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I'd just like to say thank you to all the BassResource members and moderators. Over the past year my family and I have been through some rough times. Fishing has always been a way for me to clear my head, but I have not had many chances to get out on the water lately. This site and its people have been a small escape for me when things became overwhelming, and I am truly grateful for all of the dedicated hard work that I know goes into making this site what it is. From me to all of you, thank you, keep doing what you're doing, and God Bless!

I am now a fishing Grandpa!

My friend and I went up to Rodman Thursday morning and caught 4 bass, 2 pickerel and a catfish. His largest bass was 5.5 and my largest bass was 3.15. Here's a photo of his 5.5 bass . . .

Both on Hudds: Jeff

Largemouth's prefer Rush.....Smallies seem to like Pantera

I think you guy have to understand the people that buys high end gears aren't buying it to catch more fish or be a better fisherman. It can help but we know in the end it's still up to the fisherman. Sometimes you have to just look at it like this. Why buy a $200,000+ house when a $100,000 house will do. Why buy a $25,000+ car when a $8000 car will do. Why buy a $50,000 bass boat when a $5000 boat will do. Why buy clothes at the mall when buying it at Walmart will do. If you appreciate better quality and sometimes better performing products then you'll want to pay more for it. We are all in different stages in our lives. Some people that buy high end have a stable good job and value the gear more than others. I seem to here the guys that don't care for high end gears often try to say they catch more fish on their low end gears. Always seem to make a point about it. The guys that buy high end gears never seem to put down low end gears or say it's catches less fish. These guys all started with low end gears once so they know both ends of it.

Here is a picture of a close friends best smallie day of his life. This is the only 21" smallie I have ever seen that went over 7lbs. The 2nd picture is my wife's PB which she deserved to land after tripping over my tackle bag & falling on her butt. She managed to hang on to the rod & land the fish despite the fall.

Got these guys in the mail: 9 inch MS slammer in purple nitro 10 inch triple trout in hitch color Swapped out the hooks for some ST-36's and split rings for owner hyper wires (not pictured), these baits are ready to hit the water! pre-spawn can't come fast enough!

Well I bought two GL2 two years ago. One crank and one worm and jig. I couldn't sell the worm and jig rod fast Enough. For a rod at that price point it felt so dead to me. I kept the crank rod because I like the reel seat and handle and it's just for cranking. My $100 rods in the past are superior to the GL2 for bottom contact. The ***, Veritas, and Tatula rods are really nice. You really don't need anything better than these to fish effectively. Just that I like enthusiasts gears so I go up in price range. To me it's worth it because I like performace just as much as attention to detail and design.

Those fish Look Mexican?

Hudd wanabee.

Here is a few of my better fish from the season...

Well that just makes you ignorant, because they are the SAME EXACT thing.

For me I keep my rod prices in the 100-150 dollar range, as I feel this region is by far the most competitive. The companies that make rods in this price range have much higher sales volume thus they can reduce their margins and still make a bunch of money. this equates to much more performance for your dollar as compared to rods over the $150 mark. Mitch

It floats very well

This..

I am actually surprised by all the responses claiming it's 'wrong' or they 'feel' wrong bedfishing. As someone above said, fishing is a blood sport. As is hunting. I personally enjoy bedfishing and take full advantage of it when the spawn comes around... And don't lose a wink of sleep once the day is over.

Send me a PM with your name and address (private, NOT on the board). I'll send you some stuff. -Kent

Another way to set the drag without using a scale is cast out with a crank bait & try a strong hook set. Set your drag on the loose side & keep tightening until the drag does not slip on the hook set. That will put in the zone.

Better post in the bass boat forum, but here is my short list of best bang for buck. Good batteries that last about 2-4 years depending on how you take care of them (Charge them immediately after use, check and maintain fluid levels correctly, etc.) 1.Walmart's Everstart Marine Maxx (Group 29 for your starter and Group 31s for the Trollers) Best Bang for Buck in my opinion. I've gotten 4 years out of a starting/house battery so cost of ownership is ridiculously cheap! 2. Sears DieHard Platinum Marine AGMs (Basically Odyssey Batteries made for Sears) Best bang for buck for AGMs usually Sears runs promotions and you can pick them up for around $200/each or a little more for the Group 31s Have an Odyssey going on 6 years! Recently replaced my trolling motor batteries with two group 31 Sears DieHard Platinums

I play the theme from Jaws and the bass just jump in my boat

I would think that the trick to that would put the line on a old baitcaster and just hit the botton and use a old rod handle.

