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I thought my final trip of the season had been made last week but the weather forecast for today was just too good to pass up - so I headed for my favorite smallie lakes. The morning air temps were in the low Twenties but Man - am I ever glad I went ! While fishing a blade bait through a saddle area ( in 25 ft) between two underwater humps, the bait just stopped. I set the hook and immediately thought it was probably Not a smallmouth bass. This lake has a healthy population of walleye and a few Pike & Musky. I didn't know what I had but judging by the crazy wide head shakes - whatever it was, it was BIG ! Immediately, my mind goes right to - "Oh man, my leader is only 10lb mono ! " This lake has clear water so I always go a little lighter to get bit. Since whatever this was, was towing the Old Town - I was hoping that the 3/4 ounce silver Buddy was positioned in a "Good Spot" - meaning away from the teeth and that my uni to uni braid to mono knot was good. ( as it turned out- it was). After a few minutes, the fish came into view and it was a really big pike. My heart sunk. I was both excited & bumming. Clearly, my bass net was not an option. But I'd run through this scenario a hundred times in my head. Hook a Big Fish - Head to the bank. So that's what I set out to do; unfortunately, it was over 300 yards away. I knew I would need to remain patient & composed if I was going to get a chance to handle this Beast. I tried to stay focused but I won't lie - I was pooping my pants ! It took forever but all the way to the bank, this mutant pike was being surprisingly cooperative. Until we got to the shallower water, then she made several long & determined runs for freedom. The kind that makes the reel scream and my knees weak. After what seemed like an eternity, she started to show signs of weakness. I was hesitant to fall for her ploy at first, but then it became apparent that after what was way too long in my mind, she'd had enough and I was able to bring her all the way to the beach. What a relief ! ! ! I was fortunate again in that one of the lake's few all season residents, had seen the insanity unfold from her cabin. She was easily at least as excited as I was and showed up at the bank with her camera just as I was beaching the beast. After some pleasantries, she snapped off a couple of pics and stated: "my Dad is Never gonna believe this one!". I managed to quickly measure & weigh the fish before spending several minutes working to revive the pike. The 44-degree water temp definitely helped out and with a couple of way Big Tail swishes, my PB Pike Blasted out of sight. Man, that felt Good. Stats - 41.5 inches long 20-inch girth - 25.52 pounds. Though not a bass - That fish defined my entire 2015 season. The pic's are cool - but don't do the fish justice. The video tells the real story. ~ The video is loading up now. I'll warn you in advance, it's 16 minutes plus long and there's a little colorful language in the beginning, sorry. But I am SO Glad I had the video going to document what may be the largest freshwater fish I ever catch ! I'll post it as soon as it's ready. A-Jay

Bass Resource member and friend Eric (SoFlaBassAddict) passed away yesterday from a heartattack. I had a couple of oppurtunities to not only fish with Eric, but talk Heat basketball throughout the years and I am thankful for the memories. I will never forget a trip Eric and I had fishing Lake Okeechobee's worm cove where I sprained my wrist setting up on a Hawg, we had a great fishing trip that day and landed some chunks. Rest in peace Eric and thanks for the memories!

