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First day out this year and caught some good ones! Here were my best two... P.S. Smallies grow big in Alabama too

Went out today and braved the wind in my coleman crawdad lol. That was interesting. About the first 10 minutes buddy hooks up and ends up with a 5.2lbr. Sweet going to be a good day. Fish there for awhile and nothing. Head over to where river enters laje and lose a nice one. Nothing after thay fir a loooong time lol. Around 2 pm im thinking im getting the skunk. See a bunch of birds hammmmmering shad. Buzz over there and probably 3 casts into the shad school i hit big fish of the day at 5.44lbs. Only 2 fish of the day quality today not quantity.

YES, FINALLY!!!!!!!! Recently, my excursions have been terrible. Lot of skunked days or dinks. Today i had a great outing and landed a nice one. Funny thing is that it was on a tiny crank and on a light spinning rod/reel. The way it fought at first i though i had a turtle and then it rolled and i saw mouth open up. About flipped out and surprised the little hooks didn't tear out. I hate to be "that guy", but any guess on weight? No scale or tape measure. Either way I'm super happy. SUPER HAPPY!!!!

A nose hooked Super Fluke Jr. was eaten by a 6 lb. 14 oz. largemouth:

I'm more of a Billy Mays guy.

Straight Tail.

So I bought the house on Lowery a couple of years ago thinking of it as a weekend get-a-way and eventual retirement home. Well, that plan got accelerated, with the divorce final now, it is my full time home. I did not want to mention the divorce until it was over. I can say this, I'm happier than I have been in nearly a decade, my life is back on track and life is good. I had been working off plastic tables and honestly not doing much in the last few months but I had been planning this rod shop for over a year now. Yesterday I finally got started, it's close to complete. I'm going to build a few rods like it is to see if I want to make changes and then I will finish and paint it. 10 ft 2 in by 26 in work bench

Thanks for the clarification, but beginning to seize makes we wonder what type of maintenance the reels were getting in the first place. I have owned DC reels (12-13 currently) since they first came out in both round and lp profiles and have never had a problem with them. Only thing extra is taking a swab with alcohol and cleaning the sensor compared to my non DC reels . All of them get completely striped down on a annual basis just like the rest of my reels. Point is don't be afraid of working on them just because they say DC. Shimano did a real good job of keeping them very simple in my opinion.

Sure, a pond boat is a great option as well. However, we don't know why Dypsis zeroed-in on a canoe. He might have reasons for favoring the canoe option over the pond boat. For instance, the enjoyment of just paddling and taking a boat ride - great exercise. There's no single small watercraft solution that works for all people and compromises are nearly always necessary. Lots for Dypsis to think about. I considered all watercraft options from a float tube up to a bass boat and ended up with the "pimped-out" canoe as my best option...

Nice fish for sure! It's really hard to tell weight from a picture, especially without length. Next time you find yourself in that situation without a scale or tape, cut your bait off, measure the fish with your line and then cut it the length of the fish. Then take the same line, find the largest girth of the fish and tie a simple overhand knot at that distance. Now you can take the line home and measure that to get correct measurements.

I've been fishing GYCB Hula Grubs T-rigged for years. You will find many other ways to rig one here: http://www.insideline.net/weeklynews/2009/09-0216.html

I need to improve my confidence level and decision making when what I'm using isn't working. I'm always second guessing myself that I have the right bait tied on. Example..If throwing a T rig for a 1/2 hour and not getting bit I fight with myself... Should I just change colors, go to a different shape and action plastic (worm to maybe a craw) or tie on a jig! Or throwing a spinnerbait..Should I change the blade configuration, skirt color, or just put it down and throw a sq.bill! Drives me crazy!! Like all of us I have my "confidence baits" but when they're not working, I just stand there for a while saying to myself "Ok Mikey now whattca gonna do???? Mike

Anything with words "nano," "erratic," or "attraction" in it.

