the reel ess

Man, I have a 40 size Trion reel and I still only use it on a MH 7 footer. It's whooped some pretty good bass.

4". I bite off about 1/2" to rig a jig. But I want the entire bait for a T rig. ?

I get more bites on the Academy Store H2O brand lipless cranks. But I lose more fish on it, though they claim to have VMC hooks. I've been swapping them out with my Trap hooks. The H2O comes with straight shank hooks. The Trap hooks are an EWG style and have been for a while.

I just wake up.

I fish the pads a lot with some success. But they won't grow thick in deep water. So I'm usually fishing a shallow flat. Fish won't always be in a shallow flat. So it's possible they just aren't in there in numbers. But if the entire pond is less than 10, mostly under 5', it's a much more likely location.

The rule in SC is that you can access the pond from a public road or highway. I've seen it happen. But you can't walk through private property to access it. Presumably, you can't launch a watercraft.

I have a 10' Perception Pescador Pro and I consider it to be too short at times. I'd look into a tube if you want something that small. You don't want to buy something so small you don't want to use it.

When I first started fishing spinnerbaits I went into BPS and bought every size and blade combination of their store brand Uncle Buck spinnerbaits they had in white, chartreuse and white/chart. I still have a couple of those and they will still catch a fish. They must be 25 years old.

I like to keep things simple so I don't have to buy 10 of every bait. My favorite is a double gold willow leave 3/8 oz. in gold shiner pattern. It gets bitten even in muddy, cold water. The double willows are like a single Colorado in terms of drag, slowing the bait down. I have a few others, but rarely fish them.

I even fish double willow blades in the winter. I also have busted the skunk with a small lizard.

Weightless?

Or the smaller 4" finesse worm. This is actually my go-to when I can't buy a bite. I'll make a very light C-rig using 1/8 to 3/16 oz. bullet weight. I've been avoiding the skunk pretty well with a Zoom Ultravibe Speed Worm watermelon/black flake. I got some fish to take it on top, weightless. I've gotten others to take it subsurface with either a 1/16 or 1/8 oz weight. It's just something they haven't seen much of. It doesn't spook them in shallow water like a hardbait or spinnerbait can. It's great in weedy areas. I've also used it on a shaky head. Caught a 6 pounder last summer with that rig, but nothing yet this year.

I have a Shimano Bantam BMP350 from the 80s or early 90s that has "XHS extra high speed" on it. It's 5.1:1?. It was my late father's and I dust it off every now and then to toss some big topwaters or DD22 size cranks just to catch a fish on Dad's reel. But honestly, it's almost too big for bass and pedestrian slow by the 7-8:1 reel standards of today. My dad replaced the crank with a "power handle" that's larger than the usual one, making it seem even slower. I don't have a reel under 7:1 in my usual arsenal. BTW, the BMP350 would be a great reel for stripers or possibly live bait for LMB, if I ever get around to doing that.

I applaud you. I try to keep healthy enough to be active when I'm old. You might not think kayaking is exercise, but it is physical activity that you do for hours while not consuming calories, for most people. My mom died of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). It was a horrible ordeal that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I took her to the hospital in Augusta once to get a feeding tube implanted. As we were leaving the hospital we drove down a road that runs by the canal off the river. There's were people out there kayaking. I said "That looks like fun." She said "It looks like 'fun' is over for me." I determined right then that I was going to buy a fishing kayak if I had to sell something (guns) to get it. Life is short. Get busy living it while it's there.

I have one of those. I've caught exactly 1 bass on it. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure it works. I just moved on to the hollow body frogs. I also have one of these. I caught my first bass over 6 lbs. on it almost 20 years ago. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=snag+proof+original+frog&atb=v314-1&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.windingcreekbait.com%2Fstore_content%2Fproducts_media%2F5dae043743f31.jpg

It has been a strange year. Most things that worked in years past is not working. But I keep doing some of those things because I know at some point, it'll work. For instance, I keep trying the frog, though I have yet to catch one on the frog at the main place I fish. But I've tried to be flexible. I've caught several on the Zoom Speedworm lately. Lost a big one yesterday that bit this bait. After 3+ hours I had 3 fish to show. Then I just decided to sling a lipless crank all over a huge grassy flat. Caught 4 more that salvaged the day. But, as you said, it was casting blindly except I knew it was the right depth and grassy. Honestly, I could have limited myself to half the reservoir and caught all these fish. I get some of my best bites while picking out backlashes.

