casts_by_fly

I don't know if it was the original but that was certainly one of the colors. I have a bag downstairs.

go for it! Knoxville isn’t on my list but could be !

for sure! Our plan is to start this spring and visit a bunch of areas over the next couple years. We have plenty of time to explore. Then as you say, we’d rent a place for a year or two and split time. Not the worst thing having a lake house somewhere. And the best time to buy a house (car, get a job, etc) is when you don’t need to. Northern Michigan would be great. until my dogs tell me that they aren’t up for this:

topwaters. Not for bringing them in faster but for quicker line management. sometimes you just need it.

All of these things and then some.

I've got a horizontal rod rack that holds 4, plus one in my hand. I can throw a spare rod holder on a rear track and keep it parallel to the water. A two piece spinning rod will fit in the rear well if I really really wanted to do that. I've also got two rear facing tubes in the back well built in. About twice a year, usually on the shoulder season between no grass and grass (mid may) and on bigger lakes that offer options I have to make choices about what I take. Past that though? if I can't make it work with 5 rods then I have made some bad choices.

I normally carry 5 since I'm in a kayak and they are always 'on the deck' if you will.. If I had a rod locker I'd have another half dozen all of the time for those edge cases, but for the most part I can manage with 5-6. Even with only 5-6, I often will have two of the same technique tied on. A light and a heavy texas rig, a pitching jig and a swim jig. Two walking baits of different options. Sometimes the day starts that way, sometimes it ends that way. I'm not fishing tournaments so I don't mind sitting down to retie every now and then.

Thanks, this is super useful and the same exercise that we were planning. Greenville was lightly on my list so I think we'll bump that a little higher. What's the best time of year for fishing so far? march/April? St Augustine would be cool, but florida is a hard no for us. We'll still visit charleston for sure just because its a cool city break. We wouldn't live in Charleston, rather outside it and drive in (same for all of these places in the end). We're currently ~1 hour to NYC and that level of 'close' or slightly closer is what we're looking for, just on a lake. With non-NJ level taxes. "Good luck with your decision. Life is too short to freeze your arse off up North for half the year! " agreed. I grew up in pittsburgh so I know cold and snow. Maybe not minnesota, but still plenty cold. I don't mind it too much but why deal when you don't have to.

yeah but in an hour you can be in Charleston. And that’s a pretty cool city.

I mostly fish a 7 with a 32” ipt and a shallow type spool. I have a couple 8’s that I like for bottom contact, not for working the lure but taking up slack. I have some 6’s for cranks that I know to need to slow down but end up speeding up. That said, I can make all of them work for general purposes. this is the one exception for me- topwaters. I fish an 8.5 and my dad throws a 10. I’m throwing buzzbaits mostly and he’s throwing buzzbaits and walking baits on it. I want a buzzbait blade turning basically before it hits the water. You can kinda do it with a slower reel and good thumb management but not every cast. There are times when the reel speed helps and with a buzzbait I find that first 2’ off the bank is often the juice. If it takes 2’ to get it on top you’ve already lost.

thanks. We've moved a few times and are familiar with the pitfalls now. Always good for a reminder though. We will also be moving from NJ where the annual real estate taxes are enough to buy a car. Three years of not paying these taxes and I can buy a fully rigged Pro-V Bass. Outside of Hawaii and maybe California, everywhere else will be cheaper.