We are extremely excited for Wes and his accomplishment. Here are his details with his permission to post. Here is my story: There was no epic battle with climatic finish. There was no bravado, no yelling or touchdown celebrations. This is a story about two knuckle heads doing voice impersonations while swinging 1lb spots into each other. This is a story about my iPhone dying, very bad cell service, a lot of luck and most importantly my friends rallying around me. In this story, the Department of Fish and Wildlife went above and beyond their call of their duty to provide guidance to two guys who weren’t prepared for what transpired that day and who didn’t bring enough cold weather gear. This is a story of one leftover Christmas ham sandwich and one pending world record spotted bass. This story starts back in November. I was originally suppose to get out on the water the last weekend in November up to the lake but,my wife pulled my yard pass on account of bad behavior and put me on landscaping duty. As a result, I had to reschedule the trip. I will never forget the look on my wife's face when I showed her the amazing fish that Paul Bailey had caught that weekend. She apologized several times but still didn't pull me from landscaping duty. Fast-forward a month later. I finally got back out on the water on December 27, 2015. My former tournament partner, John and I were running late to get up to the Lake; so late that literally we only fished for four hours or so. The day was an uneventful. After about an hour we finally started catching some dinks. We moved spot to spot catching a small fish here and there. About 2:00pm we pull up to a SSDD spot. At that point I mentally kind just checked out. I mean I was full on sitting in the old-man chair, sandwich in one hand jig rod in the other dragging a jig on the back deck. I make a cast and I get bit right away. My drag slips and I boat another dink. I remember that was odd and realized I had not adjusted my drag since my last trip in November. I adjust the drag and make the same cast. This time my sandwich is in my mouth, water bottle in between my legs and I get bit. Again my drag slips and now I am like "great, my reel is jack". I quickly reel up the line and see the color of the fish. I tell John get the net. She made one dive and with four full turns of my reel she was in the net. The whole ordeal was a whooping 8-10 seconds. At this time, I am still grubbing my ham sandwich and John tells me "Hey bud, she is big. She is a Double and might be in contention for the world record." I stand up and see her and immediately and get his live-well going. At this point I am concerned about the fish as I do this with all of my big fish. So we get her in the box, I text my friends for help on what to do. While I am waiting for cell service for my text to go through we hung her on John's cheap mustad scale and she bounces between 11.4lbs and 11.05lbs. The scale eventually settled at 11.05lbs on the water. At this point, I remember all the issues Paul had with trying to get his fish submitted. Then I began to worry about what I was going to do because like Paul, I was not willing to kill the fish just for a record. He did the right thing I planned to follow suit. Just then my phone gets reception and my friend tells me he has two certified scales was now running across the lake to get the certified scales. This whole time I was pretty much just in shock and I felt bad that he was going to come over 3 hours to meet me. I squeak out One last call to my amazing wife that I won't be home for dinner. It is now 3:30pm and my phone has died. He boarded our vessel and checked out the fish. Unfortunately, he didn't have a certified scale. The reality is it is not part of their job at all. Their job is to protect our California wildlife resources and prevent related crime. So here we are unprepared on all fronts, in the dark and the temp is dropping into the thirties when we finally see headlight coming down the hill towards the ramp. At this time it had been 4 hours since he left his house. Tim gets out of his car and walks me through everything I needed to do. It as at that point I realized exactly how out of his way he came. He literally left the warm of his home and his family to drive in the snow on his day off 4 hours away to help me, (who he had met twice before) potentially beat his world record. I literally had to say it out loud to him and John for it to set in, for me to realize exactly what a stand up guy he is. Tim walked me through all the steps that I need to do just to be able to submit the application for my fish for a world record. In the end, she settle at 11.00lbs even on Tim's certified scale and was released back into the lake. In the end, I was highly unprepared. I have amazing friends who rallied around me to get help when I needed it. My Setup: The fish ate a 3/4 oz football jig from Siebert Outdoors in a custom color I had him make. Mike is a great guy who offers a quality jig at a reasonable price and will make any color pattern you request. Check him out at Siebert Outdoors. The rod was a Dobyns 744c DX paired with tuned 100 Lexa. I apologized for not responding to people who inquired about my fish several weeks ago. I wasn't ready at that time to tell my story and I really didn't plan on telling it today. I will never forget that day and I am ever grateful for what everyone did to helped my very unprepared self. California has some amazing fisheries and I am confident the record will be broken again. Tight lines.

Although I love tubes, I have to say that my favorite is a home tied hair jig. Just started tying my own because they work so well in cold water and moving water. There's just something about catching fish on something I made that makes it more enjoyable.

