fishwizzard

My shallowest local pond still has an ice covering as of 230pm today, but it was thin and starting to melt back from the banks. I am heading out tomorrow to hit a few others to see how they are progressing, but I expect to be disappointed. High hopes for Friday though. Before the ice up I was having very little luck, with only a small dropshoted worm, very slowly dragged was producing any hits. Even the Ned failed me. Assuming I can find wet water, I am going for a three-pronged approach. The aforementioned DS, a suspending jekbait, and ~6" soft swimnbaits, fished as slow as I can stand it.

I actually pulled my seat and PFD out, it does not hit as badly as I though it did, but I have to consciously adjust myself to get my back flat. In any case, back to offering the OP some advice. Other then agreeing with the "start out empty, add to as needed", I will also caution that in my experience fishing from a yak makes it extremely easy to high stick a rod. I feel like it's because you can bring the fish over to your hand, which can get the rod pointed straight up. When fishing on my feel I will kneel/squat to get my hand on the fish and choke up on the rod to do so, in the yak my instinct is to just keep lifting that tip up until the fish is right at boatside.

I would love to read a longform article about the effect those things had of the international bering business. That was a crazy amount of demand that seemed to sprout up overnight.

I know, right? I got to try one on and it is very very comfortable, the pockets are easy to reach and open, and they stay out of the way pretty well, even with my wallet, phone, wife's phone, her wallet, my keys, and my pocket knife in one of them. Astral Ronny Fisher Fishing PFD: $160 Embarrassing your wife at an hiking store: Priceless.

I have a Slayer 10 and am about 5' 10-11". I try to keep the seat pretty upright and try to sit straight up in it. The bottom of the foam on my current PDF (and NRS Chinook) hits the top of the seat by maybe an 3/4-1". I am also interested in the Ronny due to the flip down pockets/trays. I want to do more wading on the Potomac this season and I feel like I should start wearing a PFD more in general when wading. The pocket/trays are amazing for retying lures or general fussing when standing up.

I might be the one weird guy who does not like high backed PDFs. I have an NRS with a pack like the one Turtle135 posted and I feel like it keeps me pushed away from the seat and kills my lower back. I am going to replace it this year with an Astral Ronny Fisher, which has a thin, even back, like this;

Oh dude no The hotdogs I will eat all day, but those are some sad burgers.

I suspect it's due to them getting burned by fraud before. The CC company will get it's moeny back form TW, but TW has no worthwhile recourse to get their products back. I will again push for paying for all online stuff via a CC linked to Paypal. You can use whatever you want for a shipping address and you don't have to keep money sitting in a PP account.

I am an ok swimmer and wear a PFD whenever I am in my kayak and have started wearing on when I am wading bigger water alone. I am shocked to learn that bass boats don't have seatbelts, I have managed to eject myself from my lawnmower before (I will admit to being a bit loaded at the time), I can't imagine not having one on a boat that goes that fast.

I got it from Amazon as they had the best price at the moment, it's still on there for $155, which is around what I paid. It's so nice to be able to stick my rod and reel inside my pack when I am done for the day and hike back to the car without worrying about snagging a longer tube. They have a few different models, I want to pick up a finesse spinning rod from the same line at some point.

Hah, that looks just like the one I saw, almost the exact same shade of orange.

Hah, I did a lesser version of that but with the 6" cut tail worms.

I have seen what looked an awful lot like that fish of yours, but far far brighter orange, swimming around in a pool in Northwest Branch below Burnt Mills. It is a super suburban area, so I can see how it's likely that idiots do dump fish there from time to time.

I went a different direction when I bought my last travel combo; It's a Dawia B.B.B telescopic casting rod. I wanted a casting rod that would pack down as small as possible and cover a pretty wide range of lures. I have used lures from about 3/16 to 1/2 on it, which is what I was looking for. It has Regular Fast action and once assembled, it's easy to forget it's a multi part rod. I very careful about lifting fish with it, but it survived three days of Miami Canal fishing in which I snagged and had to lift some chunky tilapia four or five times and it held up like a champ. It is a dream to hike with and takes up no space in my suitcase when I travel for work.

Sometimes you get lazy and don't check you weight often enough and it flys off on the cast. Spinning reel, ah shucks, you lost a weight. Casting reel..... I went with a spinning combo for my dropshot needs mainly because I enjoy spinning reels and wanted an excuse to use one more often, but I don't doubt, backlashes aside, that I could fish it just fine with a casting combo.

I am in love with Microwave Guides and would go for the Enigma just bassed on that and the grip. They are powerful ugly, but at ~$90 on ebay I might take the plunge as I am really curious about them.

I always checkout with Paypal so there is never an issue. I try to do all my online shopping through paypal, which I have linked to a credit card I only use for online stuff/work travel. It gives me a double layer of fraud protection and I have never had a checkout issue anywhere.

It seems like the good stuff got cherry picked months and months, if not years, ago. I swear most every sale is just them shuffling around the same sad collection of lures.

Right now my house is so cold that I can just keep the beer near the front door and it stays at a good temp. But it's brandy and coffee time when it's this cold out.

I have both a Zillion SV and a sv103 and the latter is so much nicer it isnt even funny. The Zillion SV is going to get sold off any day now but the sv103 would be second last to go if I had to.

Zoom has some really amazing colors and at three bucks or so, it's hard not to give in. It's just the Trick Worms that get me, I can walk away from most other lures and only buy what I "need", but those worms just call out to me. I am a firm believer in glitter, I have seen enough flashing baitfish to want a little sparkle.

I guess I like cold beer, but not to the extent that some do

Zoom's million Trick Worm colors kill me. Like I know I "need" maybe 3-4, but I am up to like 8 now and every time I seen them on sale I end up with another one.

I have been wondering about these, I have a pair of the old Costa yellow high contrast glasses, but they were from a deal-site and fit me poorly. I love them except for fit, so it's good to hear the new low light lense is as good so I can replace the ones I have, which give me a headache if I wear them for more than a few hours.

3" Senko, a bit over 1/8oz. A 3' BPS Sticko weighs a little under 1/8oz.