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They already do, they just charge $250 for it.

Perfect answer, at 14 yrs old, I wouldn't have had $46.00. Buy it Kevin and have fun. Hootie

2014 Skeeter TZX. I love it so far.

Get what you can afford at you're age, I don't see a problem.... Have fun fishing, focus on you're education and then you can pay hundreds on all kinda things!

First let me say that location, location, location, is so over used and over rated especially on this site. That's right I said it and I'll own it. I have seen many post where a guy asks for lure suggestions and at least one person chimes in with location. He didn't ask you about that did he? No and that simple answer does not help him in any way. Big bass do not live in some magical mysterious secret hole where all you have to do is find them and they will instantly turn stupid and eat what ever you throw at them. Anybody who has ever bass fished know this is absurd. Right place at the right time only gives you an opportunity. Its only a fraction of the varialbles. The entire process is extremely important. This includes, your approach, your presentation and hugely important, your lure or bait. You have to do a bunch of other things right weather you realize it or not. Catching big bass consistently is different then catching one ocasionaly. Targeting big bass is different then catching a bunch of small ones with a good one ever once in a while. Catching big bass consistently is about percentages and odds. You want to do everything you can to stack the odds. First, yes location. obviously and I emphasize OBVIOUSLY if your looking to catch the biggest bass you can, then your odds go up when you choose to fish lakes that hold more big bass. Learn the habits of big bass in your lakes and they will be easy to find. Does this mean they will also be easy to catch? Of course not! I live in possibly the most pressured fishing area in the US. I have no problem finding big bass. That's easy. Now catching them is adifferent story. Learn to stack the odds in your favor. Learn to recognize the percentages. Example. Barney catches 100 bass on Senkos. 95 are under 2lbs. 4 are between 2 and 4 lbs and 1 is an 6lber his new personal best. Now somebody posts a question asking about big baits for big bass. Well guess what Barney says? "Big baits don't wprk any better because I caught my PB on a Senko so I recommend that for big bass" WHAT?????? did he somehow forget about the 99 other bass that were not big? That senko produced 1 out of a 100. 1 percent and now he thinks that's a great big bass bait. That is absurd!!!. When I am targeting big bass I would estimate that 40% of my bites are big. You know why? because I am throwing baits with high percentages of catching big bass. Do big baits catch bigger bass?..... YES! period! They up your odds. Anybody who tells you differently does not have enough experience or they are unable to process all the info they have taken in. In other words they are "Barney" who caught the one big fish and forgot about the 99 small ones. It means nothing that a tiny percentage of big bass are caught on small fish baits. There are allways exceptions especially when they are millions of guys fishing for small bass. If you catch enough small bass, chances are you will luck into a bigger one. This is not targeting big bass. This is not upping your odds. Most guys who have caught big bass have caught them just like Barney. They look back over decades of fishing and remember the handful of big bass they have caught and then they recycle the same old bad advise on how to catch them. If you catch a small percentage of big bass then you are not doing it right. You also should not be telling others how to catch them. Its the blind leading the blind. Example. Think of the guys that consistently catch big bass. Butch Brown, Matt Allen, Oliver Ngy, Matt Peters. You can see these guys videos all over youtube. They aren't using small bass baits. They are using baits with a high percentage for catching big bass. Do you think they catch 1 big bass out of 100 dinks? You bet they don't!!! I am sure they catch a very high percentage of big bass. They do a whole lot more then just "location" and they use big baits. There small bass are Barneys good bass. My whole point to this post is help guys sift through the bad info posted on forums about how to catch big bass. If the answer is coming from a Barney then pay no attention. If the answer is simply "location" then that is so obvious it isn't helpful either. Now let me say of course location is important. There has to be big bass there to catch them ( thanks captain obvious) Figure out where they like to live in your bodies of water. You want to find them? Throw a big swimbait all day and they will reveal themselves to you. You might catch some or you just might get some followers. Pay attention to where they came from and what type of structure, cover, depth etc and find similar conditions and there is a high percentage that similar spots will also hold big bass. Trust me. it is a whole lot easier to find a big bass then it is to catch them. This is why I made this post when guys start posting the location response it takes away from all the other important factors. Don't believe me? again pay attention to what consistant big bass guys are using and how they approach a spot. Remember if a guy has caught thousands of small bass with a handful of big ones. He is not consistently catching big bass He might be a great bass fisherman but he is not a great big bass fisherman.

I no longer believe getting a strike or catching a fish on the first cast is the kiss of death. Made my first cast at 4:am, snook #1 then on the next 3 casts 3 more snook landed. A lull in the action for about 5 casts and it started up again, 6 more caught, from 7 to about 12#. No tarpon today. Tide changed and that's all she wrote.

