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If you don't know what to buy, I wouldn't buy anything. Just save it until you really need something.

I kept losing anaconda tails last summer and finally got fed up with it and took a dive.... This is what I saw....I'll never swim in that lake again

Freakin' squirrels...

I guess, I am old fashion in that I would have notified the gas station owner that the pumps aren't function correctly and that I just pumped X amount of gas for $XX.xx amount. If I were the business owner I would greatly appreciate it or even the employee responsible for the mistake. Food for thought.

I purchased a lot of lures, literaly, off of Ebay. Some are newer than others. I believe some of them our vintage and may be worth a little bit of money. Unfortunatley I dont know that much about the subject or even how to identify them. Is there anyone here that would be able to help me out in identifying them and maybe give me an idea of what they may be worth. If your able to help me I can post pictures. Thanks,

Finally made a few swim jig skirts and put them on some boss swim jig heads. I love the way they look, but I really have no idea what I'm doing with them. What kind of trailers does everybody use? I tried a zoom swimmin fluke on one and it looks really good in the water and I got a few bites on it, but it's just such a large profile! I picked up some Zoom fat albert grubs from the local store because I really couldn't find anything else that would look that great on it. Also, this is the first time I have ever tried them. I know that right now is a good time to throw them, but I'm not real sure on where and when to throw them. I live in western NC and all of the lakes here are mostly deep and very clear. I appreciate all of the tips and ideas!

And here is the official contestant list. If you are not on this list, sorry, you have to wait for next year. Official contestant list – 2011 SoFlaBassAddict CFFF 1.5 Bass XL Fat-G Clipper. Red DeanFishesNY five.bass.limit BASSclary Tin Fl_Sharpshooter KU_Bassmaster. Carrington Hamby Pasadenafishin JimmyMo3287 Bassn Blvd OHIO Texasfishingtips .dsaaveddra JoePhish BrianinMD Webertime Jeremyt Senile 1 Nice_Bass A-Jay J Francho Riverfish86 Md SPEEDBEAD Deep MaineBassMan Dwight Hottle Lucky Craft Man Shimmy BadKarma42 CWB BadBassWV Pitchinkid Vinny Chase Shane J BassFishinMagician Cft58 Kyle317289 Bass_Fanatic IntroC Aluma-Bass Saint romain Rolo MonarkMcfaster Goose52 Maneframe Fishing Cowgirl Dockhead Lund Explorer Go time Ima Bass Ninja Rusty Shackleford Isufan334 Soccplayer07 SimonSays Clayton86 Bluebasser86 TimJ TBendBassin Hook Tom H. =Matt 5.0= Raider Nation Fisher Bweave09 Bassmajor Lynyrdsky1 JR Howard Wormycrm99 SGT Rico Casterus60 STL BassMan Natalex1208 Bflow_6 Pierre Bowfish12 Basslover12345 Stephen D. Jb7725 JamesH Wisconsin heat Princecraft papa BASSINATORBIGJOE South FLA Basspro96 Gobig FD

they have to be fish caught during the duration of this competition (daylight on March 15th through dark on June 12th, 2011); the fish in that picture has been your avatar for as long as i remember you being on this board... it doesn't count

pics or it didn't happen

Possibly the most important question concerning crankbait color should be concerning water clarity. The more water clarity the less obvious I want my crankbait to be... the less clarity... the more obvious. This pertains to color, action, silouette and noise. eo

Means we have to go fishing now

Go to a memerb's profile whom you wish to add as a friend, and click on the "add me as a friend" button. I just added you.

I think it's your hookset. You probably didn't set the hook hard enough to make it pierce her lip. You know what here's a better explanation on youtube by Greg Hackney:

Well you're going to have to get it checked so if anything is broken it can heal correctly. And punching people is much better on the hands, they're softer than walls.

If I chose just one it would be rootbeer. The green back and white belly can resemble bait fish, bluegill, and crawdads. If it's stained to muddy water then I will use bright bellied colors with a dark back.

