AKRISONER

You clearly haven’t seen the crowds at the classic 😲 literally in the hundreds of thousands

Different formats but MLF is struggling to catch up with BASS. Of course not livewelling fish is better for them, but at the same time there is something to be said for "weigh ins" especially at the highest level. The entire buzz around a weigh in is lost with the MLF Format. Even more lame was when they made the format about overall weight rather than best 5. Theyve adjusted a lot of tournaments back from that format because seriously catching 60 dinks is nowhere near as impressive as bringing in a 20lb best 5. The BASS events in texas are an interesting hybrid of these two formats due to the share lunker regulations in texas. You are able to bring one large fish to weigh in, but anything in that "slot" has to be released after weighing. I dont personally see too many tournaments moving to this format too quick simply due to the scrutineer requirement places a heck of a lot of burden for additional resources on hosting a bass tournament. No one wants to go for a boat ride with me to watch me catch bass lol. I know tournaments catch flak from a lot of non-tournament anglers, but in truth tournament anglers are keeping smaller numbers of fish in their livewell and releasing them then your standard meat fisherman. furthermore with dead fish penalties we are incentivized to do everything in our power to take care of the fish in our livewells. Its kind of comical to place blame on guys that release all of their fish while live welling a lower than limit total number of fish vs the guys that eat everything they catch. Even funnier is the aura around bass...if its a 4lb smallie you better release it immediately, but if its a 4lb whitey that pickle is hitting the frying pan immediately lol.

i literally googled to make sure I wasnt crazy lmaoooo Snidley if i was in town I was 100% going to go to the tackle swap, alas, i am up north making a last ditch attempt to catch 1 last lake trout through the ice.

Bump to add that I’m also offering mobile or drop off boat detailing. See original post for details!

Jesus where are you even getting norries gear from. That’s hard to come by

funny bill, im spilling my beans here a bit, but to be fair I havent spent enough time in the near area yet, nor have I bothered to explore the outer reaches into the bay yet as you can imagine I had more than enough water to cover closer to home last year. I still have areas that I havent really picked apart yet, a new bigger boat though will give me some more confidence to go through those big water sections and explore. My experience fishing the bay now for a decade though has taught me one thing is that there is a sweet spot, not too far out, but not too far in is where the biggest fish are. Not that there are not big fish to be caught thats for sure. But if im out trying to catch 5 4lbers, at least in my experience there is a sweet spot. This speaks larger volumes to the concept of finding "transitional areas". its really been something ive narrowed down while tournament fishing too, not surprisingly big fish like options, and the way G bay is naturally structured is that its two different lakes, one inside and one outside...to me the fish think why not have both.

Unfortunately as some shops become too popular, the ol cash deal vanished unfortunately.

Watched it this afternoon, the old lady was chopping onions though so I missed some parts cause my eyes were burning

my mind is literally blown. The first bait in my hands every single year at 5am on opener is a walking bait, it immediately tells me how far along into the spawning cycle the fish are. Those first few days they are always seemingly somewhere between 0-10 FOW. Interestingly one year i spent the first half an hour skunked and I was in a panic wonder what the heck was going on, and it was simply that I wasnt casting shallow enough. I literally had to bank my lures off of the rocks aiming at any nook that had reeds protruding up, sure enough everything was still up protecting beds. I take the entire week off every year and fish every day and its the same pattern, by the end of opener week the fish transition out off of the edge and start slipping more and more into their summer pattern. Hence why the evening/morning is always my favourite time to fish. The smallies come right back up as the sun goes down. Find a sunken island and throw a topwater right on top of it and the action is seemingly non stop. I recall one evening having 6 fish on 6 consecutive casts to the exact same marker on top of a shoal. UGGGGHHHH just thinking about this is giving me crazy anxiety and a pit in my stomach...were close, but still so far hahaha. Opener morning on G bay is perhaps one of the most special moments in any fishing season. Unlike the kawarthas/tri lakes opener (that i also fish the week prior every single year) the morning is still dead quiet up there. Usually you dont even see a boat for the first couple of hours of fishing. I cant believe its been 4 years since this photo was taken, but heres a photo at 7am opener morning.

can we all agree, the topwater smallie bite on opener every year is the most fun way to catch these fish. Some of my most epic sessions of all time are on opener week are those warm calm evenings throwing a walking bait...my heart skips a beat just thinking about it.

i watch every game, id call them jekyll and hyde

You guys are wild, especially you bill you’re a mad man lol this is tough because for me it depends on the body of water I’m fishing an absolute ton. You can’t approach the kawarthas necessarily like you can g bay, and even then honey harbour is totally different than pointe au baril. i won some money throwing a jackhammer in October but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “smallie bait” even if I do catch a lot of big smallmouth throwing one. Because honestly I never throw a jackhammer on shield lakes, I’d always rather be cranking or throwing a jerkbait if I’m not contending with grass. 1. 3 inch hazedong drop shotted 2. Ned rig with a z man trd tickler 3. nishine erie 115 4. Evergreen cr-8 5. MB giant dog X - My favourite way to catch em but not something I do a lot of tournament fishing

Stradics are notorious for blowing bail springs. Any baitcaster can need a new set of bearings, it happens. i bought a jdm stradic mg off of a guy two years ago for 60 bucks. Put a new bail spring stripped the thing down and cleaned the heck out of it, re grease and oil and the thing is so smooth that the handle annoyingly spins reels on its own it’s so smooth lol.

