Kent Lake 5/9/09

[Cheetam]

McCarter (himself) and I hit the lake around 8 am and got off the water ~6:30 pm.  It was a tough day to be out.  Rain, wind, more rain, followed by a little more wind.  The water was pretty stained all over the lake.  We did find one little area that was a little cleaner, but not by much.  We fished just about everything you can.  Shallow sand/rock, shallow wood, some deeper emergent weeds and main lake and secondary points.  Most of the fish were caught fairly shallow.  The drop shot was the presentation of the day, with the Nemesis 3" goby in KLK being the bait of the day, with a few fish caught on a Berkley hand pour and a few on a Gulp! fry.  The second most productive presentation was a shaky head with a Berkley powerbait shaky worm.  I threw one of my custom-painted Tru Tungten 4" swimbaits quite a bit and only managed 1 smallmouth, and a few bumps.  What's disappointing is that bait is now on the bottom of the lake...bummer for me.  We caught in the neighborhood of 40 fish, with the largest about 3.5 and most in the 1 to 2 pound range.

[dartag]

 where was it i will take my mask and fins saturday and get it.

[Cheetam]

Please tell me the custom swimbait was lost to a pike and not a snag. I never fish Kent Lake (or anywhere) without a lure retriever. There is too much wood and the fish are often deeper than five feet.

It sounds like the fish are very active, but busy cruising and spawning. That can be tough in dirty water. I haven't been out there yet this year. I am looking forward to next week and the Oakland Bassmasters Open.

I wish it was a snag, at least then I would have had a chance to get it back.  My brand new XPS flouro broke mid cast...while my spool was still spinning.  Weird stuff...  I think I'm going to go back to fishing braid.  I've had too many problems with brand new flouro breaking on my reels this year. 

[Lightningboy]

I agree about the fluoro being fragile in a backlash.  Seems those little creases that form in the line during a bad one will pop pretty easy. 

But fluoro ain't low stretch.  Most fluoro stretches about as much as most monos.

[fiker]

Not the different brands of fluoro I've used over the years. (P Line, XPS, Berkely 100%, and Vanish)

Mono stretches the most, fluoro next, and then braids not at all.

But IMO fluoro is closer to braid in its stretchiness than it is to the 10% that mono can lengthen.

[Lightningboy]

Depends on which fluoro you are talking about.  But they still all stretch:

http://www.tackletour.com/reviewfluorocarbontestpg5.html

I've seen other studies also, and did my own tests for lines I chose to use.  In general, the "softer" a fluoro feels, the more it will stretch.  Harder fluoros will usually stretch less. 

I think fluoro gets the no stretch tag by many because it transmits vibrations so well.  That's because of it's density; as the density of a substance increases, it's ability to transmit vibration increases too.  Same reason it sinks; it's more dense than water.