Me and my boy and the father in law have done a few boat runs the last few weeks up on the Notty. Had lots of success and he’s continuing his trend of out fishing me does it all by himself.
last time out lost a giant (I believe) went in under a bunch of sticks, was down there for a few minutes and ended up breaking me off. Good times
Maybe the megabass whip snake is your next rod. I heard good things about it.
anyways ……… my complete Wacky rig set up almost exclusively these days is a 7’4 med heavy casting rod. ( GLX 893 ) I mostly throw 6 inch senkos with VMC wacky ring. 40 pound braid with 15-20 pound floro leader. I have tried every hook out there and nothing beats a 3/0 Owner Jungle wacky hook. Expensive but has the strength to hold up to a casting rod with braid. I can skip that bait so for and have way better control than with a spinning rod. 5 inch senkos I use a standard 6’6” med heavy Diawa rod with 2500 series reel 15 pound braid. Sometime straight braid or 12 pound leader.
one good tip is to have one rod rigged Texas and one for wacky. You can recycle you beat up Texas rigged baits as wacky baits on the other rod. Will sometimes convert the wacky rod into a Neko rod. Hook facing up
always go with the biggest you can afford is how I look at it. You will never regret having "too much screen" just like boats, you dont ever hear anyone say "dang i wish I had less horsepower and a smaller boat" lol
By the way, you can run a 9" garmin with panoptix effectively all day on one lithium battery. They were on sale with the charger last winter for $100 and save you a lot of weight vs carrying 2 lead batteries to power a 7 inch screen for a full day.
Sobeys in peterborough has pretty good seafood. They don't always have live lobsters, but they do in season. I've bought them there a few times and they were great.
S.
My firewood for the last 3 or 4 years has been about 90% ash. All free. Removing hazard trees for people has its benefits. Your right though, it is a ton of work. I notice the young ash trees still going strong, so hopefully the beetle dies off, and those young once can regenerate. They grow quick and replenish well enough.
S.