casts_by_fly

In water that is dirtied from mud I would agree with you, but in these algal blooms I've not seen GP or variants produce. That color just disappears in the water.

If you're used to a tighter spool tension, then go slowly to this brave new world. I was always a drop and stop spool tension, then back off the brakes most of the way. I've largely changed to the opposite with minimal spool tension and keeping the brakes higher, just enough to stop an early overrun. I almost always am thumb braking at the end of the cast so end of cast backlashes are rare. The first trip or two after swapping was some learning experience. I'll also say that I get very few backlashes but when you get one... I had one last Tuesday that's the worst I've had since learning a baitcaster 30 years ago. thin mono (12 lb supernatural), negligible spool tension as always. I had turned down the brakes before I put the rod away last time and didn't turn them back up before I went to bomb a cast. The mono mainline was touching the spool under the backing and the last wraps of backing were loose on the metal spool. I had to cut that one out.

On my Amistad, I lock it down pretty tight. I'm using 50 lb braid and heavy hooks, either heavy flipping hooks or heavy frog hooks. I'm not worried about a fish big enough to over stress the setup, and if I hook a fish in the pads especially I want it coming to me with no slippage. I also pitch jigs with my Head turner/pitching stick which is a full power lighter. I'm using 17 lb mono on that one and fishing lighter cover. I also use that rod for swim jigs, chatters, spinnerbaits, etc. There is a very real chance of an incidental musky or northern on that rod and I do not lock down the drag.

No hooks taken, just a 3/8 oz jig straight back to the manbits.

I do what you said. Algal blooms call for black and blue for me, one of the few times I use them here in north jersey since we normally have 4-10' visibility (and I go to GP and equivalents). The cover determines the lure but a chatterbait or spinnerbait (single colorado!) is a starting point as a search lure. A plopper if they are feeding on top. A big bodied jig (swim and pitching both) with a high motion trailer (paddle tail or rage) if they aren't chasing anything. if its a big creek with a lot of water then that might give you some relief from the bloom, but unlikely this time of year. The algae moves quick and wind will stir up the water. This was last september up this way. Visibility less than a foot due to the bloom.

Unless you realize that and hold the rod at waist height instead... Ask me how I know.

Just a quick follow up, I got the Zillion yesterday afternoon. That's ordering on Thursday after they were closed for the day and getting it on Monday. That's incredible. I spooled it up with some 17 lb elite and put it on my Falcon expert head turner which is my 6'10" heavy/F for fishing swim jigs, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, and just general fishing. First impressions are that its a pretty nice reel. Definitely a step up from the Revo STXs which I like a lot (I fished the STX on that rod last night for a bunch of hours). It is a comparable reel to the Chronarch in fit and feel. Heck, from the top down it even looks a lot like the Chronarch. The reel is a bit smaller than I imagined. The Chronarch is just a touch longer I think (it's in the truck right now), the Zillion is just a touch 'thicker' i think maybe top to bottom. It might just be the proportions since it is shorter it looks fatter. Either way, it disappears in the hand and that's the most important bit. It feels lighter in the hand than the same rod with the STX but I can't confirm that in data yet. I don't love that the drag star is a molded composite material. I know its almost certainly fine, but on a reel in this class I'd expect aluminum. As an engineer, the T-wing is really cool. I never expected it to move in the manner it does (the entire levelwind mechanism rolls forward). I need to get time on the water to evaluate it fairly, but 15 minutes of pool casting and I've learned how to skip a jig. I don't know if the reel is better at it than others (need to go try and skip with my other reels now) but it definitely taught me how to skip. Before I was only able to skip a 1.5 oz soft swimbait on a moderate actioned crankbait rod with no accuracy. Now I'm tossing a 3/8 swim jig and craw chunk into 2' gaps and getting 5' past the 'bar'. If that is the only thing this reel is good for then its one really good thing. I would say it feels about as smooth as the chronarch (which is a good thing). You guys are dangerous. If the Yen keeps moving the way it has been over the past couple months (ignoring the dip the past couple days) you're going to have me ordering another one.

last night I went to a lake a fished over a month ago and surprise- the milfoil was bright green and looked freshly grown. The eelgrass was the same. I'm thinking maybe last year I started fishing a couple of these lakes in July so I didn't see the early growth and subsequent die back. I need to see some more lakes right about now and see what we're looking at. And, maybe go fish the big lake that I was fishing a lot in June/July last year to see if it had a dieback also this year.

