the reel ess

I had a good day fishing the Pop R during spawn this year. I usually don't even try it until the water is a little warmer, but glad I did.

I have told work some white lies, like I have an appointment and won't be back. It's not really a lie, I just don't elaborate. But lately, work has been to steady to take off. Also, it's hot, so the bite has moved to morning and late evening. It's not dark until about 9:00. I can make that.

Use the smaller size. Not the one with the split tail grub on it.

Beetle Spins are like crack to small bass. My buddy has a pond full of tiny bass and big bream. I'll tie on a tandem rig of a Beetle Spin in the rear and tie a crappie jig, usually a red/white tube jig, on a loop in front. That does a really good job with both species. The bream will go for the crappie jig and both will go for the Beetle. I'm trying to catch a double of course.

Every time I've sold anything on OfferUp or LetGo, someone will lowball you, then when you get to a desired price they'll want you to drive halfway to them, then show up late. I drove 20 miles to meet a guy who showed up late with $15 less than we agreed on and asked me to take it because it was all he had. I told him how an ATM works and waited there for him to come back. I said "C'mon man! You're late and short of cash? I'll just keep it out of principle." He got the cash. Ask for more than you want because you'll be expected to haggle.

I think I'd rather have an 18' Grizzly or other comparable bare bones aluminum boat that's fully equipped the way I want it. The less stuff you have on a boat, the less stuff will look like crap in a few years. And I would only want the stuff I want, not a preassembled package with things I don't want or things I might have chosen differently.

You'll get more bites with the Jr. size. The full-size can slay them when they're in the mood, but the Jr. is a tasty morsel that's harder to pass up. The one I have also has a rattle, whereas the big original ones do not. I can't catch a fish on a big glide bait or magnum worm. Understandable because I'm culling smaller bass. The times I've tried a dropshot didn't "net" anything. I've only gotten one bite on a toad, though I'm really good with the soft body frog.

Haha! You said...

I second Trick Worm. I might try a bluegill color around docks, but bubble gum and limetreuse are my favs for stained water, which is what we have here. I usually T rig them, weightless. This is really easy to skip way under docks with a spinning combo. Getting big ones out can be a different story though. I use a stout MH combo and 20 lb braid. Where weeds or lilies intersect with pier pilings of any other wood, I'll always toss a frog there. You'll be surprised how many big bass are very shallow, even in the heat.

Piedmont, halfway between Camden and Lancaster.

Well (F350 Dually With DuraCraft Crappie Boat Guy) is a friend of mine and it doesn't really raise my BP. I just find it funny. He also has a big pull-behind camper. He justifies the $55K dually to pull the $65K camper because he can camp once a year for cheap at some campgrounds. How many hotel stays or house rentals could he afford for $120K? Probably $150K after financing. But I know he just has to have the biggest of everything. When I was looking to buy a new pickup, he strongly discouraged me from anything smaller than a standard bed 1500 because you need to be able to carry 4'W sheets of plywood or sheet rock (Duh!). Told him I'd buy whatever fit my needs best, especially since I've never carried a sheet of plywood in my life. It just looks so funny when he pulls his little 2-man boat with the big dually.

I started getting these type knots on a more than decade old BPS reel. It was a "Viper" branded combo I bought for $70. It served well and the has been really good quality until recently. I've caught some big gals on it. This wind knot issue with braid just started early this season. I tried cutting off the knot and retying and later stripping the line and replacing with the same issue. I guess the line takeup spool on the reel bail seized. "Knot" sure. I just stopped using the reel and gave it to our small town version of Goodwill. Someone could probably use it for crappie trolling with mono. I replaced with a Pfleuger Trion reel I already had and problem is solved, so I know it was the reel. I always flip the bail by hand but the other end of the bail (away from line takeup) was getting loose too. It was going to fail me eventually and probably not on a dink. I don't have patience with worn out equipment anymore. If it happened on a new reel, I would suspect another culprit.

I own three Lew's now and I've never owned a Shimano. But I had a 1983 Daiwa Procaster PMF1000 that they sent me parts for as recently as 2015. ABSOLUTELY FREE! That's the world champ of reel customer service as far as I'm concerned. I really should go with Daiwa now that I can afford some quality. As for Shimano reels, BPS has parts for most reels, by any manufacturer. They would be worth a try. You can ship your reel there and most repairs cost $19.95.

Doesn't know it's reversible. This reminds me of TV shows and ads where they obviously know nothing about fishing. They'll have a fly reel on a baitcast rod or a combo with no line on it.

