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I am putting in the effort. I have 100 % confidence in the lures I fish. I have locations figured out where the biggest bass of the lake hang out. I have been broken off way to many times in the lunker lakes I frequent in Maine. Way to many in the exact same spots I have caught 8 plus pounders. I have hooked into fish that the only thing I could do was hold on and lost them. Peeling drag like a tarpon. Broken line. Wrapped in a log 10 feet down seems to be the one that gets me the most. I am sure there are 10 lbers in those lakes. Who knows maybe I have hooked one and lost it ? Perhaps that 10 lber was on that spot I was fishing but didn't want to bite that day ? The more I go the better my chances are of getting one. I will fish those lakes until the day I die in pursuit of a 10 lb plus bass form Maine. State records get broken from time to time. Why not on the very next cast ?

PB caught at lone star today just shy of 5! Caught on a jig

I know of a guy in PA who is fishing for them. Also a guy in VT.

There are a few guys on the swimbait forums and others that remain relatively quiet that have caught fish around 8 or so. I've heard of a couple guys with 9's. I know the fish are there too, I just don't believe there are many guys actually fishing for them.

If you missed this on the Home Page, take a look http://www.bassresource.com/fishing_lures/pinnacle-dhc7-producer-lte.html

Judge for yourself. This fish was 25 1/2" long and had a 21 1/2" girth - weighed 10.7 lbs on the Accu Cull Digital Scale and had a Spanish Accent. A-Jay

Nice fish guys! I went to Lone Star Friday afternoon and caught a few. Nothing big but it was a lot better than sitting at home. On the plus side the steering that Chris and I worked on worked very well! The real question is... did you get your baby brush hog back? I plan on going back out there Wednesday afternoon to see if I can catch something that would be worth taking a picture of.

I have rods, lures, or line laying all around the house. Does that count?

And OP, make sure you turn off the clicker before trying to cast it.

Tackle**** who? Great Review, A-Jay!!

That guy doesn't know squat.

Nice review!

For me, I can't fish that way. It's just way to boring. I have to be casting.

Nice job A-Jay!

WTG A-Jay

whatever's on sale

Blu was right. Yesterday was a good day for PB's. I shattered my PB by over a pound and a half. 5 pound 10 ounces. I'll post pics as soon as I can

Sooo I show up to our spot at 5:45 in an absolute downpour... I said what the hell and we embarked out on our wet trip. First fish of the day was ona Yo-zuri pencil bait and went around 2lbs... I switched up to the biggest of the livetarget mice and immediately had a real nice blow up at least 4lbs, prob bigger, but the rain was so loud and it was still pretty dark so it was pretty hard to detect a hit... But I did see the fish fly out of the water just didn't get a good hookset on him. Then moved to a spinnerbait and caught one close to 3 then a 2.75 on back to back casts with my brand new Lew's BB1 (LOVE IT)... When the sun was up we mainly fished a drop shot and pulled a bunch of small ones, until the last cast of the day a 3.5 was caught on a T-Rig...

I got to finaly catch a decent size fish on my new Destroyer rod and Tatula R reel. For some reason I need heavier jig rod than most

My beer is gonna have to be a rootbeer. I dont turn 21 until April. Haha

We should all meet up at Brittany's one weekend for drinks. That is if everyone is at least 21. could could be a good time. J-

about 4 or 5 months ago I brought home 5 baby bass (florida strain) from the lake and put them in a 75 gallon aquarium. 3 of the 5 died (2 died from the severe beating and starvation from the dominant one preventing them from eating) and 1 had no chance. A Friend of mine brought home 10 and 7 died. , and here are some observations from the last 4 months . These are just objective observations I've made without bringing prior knowledge into it. conclude from it what you will. They will not eat any dead prey , period. They love to suspend vertically in tall grass at night , (head down, tail up) . They love to hang out on the other side of cover from where their prey is. When they feed the like to push their prey up against the glass. They love a tube they can swim through much more than anything with leaves or limbs. (A perfect bass habitat would be big black corrugated pipe with holes along the sides they can swim in and out of over a tree). If they didn't see it on the fall , they won't notice it on the bottom for a while, and won't come to investigate it just sitting on the bottom. When they eat fish , they will sometimes have 2 or 3 at a time inside their mouth. Also when they eat fish many times they eat it and then spit it back out and seem to only consume it again if its still alive. So if they swallow a fish and spit it back out and its dead , they tend to just leave it alone. The dominant fish will nip at smaller fish to keep them from feeding (even if they're not actively feeding). when they're feeding , they're feeding. and when they're not they won't eat anything even if it dances on their head. alot of times they rest motionless on the bottom when they're full. Crawish will move , then freeze, then move , then pause. especially if they fall from the top of the water to the bottom, when they hit the bottom, they freeze. When they move without pausing its usually when the bass are actively feeding or just finished actively feeding. They also don't like the daylight and tend to only come out at night. They find one spot inside cover and tend to stay in the same cover spot and not move around. crawfish are lighter on the bottom than the top , so if you have a 2 color crawfish bait, go lighter color on the bottom. They match the color of the water around them They're behavior and physical appearance match the behavior and physical appearance of the bass at my lake as the moon phases and seasons change. that's all i can think of right now, i wish i had a webcam to just keep on the tank 24 hours a day because its really peaceful to watch them.

