singingdog

I have tried 3" senkos for brookies and splake. They will hit them, but are tough to hook up because of their tendency to slash a lure. In the plastics department, I have had way more luck using small swimbaits.

If you are riding on an unstaked lake up here this year, particularly one with any current, you are playing roulette. I have never seen so much open water this late in the winter.

Lots of my musky lures have singles, mainly to protect me! I have switched over a fair # of my inlines to singles, and don't notice a difference in hook up percentages. You might get more of the "slashers" with trebles, but they will often be foul-hooked anyway.

Funny that he mentions the sebile magic swimmer. I have 2 of those set up with a single siwash on the back, no front treble. They nearly as weedless as a spinnerbait.

Yep, Kijiji is only as good as your desire to drive around and sit in other peoples houses trying their guitars.

The other thing I will throw in the mix is this: buy the instrument that makes you want to play. Owning a vintage instrument that lives in the case all the time is a great way to not play very much. Owning a decent instrument that you don't mind leaving out on the stand is a great way to get better. Being able to walk by and pick it up for a quick practice session is one of the best ways to get better.

Buy for sound, not for action. Action can be fixed easily, sound can't. The quality of $500 guitars is amazing these days....on par with what would have cost you $1500 a few years ago. If you are buying new, then there is a certain unknown. It is tough to know how an instrument will age. Buying used, you get some assurance that an instrument is going to hold it's sound.

Line problems can result from constantly using the bail to stop a lure in midflight: the immediate deceleration causes the line to dig into the spool, causing the dreaded "loop jump" that is often confused with line twist. Closing the bail manually is a habit that keeps you from using the bail to stop a lure in mid flight.

interesting pattern you picked up on there.

 

Ive read a few articles talking about male smallies making a one week trip back to the spawning beds in the fall...perhaps this is the result! its all a matter of timing i guess! nice job

I've seen it in cold water before. I had a couple of days last November, catching them shallow on sunny, fairly calm days. On those days, they seem to concentrate on the flats where there is quick access to deeper water.

Calm, beautiful weather, great bronzies...what else could you ask for. Thanks for sharing. Glad you had a good day.

Yea, that second fish may be the prettiest smallie I have ever landed.

Got out yesterday for the start of November smallie season. What a day! Shirt sleeve warm and virtually no wind. Water temps mid 50s, so I went looking in the usualy haunts in 15-20 FOW. Couldn't get bit on the bottom, couldn't find them in the column, so I decided to try shallow. The next few hours were a blast: 15 good quality fish, all in 4-8 FOW, crystal clear. All fish were caught on a ned rig, with everything else going untouched. Gotta love it when a half senko on a jig head outfishes hundreds of dollars worth of Japanese tackle

If you want a great fishing yak, that is easy to load and portage/cart into back lakes, check out the Wilderness Systems Commander. It will handle a trolling motor (if you want to ruin a perfectly good yak ), is easy to stand and fish in, and is quite a bit lighter than any SOT. It is NOT a Lake O boat: it doesn't self bail like a SOT will, and will take on water in big waves.

If you want the ultimate open-water boat, check out the ATAK: better speed than any other standable yak, and has all the open-water safety of a SOT.

Once you put a trolling motor on it, it's not a kayak anymore

Never tried it. How fast do you troll a bible? Seems to me that it would be tough to keep it at any depth without a downrigger. Are you targeting Baptists?

Thanks for all the info folks. I really appreciate it.

Anybody with experience selling/shipping machinery across the border? I am on the board of a not-for-profit ski association. We have an older Pisten Bully that we are trying to sell. We have a potential buyer in New Hampshire, that wants us to ship it to him at our cost. We have no expertise in this area, consequently no idea about shipping cost, brokerage cost.....Can anyone help: advice, or directions to good advice would be much appreciated.

Definitely some good weather left. IMHO, the best smallie fishing of the year is in October. The trick from now until the water gets really cold is finding them. One day they will be on the bottom in 40 FOW, the next they might be right against the bank rooting frogs or busting minnows.

Cool! How far north are you? We just ended one of our hottest weeks of the summer, but the days are getting noticeably shorter. The cold front is hitting here with a high of 62 today, it was pushing 90 all last week.

 

Nice fish!!! Congratulations!

I occasionally wade, but 90% of the time it's from a Yak.

Got out on my favourite smallie lake yesterday. I was surprised to see that the shallow vegetation has mostly died back, sending the fish in search of water with more oxygen in it. We searched for awhile, trying flats close to deep water, rocky points, and transitions on the bottom. Finally found a pattern with all of the predator fish - LM, SM, Pike and Musky - cruising just below the surface over 20-30 FOW. Pattern of the day was a 5" plastic swimbait on a jighead, loooong casts and slow steady retrieve. The hits were super subtle, just an increasing weight on the line. Surprisingly, they wouldn't hit a jerkbait. Had 8-10 really nice smallies in the 18-20" range, a couple of decent LM, and a few midsized pike and musky.

Come to Haliburton for some of the best fishing of the year: smallies, musky, splake, specks. October is the best!

Nice vid! I have had a couple of skis jigging small bulldawgs along deep weedlines. I wondered if anyone else was doing it in warm water.

Yep, the bigger bass are often deeper. That's why I almost always use the wacky jig instead of going weightless. On the lakes around here, it has been the #1 producer for big smallies for several years.

Shrink wrap tubing. Hook through, not under, the tubing. I use real senkos for smallies with this setup and sometimes fish multiple days with one senko.

Olympus Tough. Not only does it take a beating - mine has been everywhere from the desert to -30 ski trips - but it has one of the best sensors of any waterproof point-and-shoot. It is tough enough that I usually just clip it to my pack or PFD, where it is often underwater, smashed against rocks, or laying on the ground.

Boneset. At one time it was used as a treatment for breakbone fever, as well as other fevers.