Following

Either Saturday or Monday morning, maybe both. Where I go there might be one other boat there and he's a buddy.

I went yesterday evening. I downsized to the 90 size and go 3 bites on it, all small fish. Unfortunately, I lost two of them. Also got one on a jig and one on a spinnerbait. Missed another on the spinnerbait. So there was the potential for 6 fish, but I landed 3, 2 of them on the WP.

This is the reason I don't "buddy fish" with other kayakers very often. Some people consider fishing to be a social event. If I wanted to be sociable, I'd join a club. We had a house on a lake from 1968 to 2020. Once my dad and I arrived at the house and there was a car parked at the road. There were 2 people crappie fishing from our dock. It's not illegal to get on someone else's dock there in SC because Duke Energy owns everything below the high water mark. But it was illegal for them to get to it from the road. I asked my dad what we were gonna do and he said "Go fishing." We walked down and started setting up. The couple quietly packed up and walked out.

I left the rest in the truck just in case. LOL. In fact, I probably took my whole topwater box.

I finally went early one early morning with one rod and a WP 110 tied on. I caught a few good fish. I only do this at times when the bite is so slow, I'm fishing for a few bites anyway.

There are certainly times when they work better. Early, late, overcast and in shadows. I can count on 1 finger the number of bites I've gotten in full, high sun on a WP. They also start producing earlier in the year than most people throw topwaters. Prespawn bass get vey angry at anything invading the shallows. The bites are vicious. That is, if you can find bass shallow. I caught one in February this year on a WP. But they're a big fish bait. If there are none around, it might intimidate smaller bass. In 2021 I caught a 6, 4, 7.93 and a 5.75 lb. on the WP. And I lost a big one. The last two were caught on the same day. (I keep a log). I prefer the 110 model in bone. This size doesn't tend to roll over at the end of a long cast. The smaller ones do for me. But they too get bites. Go smaller, get more bites. I accidentally ordered some knockoffs off Amazon that were advertised as Whopper Ploppers. I complained to them and they refunded the money and told me to keep them. I have yet to try them.

I'm the opposite. I actually traded a '66 Mustang for a fishing boat. I too sold the boat for 1/4 of what I paid and it was a good day. I've been fishing from the kayak for almost 10 years now and love the simplicity and convenience of it, especially since I have little space to store a boat. But I only paid $800 for my current ride. Still, I would like a jon boat rigged with a casting deck and bow mount trolling motor. The outboard is not strictly necessary. When I was younger and poorer during my first marriage, I shopped the Walmart discount bins usually in boxes on the bottom shelf. I bought up a ton of Riverside soft plastics in all the wrong colors. I have a big Tupperware box that holds all the things I don't use but don't want to discard. It's about half full of these. I didn't know at the time I'd be fine just owning black/blue jigs and craw imitators. I listened to all the experts whose job it is to sell as many products as possible. I also ended up with a bunch of Rebel hardbaits in off colors that didn't work well. I gave most of those to the local charity thrift shop. me too. Because I own two Trions that just keep going. The most trouble free spinning reels I've ever owned.

I get a good grip on her with my left hand and hold her at water level. If it's taking a while to get the scale ready with my right hand, I'll lower her in the water where she can get some water over the gills. Then I weigh her (digital scale and a lip grip so I don't have to put the hook in her gills), get a quick pic and quickly release her. I might linger a few seconds after I lower her in the water to fully soak in the moment. Watching a big fish swim away is one of the greatest joys of fishing. I have a net for when I catch a big one on trebles. That's easy.