Here's a couple from this year: And In fairness they are not all quality or big fish LOL :

Without trying to totally derail this thread I'd like to just add a couple of things that I see as misinformation posted above. There's a LOT of talk about water color in the Spoonplugging literature. Many stories about how Buck would drive all around some giant lake or impoundment looking for the area with the best water color to help narrow down where he would start. He cataloged and rated different water colors and visibility. He also wrote at length about traveling around much of the country and fishing as many different types of lakes as possible, from the highland glacial lakes up north to the flatland reservoirs of the south. Giant impounded reservoirs, cleared trees, standing trees, deltas, he fished them all and he discussed them each specifically in his many writings. He said repeatedly that he was speaking to principles that applied to ALL fisheries, he just liked to use big reservoirs as examples because they had the largest variety of structure types for demonstration purposes. With regards to trolling and the OPs question T9 pointed out the two key points to consider. You give up speed control at faster speeds and only something with a hook on it is actually going tell you if there are fish in the mood to strike down there. What you have to keep in mind when it comes to the spoonplugging system is that Buck was very rarely out fishing for stragglers; a fish here and there. He was constantly on the hunt for an active school and his system was designed to methodically eliminate low percentage water and then strain the high percentage areas, checking all speeds and each depth until one arrived at the fish. Trolling as needed simply makes this process more thorough and gets it done more efficiently and quickly. Modern technology can obviously help in this area. Trolling is part of my approach but I fish out of a kayak so I'm fully aware that I'm limiting my speed control. I can troll at a pretty good clip but I can't sustain it going over a deep hump over and over for an hour. I might just add, since I'm already all over the place here, and apparently feel like rambling - Trolling, when you're just out searching or 'mapping' an area can be boring I agree. HOWEVER, if I know there's a rock pile, or a stump or something there on a ledge in 15 FOW, and I determine that letting out X amount of line and paddling at X speed directly towards that tree with the water tower lined up behind it, will keep my lure running about 1' above the bottom until it hits that bit of cover; and I do it, and I feel my lure running free, and as expected I get to a certain point and I feel my lure hit that obstacle, and then I immediately get bit and pull a fish off it - that is IMMENSELY SATISFYING. The trolling experience is completely transformed at that point. I'm no longer just dragging a lure behind me. I'm simply using my boat to get my lure into a precise location in a precise manner that I wouldn't be able to accomplish by casting alone. Accomplish that one time and I promise you that you'll never look at trolling the same way again.

No, no,no, no, no!!! It's .38 Special & Marshall Tucker Band.. I'm being silly of course... Lived in and around Jax. Myself for a while.. Loved southern rock. That's what I've done for years, just take a portable player when fishing, ...out with family or friends, that's different..oh, you forgot, the Rossington-Collins band!

There are no doubt more sensitive rods for less money, You'll get a lot of suggestions on here and all good if they are from actual experience and not hearsay. I have always believed "sensitivity" is dependent a lot on your sense of feel. If you have a real keen sense of feel, you could possibly do , with a cheaper rod as good as I do with my NRX. Just my rambling thoughts....lol. Hootie

Paul Newman as Lucas (Luke) Jackson in Cool Hand Luke. A-Jay

You were checking out that 14 pounder and wanted to get one too! I completely understand! Rodman is on my list too!

I love the new big pictures, helps so much.

Congrats, you've answered your own question! Mr. Perry didn't have the technology we do today, so he had to rely on the practice of trolling spoonplugs to realize what the structure/cover that was below him. He had an amazing talent of being able to recognize structure and cover using a simple technique while using fishing gear that none of us would even consider today. Buck Perry wasn't fishing with today's graphite rods, or superlines, and he sure wasn't sitting in a $85k Ranger. What you really want to do, is go back through his writings and pick up on the real lessons he was trying to pass along. That is how bass relate to the structure and cover available to them.

Havocs are a good price! I hear yum may be coming out with more stuff in that range as well. Also, my Gander Mountian has Big Bite Baits Cane Sticks for .99 a pack for 10-12 worms.

Rosalind Russell as Auntie Mame Andy Griffith in the Face in the Crowd Bogart in Casablanca and the Harder they Fall Flynn in Robin Hood Gable in Gone with the Wind, Band of Angels, Any Number can Play Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington Gary Cooper in the Fountainhead

Fishing for sport whether it's immediate catch and release or hours later if in tournament, the act of hooking them probably does put stress on them. It isn't natural for the fish to be on the end of a line, that's our sport. I've seen very few bass go belly up (gut hooked for sure) in a normal fight, yet I don't know what happens to all of them once they swim off 100% of the time. I do think it's a blood sport, all the care in the world does not insure a longer life for them. Fishing is enjoyment for us, I'm not sure how much the fish enjoys it.

Your stick-to-it-ive-ness is commendable! I was born 3 years prior to your New Year's resolution, WOW!

