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I officially have a jerkbait addiction...

Why I am a worse crankbait fisherman than you . I dont deflect crankbaits off of wood , when I bump a tree the lure attaches itself to the tree .

TW Sales... ugh.

First Roman Made for me..Trick Lipless. Sweet!

Sometimes my bass fishing feels a lot like a chess game that I just can't win. A-Jay fishes shallow ~ bass go deep. A-Jay fishes deep ~ Bass go shallow. A-Jay throws topwater ~ Bass are eating Crawdads. A-Jay throws a jig ~ bass are eating frogs. Some days I swear I can even hear them whispering "Checkmate ~ Doofus". A-Jay

The 5k is a lot easier than 100 push ups.

Line weight labels are almost useless on a freshwater Rod. All they do is give a basic idea what purpose the Rod was designed for. If guides come off during a hookset or any other fishing motion it's due to poor build quality or mishandling not over lining.

There's a lot of really great info on here! There are a ton of you guys I'do love to get on the water with and pick your brains. The thing that I'm probably best at doesn't necessarily have to do with time on the water, but likely learning efficiently instead. I was always pretty analytical, but I was extremely lucky in college to be able to study under and work with a leading researcher in learning, problem solving, and the development of expertise... Or I guess simply "how to learn". It was a really humbling experience to actually break down the process, especially with common "genius" cases like brilliant musicians, artists, and innovators. Interestingly enough, the same ideas have really benefitted me in everything from my career, to how I teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to how I approach my time on the water. The really short version of lots of research and case studies is that hard work plays a big role, but so do things like structured practice, tiered and evolving goals, engineering or troubleshooting a problem space, etc. For me, it was really motivating knowing that inherent "talent" isn't nearly the factor it's made out to be, and that most of time we just limit ourselves at what we decided to get "good" at. I think, also, it may give me a different perspective than most when it comes to how I pursue my time on the water. I don't get as much of it as a lot of you guys, so I spend a lot of time learning a body of water before I get there. I'll typically have topo maps (if available), DNR fish surveys, YOY surveys, reports on water quality/silt/blooms/nutrients, etc, before launching the boat or putting on my waders. When I do get on the water, I'm paying attention to the sizes of baitfish, what's living under rocks, the colors of crayfish, relative water clarity, weather, etc. This also taught me to learn more techniques and diversify how I fish (for years, I was a jig/worm guy) without getting too tied down to just one strategy. I keep notes on how/where they were caught, but focus probably more on what/how I was imitating than just the lure I was doing it with. The result might be similar to how a number of you have expressed having an engineer's approach to fishing. For me, it's the process of learning as efficiently as I can. It certainly doesn't make me a better fisherman than most of you guys, but I think it's ultimately given me a better than many understanding of what's happening under the water in the amount of time I've been back to fishing regularly. That said, I would love to get out on a boat with a lot of you guys and see how much I don't know.

I think the condition of the cork is appropriate for a rod that has been in and out of various car and boat rod racks hundreds of times, reeled in over 1,100 fish, caught fish on over 500 different days, has probably been on the water from 750 to 1,000 different days, and fished in all weather conditions from blazing sun and heat, to pouring rain, and including... Just honest wear, now it's comfortable and "lived-in"...

Bigbill for President.

Hello Matthew and Welcome to Bass Resource ~ Being situationally aware of the environment can only help your fishing success. Good work. A-Jay

Tannic.

That's okay. I caused my wife no end of embarrassment prior to her retirement. She is a registered nurse and worked in the hospital administration. The doc came in to see me when I came to after having a colonoscopy. "Any questions?", the doc asked. I asked him if he found my head up there during the procedure. He laughed and said, "No." I then asked if he'd give me a signed statement to that effect, for my wife. Sometimes, I embarrassed myself. My wife had surgery for a not uncommon female condition. I went to the cafeteria, and on my way back to her room came across the female doc who had performed the surgery. She was telling that all went well, etc., etc. She said in that type of surgery, you never know what you might find. Before I could stop myself I blurted out that it was like opening Pandora's Box. She thought it was quite funny. I stood there shaking my head, telling her that I realized before I finished what it would sound like, but too late to stop it.

Most of the time I order jig heads and wire tie my own skirts, sieberts are my favorite so far, untill I can find someone who uses trokar hooks I'll keep buying from sieberts. If there is enough interest in some Trokar hooked jigs and jig heads I can make a limited run of them. I dont have a problem doing it. The styles would be Football, Brush, and Arky.

