Turkey sandwich

It's a notoriously tricky reservoir to fish, but I have heard plenty of stories of size and numbers. Draw down/water level can effect fishing there significantly and without a depth finder, it can be tough. I wish I could remember where I found my maps of that lake, having some sort of chart will be very, very helpful.

I've "caught" a pretty sizeable collection of Crankbaits and jerkbaits over the years ranging from inexpensive jointed jerkbaits to husky jerks, Long-As, Shad raps, fat raps, and several that I never bothered to identify. Also, fishing a lot of rivers, I've managed to recover countless pieces of soft plastic and terminal tackle rigged every which way imaginable. I feel like every other trip or so I'll snag into a line or branch attached to something. I guess it's the River God repaying me for my own lost tackle and the garbage I regularly clean up on floats.

Great first fish with a new bait! What is that thing?

I like not having one, though I kinda understand why people would like them when fishing big, round casting or trolling reels. When fishing saltwater and truly big game, I've enjoyed them from a leverage standpoint. Landing shark, grouper, tuna, etc without that leverage would be d**n near impossible. Still, for every bass technique that I use and most that I can fathom, having no foregrip and direct access to the blank is a large advantage. I can only understand wanting one if you prefer big reels like a Calcutta (and even then, I see it as negligible), but I see no other advantage. The post about casting, to me, was silly because casts should involve one hand engaging the reel. The other hand, if on the rod at all, should be towards the butt to leverage longer casts. I think, ultimately, watching B.A.S.S. and FLW and seeing a strong preference for exposed blanks further justifies this. If pros we're seeing a substantial benefit from having a sizable foregrip, more rods (at least the mid to higher end rods that we mostly fish) would have those same features.

Congrats!

For bottom contact baits, it really is hard to beat an extra fast action. I've never owned a Shimano Crucial, but I have liked the ones I've handled. It just seems like there are so many very good rods on the market now that it's hard to go wrong and individual preferences are all it comes down to.

Yeah, as a guy who's taught self defense as well as some combative tactics for police and military for the better part of the last 10 years, I'm going to very strongly urge none of you to actually start shooting at people.

You haven't experienced night fishing until you've experienced weird noises, crazy bugs, and eyes out in the distance. Watching someone freak out when a Dobson fly gets tangled in their hair is almost indescribable hilarity, especially if you convince them they're flesh eating. Still one of my best and most terrifying days on the water came on a farm pond leading up to one of the most violent thunderstorms I've ever experienced breaking. Trees fell as we ran. It was bad. Really bad. I caught a limit between 4 and 6.5lbs (I'm in PA, give me some slack, a 25lb bag in northern PA borders on divine revelation...) and all hell broke loose. Lightening struck 3-4 times within 30 yards as we were running like hell through the woods with rods in hand. I saw two trees basically explode and lightening struck, at one point, just 20-30 feet off the swamp/trail we'd previously crossed. At that time, never had I ever been so terrified. Turns out, tornados touched down in the township while we were getting off the water. We lucked out. No one forecasted epic lightening and tornados.

Glad you had a good time. The north branch is a great fishery, and I'm always glad to put someone on fish. Once you get a hang of fishing for smallies in rivers, it's hard to go back to fishing largemouth in lakes.

Oh dear, Superman's mouth was never meant for that.

The completely ridiculous part... How many have you caught in the past 3 weeks?

I'm still pretty green as a trout angler :). One of my best friends lives out there and we've been talking about doing a trip on the Green for the last few years. I wouldn't turn down a trip up north, either. I'm all about trips on the upper Delaware, Ausable, etc.

I don't play the "run and gun" strategy often, but when I do, I'll typically have a spinnerbait on one rod and a crankbait on another. Swim jigs/bladed jigs are growing on me as well, but conditions dictate technique for me most of the time. This strategy is all about getting a reaction bite and then switching to a more finesse option once that bite stops. I fish out of a kayak or a trolling motor powered 14' aluminum Semi-V, so to me, knowing the body of water and where the fish are likely to be is 100x more efficient than qualifying for an Olympic crew team. Now, if I had the boat to do it, my philosophy might change, lol, but I do get a certain enjoyment from listening to guys in jet boats tell me how hard it is finding fish and then showing them pictures at the boat launch.

Dude, unless you're a midget, that's a great fish. I have no idea what exactly you've stumbled upon, but I've never seen anyone catch river musky like this.

Congrats! That brown is a monster! Streamer? I'm hoping to make a trip to Utah this fall in search of one just like her.

@Gundog so, I was in the NEPA this past weekend and I almost ticked myself when the "You're not fat, your bloated!" Radio ad came on. And then it played like 5 more times. The friend I brought with me from down this way couldn't believe it was an actual commercial. Incredible. Also a thread titled "weird stuff on the Internet" is a terrifying Pandora's box.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Really, though, it's almost impossible to give an accurate guess via picture, especially with no frame of reference. A measuring tape and scale go a long way. Hell, my net even has a tape built into it.

Had this rule been effect, every new guy would get a free scale with forum membership. What size are these sneakers?

Fat smallmouth like super flukes

Check the Fenwick site for the Aetos. They're great $180 rods selling for $95. I really wish I had the cash to buy a bunch of them. Great tip, lots of backbone, and well made.

Sharp!

Cheers! I'm a year out from a lumbar fusion and know that frustration well. Somehow fish like that seem to make the pain go away.

For weeds, lipped cranks can be tough, and lipless cranked fished like @GORDO mentioned are a great choice. Also, guys have mentioned lots of color patterns that are super popular and really effective in different lakes. However, none of that matters if your lake has different colored water, different forage, etc. If clown colored DTs are crushing it in my murky lake, but your lake is gin clear, it probably isn't the best choice for you. A good general start is matching forage (what color are the crayfish? Are there Shad? Alewives? Herring? Perch?). After that, some colors that match black with chartreuse or neon colors are great for darker colored water/low light, and colors like white and holographic finishes are great in super clear water and days with more sun. Got shad/herring/alewives? Colors like blue shad, chartreuse shad, sexy Shad are killer. Perch? Perch and fire tiger colors are a must have. Crayfish? Match the local colors and keep brown, orange, red, and green on hand. Heavily stained water? Fish a spinnerbait instead.

1. Super weird, and congrats. 2. What is that spinning rod? I don't normally dig foam, but those are some cool looking grips.

I assume that when it's hot like this, the squatch migrates north. As guy who rocks a year round beard, I want nothing to do with southern heat. If you see a sasquatch in a car, break the window. #sasquatchlivesmatter