Thanks

I was at a local ramp that I have fished out of for years. At the time I had a standard shift Ford Ranger Pick-up and a 16' aluminum boat on trailer. It was an early spring day where the air temp was warm but the water temp was around 50 degrees. I back my rig down on the short ramp. Put on the parking brake leave the truck in first gear and turned it off. Went back to launch the boat. While pushing the boat off the trailer, all of a sudden I feel the truck and trailer start to go down the ramp slowly with me standing on the trailer. I immediately jump in the bed of the truck, then out of it and get inside the truck to get everything stopped. I never moved so fast bet it only took me 15 seconds. Of course not in time to keep the trailer tires from going off the end of the ramp. So, I give it a couple of tries to get it out with the truck to no avail with the springs catching on the ramp. I know that I will have to get in the water to get it undone. While I was doing this, another boater was there to launch. It is an older gentlemen and his son in his mid twenties. I explained to them what happened and asked if they would give me a hand. So in the cold water I go about up to my waist. While I was passing a rope under the trailer to keep it lifted. The son boldly and proudly commences to tell me several times in different ways that if I had the Dodge truck that he has he would be able to just ****** it out of there. So once I got the trailer lifted the gentlemen held the rope tight. I easily got the trailer pulled back up the ramp and went to park the truck. On my way back to the boat, the son proceeds to start backing his trailer down the ramp, as I am watching he then to my amazement backs his trailer right off the end of the ramp, even with the signs stating "ramp ends here" and seeing what I just went through. I look at the father who was standing on the dock drop his head down and just start shaking it back and forth. Then the son starts trying to pull the trailer back up and all you can hear is his Dodge truck motor rev up, then the bang of the springs hitting the ramp. After several attempts he get out of the truck and just looks at the trailer knowing what he must do after seeing what I had just done. Being that I was already wet from mine I offered to assist them with their trailer. Of course they accepted my offer. After just a few minutes the son pulls the trailer up the ramp and goes to park the truck. The father thanked me and then said " You're a better man than I am. If he been talking all that crap to me, he would have had to of gotten wet!"

It's been a while since I've stopped by but I just picked up a really nice little Deps and I'm pretty stoked on it. In other news I'm going to be liquidating a whole bunch of gear to consolidate and reconfigure since it's pretty much ski season now for me.

We just added this awesome little finesse jig. I've been strictly fishing it for the last 2 months and its a wicked little jig. A Rage Tail baby craw is a perfect match for it. The Sniper Jig comes in 3/16, 5/16, and 7/16 sizes. This jigs niche is finicky fish and light biters. http://www.siebertoutdoors.com/Sniper-Jig-492.htm The new colors are California Craw, and Black Red.

This veteran is waiting for the rain to stop so he can get out fishing! To all vets: thank you for your service! Tight lines, Bob Edit to add: The fish gods were good to this veteran on Veterans' Day... lots of nice bass today!

Thank you, vets. And thank you for protecting your brother's six.

USMC 2nd Tanks 2nd Mar Div 78-81 SEMPER FI

THE BAIT GODS WERE LOOKING OUT FOR ME! So to make a long story longer... I've been saving for a FF so I haven't spent any money on other fishing related items for the past month and a half, and it might be another month before i can buy the FF. The struggle is reel . Anywho, out of the blue my lovely wife comes to me with a 50 dollar Mastercard gift card... (Drops mic and walks away)

XG Per my other thread. JDM import.

If you're mainly using spinning gear I'd stick with the braid and just tie a fluoro leader. I use to use flouro for a lot of things but now I'd down to just using it for bottom contact baits on casting gear. Everything else is straight braid, braid with a leader, mono, or copoly. I just didn't feel it was giving me any noticeable advantage over the much more cost efficient and less finicky line options.

I spend the majority of my fall season on Lake Simcoe. It is my favourite lake of all time and I have fished lakes all through Ontario and 10 States. Still lots of lakes to visit, but this one is my favourite. I'm lucky that it is local for me. I've had an excellent season with big numbers of 5-7 pound fish showing up. I don't do many tournaments. I'm not much of a gambler and with a wife and young son at home, I cant justify the entry fees for most of them. Lately, I've had some kinda funny facebook comments and messages. Apparently, I sting too many fish, I dont care about the resource and there's no way I could do that in a tournament. Alright, let's see. The Barrie Bassmasters had their Simcoe Open yesterday. Let's do it. High winds, so a lot of people stayed home, but some of the lakes best anglers turned up, including a couple of my hecklers. We had a great day, put good numbers of fish in the boat and weighed a giant 29.95 lbs sack to take first place. I don't need to do tournaments to justify myself as an angler, but it felt good, maybe I'll show up more often. That 0.05 lbs away from 30 is a little haunting though. one of the fish got cut off in the photo for some reason, but here they are.

