Kevin22

You want a skirted 1/8 jig head for affixing a yellow twister tail? Strike king bitsy jig is about your only answer.

Topwater. Walkers, buzzbaits.. just cover water. Slow down with a popper if you need to. A wakebait or a weightless fluke would be my only other options. Water that shallow I would not finesse fish, I'd just make long casts and keep covering water.

look at the picture on the right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_gizzard_shad http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/fishfacts/americangizzardshad.asp http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=492

Looks like a floater, aka free lure. I find floaters quite a bit around here. Some dawn dish soap and a scrubby pad usually cleans them up pretty well.. remove the hooks and replace them. If it doesn't clean up well then hit it with a couple coats of krylon plastic spray paint in white, clear coat it and toss on or draw on some eyes. I've caught quite a few fish on redneck custom painted white cranks.

Check out cabelas, a month or so back they had almost all of their fly kits on sale. Great rods, I have one in 3wt and it is fantastic. I wanted to get an 8wt for bass but I decided that was a hobby that i just could not take on this year.

I cannot handle Mississippi river catfish. Just too greasy and oily, plus the taste of shad... yuck! Farm raised catfish, and catfish out of the inland lakes are great as long as there is no shad forage. 2013 I cleaned a couple Miss river catfish I caught in the early spring for a friend, he said in the cold water that they would be good. Okay... I carefully cut them, avoiding the gut cavity as I knew what was in there.. Got all the fillets off and put them in a bowl of water. He said "man those look great". I said, yes they do... but now wait 5 minutes. We went inside and when we came back out the bowl was covered in oil. He couldn't believe it. So, I cut open the gut cavity and showed him what was inside. A stomach and intestines packed with rotting winter kill shad (a month or two old rotted dead fish). The smell was just unbearable, and the back yard stunk for a week. He did not eat those fish.

Yeah looks like an old frenzy deep diver. Discontinued when they came out with the flicker shad. If not, then its a no-name knockoff of one.

Depends. In my case I was friends with the owner so there was no contractual agreement.

He'll regurgitate it eventually. If he tries to pass it and it gets stuck then he won't survive.. but more times than not they will spit it back up.

Unless he is a big tourney guy, he likely is only getting 10% off. So he's still selling them for less than he paid most likely. I was on a pro staff (promotional staff) for a small company that sold a lot of soft plastics as well as dobyns rods. So I got 15% off everything I bought there. The guy told me I could only get 10% off dobyns though since their pro staff members only get 10% off and he could not exceed that. I ended up overstocking myself with a bunch of their baits and went to sell some extras on a forum (not this one). My sig said I was on their pro staff and everyone went crazy telling me I was immoral and all sorts of things for trying to make a profit from the pro staff. What they didn't understand was that being sponsored by them didn't mean i got a bunch of free stuff, it just meant I got a small discount for working my butt off promoting their company.

Only thing that is going to do what you want is UV protective clothing. Pants, long sleeve shirt, neck/face wrap, and gloves.

2# yo-zuri hybrid ultra soft for panfish. 10# nanofil for drop shot. I use 2500s for shakey heads and other spinning finesse type presentations that involve casting.

A handpour craw a friend makes on a 4/0 EWG. Its a flat out killer, similar but not quite like a rage craw. Has the flapping craw action, so a rage would be a good alternative. For hook, Owner, Gamakatsu, VMC, Mustad. In that order.

Well heck.. then pay attention to what is around you and don't hit the trees. I don't mean to be an arse, but how many trees does it take to learn to watch where you are casting? Everyone hits trees, but I'd say most don't go through spools of line because of it. Live and learn, don't live and repeat. The only time I have done what you appear to be doing, is when I made the very first cast in the new boat. I did a sidearm roll cast and hit the top of the trolling motor which stopped the bait in its tracks and spun the spool to heck. Since then, I have never hit it again.

1/2 ounce lures, don't cast.. lob. Once you get the lob down without backlashing, then move on to casting. Biggest mistake I see is people trying to throw too hard. Properly set reel, with proper technique will require little to no thumbing, but a newbie should be thumbing the spool the entire cast. If you feel it start to backlash, push that thumb down and stop the spool! Also keep your casts low. Learn the sidearm cast (lob for now) and then move on to long overhead casts. By lob, I mean just slowly cast forward letting the weight of the bait propel itself out. Once you can do that over and over without a backlash, try putting some more speed to it.

1000 series will do you just fine!!!

There are videos online of people hitting them with sledge hammers.

My merc manual says 5700-6000. I top out at 5800 WOT trimmed out. I'll check in the morning but I don't remember what pitch the prop is. I just know we used the selector and it gave us 3 options. The middle of the 3 ran the best with 3 people so that is what we chose. I do remember it could be upped one pitch and with one person gain close to 5mph but with 3 people it sucked, and I almost never fish alone so it made sense to choose the middle one. I suggest the OP do the same. I was lucky enough to have a local dealer with a stock of used merc props. He let us try the different options as long as we committed to buying a new prop through him. Which we did, and it was well worth it.

You do not want to see a rooster tail. If your boat gets on plane well and you have good top end speed then there is no reason to change anything. Maybe have a buddy watch you from the ramp and do a lap around and back in front of him while at WOT. He'll be able to see how your boat is running better than you will. Then adjust and try again.

It will turn a 20 pitch prop, but he'll be one of those guys you see at the boat ramp that take off at full throttle going about 6mph and then turn around 50' out and full throttle back to the ramp cussing all the way. I asked a buddy who has a 22' tritoon with a 150 4 stroke. He said he is getting 37mph at 5700rpm with a 15p. So, I would try something in the 14-15P like the prop selector said... I just did a quick google search and it appears 13-15P is what you want for a 22-23' pontoon. So, coupled with what my buddy said and what the prop selector said and I would try the 15P first and then drop down to 14P if need be.

Did it have a long tentacle hanging off the dorsal fin? If so, gizzard shad. But yeah, the body shape/color and eye appears to be a gizzard shad. Now, get some cranks and match that color!

Just to be sure, this is GPS speed and not speedometer speed right? My ranger says 28MPH on the speedometer when I'm running 42 GPS

No, not max distance.. but sometimes I fish 15 feet deep with a slip bobber for bluegills. If you are one of the guys that just goes down the shore fishing 2' deep then the rubber or plastic will work fine. Otherwise, get the strings!

Please do not do that.. not only is it illegal in almost every state (probably IS every state), but it will introduce any diseases or non native aquatic life that might be in that pond to the neighboring ecosystem. That could be the cause of the issue, so why ruin the whole area???

I would call your DNR/DEC and ask the hired fisheries biologist what his advice would be. It could be a forage problem, over population, poor water quality, or a dozen other reasons. Taking a ton of fish out might not help the problem. They are there to help the public, so give them a call and ask for help.