u/scales-enthusiast

Tl;dr: worm on a hook under a bobber is very productive, use hemostats to avoid worm slime on hands

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts from fellow newbies struggling to catch any fish, and wanted to share one of the most successful tactics I’ve found.

Fish I’ve caught using the basic “bobber over a worm on a hook”:
Bluegill and other sunfish (green sunfish and pumpkinseeds)
Crappie
Juvenile pike
Trout
Minnows

I even caught a largemouth bass when using a jighead in place of a basic hook.

Location matters. Some spots just aren’t where fish hang out. There’s a spot at my local lake where I never fail to find bluegill at minimum. It’s shallow with lots of weeds. It takes time and moving around and patience and luck to start figuring out where the fish tend to congregate in your local waters.

To reduce spooking fish with the terminal tackle, I have the hook on a 12-16” fluorocarbon leader, tied to a swivel, with the weight (to help me cast further) and bobber on the main line above the swivel.

For the worm: I understand a lot of people don’t use worms because of the slime when putting them on the hook. However, there is a way to bypass that. I use a hemostat to pinch off a 1-2” piece of worm and then use the hemostat to put that piece on the hook. I even have a separate old worm container with some moist cardboard to keep the pinched-off worm in, so that I use up that one first before grabbing another.

Hope this helps some people!

Oh, and I don’t really do much of a hook set. Just a tiny pop of the rod tip, or a quick turn of the reel, any more than that and there’s a decent chance I’ll tear the fish’s lip rather than catch it. Being too vigorous on the hook set lost me a lot of fish in the start.

I had it open in a separate tab a few months ago and I finally made the leap and downloaded dfhack on my steam deck. Now I went to open the tab with the detailed tips someone had written up in this subreddit and it’s disappeared. Searching for it in the subreddit reveals nothing. Could anyone point me to where that information might be compiled? Iirc they had a whole section of their post detailing a method of setting up radial commands etc for the steam deck, and I was really hoping to use that information, as well as their general tips for using and setting up dfhack on steamdeck.

Thank you all for any tips and advice you can share, and especially if anyone can find that original post again.

Using the post function rather than the questions thread because, assuming the original post cannot be found, I want input and ideas from as many people who have experience with this technology as possible.

Update: after installing dfhack to the same storage space as the game, I hit “play” on dfhack, it opened dwarf fortress, and as far as I can tell there is no change. I have absolutely zero idea how to access the interface that I’ve heard about for things like allowing war training of different animals or checking hidden information on your dorfs or anything. I created a new world and started a new embark to see if something would show up there but nope, it’s all the same as it’s always been.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still very inexperienced and am still working things out. However, the advice I often see here, and the advice I’ve gotten from older fishermen when I’ve chanced across them in person, has always been to target deeper waters. When I look at fishing articles and other resources there’s information spread throughout about catching fish in shallow and deep water depending on various factors. My personal experience has been that it is far, far easier to catch fish in shallow water (less than 5ft). Why do people more often recommend deep water? Even for ice fishing I’ve seen most people recommend going deep but several people seem to have plenty of success setting their jigs to just a few feet below the ice (I haven’t had much success ice fishing but again when I did, it was over shallow water).

From what I gather, it almost seems to be more of a preference of the person fishing, rather than guidance on where to find fish (and obviously does still depend on season/weather/species targeted etc). What are your experiences with fishing deep vs shallow water?

Tl;dr: I want general information about what paddles are for what styles, and specifically I would like recommendations for a longer non-feathered paddle, and am open to other suggestions

Current gear: 240cm aluminum paddle that came with a used sea eagle kayak (edited this section to update the information because I went and measured my paddle)

My problem: I believe the paddle is too short for me. I stick to flat water (small lakes, lazy rivers) but if I want to push through any wind then I have to lean dramatically to the side to generate the amount of power I need. I’m short (5’4”) but stout and built for power not rpms. My partner watching from the shore said it looked like a paddle about a foot longer would be necessary for me to rotate my core without leaning to the sides to keep the paddle in sufficient contact with the water.

I did try feathering the paddle in the wind but the wrist rotation was cumbersome to try to learn under pressure (and I already have finicky wrists that become strained easily). So I know I probably don’t want feathered paddles.

I’m a little confused about what types of paddles would suit my paddling style. I know part of my problem is the extra width of being in an inflatable boat compounding with short stature (and don’t suggest getting a hard shell kayak, I wouldn’t be able to transport or store it, the inflatable is a necessity for accessibility). I’ve read some people saying that shorter paddles are for more powerful strokes, while others say you’ll get more power but slower strokes with a longer paddle (which seems accurate to what I’m feeling when I’m paddling).

I got a used Sea Eagle, mostly in great condition except for one small patch, which I discovered on my first outing was still leaking a pin-hole amount of air. I hastily slapped another patch overtop it because I was impatient, but after a couple more outings that too has begun leaking the pin-hole amount. It’s enough that the side with the hole becomes noticeably less firm after spending a whole day on the water, and I’d like to properly seal it up. How do I remove the previous patches to give myself a clean slate for a proper patch job?