outdoors – Velox Seeker

Florida Trip Gear Selection…

With weight and space restrictions forced upon us, careful gear selection was critical. We decided on two reels and two rods apiece. We packed a variety of plastic paddle tails and jigheads. We figured that if necessary we could find a local tackle shop to resupply if we miscalculated. We packed minimal clothing since most hotels have laundry facilities. The only purchase we made specifically for this trip were pairs of Simms ZipIt booties.

Definitely recommend Simms Guide Socks with these.

Our rods of choice were the Shimano Zodias 5-pc travel rods.

Reels of choice were either the Shimano Excense C3000 or a Shimano Twin Power C3000.

For reel sizes, 2500’s work well, but we opted for the C3000 size. They are built on the 2500 frame yet have a bigger spool. A Shimano Vanford 2500FA would be a great choice due to it’s lighter weight.

Water bottle holder, rod holder and pliers are essentials!

We like soft sided zippered boxes like these. They keep everything contained and easily accessible. Four of these will fit inside a Yeti Panga.

We always carry a spare spool of line and leader material.

We opted for Gecko boxes because they are waterproof and inexpensive. We want our jigheads and lures kept dry and out of the saltwater. When we use a lure and need to change, it goes into a separate bag until we can wash them off in freshwater.

Inside the Gecko box is everything we need to fish for a full day. What you see above is our Day 3 selection. We were carrying too much tackle the first day. By day two we were slowly paring things down to lighten our load. We also carried 1.5 liter water bottles and a Gatorade apiece. The Gatorades were very nice after a long day of wading. Especially considering a long walk on the beach back to the car in the blazing sun and heat.

Clothing was as you would expect. Lightweight breathable garments with hoods. We wore buffs and hats, fingerless sun gloves and sun glasses. it was easy to submerse ourselves and let the breeze cool us off.

There were a couple of funny moments. On our first day of wade fishing, we both had sharks on our minds. We were waist deep and I noticed a bow wave coming right at us. I pointed it out to her and we both started backing up towards the shore. Then it dawned on me…bow wave and no dorsal fin showing. It ended up being two manatees that came close enough to check us out before moving on. Pucker factor temporarily high!

On Day 2, we wade fished the back bay. The wind and waves were up, as was the tide. The water was stirred up and visibility wasn’t that great. She was up ahead and leading. We were up on a sand flat and were fishing the deeper troughs. I told her to keep her eyes out for sharks and she responded by saying she hadn’t seen any. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and sure enough, a 4-5ft Lemon shark glided right by me in the trough. Yah, I can’t rely on her to spot sharks! Lol.

On Day 3, we were fishing the back bay and were catching Jacks. Those little suckers fight like mad. We spotted another Manatee cruising around and a pod of Dolphins working the troughs we were in. Obviously we got out of their way. It was a neat experience for us Okies. Surprisingly, it didn’t seriously effect the fishing as we were soon into Speckled Trout.

Anyway, I figured I would share the gear we used in case anyone was interested or planning a similar trip. Thanks for reading…

Outing 08 FEB 2025…

It has been a slow start to 2025 in terms of fishing. We have made several trips to a nearby trout pond and have found that it hadn’t been stocked, was completely iced over or some other impediment. But today we managed to get into them and catch a bunch. And I can tell you…it was good to finally catch some decent trout. Several of them pulled some serious drag and put up a great fight.

We are typically catch and release only and today was no exception. Fishing with spoons has proven to be very effective and I wonder why it took me so long to start using them on a consistent basis.

It was great to get out and catch some fish. I think both of us needed that, especially since the weather has been up and down. 80F one day and 38F the next.

However, we as sportsmen need to speak up and call out bad behavior that gives us ALL a bad reputation. Several fishermen have been observed keeping way more than their alloted 3 trout. Some have been noted as showing up at dawn to keep 3 fish only to show back up in the evening to keep 3 more. And they’ve done that all week. I’m sure there are arguments on all sides, but the rules are the rules. Ethics and sportsmanship matters! Don’t be like these guys…please.

On a lighter, more positive note…we are still out here fishing and trying new gear and methods. There will be future blog posts as well. Thank you for reading.

