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If it were only that easy. A-Jay

What I can say is its dead. So 18 lbs or not, I don't think anybody will be catching it again.

Loosen your drag and take it easier next time you're fighting a big fish on treble hooks. You don't want to go up too big with a walking bait or you'll mess with the action. VMC Spark Points are a good, heavy duty hook that I've had success with on walking baits though.

This weeks fish.......we had a slow week or so for this time of the year.......weather in New jersey overnight has been anywhere berween 58-64 degrees...there is no topwater bite and little weedbeds still as of yet....Any other year it's usually on in early May....hoping things change soon as a 6-9 fish day is tough after putting alot of time on the water......thanks for looking fellas.... Did an event in New york City with Mike Iaconelli and a few others last weekend......It was to promote Casting for Kids, an event aimed at getting kids from NYC who rarely get the opportunity many of us suburban bassers get.....Had a lot of fun that day and i made bassmaster.com online page Went out a bunch of times after then and here's the roundup of best fish of the week My buddy w/ a nice one Went out for a night trip and got a decent chunk on a senko Me and my buddy Dan placed 3rd in our first tournament of the season...that's always a good feeling to cash a check finally finished off a long weekend Monday morning with a few decent ones And of course after all that fishing, i needed a quick power nap so took one while on the water...lol

I can't help it, the Bait Monkey is driving me crazy!

And don't forget... all these species commonly hybridize when they exist in the same water body. Could be a Northern Tiger Muskerel! Tight lines, Bob

Any bass over 9 pounds is "GOLD". Over 12 pounds, that's "PLATINUM" Roger

What someone legally does with their legally caught fish is up to them, stop whining.

Hide and seek under the pads with the devil('s spear). 3-2

Owner ST36 work for me.

Kids these days.. $$$ is nothin to em.. just ask dad

Read "In Pursuit of Giant Bass", Bill Murphy, all you need to know about how to fish crawdads for bass.Tom

Agreed, but they're established over a few decades now. Seems like it's probably a little too little too late at this point. I'd think you'd be better off trying to improve habitat for the native species and continue with supplemental stocking of them to try to improve their populations while loosening restrictions on the predator species.

There is another video of them out there. Most of their baits have a large, single hook on the back. Makes sense, I can only imagine how hard it would be to remove a treble hook from a ticked off sharks mouth. I could also see doing it without hooks and just enjoying the strikes.

This is where my wife caught most of her bass, just look for the bridges and have her cast right up on each side. That's where her PB came from on a black and blue wacky rig. It probably would have been half a pound heavier if it hadn't coughed up a 12-15 inch long eel while she was fighting it. There really isn't anywhere on that lake that doesn't look fishy though. Your chariot unless he's upgraded, it really was a nice ride especially having the wife too, plenty of room for her to get comfortable when she got tired of fighting fish

Unless you were about to starve I can't think of a good reason to eat an 18 pound bass. That fish has to taste so nasty and have such high mercury levels. Could have taken pictures, measurements and released it to get bigger and gotten a good replica mount made. Most likely someone has caught that fish at least once in it's life and released it so he had a chance to catch that monster, but now nobody else has the chance. Maybe the fish was hooked badly and wouldn't have survived regardless, who knows, just hate to see a monster that nobody else will have a chance to tangle with.

Now to find the right rod.

If I'm fishing a spinnerbait, it's got a trailer hook on it!

Mr. Martin and Mr. Mercer are two celebs I can stand. They act like normal folks. My little girl (18mos or so) crawls into my lap when I'm watching bass fishing shows. She just eats it up -- I've never seen anything like it! Until recently, Facts of Fishing is what she'd demand. She likes Mr. Mercer. When I turned on a recorded Scott Martin Challenge featuring his little girls, she was enthralled. She ran and got her mom to watch, too! Since then, I recorded another that also features his daughters, now a bit older, fishing for Peacock bass. She demands one or both of those shows... over and over and over again. She has to hold her fishing rod while watching them, too. She's getting old enough to take out fishing, briefly. If you happen to read this, Mr. Martin, I hope you take that as the compliment it's intended to be. Josh

I think we can all agree this is some member of the Esox family.