Definitely should be a sticky. There was a time when graphite for rods was only the offshoot from the aerospace industry and the material classifications meant something. That time was long ago. So much marketing and specialization in the technology that it doesn't mean much of anything anymore in fishing rods. The scrim and resin make as much a difference as the graphite, and the design of the taper has to play into all of it.

We had a downpour before I left and then got another steads rain as I was leaving. It rained half of my drive there and was cloudy the rest. It rained most of the time I was gone. Not what I got to fish under.

good point. I haven't done wiring diagrams for a LOOONG time and totally missed that.

We've had some crap weather the past three weeks (at least for fishing)- 90+ highs during the day, bluebird skies, minimal wind, and negligible rain. Water temps are 85+. The milfoil has died off in a lot of lakes (and all of my usuals) and turned brown. Lakes are starting to get low and one is 5' low (all shoreline structure is dry, the grass has died everywhere else). Not ideal conditions by any stretch. Yesterday we had a rainstorm predicted and the barometer was changing quite a bit. Inspired by the change in barometer and associated cloud cover from another thread: I had to get out and 'keep shooting' @DaubsNU1 @gimruis. I picked a smaller local lake that in the past has yielded a fair number of strikes but a low conversion rate of hits to landed bass for some reason. It was the site of the 'soft plastics only' outing from a month ago. Last month there was a fair bit of grass, plenty of pondweed, a couple lily pads, and a strong scumline around the shore. Great conditions for toads then and, I hoped, frogs last night. I still haven't found a good frog bite this year and I've been dying for one. If the grass was dead like the other lakes, I was going to bottom bounce some swinghead beavers and search the dropoffs. I got out of the house and got there a little after 4. It poured rain and was heavy clouds on the drive there. I arrive to bluebird skies, hot sun, and barely a whisper of wind. I dropped the kayak in and started pulling gear from the backseat which suddenly looked surprisingly empty. I completely forgot my tackle bag. Its the first time I've ever done it. I'm a half hour from home and the boat is already in the water, so let's see what I have in the truck. I had 6 rods with me, but only 4 were rigged from sunday's outing. One was my backup pitching stick that I just pulled out of storage and threw a reel on with heavy line (dedicated frog rod), but didn't put a lure on. Later I find out that I grabbed the wrong rod and it was my light cranking rod that looks just like my pitchin stick. What's still in the boat? My frog/toad/weedless spoon box is there because I tossed it in the rear well the other day and didn't take it out. My 'just snipped off' tray is in the boat with the lures I snipped off Sunday. Total inventory: - 3 jigs- 1 PB&J flipping jig with green pumpkin rage chunk, 2 swim jig with keitech trailers (shad and bluegill colors) - 1 GP boar Hogz, texas rigged on a rod - Two topwaters- 1 black buzzbait, 1 plopper 90 in blueblood - 1 palmetto bug in black/blue with flipping hook - 1 small senko on a dropshot hook (weights in the boat always) - 1 1/2 oz football head with a black toad on it - my frog/toad/spoon box with a full compliment of lures - 1 6" bright orange inline spinner of unknown brand that I found sunday on the bottom of the lake Since I was hoping for a frog bite, I said why not. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and fish. Well, the grass wasn't dead for a start. In fact, the milfoil was really going bright green and starting to thicken. But there wasn't much of anything on the surface aside from the eelgrass that was laying over from the low water. Low water also meant that the pads only had a foot of water under them at best aside from a couple random patches. So I picked up the bluegill swim jig and started swimming the cuts and dropping into the holes anywhere that the weeds were green. It was the right call. Third cast hit a 3 lb fish that I lost boatside. A couple casts later was a 14" fish that hit it like a truck. I swapped the jig to my heavier rod and continued for the evening. After the third fish in 40 minutes I realized that my trailer was going to give way soon so I glued it to the jig which bought some time. A couple fish later and I had a hard hit but pulled back to nothing- whatever it was grabbed just the paddle tail and took it. No more trailers, or so I thought! I pulled the rage chunk off the flipping jig and glued it on. Not my first choice for a swim jig, but it has a LOT of movement in the water. Three casts later and a 17" bass was in the boat. After a quick pass down the dam in low light with a buzzbait (catching a 3 lb fish), I called it a night. Not a single frog fish, but 7 landed and 2 more lost made for a good evening. The 14" was the dink of the night, the rest were 2.5-3 lb fish (I only weighed the first 16" fish and it was 2-08, so I just did quick lengths the rest of the night). I texted my wife when I launched about forgetting my bag and asking if she'd run it over. She said, "Scarcity breeds innovation". It also forces you to do whatever it is you have will full focus because you don't have another choice.