Outing: 15 October 2024

Finally! The weather cooperated and we hit the river again. Saturday was 93F and promised to be the last hot day of summer. This morning we woke up to 41F and a chilly start, but it’s a welcome relief.

We have really missed fishing the river, but it’s been too hot and not enough rain to put it in prime shape. As I’ve stated several times, we don’t like to add undue stress to our beloved native smallmouth, so we leave them alone for the hottest parts of the summer. We also lost the Mother-in-Law at the end of September so we have had to deal with all that as well.

Anyway…we arrived at 0801 with 43F temperature and were geared up and on the river bank by 0815.

My first fish was a Crappie…not quite what I was expecting

It took us a bit to figure out where they were since they weren’t in their usual haunts.

We found them hugging the bottom so it required a longer drop of the lure than normal. This is why we carry a selection of jigheads from 2.0 grams up to 4.5 grams.

My rig for the day…Tenryu Rayz 632L and a Shimano Twin Power C2000S

My wife brought two rods this time. One for jigheads and one for hard minnow lures. Certain stretches of the river require hard lures due to the fact that they just won’t bite a jighead and soft plastic. Don’t ask us why…we are just as baffled as everyone else.

Once the sun was up and had burned off the mist, the bass started cooperating. Plus, it was nice to ditch the coats.

As usual, she caught the biggest fish of the trip. We had a great time and caught quite a few fish and hopefully can squeeze another river trip or two in before the weather turns cold. Even then, trout season will start soon so we have that to look forward too.

Catch you on the next one…and we will try not to make it so long between posts.

Update 27 April 2024…

There isn’t much new to report other than we have been chasing Crappie every chance we get. The weather has not cooperated with us too well because we have had wild temperature fluctuations and winds over 15mph with gusts over 40mph pretty consistently for the past month. Either that or its pouring rain.

We have explored some new areas and are excited for their possibilities in the near future. I did pick up a 2022 Shimano Sahara FJ C2000S spinning reel (black handle). This is the first time Shimano has put their cold forged Hagane gear in a reel at this price. Throw in a felt drag washer and this reel is actually quite good. It’s heavy for sure, but for Crappie and Bluegill it can’t be beat. Digitaka has them for around $60.00 with free shipping. I’m not a fan of the High Gear or Extra High Gear models since they tend to have more line issues than I want, but that’s just me.

Now back to Crappie. I’ve never really chased them all that much, but lately I’ve been bitten by the Crappie bug. We have scaled down some of our jigheads and plastic baits and pulled some older USDM rods off the rack to try our hand at catching them. And since we bank fish most of the time, these rods are more durable and a bit heavier and seem to work OK. They are not near as sensitive as our JDM rods, but it’s an acceptable tradeoff. RANT: don’t believe the YouTube marketing hype about “this being the latest, greatest rod” because that whole thing has been beaten to death. I see far too many channels receive a free rod from a manufacturer and they gush all over it and act like they have a sponsor they have to appease. Beware the marketing juggernaut! I have found that by digging into the forums where the old-school fisherman can still be found, you’ll see a different story with real testimonials. I’m referring specifically to a certain “ugly green rod.” But your mileage may vary.

As many of you know, we have a thing for hand crafted lures and we prefer to support craftsmanship like that. Again, over on Etsy, we ran across a Crappie jig maker by the name of Welch Jig Co. And Chris Welch ties some really nice jigs and ships fast. Prices are reasonable and the quality is there to support it.

It’s supposed to storm all weekend and has for the past two days, so we probably won’t be fishing much. I’m sure I can fiddle around in the fishing room and better organize our gear just to occupy my time. It won’t be much longer and we’ll be wading the rivers and we are excited about that. Hope everybody out there is healthy and able to fish. Until then, we’ll catch you on the next one.

Local Lake Outing 27MAR2022…

We had planned to go fishing today as the weather forecast called for sunshine and about 70F for the high. We waited for the temps to hit 55F before we headed to the lake.

I was using my Apia Grandage Lite 61 with the Abu Garcia MGX Theta 1000s and she opted for her Daiwa Iprimi 62UL and her Daiwa Presso LTD 1025.

