Turtle135

Tie on a 3/8th ounce jig with a small craw trailer and practice pitching to shallow cover items. I fish the jig in cover like I am trying to lose it. It's good practice if nothing else and is remarkable in managing to pull out a bite or two on a difficult day.

It took me months. Cast, pickout birdsnest, retrieve, Cast, pickout birdsnest, retrieve, ...repeat Your Lew's should help in the learning curve. I learned with an inexpensive ABU Garcia baitcaster back in 1980 that I much later discovered was just a finicky caster. As a lefty who uses a right hand baitcast reel (hand never leaves the rod) I now only rarely carry a spinning rod. One thing that helped me was using monofilament and I would stick with the same spinnerbait for cast after cast while my thumb became educated. p.s. - I do have a friend who seemed to master casting with a baitcaster in about 20 casts, he looked at me and asked what was the big deal with backlashes. I should have drowned him right then and there!

Trilene XT 17 pound test, I do not break off on snags, I straighten hooks!

One last thing to consider. If you were having good success with the Stren it might make your learning curve less steep if you go back to using that line for a while. If problem crops up again with that line then there may be a mechanical problem with the reel. If you have an old reel you can roll the braid onto that so you could reuse the braid somewhere down the road. Good luck! don't ditch that combo just yet p.s. - 12, 14 or 17 pound test monofilament line might be the way to go for starters, it is a more forgiving line than fluoro or braid and is relatively inexpensive, that strength mono is a good fit for lipless cranks and spinnerbaits

By adjusting the brakes on your baitcaster I meant adjusting spool tension (see #1 in the photo below) and the magnetic brake system (see #2 in the photo below). After some practice you will develop a very light touch with the thumb, just the right amount to prevent any over-run but not so much to kill your distance. As you develop that "educated thumb" you will begin the set your reel much more wide open on the spool tension and brakes.

The other posters may be right about the line digging in but it sounds to me that part of the issue is that you are depending more on the setting the brake controls than allowing your educated thumb to control small over-runs during the cast. I never re-adjust any brake settings when I switch from one lure to the next. I have been fishing with level winds since 1980. Reels today are much easier to cast due to better engineering but your thumb is still an integral part of getting the most from your baitcaster.

As I mostly fish in Maryland a teener is out of the question (current state record is 11 pounds 6 ounces) but a 7 or 8 pounder is not out of the realm of possibility. All of the biggest largemouth I have landed over the last several years came while I was anchored on a major structural element crawling a jig or a large plastic worm along the bottom. Frequently it happens after I had been anchored in the same spot for 1 to 2 hours. It takes a different mindset to sit there hour upon hour but the stealth inherent in that approach pays off for me.

I seem to have that happen once a season during the warm water period. I know catch and release largely works as I caught one 4 pounder three times over the course of one particular season. So I be as careful as I can handling them and if one dies I prepare that one just as carefully for dinner.

I have the Chinook as well. In the pockets I have a Leatherman, tube of Megastrike, hook file, camera and keys. I have clippers on the little bungee attachment and a whistle on one of the loops.

They botched my initiation. They said they were going to send over a couple of really good hookers. Two nice young ladies showed up at my door but when I asked about the lures they had no idea what I was talking about. Maybe the hookers got lost in the mail.

I was told when I joined this forum that there would be no math.

Congrats on the trailer! It is so nice to have the kayak or the canoe pretty much loaded and ready to fish. My Ride 115 kayak goes in the bed of my pickup truck & I have many jealous fishing friends when they see how fast I can unload and load.

The bigger bass, the 18"+ were probably prespawn females, they get done with spawning and head off to post spawn spots (which maybe harder to locate than the aggressive males up shallow guarding nests). That is beautiful country up there! It's been too long since I have been on Lake George or Champlain.

See the brass gears in the image below, these need to be greased (not oiled). I'm just guessing but the gunk you removed may have been the grease that help keep your gears from binding. I think there is a series of videos that will be very helpful for you to watch. Search "TackleJunkie81" on YouTube and see his 3 part series. 1. Maintaining Your Baitcaster Reel: Part 1 - Disassemble 2. Maintaining Your Baitcaster Reel: Part 2 - Assembly 3. Maintaining Your Baitcaster Reel: Part 3 - Assembly

We have Red Swamp Crayfish on the Tidal Potomac. Not surprising a Red Shad ribbontail plastic worm is a good producer. Check out Dirty Jigs "Black & Red":

Nice! Once you go yak you never go back!

I am not sure of the time table in upstate, is the mid-spring period a prespawn situation? Then the late spring you are encountering males in shallow water guarding beds?

Dirty Jigs, good components, really like their swim jigs and their HP Flippin Jigs

Nice smallie! I believe using mono or flouro or braid is something of an acquired skill. If you fish with mono like I do 95% of the time you develop a feel for how to keep those fish buttoned up (the right hook set, the right amount of tension). Each line has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Each shines in the correct environment (cover, water clarity, etc) and presentation type.

My personal experience is that those lakes specifically "managed" by the state are really poor fisheries. I have not seen it so much in my home state but in a bordering state that I fish frequently. In my home state, Maryland, we do not have many largemouth lakes that are DNR managed. The best largemouth fisheries seem to be lakes managed/controlled/regulated by regional authorities. I am beginning to suspect that the production level of these bodies of water has much more to do with their inherent potential, rather than man's ability to manage that potential.

winter - jig spring - jig summer - jig fall - jig I recently broke myself the habit of carrying 15 pounds of lures in a crate in the back of the kayak for those quick after work trips. Of late I carry just one rod, about 10 jigs and jig heads and four bags of worms and trailers. I find I fish much more efficiently focusing on where the bass are and not so much on lure/color/profile changes. On the weekends for longer trips I still go fully loaded cause you just never know what you might need.

One thing you can do in a pinch is clip a piece of line the same length as the bass (you can do the same thing for girth) then you can get a weight estimate with various formulas.

Nice gar! I've never seen one that dark before. I had a fun day with them a few weeks back (they kept chopping the soft plastics off my swim jigs). I don't know how they ever manage to eat anything cause they always whiff on my lures.

nice looking largemouth, congrats! did you get a length?

Nothing special. I have a Humminbird with the DI transducer (see the shape of the puck in my photo). It fits fairly flat to the bottom of the kayak with the cable routed up through one of my front scupper holes. Plus with the Ride series kayaks the shape of the hull protects that area (although it is not completely protected).