Looks a lot more like a small Tiger Musky to me.... Tight lines, Bob

Well sometimes the man upstairs sends you a big one. This fish was completely dumb luck, my friend and I were trolling Shad raps out of a paddle boat on a 20-30 acre neighborhood lake having fun catching dinks when this girl bit. We fish this place hard every year and usually catch a couple big ones, there aren't many though. Our saying is "if it ain't 12" it's over 20". This one was 23" with a girth of 16.5", fish calculator says 8.5 but I'm thinking she was mid to high 7s That's three citations in four weeks!

Always liked the skinny dipper for my quarter oz northern style swim jigs. Recently I got a bunch of 3.8" fat swing impacts in a trade, and fished them this morning. The paddletail size seems to be comparable to the skinny dipper, but I didn't detect as much side to side movement/ rolling of the jig (tail wagging the dog). The fish weren't complaining though, they loved it. I'm pretty impressed actually with the catch rate. Need to try the 4.3 and 4.8 inch sizes to see if I get can better secondary action.

Belt, wooden spoon and grandmas house slippers. Dad said I had it good because his father disciplined him with a razor strap. Grandma said my parents didn't beat me enough LOL. I also had a father and grandfather with strong work ethic and my father is now 76 and continues to work even though he doesn't have to. Both my dad and grandpa worked 2+ jobs up until retirement. There was no making excuses. I've worked since I was 13 years old. I learned that if I didn't do my job, there's someone else who would. I don't see that nowadays. Not only in the corporate world, it's in the trades as well. People are given too many chances.

Last I heard, the concensus was it's not 18

In my neck of the woods the Crème Scoundrel six inch purple with a white tail worm is lethal in grass. The Old School basser...

I have no idea really as I don't ever see or hear much about UL rods. I do know the last UL rod I bought is a 6'6" and a Quantum. I don't like a short rod even for UL and I like 6' or more personally. Your best bet might be to go to a actual tackle shop and see what they have.

That sucks. Have been there before.

Eat the bluegill or feed your garden. One of the older guys I meet fishing makes fish cakes. Don't take bass let them grow.

Did you grow up with a belt, a wooden spoon or what ever was handy for punishment when you stepped out of line. When someone was sent to the principals office for the 2nd time was there a wooden paddle on display with holes drilled in the business end to aide in faster deploy of said handle? I wouldn't be surprised if you stepped out of line once or twice. Thst was and is normal behavior .

I feel your pain for sure I have lost possibly new state records a few times now. My p b 10lbs. These were bigger.

Youtube holds a lot of answers

You can fish this rig effectively any where you want. A-Jay

Dick's had all their Xcalibur baits on clearance last fall. My son worked there and he put everything they had away and I bought about $250.00 worth of OneKnockers, XR50's, Squarebills and a couple of the Edwin Evers jerk baits (a rare find). Then we went to another close by Dick's and although it was largely picked over, still got a few more of each and they had the Zell Pops. I'm good for another ten years or so. If Booyah is going to sell them, they will probably be a tad less $$$.

After doing a lot of night fishing I believe the bass are close to the shoreline in the dark eating eels. I shine a light at the waters edge it's loaded with eels. So this is why the 6" black plastic worm has been the number one bass bait for many decades. In the beginning of plastic worms we had natural or black at first. The purple then the red soon followed. (Creme worms) my uncle and cousin who received field and stream and outdoor life every month back then learned about the split shot rig. I learned it from them. There was no internet.

I agree 100% with John G get the braid on TIGHT. 1st thing that came to my mind when saw the pics was line too loose. The first pic spool looks fuller than the 3rd pic is it just the angle of the photo? The 3rd pic looks too low needs more line. If thats a full 150yd spool of line you can add mono line to fill it under the braid.

Small Northern Pike. They get quite big, you caught a baby. Just today I was fishing at a local lake and helped a young kid unhook one about that size. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_pike When they are small they have more vertical markings like that and then as they grow, the pattern becomes more like long streamlined spots.

