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Thank you for the link Catt! We sold 1/8 to 3/8 oz Doll Flies at the boat landing I work at in the 50's and was my introduction to jigs, however back then we didn't use a trailer. Jason Lucas wrote a article on using pork strips on hair jigs, we had bass strips used on weedless spoons back in the late 50's, so why not use that on the Doll Fly, it worked great. In the early 60's we used Shannon twin spins, a hair skirt spinner bait, with Uncle Josh a 9" Black Widow eel as a trailer. In the mid 60's a local tackle shop start selling 5/8 oz football head jigs with a wire weed gaurd and vynl skirts, using the eel was a logical combination. Pedigo pork rinds came out with their 3" & 4" lizards, basic straight twin tail shape 1" wide and that became the pork trailer design I still use to this day. Tom

Added Another TDZ 100m. Need to determine what rod to pair it with.

Made these up for a buddy for bed fishing.

6 lb. 14 oz. Quabbin Reservoir largemouth whupped May 6 on 8 lb. copolymer. She mistook a Super Fluke Jr., nose hooked, for a real meal.

Caught this monster on a senko

Here is a picture of it. Going to mod it once I decide what rod it will be going on. It will be teaming up with it's long lost brother.

First decent fish of the year! Bassresource scale puts it right at 5.5 lbs. Yesterday was a slow day, this ended up being the only fish I caught aside from a small one lost on a brush hog! Caught it at 7:30 p.m. on a dirty jigs green pumpkin finesse football jig:

15 lb power pro super slick - 10 lb fluoro leader

It's a jig that's been dragged through mud.

Then that would include my first wife ...

I had a pretty good supply of them when I quit fishing 15 years ago. I use to drain off about 1/2 the liquid they were packed in and replaced it with anise oil. When I dug 'em out last week they were still as good as new.....and smelled good too! Back then they had many more colors and sizes. In particular they had a twin tail about 4" long in chartreuse that I used to love to flip with. Their new double tail isn't as thick and meaty as they were then.

Unless I missed it, I didn't see an Original Floating Rapala mentioned. This is the one that got me hooked on topwater and when I learned about what a bait sitting motionless can do to a bass' state of mind.

Nice one but I like the northern shape the best.

I like using pork all year round.

And I bet the 20% who do still have a foghat tape.

Only when their 8 track player breaks.

Taking me back to the Virgil Ward days.

We have a Cabelas about an hour from us, in Scarborough ME. The way they have the fishing dept. is terrible. All the tackle seems to be by brand rather than type. One isle will have owner hooks, three isles over will be Gammy hooks. the same with worms,etc. If I want to compare creature baits, I don't want to walk thru multiple isles to do so. To me, it isn't worth the trip. I'll just order on line. Jim

Just about knocked the rod out of my hands when he hit it! That's how a southern smallmouth is shaped Dwight

I had this happen. Sit in a chair and put the rod behind your calves with your legs together. Grab each side and spread your legs apart and it should pop free. If that doesn't work, it must be really stuck.

I would personally buy the 7'3" Crucial. The 6'10" would be my second choice.

4" Renaissance Craw ~ custom pour by Paul Krews ~ A-Jay

Hey guys, I'm fishing right now, but I had to stop and share this. Eight o'clock this morning on a tube. A shade over 20" long, weight 5.4 Hootie

Haven't had much of a chance to get out on Lake Erie or the Niagara River much this year due to the fact that my wife works weekends at Mercy Hospital and I am home with the kids..Plus she is 9 months pregnant. So last Sunday was the 2nd and last fishing trip on the river this year. . Was using an Eco Pro spinnerbait when I hooked into this fish.. It was amazing and I still can't believe I caught this Muskie.. 50 inches and 18lbs... on 12 pound Berkley iron silk..

I decided to make my split grip cork handle into a full grip. So I went to dicks sporting goods, went to the baseball section. I bought a product called lizard skin. It's a over wrap grip for bats. So far I love the grip its not tacky at all. It is pretty easy to apply with its sticky back. Just wanted to share.

Thanks Jrob! The reel has been used but not abused. That happens to be its "good side". It has a few marks on the top of it and a few on the side plate. Overall not too bad. It is going to need to be serviced. I will toss in some carbontex washers, bearings, faster gears, and a new handle and knobs.

That reel looks barely used!

I wear both. The conventional when I'm running the boat and the auto inflateable when I'm on the front deck. The only time I don't have either on is when I'm anchored and there is someone else in the boat. I've fallen overboard a few times and I can tell you from experience that with no one else around and your boat floating away faster than you can swim 'dead in the water is your first thought. Well maybe not for you young studs that can swim a mile or two, but this old fart is smart enough not to rely on swimming to shore as the only option.

Waiting to feel the fish is a dangerous game. A big fish will either spit it, come towards you, or bury in the thick stuff making your hookset crap. If the frog disappears, set the hook. One thing I do is trim the legs down short. ( most of my frogs only have 1-2" legs.) As said above, put braid on but if you had 30 blow ups and you didn't touch a single fish when you swung, something else is wrong. I'm thinking extreme dinks, or not bass.

I've fallen in love with the Yum Christie Craws

I wear a PFD 100% of the time that I'm on the water. So, I wear an auto/manual inflatable model. Less bulk and cooler to wear than a non-inflatable. I had that PFD on for 7 hours earlier today - just took it off about 45 minutes ago. Temps were near 90 today - but it's relatively comfortable to wear that PFD even in those temps...