Get a rubber landing net, and a fish grip. You don't need to lift the fish out of the water, just contain it next to the boat. There's nothing "sporting" about a fish swimming off with a hook in it's face, or you getting a hook in your hand or thy.

Its all preference but I use higher gear ratios like 7-8 for stuff like Texas rigs. Calming yourself down is a mental game, that being said you don't wanna give to fish awhole lot of time, you wanna set that hook as soon as you can reel up the slack, don't just jerk as soon as you feel it and have really sloppy hook sets though. Remember, the first tick is the fish biting your lure and the second tick is them spitting it out, and you don't always feel the first tick

If you wanna see smoke just light a Benjamin on fire

... in the meantime there is a nearly unlimited volume of information on most fishing topics found on this site and across the internet! oe

I forgot about that one. The bible on structure trolling.

You could make make the argument for St Croix LTE as a head to head competitor for NRX, there are probably others out there but it's beside the point. The Gloomis brand has been fostered to a point where the traffic bears the prices they charge, be it justifiable in someone else's eyes or not. None of these tackle companies have any magic that makes them undeniably head and shoulder above everyone else. Especially at the high end, you're really splitting hairs and again it comes down to personal preference. To the OP, Gloomis is a high end brand for Shimano. There is no advantage for them in undermining the brand with lower end offerings.

I agree with Dwight above, however, I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the 'bible' of freshwater bass fishing: "Spoonplugging" by Elwood "Buck" Perry. By far the best possible foundation for beginning (and experienced) bass fishermen. His teachings are still very valuable today.

Wow, haters gonna hate. Shocked G Loomis is even in business with the terrible rods they make.

Well...I use a net...It's nice to be able to have the bass contained when you bring them in the boat so they don't flop out of your hands and make a mess of everything (and possibly injure themselves). I think it's silly that you find a net to not be "sporting", but, to each his own.

If you are going toward the Ugly Stik, check out the Ugly Stik Lite. They are lighter and stiffer than the regular ones and just as tough. You can get them at Walmart for less than $40.

I have friends who throw big swim baits exclusively and their percentage of bass 6 lbs plus is considerable less than mine. I've followed them through an area where they didn't get a single bite while I boat bass in the 8-10# class. In the canyon type reservoirs of west Texas swim baits produce better than in the hill country reservoirs of east Texas. In the shallow water marshes of southwest Louisiana the swim bait is pretty much a waste of time. So where is the misconception? Might it be the misconception is in your head concerning what actually works in other regions? Bass are opportunistic feeders and will eat what's in front of them regardless of size.

I dare you to call Raider a thespian. In fact,I double dog dare you.

While I agree with what you wrote I feel you must add a few disclaimers! Do big baits catch big bass...absolutely! Do big baits catch small bass...absolutely! Do small baits catch big bass...absolutely! Do small baits catch small bass...absolutely! Y'all got that, let's move on! Your thecniques of locating and catching big bass fits your region along with the bodies of water you fish. These techniques can apply in part but not in whole to the Mid-West, Great Plains, Great Lakes, Nrw England, Alantic Coast, South, and Deep South regions or Mexico. While I can not speak for those other regions I can talk about mine. Here in the deep south more big bass are caught on Texas Rigged Plastics or a Jig-N-Craws, not exactly big baits. With heavily structured reservoirs running 50,000-190,000 aces of water; location becomes extremely critical. Other key differences include high air/water temperatures, diverse types of cover and forage.

Da Saints. Case closed.

I just heard from a couple of buddies that MLF is filming in Maine right stinkin now! Dang I wish I could get to a lake just to see them launch and pick up. I heard there are 24 pros here, 8 to a lake, all staying around 45 mins from me. Supposedly they don't know where they are going until they get there, 15 min lake ride and game on. I love that format and can't wait until it airs!

Well, I done got kicked out of the large chain Italian restaurant. Wife was armored out in nursing gear where even a gnat couldn't see what was going on. Couple behind her started making ugly comments about it. So I proceeded to make ugly remarks in regards to them. And letting their "kind" in here. They were yuppies. I included a wonderful rant about how I had lost my appetite knowing that they were sharing the same air as us and poisoning my food with their lower class germs. The male yuppie got agitated and told me what he thought of me. I promptly and perhaps rather, my wife says extremely, loudly informed him of something he could put in his mouth. Restaurant fell silent. I went back into uber snob mode and bashed his attire as well as his wanna be stuck up wife's horrid choice in clothes and cheap jewelry. My pinky rings cost more than her entire outfit and all her corny jewlery. Manager came and requested I leave immediately. I managed to get the other couple thrown out as well. I am still madder then hell over this. I would have chased him through the parking lot but we were being watched by the restaurant. Oh well.

