Master Bait'r

This is pretty much my mantra. I have one REALLY NICE spinning setup and one "ok for now" baitcast setup. The spinner sees all my plastics and finesse/smaller tackle and my baitcaster sees all the frogs, cranks, big swimbaits etc. I prefer the feel or spinning but recognize the need for a setup with significantly more beef for bigger baits and deep actions.

I have used a sling pack for hiking for years and I love it. You can access it without taking it off and you can hold a d**n good amount of gear too. Just decide what your go-to baits will be for the day and roll with the punches.

I used to use fireline or spiderwire and suffix but recently tried nanofil and will never go back. SO MUCH NICER! It's smoother, casts much farther, spools better and is thinner. I am in love. I just double palomar it every time and it's never made me regret using it, ever. I also have a 13 *** Black which has recoil guides- which were super loud with fireline (fused braid) but nice and quiet with nanofil too. I just wish they made a smoke color. Oh well... A man can hope, can't he?

I would have to agree that a kayak would probably be the best option outside of a full sized boat. Love mine and it's absolutely my go-to. However I also do enjoy taking out my little 8' rowboat when I'm bringing someone and a cooler. Beats treading water If he's got the boat or has access to it and that's why he's asking, I'd give 'er a go for sure. If it's money about to be spent I'd go kayak without hesitation.

I honestly like sitting. Sure, you can see better when you're standing but also the fish can see you too- Probably better. I try to not even raise my arms up above my shoulders if I can avoid it. I've definitely spooked fish nearby from moving around before and I hate myself every time I let it happen haha

It's a better idea than fishing from the shore IMO.

If you can have a triple digit BMI and still be a Pro... It's not a sport it's an activity

Bah, I don't think the boat should dictate what length rod you're using, MAYBE the other way around since some techniques in a sit-in may be more of an issue than a sit on top, etc.. The Ride 135 is sick and should be plenty stable to stand on though, so just be careful and you'll be fine IMO. I even fish from a sit-in and have no issues whatsoever. I wouldn't worry at all if I were you.

Listen, maybe he doesn't know what should be on such a list. Maybe he isn't up on the best brands of rod or reel but he tried fishing and loved it. Maybe he's here to learn, to ask questions and to become the fisherman he wants to be rather than just think he knows and go with that. I think it would be nice if you would stop badgering the guy. If you've got an opinion or potential answer to the question that's great, but just repeatedly raising issue with the premise of the question is not productive or even nice, really. Let's just hug it out and feed the gear monkey together, shall we?

SO MUCH THIS.

With the given constraints and no details I'd probably lean towards one spinning reel setup and a bunch of gear assuming that we're talking about someone with no gear whatsoever who wants a good way to get into it. If they enjoy themselves and want to go further, then they can save up again to invest in a baitcasting setup in a similar manner. Probably a 7' Medium *** and a Pfleuger Supreme MGX for a really nice sensitive and durable spin setup @ ~$200 total Then you have another $200 to buy some line, a tackle box, some basic gear and tackle and that can get eaten up super fast. ~$200 should be able to get you a little bit of everything though. A couple bags of soft stickbaits/worms too and some mag worm hooks for T rigs, a few swimbaits, a couple hard jerkbaits, a spybait or two, some squarebill crankbaits, a few different spinnerbaits, inline spinners and a nice floating frog popper. Maybe a nice chatterbait too. Def a cheap pair of heavy needle nose pliers or hemocuts too. Yeah I bet that would blow $400 right quick but you'd be off to a d**n good start.

$220 on rod/reel and then the rest on line and tackle? I dunno, sounds good to me.

Got to be jerk baits. For some reason nothing can touch the amount of fish I catch on soft plastics such as the slug-gos, senkos and even drop shot plastics like the fish belly hawgs trigger and danced through cover.

Very much so. OP you probably didn't do anything wrong but fishing is a lot luck and a little "everything else". If someone was throwing spinnerbaits at the same time and doing better, maybe take a little time to watch them and see what they may be doing different. Speed, depth, proximity to cover, differences in color/size/action of the bait, small twitches or variations in action, etc. can all have a big impact on the overall effectiveness. Don't get down on them man, it won't work every time even in the hands of a master.

Out of those I'd probably go ***. I didn't like the Mojo at all (It had the sensitivity of a stick of butter) and have no experience with the others. I have an *** and it is ridiculously sensitive, as they only offer extra fast tips anyways. Mine is like a laser beam when making hooksets and I feel things I never felt before, and I can't imagine the *** would be all that far off in terms of sensitivity.

I usually use the fused spiderwire, ALWAYS in a smoke color. For thicker line it really does a great job disappearing in the water, especially if it's stained or murky. Just make sure you pay attention to the line and watch for frays. I end up going through a lot of line because I'm really anal about that, but hey as long as it works well I don't care. Great line, super strong and only pickerel, musky or pike will break it with their teeth. Everything else is pretty much as good as in the boat. Also I always use a double palomar and have never had a lost knot with that line.

Agreed. Totally squatchy.