The spiral rods I've built have been the "simple spiral," and they work fine. All you do is set up all the guides as you would for a regular casting rod, all on top, do the stress test and test casts for spacing. THEN reposition all but the rear guide at 180 degrees. Don't move any other guides for rotation or axial position. Now add the lowest (OK to bend a guide) double foot guide of the same size as guide #2 at 90 degrees half way between #1 and #2. Your new guide's function is simply to keep the line off the blank, so the lower you can get it the better. There are other layouts, but most builders believe the simple spiral works as well as any of the others, and it does not have the problem of loading the line to one side of the spool of the reel as some designs with the first guide not at 0 degrees rotation sometimes do. The second (90 degree) guide can go either to the right or left, but I prefer it to go on the right side so that when my rod is resting on the boat casting platform that guide is up instead of down (with the reel handles up). If you have left handed reels you may want to go the other way to keep that 2nd guide off the casting platform. Many believe spirals cast farther than conventional; I think the only advantages are in eliminating any torque induced from the guides on top of a bent rod (felt as twisting torque in the hand) and eliminating any tendency of a highly bent rod to twist. However, since we are using such small guides these days, I don't even feel any torque on conventional builds. I build conventional simply because I don't feel the torque and I don't like the looks of a spiral wrap. If you haven't experienced a spiral wrap, I suggest you try it. You may find they have compelling advantages, as many people do.

Caught this 50 inch 18lb Musky on my last outing on the Niagara river with my brother in law.. My wife is due any day with our 3rd boy in a row so I am not trying to head out on the water again for the year..Don't need to be out there when her water breaks lol.. Fish of a lifetime for me..Great ending to the summer. . Strictly pond fishing around my house now till the day comes so I am close to home..

I don't like spiders either, but as long as they're outside eating bugs like they're suppose to, we're cool.

Not sure if this topic belonged here but I found it very interesting and thought I'd share. http://www.saltstrong.com/articles/fishing-lure-left-in-a-fishs-mouth/

It is a confidence thing and honestly I think it helps. Allen

That calculator is not very accurate. It always weighs high. I have taken numerous length x girth measurements with digital scales & boga scale weights & it always weighs above the actual weight. Example my pb largemouth was 26.5" long by 19" girth & weighed 11lbs-2 oz. The weight calculator puts it at 13lbs-1oz. My pb smallmouth was 22.5" x 17" and weighed 7lbs-6oz. the calculator puts it at 8lbs-7oz.

One of these 3. Jeff

There´s no debate, any color is fine as long as it is black.

numbers this year have been good better than normal size is also broke my PB this year

A little story relating to geese, and goose hunting, and fishing, if you will. As I was fishing a long winding cove one late fall morning, I noticed some geese hanging around in the water about 10 yards off the bank. I was alone. I have this habit of talking, sometimes singing, to myself, making up my own lyrics. Yeah I know. Anyway, just about the time I realized that those geese were decoys, I noticed a guy crouched behind the bushes on the bank with his goose gun. He had to hear me and my "singing". I threw up my hand, appologized for my intrusion, and spun my boat around, trolling motor set on max, feeling like an idiot. I am a bad, bad man. ; )

Crush your barbs. Its easier on you and the fish.

Pinch the barb down and it will slide back out much easier next time, but you're still going to get one in the eye once in awhile. I've caught big fish that were blind in both eyes and doing just fine. Bass live in water so muddy they can't see their noses sometimes and still feed effectively using their other senses. While it's unfortunate when it does happen, just know you didn't give that fish a death sentence by doing that.

When you blind a bass in one eye, you've blackened half of that predator's world for the rest of its life. Does that bother me? You bet it does, and if I attempted to trivialize that event I wouldn't be true to myself. However, the alternative is to give up angling, and that bothers me even more Roger

It's as common as biting your own lip or tongue. If it bothers anyone, they better just put their gear in the fishing flea market

And my ipilot link connected to my humminbird graphs will drive me around the lake hands and feet free. Its quite magical

Hi guys! Long time lurker and first time poster. I love this site and look at it almost daily. After my experience at Melvern yesterday, I felt compelled to do something I've never done before and that's to enter a post on a forum. I've been fishing Melvern for over 30yrs. and absolutely love what kind of smallmouth fishery this lake has become. It's one of my favorite lakes to fish. A friend and I were in my boat in the Turkey Creek arm, when I hooked what I knew was not a smallmouth. After 40 minutes and a couple of sore wrists and arms later, we finally landed my catch. We weighed it on my Rapala digital scale and it topped out at 34.85 lbs! This was the largest fresh water fish I have ever caught and it was on 8 lb. test line. The lure I was using? The NED RIG! I had no idea that carp would hit a lure like that, but I guess they will. I've caught gar, drum, and catfish over the years while fishing for bass, but this is the first carp I've caught. I guess this dispels the notion that only big baits will catch big fish. We ended up catching about 25 smallmouth and 3 white bass for the day. The biggest smallie was 18", but several 13-15" fish. All in all, a fun day to be out and one I'll certainly never forget. I tried to attach a photo but it said it was too large. If I can figure out how to do it, I will send later.

Welcome! As I am sure almost everyone can attest to, the Ned is pretty much a vacuum. I've caught largemouth, smallmouth, spots, catfish, drum, carp, walleye, perch, crappie, sunfish, whites, wipers, and northern pike on it. So when using the Ned, I wouldn't really say it's "bass" fishing... More like "whatever is in the vicinity" fishing.

Great catch, and welcome to the forums!

I bet that was a fun catch, I was really hoping you were going to post a pic of a giant Small Mouth, but congrats on a great day none the less.