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Went out for a few hours this morning before work, hit my favorite stretch of river as usual. It was in the low 40s and windy, by mid January that will feel nice but after a week with highs in the 60s and 70s it was brutal! Caught 19 largemouth and one smallmouth, half on my trusty bluegill DT4, half on a 1/16oz texas rigged trick worm (if you fish anywhere that is shallow with current, try this). I now have caught roughly 75 bass on that DT4 and I haven't even had it for a full month yet! 3 identical ones sitting in the box but they still haven't seen the water. 20" 18" 17" I'm impressed with the durability of this bait

Ooh..burn.

Started Wednesday at Lake Shawnee in Topeka in search of the newly stocked trout and maybe some smallmouth. Ended up being a smallmouth trip and maybe some trout. I caught about every fish in the lake (largemouth, smallmouth, crappie, walleye, white bass, drum), but the 4th or 5th smallmouth of the day made the whole trip worthwhile in the first hour. Thursday I was at Shawnee County State Lake, just north of Topeka, this time in search of the alleged big largemouth. I'd only fished the lake once before and the results were less than spectacular. This time, I extracted some revenge on the lake. I missed getting 2 of my big fish on film (both 4lb 10oz), but I did manage to get a 4lb 12oz fish, and a 5lb fish on camera. One of the 4lb 10oz fish was on a homemade 5/8oz sapphire blue jig, the rest of the big ones were on my bladed jigs in black and blue with a sapphire blue pit boss for a trailer.

Hair jig season is just about here and I've been getting a lot of questions about what kind to use and where to use them so I decided to do a post on basics. In the picture, the jigs on the right hand side are for clear water, the top jig is a 3/32oz marabou jig, the 2 under it are both buck tail jigs with one having a weed guard and no trailer and the other with no weed guard and a rabbit strip trailer. The marabou jig will be worked by swimming it slowly or hopping it along the bottom, no trailer is used but on this one I have 2 feathers tied in to give it a little extra. The buck tail jig without the trailer is 1/8oz and can be used as it is or a small trailer can be added like a trout worm or tiny chunk, it can be used in a swimming type presentation, hopped or crawled along the bottom and even dead sticking works with it. The 1/8oz buck tail with the rabbit strip will be used as is, the rabbit strip will give this jig a little more action and it will bulk the profile up a bit, it can be used in the same manner as the other buck tail but I normally use it when the fish are a little more active so it is either swimming or hopping most of the time. The jigs on the left hand side are more for stained water, less than 2' of visibility is where they shine because of the added bulk. The top two jigs are 1/8oz football heads, the top one has buck tail tied in with deer belly hair tied over top and there is a little more hair than in my clear water jigs. This jig is going to be crawled along the bottom slowly with a chunk style trailer, a 2" tiny Paca Chunk works great for this jig and it is going to fished primarily on hard bottom or rock covered areas. The other football head is going to be pretty much the same as the previous one, the difference is that it is tied with a heavy collar made of fine round rubber, and that is not only going to make the jig stand up, but it also provides a different profile, pretty much like a Sculpin so we will often slowly swim this along that bottom without a trailer and it works surprisingly well at times. The last one of that side is what I call the creeper jig, it is 1/8oz round head with a rabbit hair body with some longer silicone strands in for some added action. This is one that is always going to have a trailer and it is always a chunk type trailer and it depends on the size of the jig but one of the ones we find that works well on this is the Ron Yurko finesse chunk by Venom Lures. This jig is crawled along the bottom or slow hopped and dead sticking also works well with this jig and this is what I'll use if the water is only slightly stained as the rabbit hair will offer more visible action but it won't have as large of a profile as the others making it a little harder to find in dirtier water. Now these are all small sizes meant to be using in water 10' deep and under, I usually only go as high as 1/4oz for the waters I use them in so if you need a faster fall or need to get deeper than you can adjust the weight but remember the appeal of these is they offer the fish a small, easy to catch food morsel that they don't need to spend any energy to get so you don't want them moving to quick. I tie a ton of different kind of jigs as well but these are what I learned to fish hair jigs with and they can be tweaked size and color wise to match the conditions you face. I hope this helps those of you who are curious about hair jig fishing in cold water, if you experience water that dips down below 40 degrees in the winter, it will benefit you to learn how to use these types of jigs as they are often the best lure to catch them on.