Got my personal best largemouth last weekend at lake trinity ca on a 10xd! 8 lbs even! Gut: Not the combo I caught her on but a new favorite: phenix k2 7'1 ml/ shimano sustain 2500. Fisherrw making her look like a 12:

This little booger has been tearing it up for me lately.....

Terribly sad. It's always the good guys that leave us too soon. Not sure what his personal situation was, but if the family is in any form of need I suggest we start a collective here for the family if that fits in BR guidelines. Perhaps there may already be one online for him. Will have him in my thoughts and prayers.

Thank you for your service, sacrfice, and protection of this great country.

A-Jay

AGREED, big thanks to all past, present and future!!! wishing my grandad was still here, his favorite day of the year!! proudest vet ever, Bill Crawford WW2 Navy Abercrombie DE-343

Don't forget to click the HD button - I prefer the 1080 myself A-Jay

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/160685-gliss-monotex-line-a-brief-review/?hl=gliss A-Jay

Spent it all at Siebert's the same night, on some Derockers, Arky , and swim jigs

Yeah I understand that. There really are no "true graphite" framed reels. I'll put it this way all composite framed reels are going to have more flex than aluminum. Some more than others.

Nice to see you back MB! Oh, and nice swimbait.

Buccochromis nototainia

Fossorochromis rostratus

Nice looking tank desmobob. I currently have 5 tanks up and running and have had at least one running for the last 25 years. Yeah, I guess you can say I'm into it. Lol. A 10, 40, 55, 55, and a 180 gallon. I've always been into the larger cichlids. With the last 15 years mainly dedicated to the haplochromis group from lake Malawi. Also playing around with some kamfa flower horns. Just a great hobbie that is very relaxing for me. I'll post some pics soon.

how's that powerpoint handle? you throwing this on a laptop or desktop?

Ok, I'll look into it further.

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.

Would you like your humble pie served with a side dish of testosterone? Or with a pacifier?

Ooh..burn.

If KVD never lost any tourney ,,he has ever fished in the last 20 yrs then id be just a little worried.mostly on a big lake with a boat pushing 250 hp and 10 gran in electronics then id sweat a little.

Yesterday I went to a small lake in New Hampshire for 2.5 hours. I wish I was able to get out for longer but 2.5 hours is better then nothing. Conditions were about as perfect as you can ask for the 9th of November. It was sunny, 55 degrees with calm winds. Water temperature was still 50 degrees. Sticking with the game plan I fished one area. It is a rocky out crop way off of shore. The hump comes out of 40 feet of water and is composed of gravel, rock, ledge, clay and boulders. One of the sides of the hump as some green grass too but that side of the hump doesn't fish well this time of year. Every year when the water temperature is around 50 or less the best concentration of fish in this lake is always on this specific spot. I fished a silver buddy most of the time The bite was about as good as I can ask for. I was targeting fish in 15-35 feet. In 2.5 ours of fishing I got 7 smallies and 5 largemouth. Some real nice smallies were biting. I got 5 smallies over 3 lbs all on a silver buddy. 3 lbs 12 oz 3 lbs 15 oz 3 lbs 8 oz 3 lbs 10 oz I got another decent smallie 3 lbs 1 oz but did not deem it picture worthy. Only one of the 5 largemouth I caught was over 3 lbs, it weighed in at 3 lbs 10 oz. I wish I had more time to fish but for only 2.5 hours of fishing I am happy with the results, 5 fish for 18 lbs 7 oz. The silver buddy bite continues to be good. Last week I snuck away to fish Lake Champlain. After struggling for shallow water fish we had 4 fish after 4.5 hours of fishing. I convinced my fishing buddy to start fishing deeper. He was fishing a drop shot and a jig. I fished nothing but a silver buddy. After boating a couple real nice smallies he asked if I had one he could use. I leant him one of my spares and with in minutes he got our biggest smallie of the day a 4 lbs 6 ozer. We didn't get many bites but when we did get a bit form 20 pus feet it was a good fish. Our best 5 smalies were 4 lbs 6 oz, 4 lbs 3 oz, 4 lbs 1 oz, 4 lbs 1 oz and 3 lbs 7 oz for a five fish limit of 20 lbs 8 oz. A great fall bite in Lake Champlain. 4-1 4-3 The silver buddy bite really started for me on the last day of October. I caught 7 largemouth and 9 smallies in 6 hours of fishing. I fished jigs, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, senkos, drop shot, swimbaits, chatterbaits and a silver buddy. The silver buddy was what the fish wanted. I got a 3-10 and 3-0 largemouth. The bigger smallies were biting, 6 of the 9 smallies I caught were over 3 lbs. They weighed in at 3-13, 3-11, 3-9, 3-4, 3-0 and 3-0. A great day of fall fishing. The biggest five bass weighed in at 17 lbs 15 oz. The silver buddy bite has been pretty great so far this fall. I am heading out tomorrow to an obscure northern Vermont lake. No matter where you are in New England a silver buddy should be part of your late fall arsenal.