Chartruese/ blue back Enough said

I'll fish some sort of jerkbait every month we have open water; there's always a situation that they're an appropriate attack and I have a lot of confidence in fishing them. That's not to say that it's the only thing I'd throw, but very often it's one of the first things I will throw. Determination of whether I will throw a jerk or a crank is based more on whether there's a pattern established. Are they, or were they, hitting a moving bait? Are they suspended or relating to deep structure? Are they hanging tight to cover and short striking on a spinnerbait, for instance? That would be a place that I'll switch back and throw a rip bait of some sort. When water temps warm, I've done very well on the Xrap with neutral fish or picking up fish after a hard cold front. Crankbaits are a great search tool for me when I'm on a lake I'm not terribly familiar with. If you can start to pick apart the depths and zones that fish should be keying to based on water temps and prior experience, crankbaits are often a good way to maximize your time usage in doing it. If you get a couple fish to poke at it but just won't commit, it gives you an idea to go with.

i dont touch my jerks till dead winter or summer when theyre sluggish. i basically fish them with the same patience as a worm, just at different depths in the water colomn rather than the bottom.

After the Sturgeon being almost non-existent in most of my normal fishing waters this year, I started putting some bits and pieces together, and geeeez ! Did I ever find them ! Tuesday I had the best Sturgeon fishing trip of my entire life ! The bite was just unbelievable ! Of course I was using my micro-lights. Now the thing is, normally when Sturgeon fishing, it's about like throwing big swimbaits for trophy bass. You might get 2 or 3 hits in a day, and if you are lucky, you might catch one. So using two rods usually helps.... but they were hitting so fast, that in retrospect, I'd have probably been better off to use only one rod, and just holding it the entire time ! I missed a ton of fish, while messing with the other rod. Another crazy thing > they bit any stinking thing I through at them ! I quickly ran out of pile worms, so I dug into my box of earthworms I had dug up, for split tail fishing. They quickly ate all of those up. Then I used up the rest of some old, funky, froze and thawed, froze again, and thawed Salmon roe. {hooked a monster on that.... I'll get to that in a minute } Then, when I was down to nothing but a large, dead split tail, from the day befores Striper fishing, I cut the belly out of it, and quickly stuck a very nice Sturgy on that too ! Okay, so here's what I caught... Started out with a couple fat, healthy, and very strong.... but not quite legal keepers (legal size is 46" to 66") of 44" and 45" ! Even with those, I did actually disconnect from the anchor, and chase them around for 10 to 15 minutes each. Then, at 1pm, I hooked one that I could just tell was BIG ! Seemed like it took this one a minute or two, to even realize it had a problem, as it just meandered around under the boat. Finally, it started swimming upstream, against the tide ? (very unusual). It did that for about 1/4 mile, before turning around, and swimming waaaay back past where I hooked it. I used Google earth to determine that I chased it for right at 2 miles ! It took me 2 hours and 25 minutes, but finally, at 3:25pm I landed that monster It measured 75", was VERY fat, and had an approximate weight of 130 lbs ! This is the biggest fish I've ever landed on a micro-light rod Whooo Hooo Caught it on my new Shimano Sahara 1000, with the aftermarket carbontex drag washer, and I have to say, that the drag performed flawlessly ! In fact, not once did I ever reach up to adjust it, during the entire battle ! So, after all of that, with my whole boat, in shambles, and my arm feeling like it might fall off, I was wondering, "What could possibly make this trip any better" ? Hmmmm..... Maybe a nice, solid keeper ? So by like 4 pm, I'm regrouped, and back on the spot. This is when I had resorted to cutting out the belly of the dead split tail I had in the live well. Took all of about 5 minutes. First I got a couple of tiny "warning bumps".... then the classic Sturgeon pulldown... Swing ! Fish on ! Turned out to be a beautiful, healthy, 60" keeper Now granted, it doesn't get dark until 7:30 or so.... but 1) I really didn't have any bait left anyway, 2) How was I going to top this trip ? 3) I had some serious fish cleaning to do, 4) my arm was all but dead as it was. So I called it a day. Now here's the thing, yes, I was on the water for 10 hours, but I spent 1 hour of travel (round trip). Next, I spent about 3 1/2 hours disconnected from my anchor, and fighting / chasing Sturgeon. Then maybe another hour getting the boat into position, poles baited back up, and casted out, etc. So as far as sitting with baited lines in the water, waiting for a bite.... maybe 3 to 4 hours, of the 10 hour trip. And in those 3 to 4 hours, between fish landed, fish hooked and lost, and bites missed altogether, I bet I had 20 Sturgeon bites ! Just unreal ! I can't wait to go back out next week. Couple things I will probably change though... 1) I will only fish one rod to start out with, and if the bite is even 3/4's as hot, theirs no need for two rods. 2) I pretty much know I can land ANY sized fish I hook on the micro-lights now.... it just takes a lot longer. That said, I think I'm going to use my swimbasit rods next week, so I can really feel the power of these monsters So basically next week, I'm going to see how many big ones I can land in a day. Honestly, I think I could land 12 or 15 of them if the bite was the same, and I was using heavy enough gear that I didn't have to cut loose from the anchor (in most cases) Can't post a photo of the 75"..... as technically, anything over 66" is not supposed to be brought onto a boat at all. Then how do you measure it you might ask ? The F&G says you can put marker strips of tape on the side of your boat, then pull the fish up to these markers to get a good idea. {the real reason for all of this, coming straight from a few of my F&G acquaintances, is that if they allowed people to pull these fish onto a boat, their would be people who had no intention of releasing them.... but then, if the F&G approached them, they would always say, "We were just fixing to release it". So basically, this reg gives the F&G a leg to stand on. I've also been told that in most cases, pulling an oversizer onto a boat, for a quick measurement, and snapshot, is not really grounds for enforcement. It's mostly when the "intent" to keep the over-sized fish is obvious.} Posting a photo of such a fish is a whole other situation, as then their is no proof that "one didn't keep it" ! Anyway, here's that really healthy, 60" (about 60 lbs) that I did keep. Just got done eating some more of it this evening ! Awesome ! Tastes like Pork chop. Can't wait to grill some on the B-B-Q'er Sorry for the epic ramble. I've just been stoked about this trip all week ! Can't wait to get back out there Peace, Fish PS > I have posted a post with more emotioncons than this forum allows ?!?! So what are they saying.... I smile too much ? Doh ! So how many smiles are allowed anyway ?