Hi All, I know we've had a few threads on this the past couple years but my google-fu is weak and I can't find them. It's also getting cold for a lot of us so we need something to talk about. My wife and I are still a little ways from retirement. We're not planning to move out of this house for at least another 5 years or more with the jobs we have and where things are located. Retirement is likely a 10-years from now time frame. That said, we want to start exploring options in case an opportunity arises. We are not planning a bigger vacation this year like we've done in the past and instead we'll be doing some long weekends and maybe full weeks with some remote work during the week. We'd like to find some lake houses or houses semi-near lakes for now to explore areas (ultimately we'd buy a lake house). We'd need to be within an hour or so drive of a bigger city (or less even). My wife can't handle 'out in the sticks' living so regular trips to the city are going to be necessary. Obviously I need the fishing to be decent. To move there permanently with a lake house I'd have a boat on the water and trailer to nearby lakes. For this exploring phase I'll have some form of watercraft with me but it's more important to explore the areas. My wife would also love to be close to a beach, though that's a little bit limiting and not a hard constraint. A couple that have come to mind so far: * Santee Cooper area. 1 hour to charleston or the beach. 'Santee Cooper' as the lakehouse lake. I think that might be my leading choice and one we'll explore first. * North Georgia. You're an hour to atlanta or so (we have friends in atlanta). Lanier is one option (plenty of lake hosues!) though I'm not sure that's my preferred fishing. Other lakes exist. Hartwell could be a good choice. 90 minutes to our friends in Atlanta, 60 to Greenville. * Charlotte area. Could be on either side of the border. Tons of lakes in the area generally, but I know nothing of the fishing for most of them. *John Kerr/Gaston reservoirs. An hour to Raleigh-Durham. 3-4 hours to the beach. * Nashville area. The city is cool and being able to drive there would be awesome. The lakes don't fill me with joy but I could be convinced? The Tennessee river lakes towards chatanooga would be too far to live on and drive to Nashville often. I don't think Chattanooga is going to be a big enough city but could be convinced. Probably one we should explore if just for my sake. Any other broad areas that we need to put on the list for further research? Any specific lakes in those broad areas that we should consider? I'd considered Sam Rayburn but it's too far out from a city. Austin would be a good city but lake travis doesn't excit me. Also don't think we want to go to Texas. Depending on the locations and what we find, I'll probably plan the first long weekend in late March/early April which would be pretty ideal fishing for Santee Cooper... thanks rick

Well, if you change your mind, the Falcon Heavy cover jig was designed specifically for the applications you're talking about- dragging jigs across deeper cover. I use it exactly for the applications you're talking about and I would suggest that it's what you've described- plenty of power and a fast tip but you actually get some bend in the top 1/3-1/2 of the rod on a hookset or good cast. I know the Shimano worm and jig action that you're talking about as that's what my dad fishes. They carry a lot of power high into the rod and are genuinely fast actioned and at the top end of a fast for a lot of them. The HCJ lists as a fast action, but it's on the slower side of fast and has a lot more feel to it. Really versatile rod. It does what it's designed for really well. I will most often have it rigged with a 3/8-1/2 oz weight or jig plus a chunk of plastic. It's also my buzzbait and 110 plopper rod if you'll believe that.

I always used surgical tubing for the bulk of my guides. I bought a 100' piece 20 years ago and still have most of it. When I'm laying out a rod I grab the bulk and snip pieces off the end to make my own bands. The surgical tubing has a fairly small ID and is snug to the blank all the way to the last 6" on most rods. Once you add a small guide foot under it it is usually enough to hold the guide enough to get 3-4 wraps up the taper and onto the main foot. For the very rare occasions that I had a super skinny tip (something that ended up with a 4 or smaller tip top) and also a thin wire guide like a recoil fly guide I would grab my box of floats and use a float cap. A mixed box of them is about $4 and I had them around for float fishing anyway. The tiniest ones barely fit a piece of heavy mono through them without stretching.

I'm in the same place on the micro. I seriously considered it, but a lot of the places I'd want to pole down the boat is in 12+' of water... So the number of places that it would actually be useful for me is less than 'all of my lakes'. If it was half the price then sure. For $350 or so as a part time used item I'd have it. But not $700. I've also watched for used versions to come up on marketplace or other. There are SO many scams run with them its unreal.

Any reason you're locked into those two and are you open to other rods?

the one I have is a 10,000 mAh charging bank which is a TON of portable battery for phones, computers, etc. Well worth having at least one. Mine stays in the truck. Jus have to remember to charge them every now and then.

one of these plus one of these. Our alewives have a blue tinge to them with the occasional chartreuse fin.

fully agreed there. West Nile is the other one. we had a bad outbreak of ehd 2 or 3 summers ago. The fall before it you could ride down my street and across the next one over and count 40-50 deer every evening. We lost about over 50% of the population that summer and maybe more. The local biologists noted it.

Because I don’t have to wear sunscreen on the really cloudy days.

Lyme is transmitted via ticks, not through the blood of the animal to other animals. Let alone cooked meat from a deer that’s had its blood drained out anyway.

it varies depending on the tree. I hunt from a saddle and primarily rope climb. So I’m not limited to how many sticks I have or how tall the ladder is. I try to find trees with a significant branch, a split truck, or something else for back cover. Wherever that is I will climb to. In this case I was about 20’ to the platform. In the more open woods around here that’s about my minimum. I was on a hill with the deer below me so I got away with it. More often I am 22-25 to my platform. Depending on location and time of year, I’ll have a 35 or 40’ rope on top. 5’ wraps around the tree and another foot in the knots. So I can set that rope 28-33’ high and have enough rope to rappel down. Yeah, I was at a housewarming when this picture came through last night. The cold snap has them moving. And this is the big guy around.

