Turkey sandwich

Now that sounds like a party. I've had a few colorful fights, but not many that resulted in a swim, lol. Years ago, I hooked a musky somewhere in the 36-40" range.... With several treble hooks... In the tail... Without a net or cradle. I thought I had an absolute monster until it came up near the boat after a very weird, violent 10 minutes hoping my 8lb XL would hold up. I got the fish boat side and there was anger, teeth, and treble hooks everywhere. I still don't know how we released the fish without immediately leaving for the emergency room. Another fowl hooking adventure was back in high school. I was wading the river and thought I hooked into a new state record smallmouth. The fish fought down and heavy like bigger smallmouth tend to. It got in the current and took me down stream. It got sideways in the current and ran me into rocks. I was sure this was a 7lb smallmouth pulling me chest deep down stream. As it got close, I was getting ready to celebrate what had to be a monster - and it absolutely was. I fowl hooked a nearly 25" quill back sucker straight across the back and fought it in on 6lb test. We laughed. A lot. I also have some weird stories involving snapping turtles, treble hooks, knives, and swinging a tree branch like a baseball bat and of course the time a squirrel picked up a bread ball wrapping a size 6 treble hook while carp fishing, but I think I posted those.

I'm really shocked and confused by the guys talking about catfish or carp as weak. Hooking into a solid channel cat on something other than a telephone pole and winch gives a pretty hefty fight. And clearly anyone saying carp must be confused. River carp rarely take anything other than flies, live bait, or catfish-esque bread balls and are super flighty. Hooking one on a fly rod or light tackle can be a sprint down river. I've been nearly spooled by carp in current using light tackle. In my experience, walleye tend to be pretty lethargic fighters. Largemouth can be a mixed bag. Perch tend to be pretty light fighters and pickerel tend to be pretty light fighters once you get them pointed at you.

Normally, I believe that if it's not broke, there's no reason to fix it, however, I only consider fishing straight braid in heavy grass and that's not always a gauruntee. With drop shots and finesse baits in general, I'm trying to become more patient and better at dead sticking, so this is a technique I'm working to get much better at myself. To me, fishing finesse means lower visibility and softer, more flexible line to allow a more natural action. I use about 4' of 7lb FC Sniper leader above the hook 80-90% of the time (unless I'm planning on fishing near nasty cover, in which case I may use 8lb Hybrid instead). The way I see it, I'm very confident in my double uni and the lower visibility of the floro/copolymer can't possibly hurt.

Thank you. It's not perfect, and there are situations where straight FC makes more sense, but braid has been really good to me on rivers.

I'm a very big braid advocate, but rivers especially shaped my opinion. It just has too many benefits to ignore and use it as main line on both, spinning and casting gear, but I think there is a learning curve, too. First, I like the responsiveness and lack of stretch. Especially while fishing current seems where current changes direction, speed, or intensity, I like knowing that the fish won't likely out run my hook set or allow the current to botch the tension so long as you pay attention to my second point. Two, braid floats. This is a curse and a blessing. The blessing is that it allows you to watch line as you would with a fly rod. The curse is that wind, changes in current, etc can all cause bowing in the line, creating slack and effecting your drift. I'm more recent to fishing with the fly, but it's helped my fishing with braid also in the sense that I've learned to better place casts (when possible) and also the importance of learning to mend line (for this, I actually favor longer rods on the river than most kayak guys). Three, it allows you to alter your leader pretty easily to match conditions. Fishing grass lines in moderate current? It's easy to tie on 4-6' of InvisX. Fishing nasty boulders and snaggy snags? You can easily prep a leader of 12lb Hybrid which is d**n near indestructible in rocks and wood. Do you want some stretch for treble hooked lures? Pick up a spool of Cortland mono that normally fishes like a bungee cord. It's a nightmare for long hook sets as a main line, but as a 5-6' leader it adds a little functional stretch. Four - it saves me a fortune. If I can get a solid 2 seasons out of a spool of braid and only use 4-6' lengths of leader line, spools of mono, floro, copolymer, etc last d**n near forever so long as they stay dry, cool, and relatively dark. Five - With a good connection knot, I have very few knot problems, even with microguides on most of my rods and I just use simple double uni knots. For river fishing, in 90% of applications, I'll take braid over anything else.

Super low fast water will attract a lot of fish. You're going to catch a mix, but mostly smaller fish. Deep water access or fast current in 3-5' of water (if you can find it) will hold larger fish so long as there are boulders and current breaks. Also, pay attention to tail outs before the riffles, especially if you can find them with a submerged ledge that forces the water "up" into the riffles. Also, pay attention to the forecast. Any decent rain up stream or rising water will bring fish closer to shore or sitting along seams where muddy water meets clear water (creek mouth pattern, for example) This time of year, especially, pay attention to crayfish. If you're seeing lots of them, a tube is a great first choice. If you're not, a 3-5" grub on 1/8 oz jig is probably your most high percentage option. Good luck!

Are these fish bottom oriented or suspending that you're finding? I'll put a lot more effort into bottom/cover oriented fish than I will suspended fish. Unless you can get suspended fish activated with some kind of baitfish immitation quickly, they're very, very difficult to get to bite.

Similarly, the micro guides are also a slight pain in the ass with line wrap/tangling if you're fishing seated in a kayak. Still, even using a leader, I like them.

