Crutch

Honestly your best bet in my opinion (which may cost a bit of cash) would be to attach two anchor trolleys (one on either side) and buying anchors with extended lines on them. This way you can set yourself up perfectly and stay in one spot. A drift sock seems like it would be great in very slow winds where it's slow enough to handle but fast enough that's it's kind of aggravating to deal with. The smaller paddle to adjust yourself would be a great fix for when I'm not getting blown across the lake faster than I can paddle. I would rather have hands on my fishing rod than have to deal with readjusting myself in the winds, but for lighter winds seems great.

Ended up going out to North Twin Lake, couldn't hardly find the area to launch my canoe. Got out on the water and the first thing I noticed was that there was hardly any grass growing and the bottom was incredibly sandy. Great for swimming, didn't seem to be too great for fishing. I ended up catching two little dinks on a bone colored rapala shadow rap in around 8-10' of water right off of some dropoffs.

Oh, first thing I saw was Steuben Township. My mistake, didn't make the connection either.

I'll have to take a trip to some different waters then. But yeah, I'm really close to the Amish and when I go to the lakes and I see them back their gas powered boat into the water (keep in mind, with their horse and buggy tethered up ) with buckets ready to catch and keep anything and everything it is disappointing that our local DNR isn't more active in this area. It's mostly Bluegill they are going after, but taking all the forage is a big deal too. Also, checked into how far away Stueben was and it's about a 3 hour drive from me. A little bit of a reach for now. I did look into Twin Lakes and it's not far from me at all, in fact I think I'm going to make the drive out there this Saturday morning and spend some time out there. Only 30 minutes East. These lakes are only an hour drive away so definitely going to check them out at some point. I'll update this weekend on my catch! Thanks for the suggestions, it's much appreciated!

Northern Indiana here, up in Bristol/Middlebury. I don't know about you guys but I'm real tired of the poor bass fishing up here. Mainly fish out of a Kayak/Canoe but it seems as though if I really want to catch any fish I need to make the trip into Michigan waters. Very rarely catch bass more than 10" in length on the lakes I go to, if anything at all.

I actually use straight braid on this setup. Never had a reason to add a leader on. Maybe I'll give it a shot with some of my extra FC. These baits last for forever. In one outing I can run through a couple senko's, but I'll be using the same fat ika for multiple outings. Bought a couple bags last spring and still have only opened one of each color. fyi I use a 4/0 gamakatsu EWG and my main colors are Green Pumpkin and Black w/ red flake. Both have produced.

I live pretty close to Corey lake in soutern michigan, even though I'm an Indiana man. I have really considered getting my out of state michigan license, but I've got a couple of good lakes around here that I haven't even explored completely in my kayak!

I'm 23... With that said, I enjoy being out in the sun with no shirt and shorts. With that also said, I always wear spf 50 sunblock. The threat of skin cancer is no joke, and while I'm sure it is not as good as being all covered up, I feel perfectly cool when I have the sunscreen applied.

Loving this thread, would love to see an update soon! I'm always impressed with this kind of craftsmanship.

I can attest to this, living in Northwest Indiana. Though, on the other hand, you have to consider that most fishermen, Amish included, aren't good fishermen. A lot of people go out with live bait and when they don't catch anything they say "Oh well, the fish just aren't biting!". It took me a while to change from that attitude to an attitude of "Well, they aren't biting on this presentation.. But they will on something else.."

I've started going out with the idea that I'm going to catch at least one fish, and that I'm not leaving until I do. Instead of playing with one lure all day long I'll throw everything in my bag at the fish until I catch something. I've only had luck with finesse presentations and a red lipless crank, and I think the crank may have been a reaction strike. The topwater bite hasn't turned on for me, yet.. And I've never caught anything with a jig, jerkbait, spinnerbait, squarebill or deep diving crank... Starting to think they don't work for me!

I recently started using a shakey head rig with zman worms and man, the bass love those! Gonna be trying the ned rig soon, too.

I just put braid on my BC so we will see when I need to change that out. I don't use mono anymore. On my spinning reels I use flouro and I'm thinking I may need to change one of them out. I've got Spiderwire flouro and I really don't trust it compared to my BPS flouro. It just feels different, almost cheaper (which is silly to say because it literally does cost less). All that, and I'm experiencing line twist with it already..

What an interesting discussion! I'd never really considered a custom rod build until Batson gave that great explanation. Custom rods are still way out of my price range due to being in college, though..

Do you react like a little kid when someone makes a joke at work, too? I keep my terminal tackle with the equipment I'll use it with. Always in a plano box.

I am actually finding the discussion interesting. I may actually try using a weightless senko in deep water and see what it produces next time.

This is actually how I was catching pike at one of the lakes I go to. It was rainy and the weather was so nasty, but the pike didn't care. It was fun, and I was catching them on a t-rigged berkley 7" powerbait with a 1/4oz bullet weight, lmao!

You know, I went fishing last weekend and I was very surprised to find a lot of bass sitting on beds. I live in northern indiana and can attest to the cold front we had. I actually had really great success on a shakey head rig.

I've had really great results with a wacky rig and a shakey rig. Both are very easy to rig up and equally easy to use.

I'm from Indiana as well! I was fishing in Lagrange County near Middlebury on Friday. It was a beautiful, clear day and I wasn't actually sure I would catch anything in the shallows due to the cold front we recently had. So, anyways, I was on my kayak on this lake that I love to go out on, and I found this back channel that I'd never seen before. I caught one on a red lipless crank, which is the first I've caught on any kind of crank. Then I went down the back channel and switched to the shakey head rig with zman finesse worms... The bite was on like crazy! I caught 5 more in the span of a couple hours, and I could see fish everywhere under my kayak. On my way out of the lake I landed one on a weighted fluke casting into the shallows. A lot of firsts that day! Never caught that many on that lake, caught one on a lipless crank for the first time, caught a bunch on the shakey head rig, and caught one using a fluke for the first time. Then I went out on saturday and did the same exact thing and only caught one! LMAO!

I went out on Friday at about 11:00 and stayed out til 5. It was the first, nice 70* weather and the bass were all shallow, surprisingly. With the cold front we'd had I thought they may have stayed deeper. I ended up catching 7 bass, one on a lipless crank, another on a watermelon fluke, and the rest on a shakey head rigged with zman watermelon worms. I went out last night and tried the same thing in the same place, just caught one. Couldn't stay out much longer though or I would have made my rounds on the lake. In a kayak it's a little more difficult to buzz around the lake.

http://www.moraofsweden.se/products Look into these knives.

The issue where I am is that we have a lot of Amish that take anything they catch. Big or small. There is only one lake I will harvest out of.

I just put in an order to pick this up and a couple other things at my BPS in Portage. After researching I know of the issues this has had but at the price point and how easy they are to fix I'm not worried about it. I looked at the 128 as well, but with it being almost 100 pounds with the seat I just didn't want it. I am car topping this and I am 23, and I lift regularly, but that is just an excessive amount of weight to be moving around as often as I will go fishing. I'll be picking this up next week and can't wait to get it on the water!

Just ordered the Ascend FS12T with a paddle, anchor trolley kit, and anchor. Having it shipped to my local Bass Pro store to save on some serious shipping costs. Excited to get out on the water, but I'm not in too much of a hurry because it's still kind of chilly here in NW Indiana.