Replacing a brand new and very squeaky Quantum Smoke reel (never again) and am pretty much torn between Lews and Shimano. Both have great repore and I've heard lots of people say that the Lew's reels are some of the best bang for the buck out there. What are your opinions on this? This is going on a lighter setup primarily used for weightless plastics and finesse baits fwiw. My top choices are the Ci4 and the Lew's team gold, but would also appreciate any educated opinions on the Tournament HS as well. This will likely be spooled with light braid. Thanks for reading and any input is much appreciated!

So much this. Hands down my favorite fishing yak for so many reasons. Just such a well thought out boat. Gotta love that center housing for the fishfinder and the pass-thru transducer well that protects the mechanism as well. I originally got a sit-in kayak but I'm pretty much convinced I will be making the switch to a Ride 115x next summer.

I've had great success with Slug-gos. The 4" seems to always slay and you can maintain that profile and action with the Slug-go SS whiptails if you want something bigger without changing the action with the different profile 4.5"+ ers. I like that I can dial in the sink with different hooks, and I can slow down the action to almost nothing if I'm working a cover area or piece of structure. You can dance that thing there for a half hour f you want and I think that becomes more important as the water cools. It seems to always work and I am never without Slug-gos in my kit!

I'll tell you what- I just got a chance to try out a brand new Smoke reel and I am pretty disappointed. It squeaked pretty loud on almost every turn of the handle! It was like I was using the world's smallest turkey call. Getting on the horn with TW this morning and trying to swap it out for a Lew's Tourney HS- at half the price I still feel like it'll be twice the reel. It seemed totally smooth and powerful, but that d**n squeak drove me insane. Yes I know I could take it apart or just spray some lube into it but I honestly don't think that for $160 I should have to right out of the box. I feel this is a bad QC *** and I want it gone. Just a heads up, I don't feel like Quantum gives you as much as other brands in the price point anymore. Sure it looks great but I've never had a reel do that ever, especially at that price.

These were my other thoughts, but most of the land mammals I could think of would have totally ruined it- big teeth and such, y'know? I feel like even a dog would have shredded this thing and the shape of the bite would be very different. If this is a bite it would have been something with big fat hard lips, no big teeth and strong jaws that gave it a 1-2 punch and spit it out. This is why I asked here- figured some of you may have seen this before. Also no this is Massachusetts so no gators, no otters and this was definitely too big/wide of a bite pattern to be a raccoon or coyote. Still not completely ruling out a prop but... Well... that's no fun to talk about on a fishing forum either haha

See, I considered that when I was there but looking at it the curvature of the top bite looked like it would have been nearly impossible for a prop to do. Also the depth would be the most in the middle of the break, which was not the case- it looked to be a break comprising of even pressure across the face of the fracture. Also props tend to chop and slice a lot and make a big mess, this looked more like a crushing force to be honest. I suppose it could be, but from the mechanism of the injury I would lean towards something other than a prop.

Last night I was out on the kayak exploring some new bodies of water near where I work and hit the jackpot. Huge expanses of weed beds, deep winding river-fed channels and one end of the lake was in the path of a tornado a few years ago so there are trees everywhere in the water both in the middle and along the shore. Fish were very active and I caught a few 2-3lbers and a few pickerels but nothing too crazy size-wise. While I was navigating one such weed bed along the point of a small island though, I heard a large splash and caught a glimpse of what looked like a fish taking a whack at a duck in a very shallow back corner. As I crept over to that area to work some bait through it just in case that's what really had happened, I saw a turtle shell poking out of the water in the pads. Turtles are extremely common around here but this one wasn't moving so after I couldn't get a bite in that area I went to investigate. This is what I saw. The turtle was about the size of my whole hand, and if you can't tell there are two very distinct bite marks that have crushed completely through its shell. One at about the shoulders of the turtle and another around the hips. Looking at the shape of the mouth marks I'm thinking possibly largemouth or catfish since another turtle would have scissored this thing in half but do LMB have the jaw strength to do that or is it more likely that it's a catfish, etc? This is Western massachhusetts btw. I honestly do not know what's most likely and it's been on my mind since I saw it. If that was a fish, that's an absolute monster no matter the species. Between the possibility of a duck strike and also a turtle in a very close proximity I'd like to see what you guys think did this. Thanks for reading!

I think it's hilarious that the Pacu is always talked about as the "******** eating fish" In reality they are almost always after fruits and nuts (heh). People in South America get attacked because they bathe in the water naked. If you want to keep your boys safe, just don't skinny dip. Chances are nobody wants to see you sans vetements anyways haha Maybe we can get some pacu vs. snakehead action now though, who knows haha? I think the media just like to try to scare people because then they'll repost their video . Pacus are not going to take over and I'd hardly call them "exotic" although I did have a 2' pacu as a pet once that was pretty cool. Completely hand fed fresh fruits, it was more like a dog than a fish. IMO one that someone has raised to a huge size might survive but there are far more aggressive fish just about everywhere that would destroy a juvy pacu. They're no piranha, that's for sure.