I had planned on targeting trout on this day. I'm really glad I decided to try for some smallmouth first when this big girl showed up.

Just want to throw a idea out there for ya. Sperate medium from deep divers for a Rod. If you also throw jerk-baits, sammys, big poppers, squarebills etc treble hooked baits equally as much as a medium diver. A quality Rod in the 6'8-7'0 range like a m or mh mod will be great. I see deep divers as a specialty that needs its own Rod definitely over 7' and more in the MH side. Just a thought. If money is a issue you don't need 2 full on combos you could use same reel on both rods...

Your fishing an area where trees are actively falling?

Bill Murphy's book, "In Pursuit of Giant Bass". Anxious to read it and add it to my already massive bass fishing library. Hootie

Abu Garcia Ike Series 7' Medium Spinning Rod Review So I got my Ike Series 7' Medium power spinning rod in and took it out this weekend and fished with it. I paired it up with a Shimano Saros 2500 that was spooled up with Sunline Sniper FC 7lb. test. I fished this setup using a 1/2oz. Damiki Vault blade bait (horizontal and vertical jigging it) and a LC Pointer 78. Looks/Feel: First impression out of the box was impressive. The color isn't a super bright purple like some pictures make it seem. It's a darker, smoky type purple and it looks really good in person. The weight of the rod is very light and feels pretty well balanced. This rod definitely feels lighter in the hands than my GLoomis E6X 6'8" M and my BPS Extreme 6'6" M. This is surprising to me because this rod is longer in length, however, it could be that the EVA on this rod helps with the weight. Speaking of EVA, the foam on this reel handle is the firmer, good feeling EVA, and not that cheaper, spongy feeling EVA that some rods seem to have. As for the reel seat, this is the one part of a spinning rod that I am very picky about. Every rod out there seems to have a different reel seat on it and some are better than other in terms of comfort. This rods reel seat is very comfortable for how I hold it and I really like the design of the seat. Upon use, I had no issues with this reel seat slipping or having troubles locking down. Features: This rod has a lot of great features to it. The blank is nice and light and is rated as a 36 ton graphite blank, which I believe is the same 36 ton graphite blank that comes on the more expensive Veracity lineup of rods. I touched on the reel seat earlier, which is made by Fuji. That in itself explains the quality and comfort. The EVA foam is high quality and the grips are split. The rod also has a small, closed loop hook keeper on the under side of the blank right above the reel. This is my favorite style hook keeper for a spinning rod because it doesn't allow the slack line to get caught/wrapped up in the keeper. The guides on this rod seem to be of great quality, and the foot of each guide seems to be held firmly in place. Actual Use: On the water, I was impressed with this rod on the very first cast. I was able to sling a 1/2oz. blade bait much further with this rod than I could with my 6'6" and 6'8" rods. So the added length probably helped with this. The 70/30 action on this rod seems like it was made for working a blade bait along the bottom. The tip has the perfect softness to it to lift that bait up and feel every vibration on the lift and then feel the flutter on the fall until it hit the bottom again. That same tip also helped me launch lighter jerkbaits on it like the LC Pointer 78. I didn't get a chance to throw any lighter Shad Raps on this rod, but I'm sure that soft tip will help the rod load up and throw those type of baits just fine. At one point in the day, my partner asked if he could use my blade bait rod (which was this rod). I handed it to him and his first reaction upon holding it was "Wow, this setup feels awesome." After his first cast and working the bait back to the boat, he couldn't get over how great the setup worked for that presentation. Overall Opinion: I was skeptical to try this rod at first. I've owned/used nearly every rod in the $100-180 range (Veritas, Veracity, BPS Extreme and Bionic, SC Premier and Mojo, GL E6X, Fenwick HMG and HMX, Shimano Crucial) and while most/all of them are good rods, I wouldn't say any of them are amazing. However, this rod comes in at $130 retail and it is very impressive from what I have found in my one day of use so far. I know there aren't many reviews out there on these rods yet, so I wanted to post this up so people could get an idea on these if they are considering this rod. This rod gets my nod of approval and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a rod in this price range.