August 12th I was in a car accident, all of my poles were stolen from my car while I was taken to the hospital via ER. After monthsof physical therapy finally this year I'll be able to fish so I'm excited to share my good news with you all. It's time for me to get back on the water and buy some things for myself. Cheap stuff for now, but once my settlement is finished hopefully I can get my gear back

I noticed I got one in the mail a week or so ago.................I hope it's not much thinner than last years, that one is doing a bang up job of leveling a wobbly end table leg. Oh well, if it is I guess I could shim it with the other useless waste of paper I get every month...........AKA Bassmaster magazine.

Absolutely outstanding! Congratulations everyone!

And the year before...

Idk how fast your taking it but don't over work yourself, when you go from not running at all to running everyday its really tough on your body. Don't be afraid to take a day off here and there starting out, if you start feeling any sign of shin splints ice them and take it easy until they go away. I got shin splints and plantar fasciitis because I always ran through my injuries in cross country and it would get horrible, to the point it hurt to walk... I'm just saying don't expect to go from not running at all to doing 10k's overnight, not saying your a couch potatoes or anything! Haha

Why I'm a better moving bait angler than you. I grew up fishing with my Dad and Grandfather. Both of whom are very set in their ways, and love to throw crankbaits almost exclusively. I honestly don't think I ever fished with a single hook until I was in my college years. They just simply never fished that way and so I was never taught to use plastics or jigs. In my younger years, my family had a permanent spot in a campground with a pond about 5 acres in size and it was very shallow. This entire pond didn't get much deeper than 6-8' deep, and most of it was 3' or less. Every weekend, from April through October, for probably 7-8 years, we would be at that campground. I would fish every second that I got at that pond. I learned every rock, stump, drop off, bottom change, everything.... I was obsessed with fishing and I spent all of my free time off the water reading, watching, and learning everything I could about fish, fishing, and water in general. I would take what I learned and I was able to apply it to that pond every single weekend. I quickly learned how the bass related to cover, what they liked, what they didn't like, and how I could trick them into biting. From banging squarebills off rocks, working a buzzbaits over cover, ripping a rattle trap over weeds, I was just able to master so many moving baits. And then in the evenings, my Dad would take me to one of the local lakes on our old 16' Bass Tracker. I was then able to learn how to read the fish finder and fish for deeper fish. Shad Raps, bombers, bandits, and risto Raps were my main staples of my tackle box in the lakes. We'd catch bass and walleye and it was always a blast. My grandfather lived to fish topwater, and he taught me how to walk a spook and work a popper. As a kid, seeing a fish explode on top is enough adrenaline to get you hooked on fishing for life. Fast forward a few years and I caught onto chatterbaits, swim jigs, and paddle tail swimbaits (Keitechs). The past two years I have really harnessed these lures and put my time in with them. If you asked my tournament partner what lure I catch my most fish on, he'd tell you a chatterbait. And if you asked him my second and third best, he'd tell you a buzz bait and a DT.

Whoa. Got the Stella today. Holy smoothness Batman!! Put it on my 7'1" MLXF new rodand whaddaya know- the balance point is literally as perfect as it could possibly be!! Color me stoked, this is going to be a KILLER combo!

I have a few but the two big ones are 100 pushups and a 5k. Halfway there on the 5k (been running for a little while now), and about 1/4 of the way to 100 pushups.

i've never made a new year's resolution and am happy to say that i've stuck to all of them!

I am better at learning because I teach others what I think I already know. The more I fish, what I think I know becomes less, lol.

Many would think my strength would be a Texas Rig or Jig-n-Craw, y'all would be wrong. I have a God given gift; when I look at a one dimensional topographical maps along with the one dimensional view on a depth finder screen I turn it into a three dimensional image in my minds eye. As a teenager I worked as a first mate on my Uncle Joe Addison's charter fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico where he taught me to understand what structure is, how to truely identify it, interpret it, and the fish it effectively. During the early 70s I attended a 5 day seminar under Elwood "Buck" Perry. Before class, during breaks, during lunch, and after class I questioned him relentlessly. What I gleaned from Buck I added to what Uncle Joe taught me and completed my understanding of how fish relate to structure. While y'all see the obvious structure humps, ridges, points, ect, I see little subtle pieces of structure y'all over look. In my thread on Toledo Bend I've shown guys "honey holes" that were right under their noses and they had fished around them for years.

Timmy Horton Outdoors keeps growing on me over the past 2 years and is one of my new favorites.

TW maintains a list of people who ask "when is the next sale" on the various forums, and use it to disqualify you from future sales/promotions.

