raydomz

Man I can relate to that. Curse of the graph. But moving is key on tough days. Excited to hear about your next trip out!

Yo-zuri T7 all the way.

Can’t complain about a 4lb’er! Nice! what will you do differently next time?…or the same?

Good luck out there! if you don’t mind, what guide service did you use?

I appreciate you sharing your concern and I am certainly guilty of lax rule enforcement. We’ve got several “rules of the boat”, life jackets at all times in one of them. I’ve spent a lot of time in canoes growing up and know those exact scenarios like you experienced. I can see now a need to focus deeper on keeping things safe at all times 🙂. Again, appreciate the call out!

Are you typically throwing more natural patterned jerks with water that clear? Great catches!

Our river smallies haven’t fully turned on down here in SE MI yet…but I’m starting to see the transition. I’ve been fully invested in trd’s, trd tubes, and shaky head worms.

I’d say water quality could be directly related to how many fish there are…which could mean fewer bites. Give us some more details. Have you caught fish here before? What type of baits do you throw? What has worked in the past? Is the pond fed by a creek or is it standalone?

I appreciate you sharing this info. I have been anxiously awaiting my replacement rod, and in the meantime have been using my 6’6” M tatula for neds/free rigs. I started with setting the drag properly, smashed the barbs on my hooks, and have been more diligent about line tension…which I thought I already was, but the lack of fish lost on the jump tells me I may have been wrong about that. I did notice that my finer ewg’s I use for free rigs set more reliably so I ordered some Ned’s with ewg’s to see how those fare. At the end of the day, I’ve noticed something: I really was not paying as much attention to the details as I thought I was. Since starting this conversation and approaching SM with the advice given in this thread I’ve noticed a lot more and caught more reliably. You all rock! In hindsight, what I considered “low” was far too low. I now feel like I can feel the drag doing what it is supposed to. Amazing how long you can do something, only to realize it was not helping like it could have been 🙄. And your tip about how to handle the jump…gold! Feels counter intuitive, but it works.

I run this exact setup and have not had any issues. I use a double uni.

Given the amount of cover in my river, guards are a must. But I have adjusted the way I hook this particular bait to not go through the center, but just outside of it. This puts more of the body of the worm off the back of the hook and leaves more gap. Has worked so far - the only downside is yamamoto plastics don’t have the best tear resistance. Have to use a few today.

Ok all, let’s start with the good and end with the bad… I took a little lunch trip down to the same spot that started this conversation. I spooled up 4lb invizx, set my drag to ~1lb using a bag and a can of beer, and only brought out neds. It wasn’t but 5 minutes before I landed my first. What was different? Firstly, I kept the rod tip up - no jumpers. Secondly, as someone mentioned, I could feel a stretch in the line that simply was not there with my braid-to-leader setup. The tension felt solid each time I pulled one in. Bonus, I forgot how silent straight flouro could be. These changes in approach have restored my confidence in myself 😃 thank you all for the input and ideas! Now the bad news… I know it will sound crazy, but this happened with a fish on, with no change to the drag (didn’t need it! Thanks @WRB), no excessive struggle, and I didn’t even lose the lure… I am hoping that this is an exception and not the norm for these rods. I reached out to TW who is going to get it sorted. But I hope the replacement doesn’t suffer the same fate.

Thank you for all of these points, Tom. I’m not sure how many others would care to admit it, but I have never set the drag as suggested - I’m going to try that. Do you mind expanding on #2? Thanks!

I appreciate the insight on this and I think you raise some points I need to consider. The rod is extremely sensitive and setting the hook felt nearly identical to my other rods (all in the 6’6”-7’ range) but I’m going to add a little more umfph to the hook sets in the future. The reason I’ve opted to work the fish a bit is because of their aggressiveness (they’re a wild bunch) and their size. But a few more clicks of drag and more retrieve speed is worth trying. Lastly on the tip-down idea… Ive wondered about the effectiveness of this myself. I have never given *not* doing it an honest try. One caveat I want to mention though is that many of the spots where they school up are only ~10’ away from where I’m standing so the amount of line I have out is minimal. Going to take a lot of this out with me tomorrow and land some. 🤘

Ahh ok, thank you. I could see this working with a regular ned worm.

Can you please explain what you mean about the barb? My kids think I’m losing skills 🫣 Ah, ok, now this could be interesting to experiment with. I have used braid to flouro exclusively (8lb braid, 6lb leader), but I do have a couple spools of 4lb flouro I could try with this setup. I am in the same boat. I am going to try rigging the hook shallow along the side of the plastic so that less of the body is under the hook gap. I’ll report back on that.

Problem: Losing large fish on a shorter rod Background: Our local river holds some beautiful smallmouth which we have enjoyed fishing without much issue. Due to the confined nature of the system I picked up a z-man Ned Rod - the 5’4” model - hoping that the unique blend of short shaft and strong backbone would be great for getting around the woods and overhanging trees and also bringing in SM and LM. In terms of ease of travel, it’s perfect. Where I’m struggling with it is keeping large fish pinned. I am applying the same technique I use with my other rods - keep tension on the rod after the hookset, work the fish toward the bank, and keep the tip down to keep them from jumping & shaking. I have my drag set low enough that they are able to pull some line out as I reel. I’m not muscling them in. Last night I lost 4 in a row. Schooled up in the same spot. 2 jumped and shook, 2 shook underwater as I tried to change direction on them to tire them out. One thing I considered was the lure - a yamatanuki on a ned. It’s a thick little bait - maybe it’s not getting good hook penetration? This may be a moot point though considering I recently lost two large LM on this rod, the only difference in bait was that it was a small craw on a ned. I think this is a fisherman problem and not a gear problem. Those of you running smaller gear, light line, etc - how do you handle large fish? Let them run? Work them quicker?

Newcomer here - will be following. I’d love to join in if these get going this year.

I’m not afraid to admit that I like my gear a certain way 😄 I’m a designer by trade and can’t unsee certain details…for better or worse. That said, I’ve checked out a couple lews reels in person and think I’m going to hold off for now. I will more likely than not keep the tp-1 for my kids and seek out a ml Daiwa rod to start.

I checked this out and unfortunately most reels don’t qualify for that discount - but! - I appreciate the heads up about it. I appreciate this feedback. When I think about my question more I arrive at this place. Thanks! Going to give them a look.

Ok, I should preface by saying that I typically use Diawa products and have come to love them. I’ve matched reels and rods up and like my rigs. I do however have a Lews TP-1 rod which one of my sons has used with a cheap combo-sourced Diawa reel for the past year. I really like the rod for neds and free rigs and would finally like to get a Lew’s reel to match it. I have come to love Diawa’s fuego models for price to quality ratio(very high!) and wonder what you all would suggest from Lews that is comparable. Should I just slap a fuego on it and forget about my need to match things up? fyi I’d be looking for something that comes in a 1000 or 1500, 2000 max. Would like to stay under the high end tier if possible.

Ah! Nice! I need to give this a try.

If you have any double sided tape, wrap a short piece around the spool and you’re off to the races. Same effect.