This. With all of the grass you're around, a swim jig with your choice of trailer should be the ticket a lot of days.

The only thing that worries me about that diagram is the 'both' on the switch. Does your switch have a 'both' setting and if so does it put them in parallel or series? the last thing I'd want to do it mistakenly turn it to the wrong setting and send 24V through a 12V motor. Just something to check on.

thanks. I was going to do some checking on here about new reel prep for Daiwa. I know Shimano tends to go with a heavy grease that's better if its cleaned out. I'll give it a once over today and cast it around in the pool.

I jus got my zillion jdm in the mail today. It was about an hour too late for my fishing trip tonight but I’ll get it out later this week. First impressions are good. It’s smaller than I expected. If obviously very smooth while spooling it up. Need to cast it and see how it plays.

Since the quote was deluxe, which I took to mean 'top of the line', I'm using an autopilot with trolling motor included as an example. If we take the electronics and battery out, you're at $4200. If you want to go to a Hobie PA 12 (no motor) you're at $5300. You're right that electronics are subject to user and I thought about taking them out of the comparison. Regardless, a jon boat with an electric motor and trailer is under $2k on the used market now. A basic jon boat with trailer will run you $1k. Add a spot lock trolling motor and you're still under $4k that the kayak costs. Certainly not double the kayak cost. For me personally, I'd still swap to a boat. I'd miss my kayak, but not that much. The smaller waters that I can't drop a boat onto wouldn't get fished but there are only a couple and I don't care about them that much. The waters that would open up because I don't fish them as much in the kayak as I would if I had a bigger motor are greater than what I'd lose. My storage would be about the same (1 garage bay), my convenience would be better in a boat (keep my rods and takle in the boat and don't have to load them every trip). Maintenance would go up a little since the kayak has no maintenence I wouldn't do in a boat (wipe it down, charge batteries) and the boat has maintenance like bearings, tires, etc. I don't care about exercise and if I want to feel closer to nature I'll fish the lakes that don't have party boats or run along the highway.

Actually you might be right. I wasn't thinking about the bait causing the twist. Certainly you could design two baits with opposite corkscrews in the water such that one is opposite of the twist your reeling against the drag imparts. I'm going to have to think about this one a little more.