I disagree. If people get into as much detail as WRB, some of us might actually learn something

Lol, BPS never has a good fishing sale

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Went out fishing in SE Florida with a guide I had previously used and who is the best in the business, and needless to say the results were amazing. A combination of shiners, frogs, spoons, worms, and lipless crank baits caught us over 70 bass. These were the best pictures of the day, but we caught a lot more. Best LMB went 5.93 pounds on the last cast of the day and the biggest pea went 6.03lbs. Countless 4-5lbers were caught as well. These peas put up quite the fight on a medium action spinning rod! By far, the best fishing day I have ever had.

First day of the year I'll be very lucky to catch a bigger one this year. 2oz from a p.b.

I'm lucky if I can push myself away from the table after a good meal! You young guys need to get out more Mike

Might as well feed my gift cards to the bait monkey. Untitled by Dustin, on Flickr

Fairly certain it costs a great deal of money. It's been my line of work since about late '09. To simply print and ship the catalogs would be a mind numbing amount of money. It's why fewer and fewer places have a paper catalog anymore.

On the Water with Hank Parker is featuring my home waters tomorrow night. Take a look.

Let me throw a monkey wrench in here. How often do you run rough water ( ie tidal waters or big lakes)? I have had 11 boats over 30 + years of fishing. Most of the time I ran a foot pedal trolling motor. I fished with a guide and friend up in northern PA. He guided the Great Lakes a lot and he too had a back issue, I believe he had some discs fused. Anyway he changed his set up around to a front hand control model. He than added the two small on-off switches (one on each side on the front deck) and a handle called "The Extender" which is a mount that mounts under the tm's head and has a thin rod extending upwards with a small ball at the end. Both of these items are available from T&H Marine. I liked that set up so much I ran it for over 10 years on my 20 foot ProCraft while fishing the Potomac River and the Upper Chesapeake Bay. This setup allows you to steer easily while keeping two feet solidly on the ground. The only time I switched from a bicycle seat to a regular bass boat seat was on lake Erie in 2 to 3 footers, I just could not keep from almost going over. This setup may fit your front deck space better and ease the pain in your back.

Your shins will tell you if your abusing them. I always thought shin splints were more of a sprinting problem than jogging or distance running.

Excellent product, it will pay for itself in a few weeks. It works best on plastics with less salt. Mend It isn;t like superglue, so no crusty seams and no accidently sticking your fingers together... Mend It is a solvent that temporarily liquefies (re-catalyzes is what the bottle says) the bait where it touches. Press the two halves together and it congeals just as fully as if the bait had never torn after a few minutes to set.

Yep, there's always a 10k after that. And then if I'm feeling really bored I'll just go for an Iron Man marathon....:D

I agree. While I think paper and ink catalogs are going the way of pork trailers, if they are going to print them they ought to give all the details of the limited items in them.

Chatterbaits!!!!!! I can't keep the channel cats off these things in my local rivers!

I am not going to say that I am better than anyone at anything. However, when fishing I will say that I am willing to do more then most to catch fish. I do a lot of wet wading. In my case sometimes crawling on my belly a hundred yards to make one cast to one certain spot in a stream that looks too good to not hold a fish. I grew up reading small trout streams and spent as much time on the stream just watching and not casting. It is amazing the things that one can see in nature when no other creature knows that you are there. I think that is why I love wading streams for smallmouth so much. There is nothing like catching a 5 pounder on light line is swift current. Most of the time I only fish waters that other people are unwilling to hike to. However it is amazing when I am around other anglers that just hop out of the truck and start slinging lures or flys with no game plan. Usually when I am fishing a body of water even if it is one that I have fished for years I will take at least 5 minutes to watch the water see what nature is telling me and enjoy the quiet for a few minutes.

I'll see your "President", and raise you one emperor. Bigbill for Emperor.

...and the PQ Five-Year Challenge Test reel is still working for a living. It's not in the first-string any longer, but I caught a few fish with it this year. It's getting a bit long in the tooth but still mostly serviceable. The weak point in this reel is the brass brake drum. The link that RW posted has details about the wear that occurred over the five year test period.

Fish more, work less

Pointer 100SP lol.