Yes those Mbuna are nasty, very territorial. Champsochromis caeruleus.

Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing some photos! Malawi cichlids have always been my thing, but I'm not as "into it" as I used to be. I guess my lack of success in dealing with their aggression sort of took the fun out of it. I got to the point where I had so much rock in the tank, there was barely any room for water and I still couldn't keep them from killing each other. ;-) I did have a lot of successful breeding going on for a while. Hmmm... so far, it's looking like bass anglers prefer cichlids! I love those HawgTech discus! Tight lines, Bob

I have 4 aquarium currently setup and was in the "fish" business as an operations manager for Dolphin International's Miami operations years ago. I've been away from the hobby for years, but now my son is showing interest and I have gone overboard 3x 55 gallons with 20 long I setup for him. My primary interest are S. American cichlids with my favorite being discus, I am getting into aquascaping, but realize I don't have the time to do it how I want to.

Sure share some fish with bf too. Some nice bass.

I don't think I have ever handled or built a rod that was balanced before I put a reel on it. I would imagine the grip would have to weight quite a bit to accomplish this.

LOL , you got more welcomes than anybody on page 1 .

I have a 55-gallon set-up with a couple of African Mbuna cichlids and a big Synodontis catfish. Of course, everyone's hiding when I took the photo.... Here's the catfish, about 15 or 16 years old now. The photo was taken several years ago.... Have you ever wondered if aggressive feeding activity in the aquarium relates to the same in the local lake? Every once in a while, I notice my fish are extremely aggressive at feeding time. I always wonder to myself if it means it's a good day to go fishing. So far, it has only happened on days when I wasn't able to fish. Besides, most days that I DO fish, I leave too early to feed the ones in my aquarium before I leave. Maybe I should turn the aquarium lights on and feed them early on fishing days to I can see if the fish in the local lakes are acting the same as the ones in my tank.... Tight lines, Bob

Polish it and put it on a mantle.

Did Bunganut today with my friend Ed. We caught over 2 dozen LM and a single smallmouth, The bite was a jig bite and a couple on chatter bait biggest was just over 4lbs my friend Ed caught but the average size fish was over 2lbs. Bunganut has no public access but Ed was lucky enough to have friends that allowed us to put the small boat from their yard on the pond. Ed has told me that 6 7 8 are not that uncommon on the pond but we couldn't get them to bite. The pond was also being drained for the winter this week so it could have affected the bite. Brought my Gopro along and got some cool under water shots today.

And aluminum can be recycled pop cans, billet, or aircraft grade.... The term means nothing.

You mean, you really don't know, but you dislike him anyway? What if someone told you that Glenn beats up BR members as long as no one is watching? Hootie

No one can answer this but you. It depends on how you grip the rod, technique and the feel you prefer. Find a reel that feels good to you and check back for feedback prior to purchase.

Congrats. Very nice. I hope your both happy..except for the raiders sucking for 12 years straight.

I'm a bit confused. Which one of you wears the pants in the family?

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