Custom's the way to go. $10 for 10 Wobble heads, any color, choice of weight and hook size. Check e-bay, there are several vendors that can hook you up. Brian.

Back in the day we called them 'crankbaits'. 90%+ of what we would describe as 'shallow crankbait' also falls under the category of 'squarebill crankbait'. Don't let the name fool you, it's the line tie location, bill length and width that lend the bait its snag resistant capabilities. Shallow cranks with coffin and rounded bills are just as snagless as the squarest of the squarebills provided they have bills as long and as wide. People have been making shallow cranks that we today would call 'squarebills' since Big O in the 60s at least. Deep squarebills? That's pile of you-know-what. You can square the bill of a deep diving crank all you want but it's not going to endow it with the snagless nature of a shallow crank.

A-Jay

I use a really small pair of channel lock pliers, they work as good as anything else I have tried. It is a pain to bend the wire down to the head and your have to be careful not to chip the paint. Here are a few I have done recently.

They aren't always shallow. They are called 'Square Bills' to describe the flat shape of the bill, unlike a bait with a rounded bill.

Scatter Raps have been out for a couple of years or am I missing something. Anyway I picked up some when they first came out and did well with them. You can't really burn them or they will roll. The best method I have found is slow and fast enough to make them scatter then slow. Also they are really light so I throw them n spinning gear. I did not throw them last year and not sure why because they worked for me the previous year. I have not fished the deep cranks only the shallow and count downs. Hope this helps.

Your reel has a different dual-braking system than a PQ. The earlier generation BPS reels having dual-braking (PQ, Prolite Finesse, Rick Clunn/RCX/Carbonblack, some (all?) of the Johnny Morris reels) all had similar design dual-braking systems - the one with Doyo as the patent holder (see scan below). As BPS sourced reels from OEMs other than Doyo, more "dual-braking" systems were introduced, most having little to do with the original Doyo system. Your "Prolite Special" (not to be confused with the original "Prolite Finesse") is one of the later reels with a different system. In the current BPS BC reel lineup, probably only the PQ and the Johnny Morris have the Doyo system - all other dual-braking BC reels (Carbonlite, Extreme, et. al.) have different systems.

Blue's are the worst. Seen it, and it's not for me. Call me a big ol' chicken but I'm not reaching into a hole knowing I'm going to get bit... snakes, turtles, beavers, hooks, lock ness monster... whatever it may be... i'm out!

**Anniversaries ------------------------- Who said men don't remember anniversaries? A woman awakes during the night to find that her husband was not in their bed. She puts on her robe and goes downstairs to look for him. She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee in front of him. He appears to be in deep thought, just staring at the wall. She watches as he wiped a tear from his eye and takes a sip of his coffee. "What's the matter, dear?" she whispers as she steps into the room, "Why are you down here at this time of night?" The husband looks up from is coffee, "Do you remember 20 years ago when we were dating, and you were only 16?" he asks solemnly. The wife is touched to tears thinking that her husband is so caring and sensitive. "Yes I do," she replies. The husband paused. The words were not coming easily. "Do you remember when your father caught us in the back seat of my car making love?" Yes, I remember," said the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him. The husband continued. "Do you remember when he shoved the shotgun in my face and said, 'Either you marry my daughter, or I will send you to jail for 20 years?" "I remember that too" she replied softly. He wiped another tear from his cheek and said..."I would have gotten out today." Joke PM sent.

You'd be surprised how well some of those "big diesel" trucks actually do perform under a load even though a bass boat isn't much. If you can afford the big 3/4 ton plus trucks then there is advantages to them. When taken care of the diesel will last longer than most gas trucks. A 6.7 cummins can also get about 20 mpg under a load.

When the sun shines. When it is cloudy. When the water clarity is very clear. When the water clarity is stained. When the water clarity is dirty. When the winds blow. At all temperatures all year long. When everything you throw fails. When you see the bass feeding on top of the water. When you don't see the bass feeding on top of the water. In other words, throw that frog all the time under all conditions and see what happens.

Heres me on a night fishing trip around 1978 . I would be about nineteen years old in my new Skeeter 15 foot tri hull SS1 Fisherman . I fished whenever I could. The lure here is probably a black grape jelly worm. the reel is an Abu 4600c. The rod could be a fiberglass Lews speed stick . Good memories.

I got some from Ebay. They look good for sure and a few have a real wide angle wobble. I `m hoping the pike will like them real well and leave my LC`s alone. C22

Yea, lol.. Whatever punishment the wife try's to deliver to you, it will be worth it!

Thanks Dwight and btw, you Sir belong to several, I say again, Several clubs that I would really like to join - And you know exactly which ones they are . . . . A-Jay

Under water.