For those that don't want to watch the videos.

Finally broke down and ordered a Savage Gear 3D Shine Glide in Threadfin this morning, the 7.25" version. Suppose to get here Thursday. Sure hope it does so I can get it wet on Friday

Glenn with the slam! Lol

Caught this 7.5lb bass on my third cast with a jig today. Missed a couple of bites, but I still managed to catch 7, one of them weighting 5.45lb. I still can't believe this small ponds holds such big bass

As anyone who has seen my posts probably can tell, I have been extremely into frog fishing after finding out how much fun it was last year. I literally could not put the frogs down, even on days when it would have been much smarter to use something else . Granted, I got skunked quite a few times but catching a few fish here and there always seemed to make up for. However, going into October this year I noticed the fish were still not actively taking frogs like they were a year before. It took until a couple weeks ago before I finally put the frog down long enough to really get my confidence up in a couple of other lures. I can't explain exactly why, but I just had that urge that told me it was time to make a change. The first lure I switched to was a cheap buzzbait from Cabelas that I forgot I had. On the first cast with it EVER, a small 1lber broke the surface and choked on it. I set the hook and was ecstatic to hook my first fish on a buzzbait. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be as a terrible knot job on the buzzbait came undone as I was lifting the fish over a branch that was in my way. Went home with a hard lesson learned, but the next day I was armed with another (cheap) buzzbait and a secure palomar knot. This time, I nailed my second largest fish of the year: ^ Neat story with this fish. It was getting dark and I wasn't having any luck with frogs or the buzzbait. Before I decided to leave I thought to myself, "maybe I'll give the shallows one more quick toss". Bam! It took me by surprise and when I got her head out of the water she spit the hook. I immediately put in another cast and she swirled on it again but missed. After a few more casts with no more hits I tried a frog to see if it wanted a slower presentation but proceeded to get no action. I was about to give up when I thought, "it went after the buzzbait twice and it's obviously still there, so maybe it will go after it one more time." On the very next cast, I landed her. The trip after I got a much smaller but still decent (for this lake) fish on the good ol' buzzer: The trips after that I had some more blow ups on the the buzzbait but they either spit before I set the hook or they missed completely. Then this past Sunday morning I got the smallest bass I've ever caught on a buzzbait: ^Never thought such a small fish would hit such a large lure. After fishing a bit more with no luck on the buzzbait, I figured they didn't really want to come to the surface and opted for a Cabela's brand spinnerbait and added a 4 inch twin tail grub trailer. This proved to be a great decision and it was the key to the majority of my success over the last couple of trips. On the first cast a respectable bass slammed it just before I ran the spinnerbait over a log: Then five minutes later, a bigger one gobbled it up: Then finished up Sunday's trip with a few more fish, these being the more respectable ones to come on the buzzbait and the spinnerbait respectively: With Sunday morning being so productive and having my confidence level in the spinnerbait and buzzbait soaring through the roof, I decided to hit the lake again Monday night. Sure enough both lures did not disappoint, and I landed the most decent fish ("decent" being the keyword) I've ever landed in one day. They wanted to demolish the spinnerbait: Third biggest of the year and fourth biggest ever. The buzzbait has a VERY good track record right now barring the tiny guy posted earlier.

Did something today I've never done before...Caught Rainbow, Brown, and Brook trout all during the same trip on a local stream here in MD. I actually caught several Rainbows and Browns and then went searching for the Brookie to go for the trifecta, I've never been able to get all 3 on the same outing. The Browns live wild in the stream and the Rainbows are mostly stockers...Still unsure why our DNR stocks fish on top of a great wild population...But whatever, they are still fun and many holdover and become what I like to think of as 'half-wild'. The Brook trout are native and the population is pretty small, they only live in certain parts of the stream and small tributaries. You have to go out of the way to have a shot at catching one, but they are MD's only native trout so I try every now and then. Usually come up short but this time I didn't . Anyone that lives an area with 'real' fly fishing opportunities is probably rolling their eyes, but here in MD there are not too many streams which support all 3 species and most of those are out in western MD...So doing it here in central MD has always been a goal of mine . (I only fly fish in the winter after tournament season is over, I'm definitely an amateur when comes to the fly rod) #8 Woolly Bugger with a bead-head caught most of the fish today, with a #12 Coachman taking the rest, to include the Brook trout. A typical Brown for this stream. A cool shot of one of the Rainbows after I released it. The Brook trout that completed the day.