The falcon Cara head turner is the rod you’re looking for. 6’10”, 1/4-3/4 (though 1oz is easy enough) fast action with a quick tip but a lot of backbone up the rod. It was designed to be a short pitching rod but it’s a fantastic rod for bladed baits also. Super versatile rod. Mine also is my big walking bait rod, spinnerbait/chatterbait rod for most things, swim jig and tight spaces jig/pitching/plastics rod (aka docks and skipping), and it also tends to be the rod that I will throw the ‘random’ other lure if I don’t have the correct rod for it. For instance, I’d ordinarily throw weightless flukes on my shorter/lighter rod but I don’t always carry it so if that’s what I want to fish this rod will get it.

After Wednesdays near miss, I figured the deer would still be around. I backtracked the trail I figured them to be on and picked out a tree. Most of the trees in this bottoms are big and straight with no branches for cover. I guess I picked the wrong one. The tree was a bit wider than my shoulders and while my ropes were long enough my platform strap wasn’t. I didn’t realize it until fighting the climb up for 10 minutes though. I went further up the trail and found a smaller beech with a few branches in a pinch point near the trail. Go to ~22’ or so where the canopy kinda started and had to adjust location a couple times to get where the branches didn’t interfere with my bow at full draw but that the platform would not be interfered by lumps in the bark and could sit still. Ended up okay but with branches on my right side I couldn’t shoot from my 12:00-5:00 around the tree at all (which was my downwind and also an open woods so not awful). The squirrels were going nuts but about 530 I saw a deer in the distance. Turned out it was three does. It took them ten minutes but they fed my way and eventually came out at 25 yards. They were coming towards me so I waited, figuring they’d stop and turn. Well they hung a hard 90 and were dead away before I got a chance. Fortunately they fed around a good while and one decided come back towards me, even smelling my tree. I couldn’t twist to get the shot downward but she walked more or less diagonal away into my 11:00 and let me draw. It was fairly hard quartering away so I picked my exit hole, settled the pin, and stabbed the release. As the lighted nock disappeared I thought it was a little back but when the deer all ran off 40 yards and stopped i felt pretty good. They all stayed there for a solid 10 minutes before two spooked and ran off. I thought I heard a crash so I gathered up and got down. There was enough light that if she was heads up I could still shoot her. It wasn’t necessarily. She piled up about 50 yards from the shot. The entry was a touch back for preference, but it cut the top off the stomach, center punched the main liver arteries, and took out the lower front lobe of the right lung before exiting at the arm pit. I’d rather 2” further up the body but this will do. Full pass through most of the length of the body? I’ll take it. 50 yard tracking job? Done. Only had blood for the last 10 yards and not much, but a deer piled up in 50 will do.

no, that’s not how retail products work. The product development model is such that when you launch a new product (especially a premium one) you normally come in at a price premium to what’s on the market because you have some new ‘feature’ to justify it. It’s new and shiny so consumers are interested (aka buy it). Then a year or three down the line when that new feature has trickled down into cheaper products of your lineup the higher end model has lost some pizzaz. You need to discount it a little to keep sales up. You look for ways to pare the cost down. On top, costs are always going up but consumers won’t accept a price hike for what’s the same item (typically, and if they have a choice). So on a product basis, the company can keep trying to shave costs or they can come out with a new product. Look at what abu Garcia has done with the revo stx as an example. They are on the fifth or sixth iteration and the msrp just climbs (though the discounted price isn’t too much higher if you watch the sales). On a company basis, you need to have a supply strategy for the products you are selling. Are you making it in house or externally? In market or out of market? Are you going to have high stocks on hand or create a supply chain that is highly responsive to changes in demand. The product you make, the in-house expertise, the third party manufacturers available and costs play into the decision. All of that is to say that most consumers don’t care one bit about where a product is made. More important is the product and features you get for the price you pay. If it truly is the same product with the same ingredients and quality control, then it doesn’t matter where it’s made. To get features A, B, and C it costs you X.