Leaderboard

Did I read that right? You broke it and now it's 2" longer? Hootie

These big box stores always seem to collapse from within the bigger they get. Bass Pro used to not only be the best tackle store in terms of availability and variety, it also had the best website in the late 90s. But now they seem more focused on selling 10 thousand different varieties of scented candles and beef jerky seasonings. They have an art gallery for crissake. There is not enough profit margin for selling quality items. Selling junk assembled by 7 year olds in China to idiotic impulse buyers- soccer moms, kids, gift shoppers, people who've never fished or stepped foot outdoors in their lives- is far easier and more lucrative. Still the best places to buy tackle are the small father/son tackle shops. The prices aren't always bargains but I almost always find lures and tackle I'm looking for. Size 14 snap swivels, oversized 8" crankbaits, whatever. They cater to a different crowd.

I always have jigs tipped with a trailer of pork. Most dont use pork as trailer anymore,but for me, its a much better trailer in cold water. Hair jigs are great in cold water also. The colder the water the slower you fishem.

Went out for a bit got these two on rage craws rigged on swim jigs. Not the biggest, but some solid chunks.

My wedding video....

The Shining... Jack Nicholson is awesome in it.

A bouquet of St Croix with a smattering of NFC, Rodgeeks and Rainshadow RX7 (Cascade vintage). A pointless fun pic as I close up camp for the winter. I was too lazy to crawl in the boat to put them in the locker.

One in the truck, one in the boat & a spare at the house. A-Jay

Cool - But whatever you do - Don't Fall IN ! ! ! A-Jay

Hey Dwight -- let's not drop this in the drink, mmmkay?

I don't know how I missed this whole thread until now. Excellent work, Scott (as always). Dwight, I can't wait to see you holding a 10lb+ Bass in your right hand with that rod in your left.

New combo to replace a lost rod & reel. Custom St Croix 5C74HF-B expertly done by board member Scott Hovanec and a new Shimano Exsence DC.

RMc, your post highlights the "buyers" input on what fishing tackle each store will stock. Stores near saltwater fishing will have more saltwater than freshwater equipment. Same is true for a store with a high population of freshwater fishermen - more freshwater gear. Both stores have a specific number of fee for each product offered. Whatever is selling best goes into those specific feet of space. This is why shopping on the Internet is so attractive to bass fishing guys. We can find what we need and have it shipped to our homes without taking our time and treasury to drive to each local retailer. For example. Castaways Tackle shop in Chester has the most Senkos of any store I have visited. The Wal-Mart on Forest Hill Avenue in Richmond caters to the freshwater guys with catfish and freshwater equipment. Tackle Express on Midlothian in Chesterfield County has a good selection of Zoom products. So to have your BPS or Wal-Mart carry what you want to buy you need to ask for the buyer and speak with that person. Just remember, if it does not sell previously the product will not be offered.

He's too organized, half the fun of fishing a crankbait is getting it untangled from all the rest.

I'll throw in my two cents. The area I am in is in northern IL and the fall bite is on there as well. We had a cold front about a couple of weeks ago that came through and dropped the lake temp down about ten degrees from mid seventies to mid sixties. I have found success early in the morning at first light using spinner baits or top water and during the mid afternoon after the sun has come out and warmed up the water a little bit with cranks, jigs and rattle traps. Cold fronts are tough. A jay had posted a great video on cold water bass fishing using blade baits. I can't wait to give them a try.

This is true. In fact I have one right in front of me. Not sure if the retail value of that Rod but if it's worth $25 plus shipping I'll take care of it for you.

Do nothing with the rod until you read this: http://www.rodbuilding.org/library/repair-oquinn.html There is a high probability that your rod can be repaired to work as well as it did before, just a little section of mismatch that you will probably not notice when you get used to it.

Coming from a engineering r&d lab background I like testing new products. I'm retired its in my DNA. These reels work. If a cheap reel gets a kid away from the computer and out fishing for a cheap $10/$15 reel that's my point.

I have a funny feeling it might be chicagos year.

Well guys anyone considering a custom built rod should talk to Scott. I asked him to use his own desecration on the reel handle design. My only input was that I like burled cork so that handle looked different than a plain cork factory build. Boy did he ever come up with a one of a kind handle design. The blank I chose because I had a St Croix legend elite previously & like the heavy power blank for fishing in Florida with straight baid in the vegetation. I new what guides I wanted but Scott fine tuned my selection to best serve the straight braid in dirty water. His guide placement for sprial wrapping was very well thought out. The fit & finish is flawless. The rod balances perfect right under the reel foot. The guide wraps blend perfectly with the reel & blank. I'm a happy man. Thanks Scott.

One that works sometimes is to get a backlash....then while picking it out, my line just starts moving sideways

Shad Raps.

Shakey head with finesse worms or some craws like the paca craw or rage craw!

A couple of squarebill crankbaits would be on my list if I did not already have them.

In all my many years of fishing, I have broken only one rod, or rather had it broken for me. When I was about 10 or 12 I was showing the rod I had received for my birthday to a friend. I told him it was made of fiberglass. He was very exited to tell me that "Wow, those rods are unbreakable!" He then proceeded to demonstrate, and splintered the top six inches off my new rod.

Now would be a good time to pull the trigger on a swimbait.

My coldwater baits are a suspending jerkbait, a blade bait and jigs.