Finally some words of wisdom !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was just talking with a guy about this the other day. Amazon actually has Best Buy on the ropes. People go into the retail store, pick the brains of the sales staff, handle the product and then go home and buy on-line from a seller that has no building or inventory overhead. Sad, we all want the best deal but that's not alwys the lowest price.

Season opener is still 4 weeks away for me - but with all the great sticks on BR who can fish, there MUST be at least a few new entries . . . . A-Jay

Man,My mom always told me stories of my granddad fishing for those things.I never could put in retrospect how big she was talking about.Your picture put that in perspective. Great catch Chris!

Great fish, pic, and story.

i still can't get over you catching those big sturgeon on micro light gear. what rod are you using? can you post a link to it?

Much thanks guys Well Bluebasser, I'm using a micro-braid, which is about 2 or 3 lb diameter, and 10 lb test. Of course it's hard to compare it straight across with mono. It's just apples and oranges. I put about as much pressure on my 2/10 braid, as I might put on 6 or 8 lb mono (I think about 2 to 3 lbs of actual pulling poundage. {note: most people are quite surprised to find out how little actual poundage they are applying at the hook, even with much heavier gear}. Anyway, because of the extreme thinness, I am able to put nearly 200 yards on a 1000 series reel ! Also, my G-Loomis rods are rated for 1-4 lb mono (straight up micro-light) which is great when using a braided line with zero stretch. Let's just put it this way; If one were to put this 2/10 braid on a medium or even, medium light rod, and try to treat it like 10 lb mono (tight drag, harder hooksets, etc) he would be likely to snap it right off. Oh, and finally, my rig: What I do, is that I use a bloodknot to tie on a long, 12 to 15 ft leader, of 50 lb braid, then a swivel, with a sliding weight above that. Next, about 20" to 30" more 50 lb braid, and then the hook. The 50 lb braid does fine, when all the pressure its getting, is 2 to 3 lbs. Interestingly, it's not the monster sized Sturgeon that would be as likely to cut you off. The spines and sharp corners on those big, old ones, are usually kind of dull, and worn off. It's the fresh, little 30" to 50" fish that will often have razor sharp scutes (the diamond shaped platelets... just modified scales) and not only can they cut your line, but they can't cut the heck out of you too, if you aren't careful ! Next week, when using my swimbait rods, I'll be using the exact same rig.... only I'll be using 50 lb braid, with 80 lb leader. Peace, Fish

WTG, Chris! Awesome fish. I can't tell which is skinnier, you or the fish. Lookin very svelte there.

