Talio

Thomas EP spin in 1/4 oz is a killer in open water.

I'm in your area and I fish marabou jigs quite a bit for smallmouth. I prefer PJ Finesse over any other because the hook is superb. There's really not much to the technique. It's essentially a swim jig without a brush guard. I do not consider this a bottom presentation because they hang up really easily. In my opinion, it's a leech/hellgrammite pattern that works best in areas that a bass might be eating those kinds of baits. I love them in the shallow fast water where bass may take up residence behind a rock and feed on the drift the way a trout would. This method rarely requires a long cast, but to increase casting distance, I would start throwing it on 10# braid with a fluoro leader. 10# braid has the same diameter as 2# mono, so on my 7' medium light, I can cast a 1/16th oz jig out to at least 50 feet. If you're focusing on faster water, you're probably not going to want to have that long of a cast anyway. What I normally do is throw them upstream into the current and keep a semi-slack line while retrieving back to me. If that line moves at all it's either the bottom or a fish, so set the hook every time. In still water, this is my float and fly presentation. I'll cast the bobber out, which will give you the weight for a long cast, and wiggle it every so often. But my secret technique for marabou jigs is to tie on a fly fishing bass popper with a palomar knot, slip the tag end back through the eye like a drop shot and tie the jig to the tag. I once hooked a double on this rig in the Wissahickon Creek here in Philly. Thank god one was a complete dink, because I'm not sure I could have fought two big ones on that setup. I don't trust my knot tying skills enough for that!

Maybe it's just me, because I'm a ridiculously large person, but I've found those pontoon boats to be super cramped with two people. I tried it with a friend once and he was dodging elbows all day. I'm all limbs. I also didn't find it to be all that stable. More stable than a canoe, but less so than my kayak. Also, they're not super dynamic in the water, so while we could be all day out in the canoe on one battery charge, we had to be really conservative with how much we ran the battery. I'm 215lbs and he's probably a 180 holding a fat baby, so it could be that we just weighed down the boat too much, but I never went out with him again. It was just too uncomfortable.

What hook are you using?

I've got similar conditions on my favorite lake out here. The shallows get socked in with thick hydrilla and at this point in the year a good 25% of the lake is fully matted on top. For grass that's high enough to stick out of the water, I like to dance a 6" Zoom trick worm in pink over the top. For submerged, I like to throw a Caffeine Shad on a superline hook. It sinks like a senko and generally stays at whatever level you let it sink to once you start to retrieve it. I'll either twitch it and let it die into the grass or I'll just do a straight, slow wind. Caffeine Shads have an awesome, subtle movement in the tail when you do a straight retrieve that just seems to work. I was watching GMAN give a talk about jigs and he says that a jig with a vertical line tie doesn't pick up as much junk as a horizontal, but I haven't tried it yet.

Yeah, spey casting is a really dramatic looking way not to catch fish, I've found. Swinging is a crappy presentation. There's nothing really natural about it. It's basically just hoping you trigger a response from the fish. I've only gone steal heading once or twice, because we don't have any around here, but I didn't get one till I started using a float. I really think there are better ways to get a natural drift that using a bobber, but they're painstaking for trying to cover water in a big river. And I don't see the point of using indicators on a fly rod. You can get a better, easier presentation from a bobber rig on conventional gear. You just can.

Depends on what I see what I'm on the water. If I think there are shad, I throw white. If I think there are bluegill, I'll throw something green. However, my new favorite is green pumpkin with blue flake. We have a lot of pumpkin seeds around here, and I feel like that color works really well for that presentation. Almost all my worms are black if I can help it or the closest color to black I can get, just because I think it stands out. Hot Pink is my preferred weightless trick worm color for when I'm dancing on the surface or over weed beds. For jigs, I like a brownish colored skirt with a black trailer, but I'll also do black skirt with green pumpkin because black crawl trailers can be rare. I don't do a lot of chartreuse though. I feel like everyone is throwing chartreuse baits, so I avoid it.

So one of the techniques I accidentally discovered is that you can turn a regular old grub into a wakebait. I don't have room onboard right now for another combo dedicated to top water, so I'm trying to figure out what the biggest hook I can float with a 3 or 4" grub. Right now I'm using a size 4 Aberdeen hook, but the day is going to come when I straighten that bitty thing out. I plan on experimenting myself with different sized hooks, but I was thinking maybe the community could help me save a little time here. Do you float grubs? What size hook can you float? Thank you!