The boss and I slipped away for a couple of days last month and headed to Tarpon Lodge at Pine Island Florida to do a little salt water fishing. A bunch of small snook and 5 bull reds between 28 and 31. We also caught jacks, rays, catfish, and a bonnet head shark. Juvenile Snook Nicoles First Bull

Gentlemen, Im curious. How productive is your average outing? Meaning - For each time you go out on the water... What is the average number of hours you typically spend fishing? What is the average number of fish you typically catch during those hours?

All this talk about cars and testicles reminds me of a married with children episode. Can't find a video but here's a pic

Back in olden times, I fished with several university professors, some of them were nearly as broke as I was. We had access to several places to fish where row boats were available. One of my professor buddies had a hand crank trolling motor. The prop was maybe a foot in diameter. The gizmo was metal and mounted to the transom using a bracket just like and electric trolling motor. There was a 2' long or so shaft with worm gears on either end. The idea was that you would pump the lever up and down and the prop would turn. If you started the action with a downward pump, the prop would turn forward, starting the pump with an upswing would reverse the prop. I remember that it didn't work worth a darn when we were near vegetation, as a matter of fact you had to lift it out of the water, and the bracket allowed for that. But when you were in open water, going from one end of the lake to the other, it was faster and easier than rowing. Does a device like this ring a bell with anyone? I believe the original device was acquired in Wisconsin, but that was many years ago. I remember seeing a back page ad in one of those outdoor magazines, Field & Stream or Outdoor Life, but I've had no luck searching. I know I'm not imagining it, my question is has any one else seen one or know where one can be acquired?

My den has a wooden bass rod rack, a bass rug, a bass throw on the sofa, a bass shaped/colored pillow, 4 mounted largemouth, 2 mounted smallmouth, a mounted chain pickerel, a mounted crappie, and 50+ bass tournament trophies. Additionally, two mounted whitetails on the wall, one mounted albino white tail in a glass case used as a TV stand, and 5 whitetail racks on plaques. Yes, I am married---47 years so far.

They have grinders and strong jaws for crushing shellfish. They will break your thumb if you are not careful.

Is your line like a slinky, if it is its called line memory - Use more manageable / quality Mono/FC line or lower your line rating. Otherwise use braid. Is your line coming to life and wraps itself or "Twists" into a tangled mess ? This is line twist (more prominent on spinning reels) Use a good swivel, get a quality spinning reel with a well designed twist reduction system (Ball bearing line roller, spool design etc), learn the proper way to fight a fish. Otherwise use braid, its not immune to line twist but it is more resilient than mono and FC.

My girl caught another pig today on a florescent green and black worm. So happy for her.

My entire house is decorated in a Northwoods outdoor theme including a smallmouth replica, a hand carved wooded smallmouth, and 4 Al Agnew smallmouth prints. There are also a variety of ducks, geese, eagles, loons, other birds, moose, deer and bears. All of this is with my wife's support and approval. She likes it all as much as I do.

No..I'm married.

Wow! What a nail-biter! Great game! Go Hawks!

Man-U-Troll

Thanks guys. That was the first time we had ever been to Charlotte Harbor. Tarpon Lodge was awesome. Nice and comfortable and catered to fishermen. It was like going to the keys minus about 5 hours of driving one way.

This does not seem like exactly the same thing you are describing but it may be close. It's a Ropeller.

One of the rare events that bring big bass together with smaller predators is big schools of baitfish like Threadfin Shad. I have caught small bass, trout, channel catfish, stripers and big bass during a shad feeding spree on structure spoons. The bigger bass are usually under the shad schools, not always. Generally big bass hang out with other big bass, the numbers depend on the population and location. Big bass tend to find locations where they have prey, deep water access and safe sanctuary. You would be surprised at the number of big bass that hang out in the marina area under docks that are off limits to anglers or anglers simply over look. Tom

Now that ain't no bull! Sweet catch Lee.

I had a wife like that once. But only once.

Get a topo map if possible and forget about all the trees, look for the breaklines, long points, rockpiles, humps, anything that would hold a fish even if the trees weren't there. Find those spots and then fish the trees that are around and on the structure. If you stick to fishing those high percentage spots instead of just fishing vast amounts of trees that are all basically the same with nothing different to attract fish from the other 100 trees around it, you'll catch more fish in less time.