You can bet the geo location has been manually removed from my “annual reports” it’s a total PITA but such is life when making those reports. To be honest that’s why I didn’t do one in the fall, it’s a heck of a lot of effort to go through the photos and crop them, blur then and remove the geolocations from them. to be honest it’s not even the guys around here that post that worry me, I’d take any of the guys from here fishing if they wanted to go, it’s the lurkers that I don’t like. Or my favourite, the guy that never posted a single post ever and had the nerve to DM me and ask specifically where I was catching a particularly more difficult fish to catch. if you need to know how to safely navigate somewhere I will tell you everything I know, but if you want to know where to fish, be an active member here and feel free to invite me fishing with you. I’ll probably say yes.

Oh god trust me handling these things is a total pita I’d be completely lying if I said that it’s not a 100% regular occurance for me to open up a reel and then have a hell of a time putting it back together. Heck I’ve got a tatula downstairs right now that I put back together but now I can’t get the bail to re-close and I’m still not sure why lol. Things misalign and suddenly your reel no longer works. a pain in the but too because you basically have to totally re-assemble them for them to work and then you realize you’ve screwed something up along the way and have to break it all of the way down again. i flung a yoke spring the other day by accidently releasing the bail on that same tatula, a bit of crawling around and I found it again but yikes!

For me, the reels may be operating just fine but when you break them down you realize the grease has dried out and although you thought they felt smooth, a clean, oil of the bearings and roller clutch and grease of the gearing and bail make the reel feel as smooth as new. i recently bought a used JDM chronarch and cleaned/oiled that baby up, I swear it’s even better than new now. typically you will see factory grease where it’s supposed to be, the rest just attracts dirt.

You will have a heck of a time reading that 5 inch screen when you are out in the boat. Especially for navigating. the 7 will allow you to navigate no problem, I was using a 7 up until last year at my console purely for the gps and had no issues running around the lake at 50mph and reading it.

Congrats, you are going to love the alumacraft. They are really solid built boats. They feel like a tank on the water. if I wasn’t in a glass boat, I’d own an alumacraft myself. I still use my old man’s trophy 185 regularly and love it, just not as much as my glasser

I have a rule when people describe apparent “fishermen” to me. To check how serious they actually are I ask one simple question, how many fishing rods do you own. If they know they typically aren’t that serious.

Shag, I’d save yourself a few extra Pennies and get the 7 over the 5. The difference in screen size between the 5 and 7 is about as noticeable as the difference between a 7 and a 12. i found the 5 very difficult the read the GPS off of especially since screens are now always in landscape format. i wish I could sell you my helix 7 g2 chirp gps at a stupid deal but I just realized today that for some reason I can no longer get the transducer to connect to it. if you simply want water temp, gps, and depth you cannot go wrong with a helix 7 chirp gps G2. It’s the lowest price with some of the best imaging on the market. For a guy that’s also looking for a simple unit to use it’s right up there with the best for that application. An added bonus they are extremely simple to convert to and ice fishing flasher if you buy a xi 9 ice transducer! ill add, if you are looking for any help with wiring/getting it set up and dialed, as per my other thread let me know id love to help!

there you go, and its possible in sinkers case there was something defective going on. There's a few stories from the bass boat central forums as well of guys having them not inflate. The problem once again is that these same guys then wear the vest while driving but then take it off to fish. Unless you are going to fish with the vest on, wear the auto. The odds of your auto failing and you dying are nowhere near as high as you simply falling in and dying while wearing nothing as your boat drifts away from you in the wind and you drown because you are not able to swim 500 meters while wearing a full set of clothing. Want to know the number one consistent thing in basically 99.9% of on water fatalities? Alchohol and lack of life vests.

we already met and that was enough 😁

To me, it’s totally dependant on a reels usage. My smallmouth stuff holds up a hell of a lot more than my dirty flipping largie stuff. i try to prioritize the reels that I use most, but also refrain from totally breaking down new reels and resort to simple oil, regrease of the spool shaft and worm gear and a cleaning of the exterior. Stuff that’s been used heavy for a few years I break right down. i find certain reels especially your classic JDM greenie curados and chronarchs and stradics etc, those reels seemingly can be brought back to life with a good cleaning that’s why I love buying them for a good deal. Break em down clean and oil and they fish like brand new almost every time. breaking down reels becomes a hobby for me like fly tying, it passes long cold winter days that are too miserable for me to be out in the garage tinkering on the boat. i will say, high end well built reels a heck a lot of the time just need a good cleaning and at worst a set of new bearings. The components in them are usually so robust that aside from a bit of cosmetic boat rash those reels are as good as new once serviced.

Yup, me thinks the float is buggered, they are quite cheap to replace! But can be a total PITA if your boats bilge doesn’t have great access I.e. my last boats bilge was tucked under the gas tank lol

Honest question, would you consider totally replacing the pump if need be? They aren’t expensive. I’m assuming the switch is simply no longer working. We can chat via PM and get more details