Academy Sports has a really good suit that will only run you around $140 for the jacket and bibs. I love mine! And I especially love that they were roughly 1/2 the price of the BPS versions. http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/h2o-xpress-153-men-39-s-fishing-parka/pid-134525?N=4294940663+119191402 http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/h2o-xpress-men-s-fishing-bib/pid-134531?N=4294940663+119191402

I generally prefer casting gear, but I don't feel I lack control when spinning. My left hand cups the spool on the cast, and can control what comes off the spool. I'm doing it in the first 15 seconds here. Same effect as thumbing the spool.

I would recommend no lighter than a MH rod for Frogs. Meduim rods generally don't have the backbone or immediacy to drive home two big frog hooks. If you want to use the Medium rod though, try picking up some of the 1/4oz frogs or maybe some soft plastic ones that you can texpose a normal EWG hook through as if it was a craw or worm. If you want to be successful in using hollow bodies though, you've got to bring a grenade to a watergun fight. MH or H rod, and heavy braid. Now you may be able to get by without the specific setup and boat a fish or two now and then but froggin' is one of those techniques that every requirement you take away, your odds of landing a fish drop off significantly.

A power pole can't get you home in the fog.

Much appreciated I was able to talk my brother into taking a quick pic of some of my worms, and I'm surprised how much detail showed up in the photo. For those that don't know the top little ones are Creme Angle worms. I use a regular thin sewing needle to thread 4 lb test from tail to head through the body, then tie on the hook and the swivel. Even though I mainly use the little angle worm rig for bluegill, it's almost impossible not to catch bass. Second is Midget Crawler (usually rigged split shot or wacky), the bottom four are Scoundrels (usually t-rigged or wacky). If I had to choose only one of those three for bass, it would be the Scoundrel...rigged any way I can come up with and probably in black. No doubt other brands work as good or better for most people. But for me these are my worms

Us fisherman are certainly a gullible lot.

70 degrees? Most of the lakes in VA right now are in the 80s

Why KVD is not doing well........ Because a taxidermist does his taxes? His other hobby requires dogs and a lantern? He cleans fish in his living room? He and his dog are on the same medication? He is now using his bass boat to haul lumber? He was voted "most likely to fish from a bridge" in high school and he is working towards that goal? He enjoys playing with his baits more than he likes to fish? His kids' basketball hoop is a fishing net? He likes to hunt quail in the interstate median? The photo on his fishing license includes his dog? Motel 6 turns the lights off when they see him coming? He practices casting in his yard? His favorite hunting story includes, "So I rolled down the window real quite-like...." He sunk a rental paddleboat at the park? His house caught fire and he ran back to save his fishing lures? He likes to go fishing in Louisiana with a generator and a copper wire? He has been in the emergency room more than thee times this year to have a fishhook removed. He keeps catfish in his aquarium? His most effective fishing lure is TNT? His wife would rather fish off a bridge than shop for clothes? He would rather fish than have sex? He sends fan mail to his favorite fishing lure company? He spends more than a half a day in a tackle store? He was baptized on a boat ramp? He has an above ground swimming pool that he fishes out of? He has eaten out of a minnow bucket? His wadding boots double as dress pants? When he talks about great bass fishermen his grandmother's name always comes up? His truck license plate frame mentions fishing? His dream home is a bass boat? There are electronic singing fish in more than three rooms in his house? I am sure you all can add to these suggested reasons why KVD is not clobbering everyone on the tours. And special thanks to Jeff Foxworthy who is a genius for creating these sayings.

With the small screens, or larger ones too, use a shorter SI range to show small stuff like fish, brush, rocks, etc. Use the 100'+ to see the general bottom layout. Then rescan using the shorter ranges. To get the best detail use a SI range that is three times the depth in more than 10' depths. That will give you 1/3 on each side for the water column and 2/3 of each side for the bottom. In shallower water use a SI range of a long cast. Turn off the left side readouts in the full screen SI view so the whole width will be used to display SI. You can double the size of displayed subjects by choosing to view just one side of the SI view.

Raider fishing. Close the thread.

When there's a cute girl across the table from you and you notice her earrings look like dropshot weights!