Boomstick

I'm honestly not 100% sure on format. It will be a physical book but I imagine a lot of images can be a page in size, so some images I got on my phone may be totally serviceable. I might just want to get a cover photo, or a full-size picture for each chapter (which is generally a lake), but that could even be half page pictures with a chapter title above it. So I might be able to rent a DSLR camera. It's not a picture book by any means, but I'd like to include some decent photos. But it's in my control how I do.

Fish, lake scenery and trailheads and vistas on trails.

I have an iPhone 12. The camera isn’t too bad but nowhere near the lighting of a dslr

I do have a few great shots on my phone I want to use already, it's not a bad camera. I was just thinking I wanted the best quality shots possible. Maybe I'll rent a higher end camera with a waterproof lens for a day, go light on fishing gear and just focus on getting potential cover shots with that. Another perk for another camera would be I could have my kid take shots of me on my kayak from his kayak.

Just water resistant, so no harm if it gets some splashes.

I need to buy a water resistant camera to get some shots for my book. I'm thinking maybe a GoPro, because they fit the bill and are fairly small and there's a ton of mounts, but do the photographers in this group have any other recommendations?

No worries! Eastern Massachusetts isn't that far from Maine, but I'm on the western side of the state. A lot of people travel (I went to North Carolina one year). If I do make it to New Hampshire or Maine, I would obviously include it.

My area is largely W Mass, Vermont and upstate NY, but mostly Vermont. Maine is a bit if a haul for me. But I do have some incredibly beautiful places to cover!

I have a few ideas in mind, but nothing final for sure Here's what I can do, I can setup a telescope on my kayak with a camera and take pictures of Mars and claim it was a UFO, which seems to be the latest theme of confusing planets and UFOs.

Well that would be amazing if I'm that successful!

I'll chime in with another recommendation. I finally had enough of the horrible seats with front leaning headrests in my '14 Sierra and traded it in and leased a '25 Subaru Outback. The Outback should be pretty good! The non-Wilderness editions come with roof racks already, I can add a trailer hitch for my kayak trailer and there is a lot more storage space in the Outback than a small or even many mid-sized SUVs. My wife's old CRV maybe had a quarter the floor space with the seats up. Some of the SUVs have more height, but if you have to play jenga to stack everything in back, it's going to take time to get it all out. I have had some horrible back pains in the past year and a half, and getting stuff in and out of the Outback is much easier than the bed of the truck as well. I can still put my Yakima topwater rod box on the roof, and it will be easier to access it as I can access it by standing alongside the car without having to climb on anything. Car topping a kayak wouldn't be too bad either. I haven't done any kayak trips yet as I just got it, but I'm fairly sure it will be fine.

So for the past few years, I've been trying to find a book of cat breeds for my wife whenever I'm at a book store, I figure it would make a decent gift but nobody ever has one. So when I went to check a bookstore this year, I thought maybe I should see if they have any good fishing books, or books about various lakes in my area even. Of course nobody has anything like that. So I figured I'm going to write it. I have decided to do it in chapters, where a chapter will be dedicated to a lake and include a bit about the lake and what to expect for fishing, other things to do in the area, trails to hike etc., where to camp, where to go for a grocery and hardware store and things someone in the area might not want to miss, like a few places have a great deli nearby so I usually grab a sandwich and eat it on my kayak etc. I might arrange it by a motor and motorless section. There are some lakes that allow motors, but you can't cross bodies of water with a bass boat, but you can in a kayak, so I don't know how to work that yet. I am not going to cover major lakes either, that we've all probably fished and may have read about elsewhere. I'm going for quieter places no one's ever heard of that still has good fishing that people might have missed out on. It will largely be a multi-year project as I also want to get pictures to include in the book.

I fish for bass because I find bass fishing to be fun and exciting way to fish!

I really see no reason to not buy something besides a MH/F rod if you have multiple rods personally. I mean I could probably find rods from different manufacturers and lines that are rated as MH/F to cover many applications, but then what's the point of MH/F? Personally, I could see a M/F rod that runs a tad on the heavier side being as versatile as a MH/F unless you have weeds in your area, but I still want both. There are people in warmer climates who have weeds everywhere, but I would imagine they would want some H/F and XH/F rods in the mix too.

Something I learned from @Catt right here on these forums is that the trick to fishing a jig in grass is to incredibly gently finesse it through. I used to tie on T-rigs only if there was a lot of grass until I gave it a shot, but it really works. There are certain grass jigs with pointed heads designed to part grass, but I've been able to finesse a standard pitching jig through just fine once I learned what to do.