I really don't like to sound arrogant, and I know there's people better than me somewhere, but I'll give it a shot. Why I'm a better dropshot angler than you are: I've been fishing for my whole life (which definitely isn't as long as most of yours'), but not all always for bass. I started walleye fishing at 3 and became a hardcore bass fisherman a few years ago. Walleye fishing meant spinning rods and light line most of the time for me. Whether it was vertical jigging or using crawler harnesses, I always wanted to know what I was fishing in or around. I learned quickly what a soft bite felt like, and how to tempt a fish into buying in a vertical presentation. Ice fishing especially helped with this. When I started bass fishing, i still had my spinning rods, so immediately I began finesse fishing. I guess that's what we do up in northern Minnesota. It's been said we grow up with a hockey stick in one hand and a spinning rod in the other. I spent all of my free time learning techniques on YouTube when I couldn't fish. I've watched hours of videos on how to read Lowrance/ Humminbird units and now I know what almost everything looks like on one. Through experience, I've learned how to feel the bottom with a dropshot, how different attractants change your presentation on a dropshot, and when to use different types of baits. I started out using just Zoom Finesse and Trick Worms, my favorite color being "Sprayed Grass." The flake shows up more than the fairly translucent body in deep water. I now use 4.5" and 6" Roboworms and Jackall Crosstail Shads. The 4.5" Robo is for most situations. If you need one bait to throw on a dropshot hook, this is it. I use natural colors like Aaron's Magic in clear water and bright pink/ purple colors in dirtier water, such as Morning Dawn and MMIII. The 6" Robo I use when I'm fishing for largemouth 90% of the time. The same color rules apply. The Jackall Crosstail, or any shad shaped bait for that matter (I use the Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm as well) is reserved for fish schooling on baitfish or if I feel like there aren't a large amount of crawfish in the area (think very weedy lakes). 95% of the time a bite on a dropshotted bait is just going to feel like dead weight, especially with bigger fish. This is because a lot of the time, they stare at the thing before they decide to eat it. It's not an aggressive reaction strike like a (insert any reaction lure). The only time I get a hard hit on a dropshot is when they hit it on the fall or right when it hits bottom. These bites are the ones you typically have to watch your line for. I think a lot of guys don't notice some of the bites they get on a dropshot rig. If you're a good jig fisherman, you can translate your skills over to dropshot fishing fairly easily, in my case it was the other way around. The main trick with a dropshot is to vibrate the bait with your wrist, but not to lift the weight off the bottom. The most I lift my bait off the bottom is maybe two inches to move it over a rock or check to see if a fish is on. Dragging the weight is the most efficient way to cover water with a dropshot. The speed of your drag depends on where you're fishing and how active the fish are. I drop down on structure I see on my boater's unit a lot of the time with this rig. I actually stand in the middle of the boat when I'm dropshot fishing to see the unit(s) better than I would on the back deck. EDIT: As for the gear I use on a dropshot, I've changed it around a lot to fit exactly what I need. I started out with a 7'2" ML/F Daiwa Lexa spinning rod and VMC #2 dropshot hooks. I found the rod to be a bit stiff for dropshots. It was hard to lift up on a fish without them feeling the weight of the rod, which led to more fish spitting the bait before I could set the hook. Now I use a Powell Inferno 6101 dropshot rod. It's a L/XF rod. The tip action is crazy, but when I reel set into a fish, the backbone really shows up. I use Gama #2 Split shot/ Drop shot hooks now. They are lighter gauge than the VMC's, which makes them easier to set into a fish's mouth, especially the hard mouth of a smallie. I still use the VMC's around wood and grass because they're harder to bend out. Basically in a spinning reel, what I look for the most is a smooth drag. For line, I use 15lb hi-vis braid to a 6-8lb fluorocarbon leader. This allows me to see the line better and have more sensitivity. Plus the lack of stretch helps make up for the light tip on my rod. I feel like I wrote too much, but hopefully it helps some people out. A lot of people dislike finesse fishing and spinning rods, but it's something you absolutely need to know, especially if you fish competitively. I think I like this technique so much because there's so many options: ways to fish it, things you can change. You can complicate it or keep it simple and still catch tons of fish in it. You can catch active and non-active fish on it any time of the year.

I own two Pro Qualifiers and a Johnny Morris bait caster. All are well built and have put up with my 'learning curve'. All three went to Delaware Valley Tackle for cleanings and super-tuning. Mike upgraded the Pro Qualifiers' drags. I called them a Chevy Nova in another post: they're not fancy, are reliable, and a great value.

Just a tip for river drop shots in high snag areas (most likely fish holding area) use a premium round split shot crimped on the bottom of your line vs. tied on drop shot weights. Cheaper and easier to deal with the sacrificial split shot when you get hung up. Your rig won't get lost or ruined, pinch on a new one.