Update. So we talked to them. They got upset. Told us we were wrong to accuse (being that my wife found and showed me the lice on the girl's head that night). So with that being said, they have some hygienic decisions to make on their own. For us, we have eliminated the issue thus far.

You have to have a flat brim cap to use swimbaits. Anything else lacks style.

4" senko 3.5" Smallie beaver 5/16oz finesse jig These have caught a few on my top ten big bass over the years. Allen

Why not just take a screen shot? seems easier than digging out your phone to take a pic.

Nuff said

Why stop at one? Repeat what you did and look for the same conditions and cover and see if you can't put another one in the boat.

I added a 12" NLMB to our koi pond at the beginning of the year, but he has bulked up and is now likely over 2lbs. His situation is slightly different than your bass, in that his neighbors are a 10" bluegill that is (currently) too big for him to eat and 5 clueless koi his size & larger. His diet consists of nightcrawlers, goldfish and whatever insects/lizards/rodents my kids find & feed him. Here are a few observations I have had over the past 9 months: Bass will get accustomed to people quickly - When I first put him in the pond, he hid underneath a rock at the spillway for 5 days, never coming out when we were there. Now he associates us with food, so not only does not hide from people, he will follow you around the pond waiting for food to be introduced. I can never release him back into the wild, he would set up shop outside a dock waiting for people to throw him things. The vision of a bass looking above the water is excellent - Not only does he have the vision to follow us around, he moves to where I toss nightcrawlers in before they hit the water. I'm not sure if he is watching my hand motion or if he sees the crawlers in the air, but they barely have a chance to get wet before he has swallowed them. This has made me again realize the importance of stealth when fishing, those shallow bass can see a lot around them. Some bass are gluttons - I say some, because unlike your fish, mine has never turned down a meal after that initial 5 days. When I feed him goldfish, I put 10 in at once & it is a massacre. He is chasing them down even with others hanging out of his mouth. Any live food put in the pond is eaten immediately. Bass attack different foods differently - Although he has been somewhat domesticated, my bass shows his wild side whenever live critters are tossed in the pond. He goes after the goldfish exactly the same as fish do when they are boiling on shad - quickly, violently & relentless, pure predator mode. Nightcrawlers are inhaled completely immediately, no swimming around with part of it hanging out of his mouth. Yet when koi food is tossed in, he will leisurely swim around, find 4 or 5 pellets stuck together & softly slurp them off the surface. Sometimes he decides he doesn't like them & will spit them back out, but usually he eats that as well, even after devouring 10 goldfish. Prey that he believes can get away is hunted down while "fish food" is eaten like popcorn at a movie theater. It is fun having him around & watching him subtlety dominate the pond. He doesn't attack the other fish or chase them off, he just stands his ground when he sets up shop & the goofy koi give him room. He is so much quicker & has better natural instincts than the koi. He (She?) is starting to get some shoulders on him, if he reaches 23lbs, I'll have get my picture taken with him

I think this statement carries a TON of weight, even past the confines of a single day. (Sorry to be nitpicking Bill, but niche ) Catt has dedicated a great portion of his fishing to learning how to fish jigs effectively. It's his comfort zone or niche. He's found success with it so naturally, for him, the best option is likely to be a jig. I fish jigs. I really like fishing jigs. I have not had the success with big fish caught on jigs that Catt and many other guys have. I've dedicated the better part of the last 8 years or so to fishing swimbaits. It has become my niche, my comfort zone. I feel confident with a swimbait in my hand and I believe that lends itself to fishing intently in high percentage areas for big fish. In my personal fishing, bigger baits have equated to bigger bass. The way I fish a lot of swimbaits, a jig is just not a viable tool for the job. Fish your comfort zone. YOURS, not someone else's. A jig, swimbait, spinnerbait, drop shot....none are a magic bullet that work 100% of the time and they surely all require time and patience to master. In the right hands, I do believe bigger baits equal bigger fish. I also believe that in the right hands, MANY different baits can equal bigger fish.

I agree. I caught this perch and this bass on the same lure I have nailed more 3+ lbers on small worms than I have on larger jigs or swim baits.

When I use to fished what I call draw tournaments as a boater the biggest thing I tried to do was break the tension. I would get non boaters show up that were so nervous that you knew they weren't going to be any help for the first couple of hours. So the morning of the tournament I would talk to them about other things then fishing to slow them down. Then when we got the boat in the water and was sitting there waiting to go i would always ask them what they did for a living. They would tell me then ask me what I did. I would always say I ran a call girl service out of Columbus Ohio. The responses to that I could write a book on. But it started our day off with a laugh and then we could just go fishing. So my point here is for boaters and non boaters is to find a way to break the ice so that both of you can relax and go fishing. Starting off your day all jacked up is only going to make you miss a fish or two that you wish you had at the end of the day.