Turtle135

Do you have an electric motor mounted where you can work into the wind? I fish out of a kayak so I feel your pain with the wind. One presentation I have found to be effective this time of year is to peg a 1/4 ounce bullet weight in front of a Texas Rigged 5" or 6" Stickbait (Senko, Yum Dinger, etc.). That will knife down to the bottom very quickly in 30' of water (much more quickly than a skirted jig) and the presentation lends itself to a more active retrieve (I like to lift & drop and shake it). I have managed to catch fish in 40' of water on a fairly windy days (the wind seems to improve the bite in the fall on my water).

I like the black brass bullet weights (1/8th and 3/16th ounce) that bass pro shops sells. Anything larger and I generally use tungsten.

Kayak angler here as well. In my "active rotation" I have more reels than rods. I will switch to a different bait casting reel based on the line that reel is loaded with. I will generally carry from 2 to 4 rods. p.s. - I do have a closet loaded with old rods that are just "not quite right"

that is a great idea as I imagine if you secured the lid (and made just a small hole for the cable) the whole thing would float in case of a mishap

Fish finders read well while paddling for regular sonar and "down imaging". I am not that familiar with "side imaging" but I have heard you need to maintain a certain speed to get good results (and that required speed may be close to as fast as you can paddle).

Are you looking for something like this to have the transducer over the side and removable? If so google "RAM Transducer Arm Mount" and this is another mounting option: http://www.fishfindermounts.com/

I think the Black Max is a $ 50.00 reel? My experience with bait casting reels in that price range is that they perform pretty well in the beginning. However after time and use their performance will degrade at a much more rapid rate than a better reel. If you are knowledgeable about servicing your own reels and replacing worn down parts you can bring them back to life. I have always found that in the long run a baitcasting reel in the $ 120.00 range was a better investment. You hit a certain level of quality in the components that prolongs the life of the reel. I fish very frequently and year round so I have switched all my baitcasters over to the Lews SuperDuty series.

do you think there is an old submerged pond there (from before they built the dam)? that might provide for some fish holding bottom contour

My guess, somebody did release that crappie there. I could see DNR stocking that body of water with bass and bluegills but I doubt they would stock that body of water with crappie.

That is a tough one to judge from afar. It looks like that pond is actually 5 to 6 acres based off the measurements I am seeing on Google Earth. The shape of the pond does not give a lot of clues about what is going on under the surface of the water. Based on the topography of the surrounding land there is a creek channel running down the length of that pond but much of it might be out of reach on a cast from shore. What I would do is spend some time with a jig taking depth readings. Cast your jig into 5 feet of water and count how long it takes for it to reach bottom. Then start bombing casts out into the pond from various spots and count how long it takes for the jig to reach bottom. That should help you get an understanding of what the bottom contour is like.

I am adding that image to this thread so others can see the pond in question

do you have a map of the pond? aerial view from Google Earth or Google Maps?

Swimming an unweighted plastic worm is undoubtedly a deadly presentation. My local reservoir is extremely clear and heavily weeded down to about 16 feet. It also has a lot of water 20 feet and deeper. Swim that unweighted worm around and through the weeds in 1 to 8 feet of water and you will catch bass all summer long. The problem on my reservoir is that the bass 20" and larger are almost always found on the deep weed edge at 16 feet down or on even deeper structural items during the summer months. Targeting those deep bass with an unweighted soft plastic is an inefficient presentation. It would take several minutes just to sink that plastic to those depths. Put a bullet sinker on that worm and you are in business.

I just sent you a message.

I do know a Wilderness Systems Prostaffer in Maryland who has a spare ATAK 140 for people to try out. I suspect an ATAK 140 might have the deck space and stability to have one of the boys onboard (a 120 might as well but I have not seen one of those yet). If you are interested in trying out the 140 let me know and I can put you two in touch.

Keep after them! Fishing those kayak tournaments will force you become a more resourceful bass angler. I would second the notion that you should score any legal bass in a tournament. If your tournaments are like mine they are catch, photo and release so no harm in getting a quick photo on a dink. You never know when you might need that dink to complete your limit. I have been fishing a local kayak series for the past three seasons. As kayak anglers we are somewhat locked into the area we chose to fish. No firing up the outboard to check one spot seven miles down the lake. We have to plan better before we even get on the water. We also need to present our artificials better as we will be working over a more limited number of bass over the course of the tournament. I would say that two out of every three tournaments I have fished in have been a "grind" to get bites for the entire field. Fishing is more frequently tough than easy. I can only think of one tournament over three years where everyone was into the bass that day. Good luck!

Personally I use straight monofilament (Trilene XT 14 - 17 pound test) on my baitcasting combos. I do not like Flouro for a number of reasons but those reasons have been debated ad nauseam on this forum already. Several really good river smallmouth sticks I know do use the braid with a flourocarbon leader setup. What I have watched evolve with them as that they have started using a quality flouro with a minimum of 14 pound test. One of them uses 14 pound test for his "finesse" presentations and bumps up to 20 pound test for jigs, swimbaits, spinnerbaits, etc.

The pedal drive trend is an interesting one. The market demand for pedal propulsion must be there. There are a couple of places I fish where "hands free propulsion" would be an asset but most of the time anything below the kayak is just going to get me hung up (weeds, laydowns, river ledge rock). I surveyed all of the kayak offerings on the horizon and decided on a Tarpon 130x. I wanted a kayak that paddles really well. Was looking for more speed over my Ride 115 and a kayak that attains up river better. The Radar from Wilderness Systems does look interesting as it has the pedal option but supposedly is a kayak that still paddles well.

vacation in Philly, when you go back home everyone will seem so much nicer!

Grid Iron Arky rules!

Qualified (but likely not going to make it to the National Championship). Good luck, keep after them in that Regional!

Tailor your kayak choice to the type of water you fish 90% of the time. Propulsion is a good place to start (pedal power, paddle power, electric motor power). For the areas I like to fish, paddle power is the way to go as heavy weed growth, laydowns and other underwater obstructions render pedal (or electric) propellers useless. What types of water will you be fishing?

When fishing for river smallmouth I will generally start with a spinnerbait on one rod and a tube on the other rod. You can branch out to more presentations but I have generally found their mood of the moment to put them either on the spinnerbait or on the tube. Also, I have found smallmouths to be complete suckers for a ned rig tumbling in current. It is a good way to locate concentrations of smallmouth.