Yesterday I ordered the St Croix Legend elite at the factory sale price of $252 shipped. I consider that a possibility in the $250 class. Update: received the Rod yesterday and was delighted!! Brand new Rod , perfect in every way. I put a SOL on it lasts night with 10# Sunline mono and rigged it with a VMC weighted hook and a Keitech 3.8 Swing Impact Fat and will head out to the bayous tomorrow to try it. I've had an LTB and I have an AVID now and the Legend Elite seems to surpass them both. Now I'll have to see how it performs.

YEAH BABY! See ya in Wrigley cards!!

The bait monkey got me today, but I got such a screaming good deal I think it is a draw lol. I had a spend 25 and get 10 off coupon from Dicks and low and behold they had a buy one get half off sale going on. I picked up 5 chatter baits and my first bag of real senkos for 16$. I think I did all right. Excited to try the chatter baits after having success with the mini chatter frogs.

I've pulled my share of hooks out of people in the emergency room. The braid works well but I've found using a pair of pliers or heavy hemostats work better. Same concept though, grab at the bend and pull hard and fast with eye of hook at downward angle. The good thing with freshwater hooks is that the barbs are usually small and will not cause too much trauma going out. Saltwater hooks sometime need to be pushed through if possible and cut. Most cases there is only minimal damage caused by hooks.

I do the same with my Cabelas card. I haven't paid cash for a rod or reel since 05. Everything but the car payment and mortgage go on that card, points pile up fast.

You can comfortably throw anything between 1/2 oz to 6 oz.

Yo-Zuri Hybrid #6 has a breaking strength of 19.5 lbs and is exactly the same diameter as Ande Premium #6, .010" http://www.andemonofilament.com/linespecs.php Note too that Ande fishing line accounts for over 1800 World Records. So, although there are no industry standards, I would argue that Ande is a good proxy.

Absolutely! Maybe if I was Dean Rojas and could catch a bass on a frog though the ice, then I'd continue to throw it. But there are just so many other proven producers that work better when water temps fall. Why try to force a bite? I'd rather pound em.

All within 10-30 minutes of my house I ha 3 Wamarts, 2 DSG's and a Cabela's. BPS is an hour and a half trip one way and not worth it. The selection is not that great and pricing is higher than the others I can go to.

BPS used to be the only place I shopped for tackle but a couple months ago I interviewed for the fishing department head manager position. I was beat out by a guy that doesn't fish but had years of managerial expirience. I was told I could be a part time associate wiry my knowledge but fishing knowledge isn't a requirment for employment. One of the major responsibilities of the managment spots I wanted was to decide what products to put on the shelf. Im pretty sure you need some fishing knowledge to do that. So I quit going to bps. I now get my stuff online or Walmart. My Walmart has a fantastic selection. I bought my last 2 revo stx there and my veritas 2.0 rods at Walmart.

When you buy from China, you get what you get. The quality is often uneven and though they are good at copying the external shape of a lure, they often fall down when it comes to the critical internals. I've seen decent crankbaits ffom there and I've seen others that were completely worthless. Try to find some that are molded in Japan - they are a better bet. But don't expect a knockoff of any popular crankbait to be just like the original. They almost never are.

I had similar issue with an old motor, and it turned out to be the carb. jets just like way2slow mentioned. Give it a good spray/ or soak and see if it solves the problem.

My first guess would be the carbs. Low speed jets are too lean or dirty passages in the carb. I thing those carbs have a small hose that goes across them for the low speed fuel, make sure not of those have come off. If opening the low speed some doesn't help, might want to see about cleaning them

Barlow's Tackle, flat eye weedless plain jigs (Arkie head) available in both size, 25 package. #46021, 3/8 oz, $16.50, #46022, 1/2 oz, $17.50. Tom

I´ve had a lot more success fishing bladed jigs with Subwoofers than with any other kind of bait as trailer.

i like to just retrieve them steady and just fast enough to feel the constant vibration of the blade. be on the lookout to get bit when they're on the drop too, they'll get picked up on the drop much like a jig will.

New babies!!!!!

Add weight to the line IN FRONT OF THE BAIT. See what that gets you.

I've been adding weight to baits for a while. My experience shows that extra depth attained may depend on a combination of the length of your cast, the diameter of and type of line, along with the speed of your retrieve. When I've added weight to a bait (Strip or Dots) - especially deeper diving baits, when using tackle that allows maximum performance of the bait and making a cast that is of sufficient length / distance to do the same - the bait usually will run a little deeper than without the added weight. Also, seems that the bait may acquire the max depth a little faster and even stay deeper a little longer. How deep & how much longer often depends on the same factors I mentioned above. Finally, there seems to be a fine line between adding just enough weight to get the bait down a bit without over powering or dampening the baits original & or designed action and completely flattening it out where it simply comes back to the boat without doing much of anything; most noticeably getting bit. When I need to get a bait super deep, there is often more effective / better options than an over weighted crank bait. Good Luck A-Jay

I most always speed or burn my retrieve when nearing the boat or shore. Just in case there is a looker who has to decide they don't want to take the chance of letting it get away.

One thing I learned years ago and I'm surprised more muskie and walleye anglers don't do, is to change directions during the retrieve. I rarely point my rod tip at the lure when retrieving. Somewhere during the retrieve I will move the rod tip left or right, up or down. The effect on the bait is similar to a baitfish changing direction or speeding up to avoid capture. I learned that little trick from an old muskie guide way back in the 60's. It's one of the best triggers to getting a following fish to commit to your offering. It works great on bass and most game fish.

Bet those girls could change out bent/damaged hooks faster than we could ever imagine! HAHA Jeff

My first Shimano baitcasters