Crap! Come on man I have a kid in college! I am so screwed I just book marked that site. Crap!

one word.No.

I think the biggest misconception of all is believing that a person can be told how to be a successful bass fisherman. This is true whether talking about 'trophy hunting', tournaments, or even just consistent success. More than baits, locations, timing, or any other variable you want to throw out there...The biggest factor in your success is going to be experience and time on the water. That's how the guys at the top put all those variables together into a winning pattern, or in this case consistently land giant bass. More to the point of this topic and the topic that seems to have spawned it...Targeting a 'kicker' type fish (a 4 to 6 lber in most places) is very different from targeting a trophy or the 'one' fish of a lifetime. I'm not a trophy guy so I'm not going to add to that specifically as it's not my area of expertise. The OP has probably put in the countless hours/days on the water needed to fine tune this technique for himself and the water he fishes...You can't expect to compress all that into an internet forum post, it's a stepping stone and you shouldn't treat it any other way.

What got me into trophy size bass fishing was fishing gin clear rock quarry ponds near where I lived and the introduction of Florida strain LMB in San Diego city lakes. I lived 150 miles north of San Diego, so fishing those lakes required long round trip drives. The rock quarry lakes had northern LMB up to about 12 lbs and as a young teen spent a lot of time watching and learning the habits of the larger adults, caught and released most of them, largest was 12 1/4 lbs. The primary prey fish source was suckers, chubs, bluegill, along with frogs, crawdads, small birds and mice or rats. The first SD lake I fished was Lower Otay as a young adult. I had learned a lot about big bass habits and caught 3 DD NLMB by the time I started to target FLMB. Knowing how to nose hook crawdads and fly line bait fish, it didn't take long to start catching the big FLMB on live bait, lures was another story and that took a few years to develop lures these big FLMB would strike. The hard baits had to be hand painted to be more realistic, soft plastic worms also needed to have mote night crawlers realistic colors like cinnamon brown with black or purple/ blue blood line. This is when I started using custom hair jigs with custom pork trailers that have become my go to giant bass lure. Swimbaits came later in the late 70's, early 80's. Knowing that live bait is very effective and could have a major impact on big bass populations in our small SoCal lakes, I became a advocate to stop the use of live bait the first 1/3rd of the year; Jan-Apl. Never got very far with my anti live bait proposals and watched our big bass population crash, some recover and others haven't, the pressure of live bait fishing doesn't help the giant bass populations, but I have learned to live with it. Catching big bass consistently takes a lot of dedication to learning about these fish and their habits. For me it's been a life time of experience. Tom

I've only had 3 smallmouth on the end of my line in my life an two of them were dinks. A few weeks ago I hooked into a giant smallmouth and didn't get a good hookset in and lost him by the boat. I totally understand the enthusiasm behind smallies now. What a fantastic sport fish. That thing fought like a freight train with the brakes out.

China... Oh man there are a lot of lunkers in there. Great place to fish. Very interested to see how they do.

^^^ awesome! I caught my PB largie on China back in 2004. She was 7-2 and fell for a LC pointer! I also got my PB smallie on China...a 5-9! China and Darimiscotta (sp?) Were two of my fav lakes.. d**n i miss living up there sometimes

Saturday 8/23/14, Alligator Alley MM32 south side, Temp 94*, Humidity ridicules, Clear morning, wind SE 5 - 10, water stained. Went out this morning with Steve Johnson. We got a late start, ,making the first cast at 8:00. This is not a great move since the bite seems to go dormant early. From the ramps at MM 32 south side, we ran west, then under the bridge to the deep holes on the north side. I have not been out there for some time, but I have had some successful trips in the intense heat of the summer at these deep holes. One hole is as deep as 60 feet. On the second cast Steve had a nice 2 pounder to the boat. He was throwing a small jig with a black trick worm. I was throwing a speed worm weighted. I soon hooked into a 3 pounder that attacked my worm from several yards away. You could see the pads moving, and a wake coming. I never get tired of seeing that. Then a few minutes later a big bass that went airborne in the pads, and then twice more once cleared of the pads. On the last jump she became unbuttoned, but both Steve and I got great looks at her. She did put on a show. We stayed in the east hole for an hour and then ran west to the other hole. Although the holes are deep with straight down walls, most bass were positioned under the pads or right at the drop off edge. We caught no fish below 10 feet. We ended the day at 10:30 with 10 bass and one big mudfish between the two of us. The bite just stopped as the sun got high. I wish I could have just touched that big bass, but it was fun just feeling her tug on my line. We had the entire place to ourselves. It seems only the few are fishing out there this time of year. It was brutal hot.