Ford F350 dually towing the DuraCraft 15' aluminum 2-seater crappie boat.

Guys who wear those hats with bills flat as a mortar board with the stickers still on them and tuck their ears under the hat. GAH!

I work at home as well. Bad fuel economy doesn't matter nearly as much if you don't commute in it.

I've had a truck of some kind since about 2000. I inherited a 2013 Jeep Wrangler when my dad died. My wife asked if I was going to sell my truck, which is paid for with 100K miles. I said "Why?" If you have a Jeep you still need a truck. All the truck requires now is for me to pay the taxes and drive it every now and then. It's how I transport my kayak. I used it to haul my bud's 14' jonboat in the bed before. Once you get a truck, you'll always want one. There are two kinds of guys in this world. Ones with trucks and ones that have to ask to borrow their friends' trucks.

I don't know. But I have heard it said, and I believe it, that time you spend fishing does not get deducted from you life. It sure feels that way anyway. I was at the local service station getting oil changed when a guy I know stopped by bragging about his 8 lb bass he had in the cooler. I had to see that. He pulled it out and asked me what i thought it weighed. I told him 6 lbs max. It hurt his feelings. I hope he paid to have it mounted because he killed a nice fish with some room to grow. He went on his way and weighed it on someone's accurate scale. I saw him again later and asked what it weighed. He told me 5-10. Kudos to him because he could've lied, but I wouldn't have believed more than 6-8. I told him that fishing with my buddy who weighs everything over 3 taught me I was always overestimating fish weights. An 8 lb bass has a bucket for a mouth and eyes bugged out the size of golfballs. Or did I just exaggerate?

Sounds like she grew up in England. I'm (obviously) from the south and I say "reckon" a lot. I'm hanging on to it because it really is a proper word, unlike y'all or y'uns.

I watched an episode of BD where he used a jointed Rebel minnow hardbait on a C Rig. He just reeled so slowly that the bait floated up a little. This seems like a good way to target some big gals. That's a big bait. The original swimbait, perhaps. I went through my late father's tackle a while back and he had a Lindy C Rig kit. It seems this kind of sinker would do best at not getting snagged. You don't want to be throwing away Rebel plugs all day.

I have to agree with the nose-hook method if you're in water that isn't just choked with weeds. I used a 2/0 Gama finesse hook. It works great and hooksets are easy. Just tighten the line and reel up. You get a lot more action out of the bait because you didn't stick a hook through half the body. If you buy Mann's Hardnose flukes you won't need any other rigging besides the hook and one will last all day.

Limits in a big lake are maximums. Limits in a pond are minimums.

Even harder if you have none. OP said there are 9" bluegills. That's enormous. You won't grow many, if any big bass if they're competing with 12" bass and 9" bluegill for only minnows. There probably aren't any big bass. Even if there are, your odds of catching one are quite slim if most of the population is under 12". They stay stunted. They might be 4 years old and only 12". Too many mouths to feed. You have to take lots of little bass and big bluegills out or the problem will persist forever. Eventually, the big bass will die out, leaving only stunted dinks. Persecute the babies. My friend and I have discussed shocking up mass quantities of fish to remove some of the dinks in his pond. I watched YouTube videos of homemade shocking devices.I'd really like to give it a try. https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/lake-limits-fish.html

You need to look up YouTube videos by Pond Boss. He has a PhD in biology, specializing in fisheries. I have a friend with a pond full of similarly stunted bass. His bass are small, his bluegill are too large for small bass to eat and they're competing for the same prey. We keep EVERYTHING we catch there and I've hardly caught a bass over 12" in 10 years there. Years ago, my PB came from there, but that's over now. The best balance would be to have a lot of smaller bluegill for the bass to supplement their diet of minnows. PB would recommend feeding your gills so they spawn more times in a summer. Apparently that happens when they're well-nourished. Ideally, you and others could catch enough small bass to make a difference, but that's usually impossible with one person. You could pay someone to come shock up a lot of bass and and larger bream take them out of the food chain as predators. After that you might be able maintain the new balance. You could also introduce another food source that's too big for bream and not for bass, like threadfin shad. But I'd talk to someone in the know about that before you do it. Bass might just gobble them all up or they might die off if the pond gets too cold and they're stuck shallow. Maybe there are other types of forage you could stock. I have another friend who has a pond with a concrete spillway (not a pipe) and during times of heavy rain, it overflows like crazy and every time that happens, his fish grow bigger for a while. For what that's worth. Honestly, he probably doesn't need to target the big bass, if there are any. They aren't the problem. He needs to target the big bream and the small bass. They're in direct competition.