^16...SF, I've read your post a couple times and it still cracks me up...not sure what you meant to say exactly...nor what came before the ****, but it makes me laugh....hope your worm made it through ok

Vynl rubber skirts followed hair or feathered jig skirts, the hair jig period was over, vynl was final. The only soft plastic trailers back in those days were high floatation (super float) soft plastic worm cut to 4" and split the tail about 3" used the vynl jig....the hot set up for the 70's. Silicone and living rubber skirts came out during the 80's along with Mistertwister curl single and Double tail grubs that became the next hot jig trailer. Today there are more choices than anyone could use in a life time, lots of choices that catch bass. Nothing that has come out in my life time (over 70 years) works better for big bass consistantly than hair jigs with pork trailer. Consider this; 50+ bass over 15 lbs caught on hair jigs with pork trailers, 0 over 15 lbs on any other type of jig during the same time period. Yes, I use 75% of my jig fishing time using hair jigs, so the odds favor hair jigs, but not 50 to 0. The reason may be hair with pork feels real to big bass and that gives me enough time to detect a strike that could be easily missed using other combinations, who knows. I can tell you this I have lakes to myself using a very effective jig few bass ever see. Good article, don't always think super slow, sometimes slow foreword movement with shaking is the trick. I do this this by shaking the reel handle for 10 to 15 seconds that transfers rod tip motion to the line and slight movement to the jig, turn the handle 1 to 2 times and repeat....slow but very effective cold water retrieve. Tom

Lay braid on spool and put electrical tape over it. Tape wont allow the braid to spin on spool and lets your line lay more evenly than if you had a knot.

I have 10 of them here being cleaned and Super Tuned. They are smooth, great casting and built like a tank.

I personally think it is one of the best bass books out there. A "must read" as far as I'm concerned. -T9

Lake Lopez this weekend with fisherrw. Nothing huge, got a 4-4, two 4-1's, one 4, and a 3-3. Caught probably 50 fish, Mostly largemouth with a couple smallmouth and crappie.

After one experience with an artificial lure, a large bass will often avoid that particular style of lure for the rest of its life!

Looks like your wallet at least looses a lot of weight.

7'2"-7'6" MH power, Moderate action

My reading suggests they may avoid a particular lure in the future. But only for about 15 minutes into the future... Anyone that refers to any fish as the "most intelligent" should probably not be taken very seriously, IMO! Tight lines, Bob

Your questions were posted in the wrong forums. They were moved in order to help get more responses. They're right here: http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/164959-quantum-reels/ http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/164881-looking-to-buy-hand-poured-plastics/ http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/164585-drag-going-out-of-my-revo-winch/ Thanks for asking.

8 to 12 foot , the Norman Deep Little N has been around for decades because they catch fish .

I did a similar thing a couple of weekends ago. It was cold and windy, and it was a PITA to change lures/tie knots. I broke off a snagged jig, reeled up my line, got out a new jig, put on a trailer, then tossed it in the water. When I picked up my rod, I realized I had never tied the new jig/trailer onto my line. Would have been funny for the back-seat fisherman but I was by myself and didn't see a whole lot of humor in it. Tight lines, Bob

Caught this at a pond I have only fished a few times. It runs right along a quarry I fish and it was very windy and I was having a tough go of it at the quarry. I figured I would jump over to the pond for a few which was much calmer. Caught this on a wacky rigged salty sinker.

More spinnerbait action: The bass fishing has been hot but unfortunately due to time constraints I don't think I'll be able to squeeze out more than one or two more short trips. However, this year has been incredibly enlightening and I feel quite a bit more confident going into the 2016 season and this time I won't just be armed with a tacklebox full of frogs.

