Jleebesaw

I mix of everything for me. I started fishing when 2d sonar was the pinnacle of fishing tech! So plenty of my spots I learned from other fisherman. Back in the day I did a lot of bank beating and fishing obvious points and humps. I also used the old bent rod pattern quite a lot! Lol I can remember buying lake maps that had contour lines. Using those along with 2d sonar got me introduced into offshore fishing. I kept up with sonar until livescipe. I haven’t bought that yet. Not sure if I ever will. Anyway, on screen mapping along with side scan has made finding juicy offshore spots much easier. I just recently moved. I’m fishing Lake Champlain a lot starting this year. I’ve only been out on it a handful of times. I moved here from about 3 hrs west. I used to fish the st Lawrence a lot. So I have my boat ready to go. I’ll be fishing a lot of new places this year. Should be fun to find some spots.

I use 10" ribbon tails here in northern NY all summer. They work well. I use them on carolina rigs on deepish (20') rocky flats for smallies.

2 counties. St Lawrence and Jefferson counties. Thats my old stomping grounds. Recently moved to Clinton county. Surprised to see that bass season opens on the second Saturday of June instead of the 15th on Lake Champlain. Fished a small tourney Saturday. It's getting to be that you need to double check the regs every time you go fishing! Lol

I agree within reason. I wouldn't think too highly of anybody keeping a limit of any species ever day though. Lol. I'm not going to knock someone who likes to keep some fish to eat. I get several limits of crappie every spring. Right in the middle of their spawn. I don't know about population density of different species, but it seems to me that, other than during the spawn, crappies are harder to find than smallmouth bass. During the summer I can always catch a bass or 2 at least. Usually several. If I try to catch crappie post spawn, I rarely find them. Yet nobody bats an eye at killing and eating 200 of them a year. I think responsible harvest of them is fine.

I have a Yukon angler 116 and love it. I'm a bass boat guy for the most part and don't know a lot about kayaks, but this thing works well for me. I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it the last 2 years.

I've never fished lake Erie. Mostly lake champlain and the st lawrence. They will still be spawning on these bodies of water. I'm sure they will there too. It's a lot of water so it would be slow to warm. I'm just guessing really, but I think they'll be spawning still. There's people on here that fish there though. They will hopefully pitch in with a more educated resonse.

Seems like it's been consistent where I fish. Some years are better than others, but overall consistent. I mostly fish a couple of big water bodies though. Lake champlain and the st lawrence. They are big enough that fishing pressure probably isn't as much of a factor.

I've never actually used a Ned rig. I've caught many smallmouths on a t-rig though. Also, I've caught a lot of them on a jig with an exposed hook using tubes or grubs. I guess thats the same as a Ned rig? I don't know. That's what a Ned rig looks like to me. Just a lot of guys use these small senko looking baits and I always use grubs or tubes.

Oddly enough, I live in Champlain NY and the air seems fine. I literally work at the border with Quebec where the fires are. My family is from the watertown area and they say it's horrible. Pretty crazy. Weather pattern pushes it right away from us. The closest fires are only a 10 minute drive from here.

I just use the temp from my fish finders. I can then use past experiance to get an idea of what I should be doing. I don't know what the temp is deeper and I don't really care. Having a rough idea is good enough for me. I know what worked in different surface temp ranges in the past and can work off that info.

I use the same jigs as I use for LM. A smallmouths mouth isn't really that small. You don't need to downsize. They can and do take most baits that LM will take. U less you're using some really big jigs, it won't be a problem.

I've never used one to target smallies but I have caught some on them while fishing areas that seemed more like LM territory. Not sure why, but I never use them when I'm targeting smallies. Probably should try it more. I used to catch them in a river by my childhood home on inline spinners all the time though.

Might not be a female.

I go with the brute force method. Braided line and a tight drag. Works most of the time. Jigs take a pretty good hookset to begin with, so that's what I do. You'll always have one get caught up under docks occasionally.

I got some cheap neoprene upper "water shoes" at wal mart. They were like $10. They are the best. They dry out super fast, tye sun doesn't get to my feet, and I can feel the breese through them. Somehow, these $10 wal mart shoes are quite comfortable too. I'm the type who will spend money on shoes. Expensive work boots etc. So I didn't have high hopes for these. I got them when I bought a kayak because I always get my feet wet getting in or out of it. Now I I wear them in the boat too. Unless it's cold out. Don't wear them when it's cold out.