I know you said that you visited all of the foreign countries you ever wanted, but what about staying domestically and fishing in Alaska for some trout or salmon.

Thanks for the secret tidbit !!!

Chuck56,

Do you accept torn plastics for recycling and making your own?

<<<OMG I have 329 packs of plastics!!! DO NOT tell my wife this is a lot. >>>

I probably have over 200+ myself. Yep, just play dumb and don't tell the wife.

I love the Palomar because it is simple and very strong, but it is a PITA for me when I have a treble hook lure such as a crankbait. The line always seems to get caught in the treble when I tie around the lure.

A minor negative is that I tend to have a long tag which leads to line waste.

Nonetheless, I think that the Palomar is strong. I can't remember having lost a lure even if it gets stuck on a laydown or lilly pads/weeds due to the knot.

As an aside, I definitely want to work on tying leaders when I have time to practice this winter.

Thank you for the response. Just to clarify, do you mean pinch the barb with the pliers so they are flat and then remove the treble? I don't believe I can cut the barb with my set of pliers and I had very little room inside his mouth although I possibly could have flattened the barb.

Yesterday I caught a 4 or 5 inch baby bass with a whopper plopper (not much bigger than the lure). I am not even sure how he got the treble hook entirely inside his mouth. All of the hooks were embedded just under his lips (two in the upper and one in the lower). I took my pliers and tried to dislodge the three hooks but I had no choice but to do extensive damage to his mouth in order to remove them since I had no room to maneuver. I felt awful about it.

Anybody have any tips for me and others if this happens again in the future?

Daiwa makes a revros combo that is excellent. Not sure it is easy to find though, post-pandemic. I have a 2500 combo and I am very happy with it. .

There is another solution. Strike King makes a swinging Swim Jig that uses an EWG hook. The trailer can then be texas rigged on the jig. I haven't tried the Strike King, but it does seem to get good reviews on Amazon and Tackle Warehouse.

Excellent article. I am looking forward to squarebill fishing during the next few months when the Bass are mostly shallow. How do you become confident around trees on the bank and laydowns to throw squarebills without getting "hung up" on them, especially that you want some deflection off of these objects?

If you are fishing from a Kayak, stretch should not be a consideration if you are using straight braid (especially in murky water where the fish can't really see the line). The fact that you are not stationary and moving around on the Kayak provides enough stretch to not require mono. Of course, if you are worried about getting a lure stuck on an object and you want to go loose, then that is a different consideration.

TonyB,

I live in Essex County in saltwater country, but I love to fish freshwater. Aren't you near Wachusett Reservoir? I hear it is quite good for Smallmouth Bass. Have you checked out:

https://www.gameandfishmag.com/editorial/fishing_bass-fishing_ng_0309_02/241582

I partially found my own answer to the question, which might be generally helpful to others. I found the NH Fish and Game publishes an Angler's Guide to Freshwater Fishing in NH. Within that publication is a section that provides the names of lakes, types of fish and the accessibility by car for each pond or lake. Still can't tell if the pond/lake is bank accessible in the sense that there may be house on the body of water that are private.

I could do some research but wouldn't necessarily know if the place was easy to access from the bank. I thought having anybody with experience fishing in the area might lead me in the right direction and then I would do the research about any restrictions or if I would be trespassing.

The most obvious answer that I can think of is that the Bass were going for baitfish of some sort. Did you try figuring out what they were chasing? If so, you probably need to match the color of the bait fish and mimic where they are in the water column to entice those Bass. Try a crankbait or swimbait that looks like the baitfish they were chasing.