When his pinky ring gets grabbed by 460, he'll have to change his name to Raider9fingers

rumor has it they will be on china, cobby and great pond. The rest of the country will soon find out what it's like out here... Great pond will be an amazing fishery for this format. You can pull up and catch 2 pound smallies on grass flats literally all day. No exaggeration. the last 3 or so tournaments I fished had a 6-7 pound lunker largemouth too. Just typing this is making me excited. China is gonna be a slug fest for a lot of the guys.

Stop trying to look at it like a contest and try to work together... you'll both catch more fish.

You better hope it's not a place you venture to with any regularity - You saw what happened here in Michigan . . . . . A-Jay

I did actually. He no like my Chinese impersonation.

Fy dolla make you holla

Ima Roumba. Evergreen rat a tat.

Thanks Bruce. I did catch the two biggest (7.6 and 6.4) but Leo probably caught more. Dude is a friggin vacuum.

If it matters, some of what's in this thread is wrong, some is right. I've been covering the sport for 20 years (dang, gettin' up there!), know many of the Elites well, etc. Sorry, not bragging just know about this from firsthand experience. The bottom line is the pros will use whatever they feel they need to use to catch the fish to win. Afterward, some are allowed say what they used honestly, some are not. Imo the issue is not as big of a deal or difference as some think, but that's just my opinion The pros are usually WAY more honest than weekend warriors -- which I understand, but just sayin'....

Nope. I can't recall any. Remember, the "toads" are configured to run on the surface via the speed of your retrieve. If you slow down they will sink, which they are designed to do. Come on guys, if anyone out there knows of a floating "toad" please let us know. And no "mother-in-law" or "ex-wives" comments, please.

Learn to read the terrain you see above the water to indicate what is below the water. The topo maps will help you see what I mean once you are on the water.

I have had to go to my doctor to have a treble hook surgically removed from my finger. Also. I have cutters with me but to cut hooks out of the bass' mouth. I am paranoid about treble hooks and continue to be overly cautious. Good post to remind us the dangers of treble hooks.

it only took me googling the lake name and then fishing maps to find this http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/pdf/lakes/assnpink.pdf it gives you the location of sunken christmas trees on the map. my adivce is to have one rod rigged with a carolina rig with a 1/2 oz tungsten sinker , use that to feel and search the bottom of the lake. Looking at the map in the link above, i would fish around the areas of 2 and 3 , where the depth changes rapidly and there is structure . find the structure with your carolina rig. avoid the flat shallow areas for now

Yup! Who Dat!

I think it's really going to come down to the person holding it. As price increases you SHOULD experience a higher level of performance, but not everyone's hands are the same. The only way to really find out is to try them.

Don't forget original rapala.

Depends on what & when I'm looking to add to the arsenal. Several on line vendors are good including ALL the BR Sponsors listed on the right. But if you're looking for Lucky Craft hard baits - there really is only one. And before I post the link - a warning ************ I can not and will not be held responsible for all the $$$ you will inevitably end up spending here. The bait monkey really seems to like this one. If you plan on clicking this link, you may as well order several more storage boxes right now. A-Jay http://stores.ebay.com/I-Love-Hard-Bait?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

1) With the hook in the gullet, note which side of the fish's mouth the hook shank is toward. Note: For illustration sake, the line is eliminated here in steps 2 through 5. In reality, the line stays connected as this technique is performed. (2) With a finger or two, reach in through the last gill arch on that side of the fish and push and pull down on the hookeye so the hook turns and . . . (3) rolls out below the gill toward the side of the fish. At that point, amazingly, the hook, barb and all, almost always pops free from its hold in the fish's gullet. (4) Reach into the fish's mouth and grip the bend in the hook (which is now up) and . . . (5) lift it free. If the fish's mouth is too small to reach in with your hand, use a needle-nose pliers to grip the hook bend. What needs to be emphasized is how resilient a fish's gills actually are -- far from being the fragile organs often suggest by some sources. And the occasional bleeding fish? Does it have to be kept? Just get the fish back into the water as soon as possible and, more often than not, the bleeding stops. The technique also works superbly on walleyes, smallmouths, and other fish, usually taken on smaller hooks, often salmon-style hooks.

Get a rubber net, it's good for you and easy on the fish. It's standard equipment for me.