I use the Daiwa Tatula 7'4" H/F frog rod. It is very strong and has enough power to pull a big bass out of the thickest of lily pads. Some say to go with MH, but if you have thick weeds I definitely would not do that. MH is actually pretty solid in open water, but not in thick lily pads. As for a reel, pretty much any reel will do. I like a faster speed reel, at least 29 inches per turn or so, so that I can turn it just a little to pick up line when working the frog slowly, but it's not required.

I use my Daiwa Steez 7'5" MH-H/F Bottom Contact rod for most jigs. I use my Daiwa Tatula Elite 7' M-MH/XF for T-rigs and lighter finesse jigs. It throws them decently weightless too. Sometimes I use my 6'10" Daiwa Tatula MH/F or 7'1" Tatula MH/XF for T-Rigs if I need a little more power, or my Steez Bottom contact if I'm not using it for jigs. The St Croix Victory 7'3" H/XF "Full Contact Finesse" rod is a pretty significant upgrade in the St Croix line over the Mojo Bass Jig and bait rod for only a little more money and probably like 98% as good as much Steez.

I don't think I posted this here yet, but for the July 4th this year, my youngest kid and I took a ride up to Lake Dunmore, and fished for a bit and then sat in the middle of the lake on our kayaks and watched the fireworks. Every town on the lake does their fireworks along the shore of the lake plus the boys camp and some others, I think there were 6 spots visible plus what people were doing from their homes. I was up there in June and barely caught any fish, definitely much more difficult this year than last where skipping docks was working. But I know the summer pattern very well, and the spots that usually yield me fish produced - I caught a 19" and a 22" but they both flopped off my ketch board as I was trying to get my phone out of the dry compartment in my pedal drive - need to find a better place for the phone. Anyway, this was such a good time. I was a little worried about drunk boaters (at our local lakes on a normal Thursday, that's usually a problem) but no issues at all, everyone went slow and the few that came our way saw our lights and went right around.

Yes it is. 4.5mph can get tiring, especially early on a long day but I can do at least a mile at 4mph with an occasional fishing break to catch my breath. Even a super casual pedal I can do for 10 miles is around 3.5. I was set to get a Hobie PA14 but someone convinced me to demo the Bigwater and I was sold after seeing how well it moves. Somerset is the largest lake I can easily drive to in a day at 1623 acres and I can get still go anywhere on the lake in a reasonable amount of time. I haven't made it back yet, my strut broke off my truck so I was without a vehicle and until I got it in the shop and last weekend I had extreme back pain - would have been okay on the kayak but didn't want to chance a solo launch. It is definitely one of the most beautiful lakes I have fished. Mountain surroundings and the only man made things on it is a hyrdo-electric power plant and the boat launch next to it.

Some people like the larger spool because you can pick up line faster and get a better hookset. That said I would use a 2000 or 2500 siE reel for 15# braid myself.

I have used 8 strand braid for years and it makes minimal noise. However if the noise doesn’t bother you then I don’t think it really matters all that much.

Braid might backlash a little bit leas than mono or fluoro but a bad one will knot and cause you to have to replace your line. I ran braid on my first baitcaster not too long after I got it (still a beginner). The only problems I had was when I cast into a bush.

I have used a 5lb mushroom anchor into an anchor trolley hooked up to an anchor wizard for years. It worked very good. I haven’t setup an anchor since I got pedals. i’ve been thinking of taking a round ball weight and running it through the power pole hole to an anchor wizard, mostly for summertime when I want to anchor down and target one spot but I’ve been okay jogging myself in place and occasionally resetting.

So I took my kayak out on Somerset Reservoir, located in the green mountains of Vermont. I caught a rock bass my first cast and eight smallies, nothing large. But it was nice to be in 81 degree weather when it was 92 back home. Both the online maps and Garmin maps are wrong. They show the creek channel being near the east side when it was actually on the west side. I fished the east side until 8pm, realized I pedaled 3 miles and when I went back, I found and followed the creek channel and found some more spots for next time. It was a good test of my new GPSMap 943xsv and GT56UHD though, sidevu was bright and clear to at least 150 feet which is definitely a significant upgrade over my old GT54UHD. Loving the new Old Town Bigwater. I was able to pedal back at around 4.5mph into a decent current. Here’s a few pics https://1drv.ms/f/s!AhZmMB-Fz0_2j9MC5LgpfuldtkGl3Q

I have been using Daiwa J-Braid Grand x8 lately in 50# and 65# depending which reel I grab. I've used several other braids over the years though and most of them largely all behave similarly minus maybe noise passing through the guides. Regular Power Pro or Maxcuatro or Sufix 832 also work.