In that case, come up here and get it. Make sure you take it home with you too... This got me thinking about the math behind it. A foot of water is 0.43 psi pressure. The atmosphere is nominally 14.7 PSI (which is 29.93 in Hg). So 35' is the depth where the weight of the water and the weight of the air are equal (which I know from diving since 10m is considered 1 atm). 1 inHg is roughly 1.13' of water. A normal/nominal change in barometric pressure for a front is 0.2 inHg, which corresponds to about 3" of water. A big storm or mega stable front of high pressure might be as much as 1 inHG, or roughly 1' of water. So if a front suddenly comes through (instantaneously for instance), a fish needs only move a foot deeper to equalize. So anyone who thinks bass go from 3 FOW to 10FOW to escape barometric changes might want to rethink.

no. It can never get twisted in that opposite direction in the first place so that reeling against would untwist it. Only exception I can think of would be adding 'backwards' twist spooling it on but that only applies to the first couple casts after spooling. After that the twist should largely be gone with a couple long casts.

- always cheap line for backing unless you have a shallow spool like the Lews SLP baitcaster or others like the pornography that @bulldog1935 constantly posts. I use about 12 lb mono since I have a bunch of spools of stuff I don't use for anything else. - I prefer straight braid where I can get away with it. That includes my frog rod, my heavy pitching stick, and my crankbait rod (braid is awesome for lipless crankbaits) - My spinning rods are all braid to leader (fluoro in my case) - If I really need to, I'll put a leader on my baitcasters with braid. This is usually the case of the rod doing double duty when I'm not carrying the 'right' rod for it. Examples include topwaters on my crankbait rod, small swimbaits on a jighead on the same rod, or jerkbaits on that rod. I don't think I've ever put a leader on my heavier baitcaster. And for the three exceptions noted, I'd have rather had a different rod (spinning with leader for the swimbaits, a straight mono or fluoro line for the other two). If I think I need non-braid for my heavy baitcasters I will have a different rod in hand and know that going into the day (like pitching a lot of trees/wood).

Your other points might be debatable depending on the circumstance, but I can tell you this isn't correct. Maybe you have a different definition of deluxe, but if you call deluxe the top of market and loaded out, then you can buy a couple jon boats for the price of a deluxe kayak. A guy asked me at the ramp the other day what my kayak costs so I did the math for him. Boat, batteries, and the Helix 7 are over $5k alone. That's before you get into the smaller stuff that adds up. That doesn't count a trailer since I use my truck bed. You can get a basic used jon boat on a trailer (no motor or equipment) for under $1k, or one with a motor and trolling motor for $2500. thanks rick

that's a really great pamphlet and I'm going to save it since NJ will be similar. To get your specific lakes info, check out the biologist reports. Usually the reports will list the primary forage for a lake and then go into the game fish populations and plans. PA might have the best ones I've seen, but NJ isn't bad. I haven't checked NY but this is what google is telling me. https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/7730.html

LW Pitch? As in line winding pitch? As in how fast the levelwind moves across the spool per rotation?

How deep of water and how high are the weeds? This is basically the world I live in on a lot of the lakes here. Yesterday it was 6-8' clarity and lots of curly pond weed (which if you've ever fished around it you'll know its a bear to get anything through). Lots of 10-15' bottom with weeds that end up 10' tall by the end of the year around here. All of this is depending on the water depth, but: - early on before it gets daylight or just after, throw topwaters over it. Especially with clear water you can pull fish from 10-15' deep to slam a topwater if there is any semblance of a topwater bite that day. A spinnerbait over the top will be a good second if they don't want to break the water. - Fish the edges. This relies on being able to find the edges. On visible grass that shouldn't be too hard, but on deeper grass you'll need electronics do to it quickly. Otherwise its trial and error and a good visual memory. Moving baits in the top half that also come through weeds are a good shout. I like a swim jig here. The bottom of the weeds at the edge is the last place to check. If you can see the edge, then pitching a texas rig to the edge is my choice, focusing on irregularities. I think a dropshot would probably also be a good choice, but I'm not an expert there. - if you have to get into the middle of the grass, then pitching holes with a texas rig is my usual. If you're talking deep water and the grass isn't visible on the surface, then its going to be tough. Pointy weights, standard hooks (not EWG), straight worms like a ribbontail or speed worm), and patience. If the grass is only a foot or so off the bottom then a floating worm on a carolina rig.