Well the research does show that the body staying in a state of controlled hypertrophy has a significant impact on age related atrophy. I'm not arguing with you though. You're absolutely right. There are a ton of factors involved, mainly joint health and after 10 years of paddling your shoulder is probably shot. Not to mention, the sun is gonna age us no matter what we do. I can just imagine an army of old, wrinkled haggard faces with these giant shoulder and back muscle blowing the doors off of some 20 year old!

This year has been a mess out there. So many people partying, camping and leaving all their trash behind. I only got out there twice this past summer, but both times there were so many people on the water it was almost pointless. The pressure was just crazy, crazy high. With tubing season closed, I think things will greatly improve. Planning on making the jaunt out there sometime next month myself. I'll report back if anything happens.

Wow, Cap, I hadn't even considered that angle. Makes me wonder if kayak fishing can keep you young? I mean, as long as you keep fishing and you keep using self powered boats, you should stay in pretty good shape right? Assuming you eat a good diet though, I suppose, and I'm sure all of us traveling around on the road to fish are ALWAYS eating healthy. Right, fellas?

I'mma be straight up with you. All the ones I've bought have worked so well I'm not sure I've even tried 10. Probably be easier to list the ones I don't like. It's only one. Berkley Gulp Nightcrawler. Hate that bait.

I mean, that's kinda how I expected that to go down. The waders I have actually have belts at both at the top and waist. Then, my wading jacket also works kinda like a crappy version of what you described Francho. So I figure if I go over, between my vest and the trapped air in the legs of my waders, I should fully float. As long as I can get back to my boat before the water really starts to seep in, I should be dry from the chest down still. Then I can just change my top and hat and I should be dry. My long ass hippy hair will probably be a problem though....

I'd like to ask you a question about wearing waders in the winter on a kayak. This was my plan since my wading jacket and waders combo keep me 100% dry when I've taken a drink before, but I also see the argument that you'll still get wet if you can't get back in the boat fast enough and therefore it's still not as safe as a dry suit. What are your thoughts? For OP...It would totally depend on what kind of water you deal with. Jon boats are almost always going to be more expensive cause of your engine and requires way more maintenance, but will be far more comfortable on calm water. An 18' Jon boat will also probably need to be launched from an official ramp on most public water, where you can kinda launch a kayak from anywhere. Kayaks I also feel like handle rough conditions better due to most being rotomolded. I was in an 18' Jon boat in the Delaware River once and the wind started kicking up white caps like crazy. Added to the already heavy commercial traffic and tugboats on the water, we almost didn't make it back. The waves were crashing over the gunwales and swamping us out. He stayed on the motor and I pumped like crazy. However, I got out there in similar conditions this past summer in my kayak and I had no trouble. You can't swamp that thing because physics. I suppose I could be thrown from it one day, but I've yet to meet the wave that even triggers my stumble response. Just a couple of things to think about.

1oz jig is a whole other thing. That's punching weight, so normally you're like pitching that with a vengeance to try to bust through a weed mat. I'm assuming if you're having that effect you're using a spin rod. When you get all that coil coming off, you probably tried to cast the lure way too hard and too far. That means that slightly more line has come off the reel than the distance you cast. In that case, just close the bail and it should fall naturally. You can mitigate this by either using your index finger of your casting hand to feather the line as it comes off the reel or you can use the thumb on your opposite hand. Either way, on any spin cast, you want to control the line coming off the reel the same way you would with your thumb on a casting rod. It's tricky, but you can do it. Edit: In general, I feel like a good rule of thumb is to keep spin casts within 50' of you. I consider it to be a short distance presentation. Casting rods do a much better job at casting lures a long distance and managing the slack. Spin reels are slow, so taking up the extra slack from a boat can be a challenge. Plus, on the caster, the reel spins where with a spin rod it's stationary. The energy from the cast is just going to keep peeling off line. An object in motion, tends to want to stay in motion. So even though you CAN feather a spin rod, it's still an easier task on a shorter cast.