Yeah !!!! Chris You da man..

kentucky lake is on fire! over 30 fish yesterday with some nice ones in the mix - even in the sleet. and the fish have obviously been eating well. everything i caught yesterday looked to be at least half a pound bigger than it "should be". to say they looked like footballs was an understatement. they looked like footballs that had swallowed softballs. i think the guys who fish the road trip should have an absolute blast (barring another epic flood and lake closing of course ;D). here's a pic. this one was 5 on the nose and it has to be one of the shortest 5's i've ever caught. and all the fish from yesterday were shaped like this. just really, really fat and healthy bass. talk about a good time! hoping for another outing like this one again next week.

right now Kent a variety of lures are working. i caught the picture fish on a secret spinnerbait. i won't give away my favorite spinnerbait, but i will tell ya that i prefer the smaller profile, double willow baits in the half ounce size. several companies make baits that have the majority of the weight hidden behind the skirt, and these have always worked well for me on ky lake this time of year. but a spinnerbait is not the only lure that will work well for the fish i'm on by any means. square bills and rattle baits are money as well. eliminating water until you find fish is key, so i prefer baits that i can sling a long way and cover a lot of water with. do not sleep on cranks that run in the 8-12 foot range either. it never hurts to have your favorite topwater tied on either because believe it or not, the fish will come up and bust shad this time of year. i prefer a super spook because you can throw it a mile and it has big fish appeal, but that's just me. once you do find a good school of fish, slowing down with your favorite plastic will often put a lunker in the boat for ya. as you can tell, there are a variety of things working. one thing that does NOT seem to be working well yet is the bush flipping bite. 2 reasons for this - falling water and water temps falling back into the 50's. if one of these factors changes, the flipping bite should improve a bit because it will cause some a few fish to move up into the bushes and shallow cover. if BOTH of these factors change (water rises and water temps climb past the magical 60 degree mark), you better have a jig and flipping stick in the boat. right now, i think a few people are trying to rush it. finding shallow fish can be tough when the aforementioned factors are working against you. but several people are still trying to force feed 'em a jig in the bushes. i have heard that success has been limited at best for these taking this route and this tactic has been hit or miss lately- mostly miss. based on what i've said so far, you have probably figured out that i'm primarily fishing points and flats. the single biggest key, at least for me, has been finding key areas CLOSE TO DEEP WATER. the spot i did the best on friday was relatively close to the channel. i would give the nod to primary points first. but secondary points will work too, as long as they are close to deeper water. this will not matter nearly as much once the water level stabilizes, but it seems to be very important now. if you do attempt to fish a pockets or cove, i would stick to those with deep water access. and i would concentrate my efforts on the first few yards going in on both sides as fish tend to pull to key areas at the entrance of pockets and coves as long as the water is falling. now some other folks may be slaying 'em doing something else, but this is what's working for me. i am BY NO MEANS an expert on ky lake as i have only been fishing it regularly for about a year and a half. there are several reliable guide reports available online. but to me the most reliable source to dictate how and where i'm going to fish is TVA info. the two things to pay major attention to is the water level trend (rising or falling) and how much current they are pulling (anything over 100,000 is great). here's a link: http://www.tva.gov/lakes/kyh_r.htm. sorry, but i don't know a thing about crappie. the only ones i catch are by accident when i'm bass fishing. hope this helped.

WTG Paul, Hope to see you there! Big O www.ragetail.com

Are they in the creeks? Secondary points? Primary points? I'm heading down Wednesday thru Sunday this week. Any help is greatly appreciated. Also any crappie action?

Sounds like you had a great day Paul. WTG

Nice fish, great pic! So, what lures and baits are hot? It's all about square bill crankbaits right now on Pickwick. 8-)

Suspending Jerks, absolutely. I also switch off to tubes and blades, depending on the structure I'm targeting. But if you're just beating the banks, you can't beat a hard jerk. Just make sure you employ long pauses between subtle twitches.

I'm not so sure that I like the reputation thing. I've already got a -1 for that innocent little post about the Red Sox's . Just saying with some of the discussions we have here I could see some one getting his "reputation" trashed after one thread.