When we arrived there was one other car there, a guy who was taking pictures of the lake. As we were gearing up, another car pulled in and they bailed out to claim “their spot” while their dogs ran leash-less all over the place. We find that weird since there are plenty of good places to fish along the shore. To each their own.

Water is still pretty cold…but the bass are definitely moving up.

Our total for today was 7 bass in the hour we were there.

After the wind started picking up and more people started to arrive (it’s a really small parking area) we decided to call it a day. We picked up trash on our way back to the car and visited with a few fishermen along the way. It was great to get out, the fishing is beginning to pick up and the sunshine felt great.

We have had some decent rainfall recently and as you can see in the picture, the lake level has come up about 2 ft. Outings like this are enough to whet the appetite, but we are still waiting for things to stabilize.

On a sidenote, we went to the MLF (Major League Fishing) Expo yesterday that was in Tulsa. We walked around and saw a lot of interesting products. Even though we don’t do that type of bass fishing, some of the items were really neat. I got to talk to the Abu Garcia rep and play around with the new Zenon Baitcast reels (VERY NICE) and the Zenon spinning reels. The Abu rep was very sympathetic in regards to the JDM tackle they make but don’t import into the US. He didn’t understand the reasoning behind it…and like us, orders it from Digitaka and other places.

We also visited the Daiwa booths and asked about their range of JDM gear and got several silly excuses in response. They blamed shipping and other such nonsense. Their US catalog is completely void of the gear we like and use, which is to be expected. But we knew before going that it would be highly unlikely that we would find anything for our needs at this expo. In fact, just inquiring about ultralight rods raised eyebrows in every booth we visited. They were politely dismissive but it was still kind of funny. The tech-centric approach and the sheer cost of gear was astounding. And it blows my mind that there are boat motors that cost as much as my car! If I was still fishing bass tournaments, I’m sure I would’ve seen things differently…it’s just not my thing anymore.

Until next time…

Elk River Recon 19MAR2022…

We finally managed to carve out some time to make a reconnaissance run up to Missouri to check out the Elk River.

We drove 306.5 miles and were out for 6hrs 47mins.

Again, this idea started with a blue line on a map and subsequent research showed that it had potential. We like to visually check out an area before committing to an extended trip.

Extremely shallow. River channel is on the opposite side.

Access is limited to this river from what we could observe along our routes. There are canoe livery’s everywhere and renting a canoe seems to be the best option if we decide to commit to fishing this river.

He was quite content to sit and watch us fish.

We proceeded to head on over to Pineville since my wife found an access point to the river on a map. I think it was called the City Of Pineville Elk River Public Access.

One acre of land next to a bridge. It does have a “boat ramp” if you can call it that. Lots of rebar and metal pipes in the river around the bridge.

In all honesty, we weren’t super impressed with what we saw and it looks like this will be a madhouse during the summer. The sheer number of canoe rental companies was astounding and hints to our trepidation. In all likelihood we will fish this river at least once. If we could find a long section to fish without staring into peoples windows things might be different. Who knows, maybe our first impression was wrong. I hope so anyway. It was still fun to get out and explore new waters. Hopefully the weather will begin to stabilize some and we don’t get too much rain in a short period of time. But the fishing season is definitely right around the corner and we’re ready for it.

Daiwa Iprimi 62UL…

My wife has been looking for an ultralight rod that isn’t too stiff. She ordered the Graphite Leader Bellezza RV which turned out to be a better stream rod than a perch/crappie rod. Upon researching the Daiwa Iprimi series, she decided to give one of those a shot. As mentioned previously, she liked my Major Craft ultralight rod but I couldn’t find one for her.

Upon receiving the Iprimi, she compared it to my rod and was happy with the action. It is whippy yet has a moderately stiff butt section. A more pronounced parabolic bend if you will. This should be perfect for targeting perch and smaller fish.

This rod should be a good setup when coupled with a 500 or 1000 size reel. We are still waiting on the Shimano Soare XR 500 to become available as that’s the reel that we plan on putting on this rod.

Once the weather is consistently warm and stable, we have a few small creeks we want to fish. This rod should be pretty good in that usage.

