bass a bit conditioned to the typical Texas rig/jig/frog combinations. I'm always experimenting with different soft plastics and rate of fall to try and find a sweet spot. No clue as to the rules on night fishing, but I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't allowed. I've stayed thru sundown and into the early evening a few times but never put in a true night mission there... I bet it would be fun and maybe get you a nice big topwater fish or two... but the beavers scare me if I can't see them.. haha!

You're pretty much spot on, there's some lily pads, hydrilla and milfoil growing well in lots of areas but nothing is even close to regular summer levels yet. My buddy that I was fishing with was abusing pickerel all day with a topwater spook out in the middle.. that's a pretty decent indicator as last summer/fall there was hardly any real estate that you could even work a topwater bait with treble hooks. There were more people fishing A1 last Sunday than I've ever seen before... I had to drop my kayak off and park way down the street. There were about 5 or 6 aluminum bass boats, a couple of smaller pelican bass raider type rigs, and a whole bunch of kayaks (though some of the kayakers were just out for a paddle) - think the bass boats were having a little tournament as they all got off the water about the same time. Pretty funny to watch them all circle each other in the middle- none of them had the guts (don't blame em) to really get up in the stumps. I always manage to catch a few there but it's been a long time since I've had what I would consider a good day- haven't caught anything bigger than the 3lb range in quite some time either, I'm starting to wonder if something happened and this place isn't as good of a fishery as it once was.. oh and the Tiger Muskie they supposedly stocked a few years back?? Never seen or caught one... and I'm there a decent amount every year. I'm willing to bet the mortality rate for small Muskie there is incredibly high.. they stocked 500 fingerlings back in 2015- I wonder how many are left now and how many have actually been caught?

That's a good looking craw, didn't think they'd still have the orange color this time of year, wonder if they still need to molt on the cape? I had similar results with a bit of a post spawn lull in central mass. Ended up coaxing 5 largemouth into biting but it was definitely S L O W. I found some big girls up tight in shallow cover, I think that a lack of deep water and suitable deep water cover at this particular fishery makes the females take up residence shallow after the spawn. If they were indeed females that I found up in shallow cover they were very spooky. Missed what felt like a very nice one of a flippin bite, and then proceeded to spook every other fish that my flippin bait landed near. You'd just see a swirl on the surface and they'd be gone - circumstances where I'd typically expect to get bit on the initial flip and fall. I backed out and started working a finesse worm through the weeds, frog on top of the mats, and bluegill colored pitchn jig in the flooded brush and timber. Got 3 on the worm (missed two or three as well, very hesitant to eat it) and 2 on the jig... nothing on the frog. One of the jig fish I got at the end of the day was in an incredibly snaggy and gnarly area, a place that a year or two ago I would have never even imagine flipping a jig into. Well new year and new me, I flipped my jig deep into the brush with 20lb fluoro and a heavy power jig rod and stuck him real good. Had to pull him out over branches to land him, it's pretty amazing how branches seem to just part ways for the fish when you're yanking em outta there... because of the location and style of bite I thought for sure I had Hooked into a stud... and it should have been a stud if you saw this spot. I was pretty disappointed after only a few seconds when I realized it was just a dinky little male... choked the jig good though! Couple of the finesse worm little guys

Hitting A1 in the yak tomorrow, looking for my first post spawn piggy largemouths... will let ya know how we make out ??

I'm a chevy guy, 2011 Silverado 1500 Z71 - soon to be pulling a brand new 2019 Lund Renegade! I too have been looking at new trucks, and the pricing on the Fords is very attractive. I'd consider doing it but I'd get hell from the family (that owns a GMC/Chevy dealership) that and my Z71 rides like a Cadillac ;). Congrats on the new truck.. while I understand the appeal of the Tundra and they are a nice truck (esp the new ones) I still feel the best trucks are made in the good ole USA (although so is Toyota so who am I kidding? ?)

The Q definitely didn't seem quite right to me this spring either. Quality and quantity of prespawners was down, and sheer number of fish that I saw up shallow over the past few weeks seemed down as well. My feeling was it probably had more to do with me personally than the Quabbin itself though. Water level being so high this spring had me all sorts of confused early on. I plan to take a break from the big reservoir for a while, I'll return once they're locked in (hopefully) on my usual summer patterns for a few trips, then maybe once more in the early fall.

I fish out of a wilderness systems ride 115x. I believe my model has been discontinued or replaced, but not positive. The removable console was nice at first, having everything centrally located in front of you is nice, and the console works perfect with smaller lowrance fish finders and an HDSI skimmer transducer. I upgraded my sonar to a Humminbird helix 7 SI, which is a nice upgrade over the lowrance, but requires a whole lot of modification to the removable console. Luckily it's a $30 plastic piece, so I didn't feel too bad about drilling, cutting, and generally destroying a couple of them until I found a workable solution. Nothing much bad to say about it really, it's pretty heavy and fairly slow, but that's par for the course with these stable fishing kayaks. Standing and fishing is not a problem at all, I actually refuse to fish sitting down in my kayak which is why I never went with a hobie or similar mirage drive type boat. I use it like a paddle board all of the time when fishing and scouting new water, only fell in once and that was my own fault, not the kayak. You'll fall off of it before the kayak will ever capsize in my experience. An anchor trolley, and quality stake out stick are essential to me. I use my kayak in a lot of very shallow water, the stake out stick works perfect to lock me down on a spot assuming it's not too deep (over 6') or really hard bottomed. The trolley allows your to position the bow of the boat in any position that you want. For spots that the stake out stick won't work I have a kayak anchor wizard mounted on my slide tracks up front that is also effective... if I didn't decide to buy a full sized bass rig and was planning to fish out of my kayak for the foreseeable future I would have put a mini powerpole on it.