You sold the Gen 2 SCIII rods in the flea market for $75?

I have a few that I really like for jigs and soft plastics in current, but use them for pretty different things. I have a Rage 6'9 Med F (or XF, I forget offhand) casting Rod that is a great for anything I plan on keeping on the bottom. Typically, this stick has a jig/craw, heavier weighted fluke, etc tied to it. When I'm throwing tubes 1/4oz or more or football/rugby heads this is a great Rod. I also have a 6'9 MLXF Avid X that is just killer for fishing grubs, weightless soft plastics, light poppers, drop shots, etc.. It's really become one of my favorite rods and I can't recommend one enough for anyone fishing smallmouth in rivers.

I would gladly drop shot those for river smallmouth and walleye. Also noteworthy, I am a terrible walleye fisherman. Walleye are typically mistakes. Delicious, delicious mistakes.

Rate of fall is, one way or another, everything. Things that effect rate of fall/presentation that need to be considered are type/thickness of cover, current speed, and depth. Thick weeds may require a heavy (1/2-1oz) archy style head to punch through. Faster current may require more weight to keep the presentation at a specific part of the water column or to work at a certain speed or to maintain a specific drift. Also, if I'm fishing bedding shallow fish in 4' of water the 1/8 oz Bitsy Bug I'm throwing probably isn't going to cut it later in the season when I'm fishing a rocky point in 15-20' of water and probably want 1/4-1oz to get down to bottom related fish. Welcome to jig fishing, by the way. It's easily the simplest made needlessly complicated way of fishing on conventional tackle.

Welcome! Where in SEPA are you?

Let me tell you about the DNR "range" for alligator snapping turtles sometime...

I'm not a mechanic, and profess little mechanical knowledge, but this seems like a very inexpensive way to blow up an engine.

I was there, and I don't miss days when it would take literally 2 hours to get out of bed. The good news is that you may have options. The MRI and discogram (tragically, this procedure is way less fun than it sounds) will show which surgery options are available for you. Since you're feeling it in your legs, the bulge/herniation(s) are likely lower lumbar, correct? You may have non-surgical options like epidural/steroid injections as a means to reduce inflammation, deal with the pain and and allow you to start a physical therapy. You may also have the option of having a disc shaved to remove pressure on the nerves (least invasive back surgery and usually recovery is weeks to months versus the other options which may take years). This is becoming a very common low risk surgery with huge rewards. The more invasive options are a synthetic disc replacement and a lumbar fusion. Both of these have pros and cons, but offer a more complete long term solution than the other options. I had L5-S1 fused 11 months ago. If you have any questions or just need to periodically freak out about all the weird ways back injuries make life suck, feel free to send me a PM. The good news in all of this is that back surgery has become much, much better in the past 15-20 years.

I've spent the last 3 years dealing with herniated discs stemming from a car accident. Taking care of yourself and staying in shape makes a big difference, but if you need surgery, find the best surgeon possible. It can make a huge difference. What surgery are they recommending? Which joint? How many discs were injured?

Dude! You can't complain being frustrated if you aren't throwing arguably the best confidence bait of all time! I'd wager pretty heavily that if polled, the members of this forum, from total novice to sponsored tournament fishermen have caught more fish on Texas or Carolina rigged worms than any other presentation. Personally, 1/2 of all largemouth over 20" I've ever caught have come on Culprit ribbon tails, Power bait curl tails, or similar worms Texas or Carolina rigged. Fishing from shore, you NEED to learn to fish T-rigs and finesse/light C-rigs. If I'm fishing for largemouth, unless the conditions are really ridiculous, I'll always have a T-rig tied on at least one rod.

Man, I hate St. Croix so much I only own 6 of them. Seriously, though, I know nothing about the panfish or trout series spinning rods. For all else, check the blanks. If it's built on an SCIII or better blank, you'll be very hard pressed to find better performing rods at that price point. Still, I don't know of St. Croix making any really bad products, and their reputation for customer service is amongst the best in fishing, conventional or fly.

Like anything else, river fishing has to be learned. There are some great books out there for both traditional and fly tackle. The general information about locating fish and primary forage stay the same whether you're throwing streamers on a 7 wt fly rod or swimbaits on a spinning Rod. Once you learn to find the fish, river fishing gets much, much easier.

Heddon makes the Spook line of walking baits.

@gimruis. Bingo. The more current a body of water has, the more fish have to work, the more they need to eat.

1. Don't jump off a cliff. 2. Take a deep breath. 3. Learn. Anything can be frustrating for beginners, especially without hands on guidance. Forget everything that's complicated and make things as simple as possible. This also means you need to forget your ego. Conditions, forage, and the body of water itself dictate where and how to fish, nothing else. So, here's the likely deal with your conditions... It's going to be very hot and the days are going to be long, so that means lower oxygen content in shallow water. Some of the days coming up are showing lots of sun which means fish are going to relate to deep structure or cover that provides shade. It also means that your early morning and evening bites are going to be best. You might get decent pockets of activity during the day, but it'll likely be deep or in the weeds. If you're fishing from shore, these aren't likely to be the easiest days. When your confidence sucks, you're going to struggle, period. This might be a good opportunity to hire a guide and learn something on the water. A good guide can sometimes teach you more about conditions and a body of water in one day than you'll learn struggling on your own for an entire season.

Welcome!

The only thing better is a tube sock covered in treble hooks.