It's a $2 part. Get one and repair, at least then it's usable if you need a reel.

Hello again, another 'what should I buy' thread... The last time when I bought my spinning gear set up, I got some good recommendations here, so I am trying this again! I am in the market for a rod and reel combo that I was planning to use for my top water and swimbait fishing. For top water I would like to throw anything from a frog over a spook to a 130 size Whopper Plopper. In regards to swimmbaits I was planning to use it for anything from a 5" Biwaa Seven to a Huddleston Deluxe 68 Weedless (I havent bought this lure yet, so if there is anything that is a bit lighter and similar I would be open to it) . I know that this is a pretty big range, but I would like to limit my fishing gear to three rods. I have already: * BPS Extreme 7' Medium Heavy with fast taper (I have 14 pound fluro on it and use it for Smaller swimmbaits, spinner, jigs and crankbaits) * 7 foot spinning gear (use for worms and any lighter lure) * NEW ROAD AND REEL (use top water and swim baits, I was planning to put 30-40 pound braid on it) I would like to take advantage of the upcoming Black Friday deals. My total cost should not go over 350 USD (for Rod and Reel). Here are some options that I am considering: First option: Rod: Daiwa DX 7'3'' Hvy with fast Taper Reel: Daiwa Tatula Tactical. 8.1:1 left retrieve Cost together: 288 USD Option 2: Rod: Okuma Scott Martin TCS 7'3'' Heavy (Fast taper) Reel: Lew's Team Pro Speed Spool 7.1:1 Left Retrieve Cost would be 350 USD. What are you general thoughts on my approach, what do you think about the options that I am playing with and what other options am I not considering right now? Thank you. Best, Sebastian

This is my most prized possession. I would need cash to boot! Jeff

Extreme fishing, for sure. Hope he has a GoPro! Probably casting while descending a zip-line through the falling trees.... Tight lines, Bob

When I started using jigs back in the dark ages all we had were hair jigs and pork rind trailers. Back then we also had a closed season for fishing, trout started on a May1st, bass on June 1st, fishing closed November 1st. So we didn't know hair jigs were good in cold water because they were good all the time. Today I fish hair jigs year around and the nobody told the bass not to eat them. Tom

awesome that would be great. From what i understand it can be difficult to find bait down there in the offseason but i guess that is why Gulp and fishbites are popular.

Ive been using poor boy baits tubes. Soft and salty. Went to replace one with a zoom one and took it off immediately. I had difficulty sliding it up the shank of my ewg so I knew Id have difficulty getting solid hooksets.

I have some fish hammer it in just the right/wrong way for a one and done (rare), but I've also caught 10+ on the same tube minus a couple tentacles. I prefer to fish small tubes with an open hook (traditional jig head), so the worst part for me is retying the rig. However, if that's the issue it means I'm catching fish and if I get too lazy and they're aggressive enough I can go with a Texas rig and peg a small weight.

So that's now the FOURTH ridiculous finish on four consecutive weekends of college football. Michigan/MSU, GT/FSU, Duke/Miami and now this. Jeff -- you can thank the idiot who got the facemask penalty called on him on the first 2-pt conversion. What a moron!

Will you accept a hawgtech in trade? Lol..

Ordered Tuesday, arrived Friday. Man, this thing is lighter than air:

I particularly like the marabou with hackle and the buck tail with rabbit.

Because Melvern>Lake Shawnee. They're in there but certainly not common. I was there to try to trout but I fish for big trout with jerkbaits and ended up with a big smallie instead. Fished for 2 days and the next biggest smallmouth was 2.25, after that was maybe 1.5.

Bring it. I got this.

WOW! Congrats to the trophy fish.

The extreme mission or either of the 711 rods (megabass)

You gotta pay the big bucks to keep up with the latest and greatest.

They can keep it!

Nah That's a fair question just reading my answer, no offense taken. No I got some time to fish and hang out with Glenn and this site reflects his personality and his demeanor. He walks the talk and I find him honorable and I stick up for the people I respect. Ain't bout not being anyones pet , it's about how I feel about my friends.