Thanks for reading and have a great day…

Testing the Shimano Vanford 1000 after bearing install…

I had a couple of hours between doctors appointments today so I decided to test out the Shimano Vanford 1000 after upgrading with bearings. It is better for sure. I cast for over an hour and reeling at various speeds to give it a good workout. It is definitely smoother now and will probably get better over time.

Conditions weren’t great today because the wind was blowing a steady 20-22mph out of the WSW with gusts over 30mph.

And as usual, I managed to pick up 4 more bags of trash. It seems like a never-ending process, but I’ll reach my goal eventually.

Until next time…

Graphite Leader Bellezza RV GLBRS-642UL TW spinning rod…

My wife was looking for an ultralight spinning rod for panfish and opted to try this rod since the price was really good. This was a pre-order rod and arrived in 2 weeks. Neither one of us are familiar with Graphite Leader rods and decided to try it.

I should’ve paid attention to the lure and line rating and noticed it wasn’t what we were looking for.

Balanced with the Shimano Twin Power C2000S perfectly. NOT what we’d use for small panfish.

Fit and finish was superb. It is listed as an Area Trout rod but to me seems more like an Ultralight Saltwater rod as it is pretty stiff. In fact, it is stiffer than what she was looking for. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it fishing in a stream or small river, but for small perch and such, I’d use something else.

She likes my Major Craft Ultralight rod, the FTA-582UL, but I can’t find one for her. I guess they quit making it. We might look at the Daiwa Iprimi line of rods for an ultralight rod for summer panfish. Lesson learned. Stay tuned to see what she decides…

Almost Done…

Most of you know that I am always trying to leave things cleaner than when I found them. And this applies especially to the water I fish. I encourage everyone to do the same.

To date, I am 3/4ths of the way done on cleaning the shoreline of one of my local lakes. With the lake level being down almost 5 ft, I can access more shoreline than normal. Yesterday was a tough day for sure. I cannot count how many glass bottles and beer cans I picked up. I started out with 10 Walmart bags and 2 big trash bags. The end result was I used them all.

I don’t do this for recognition or anything, it just needs to be done. Afterall, this is a retention pond for our local drinking water supply. If I wait for someone else to do it…I’ll be waiting a long, long time.

68F while picking up trash, but there’s still some snow around.

And of course, if I’m at the lake, I’ll being fishing. I took the Major Craft FAX-B642UL rod and the Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFS reel with me. Some of you may remember that I really started to try and learn using a baitcast reel last year for the first time. It was nice to know that I hadn’t lost anything over the past few months, I cast without any backlashes or any issues at all.

Obviously I did more trash picking up than casting…but it is always good to get out.

Testing out the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra…

So my new phone finally arrived late Monday evening. I’ve been playing around with it and the camera is pretty amazing. Coming from an old Note 9, it’s light years ahead.

So I was out burning a brush pile yesterday morning and decided to try the Slow Motion camera option. Might as well combine chores with a bit of fun. Enjoy.

https://videopress.com/v/jbZaBq8W?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

Slow-Mo Brush Pile Burning

Aquapac 25L Waterproof Backpack-Wet & Dry…

This is another backpack I use from time to time when fishing a river or stream. It is waterproof and has a roll-top closure, but what is unique about this pack is that it has a secure closure toggle system. This keeps it from unrolling.

Toggles and bungees attached to the roll-top buckles.

Another nice feature that I use is the water bottle pockets on the sides. They are almost full length and easily hold one liter bottles.

The harness system is minimalist. There isn’t any padding on the back, other than the sit pad. Just pack carefully.

Reinforced shoulder strap anchor points.

Also, on the back is a pocket for a removable sit pad.

Yet another nice feature is a removable Wet OR Dry bag. It has a built in roll-top pocket with a clear face for your phone or passport or whatever.

Dry bag to separate gear…or you could stow wet items inside as well to keep other items in the pack dry.

I like this pack since it is simple and relatively low-profile. Quality is great and I haven’t found any flaws or issues with it. Prices are all over the map but if you search online, you should be able to find them for around $80 US.

Just thought I’d share another option I use when fishing…