Picked up my first Punker and had to dress it up a tad!

Pond prowlers are nice little boats. They are definitely more stable than a canoe. The seating is comfortable and easily adjustable. The swivel seats are very nice, but you can also rig them on a canoe. One of the downsides is that anything you keep on the sides of the boat can easily find their way overboard. Rods, gear, etc., can be stowed inside, below the rails of a canoe making them nearly impossible to end up in the drink. As for the fishing I enjoy fishing out of my canoe as much as I do with my bass boat. There are places where the canoe has the advantage, and places where the bass boat has the advantage. My canoe is the same as A-jay's, with a square stern for the trolling motor and a forty plus inch beam. I can stand in it, but prefer to sit. It's not light, about ninety pounds. I did wrestle it onto the top of my cap which had Yakima roof racks. Not easy, but doable with the proper technique. When I got my new truck, I did not want to put roof racks on it. I opted for a bed extender that slides into the trailer hitch receiver. In most cases, where there is a decent ramp that is easy to get to, a trailer would be easier. To load the canoe, I first empty it, then sit it in place. After that, I put all the gear in the boat except for the battery which is placed in the truck bed. When I get to the water, I unload the trolling motor and the bucket that has the anchor, marker buoys, and fish finder. The rest can stay in the boat while I launch it. A trailer would eliminate all that unloading and reloading gear from the boat to launch or load. Still it's not such an aggravation that it deters from my fishing. Would you like it? That's for you to judge. When another person goes with me, it's much easier. We each take a side and slide the boat out of the truck and into the water. All the gear stays in the boat. All that is left is to clamp the trolling motor to the stern, put the battery in the boat, hook up the battery clamps, and go. Much easier with another to share the load.

Trick worm. All year, almost all presentations.

Honestly, I'd actually be too embarrassed to admit it. Let's just say it's Vast and leave it at that. To quote Ricky Richardo (as done by Eddie Murphy) ~ A-Jay

As for improvements, I can always be better at everything I do - even the small number of things I am good at. Perfection is an impossibility. Fishing is so much fun because we always see a challenge in the road ahead. There are a few items that I was going to spend some time on this year: Ned rigs, blade baits, drop shot . . . . . and I just added A-Jay's suggestion of using a craw on a drop shot.

I caught a 7 10oz on a 8XD, which is hilarious because I bought 5 8XDs and 2 10xds to fish Kentucky lake in the middle of summer yet caught the 7.10 on a 18ft deep roadbed in the middle of Iowa and a never sniffed a bass on it on Kentucky.

This is impossible. It's one of the very reasons I go to work everyday.....so I don't have to limit my worm types.

Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd sitting in his boat named Bad Co. in Sept. 1977 fishing on Doctor's Lake just off the St. Johns River in Orange Park (South of Jacksonville) just a few hundred yards from his dock where he lived on Brickyard Road along the western shore of Doctors Lake at the time of his death on October 20, 1977 from a tragic plane crash just outside of McComb, Miss. when the band's plane ran out of fuel due to pilot error. This photo is from the Pepsi Cola tribute film which had originally been filmed just before his death in Sept. 1977 for a series of commercials for Pepsi Cola when the band crashed later on October 20, 1977 and perished in the plane crash. After the plane crash Pepsi decided to not use the footage for TV commercials but instead used the film footage for a 15 to 20 minute tribute film to the band that was played in movie theaters across America in front of movies like Jaws and Sat. Night Fever and others out at the time. Also sitting in the boat with Ronnie when this was filmed was band guitarist Gary Rossington who is today the only surviving original member in the current version of Lynyrd Skynyrd. One thing that is kind of funny about this film footage is that it was done out of convenience, meaning even though Ronnie and Gary were going through the motions of fishing, they were not really fishing. Most of the lake is flat bare bottom and there is no cover any where around where they are shown on film here throwing some top water plugs out just for the camera only. Water there is less than 8 feet deep and catching a bass there in 1977 would have been a miracle since the water was so polluted at that time and getting worse through the early 1980's. The only reason this film exists is because the producers wanted footage of Ronnie and Gary fishing and they simply put the boat in at Whitey's Fish Camp not far from where this was shot and Ronnie's home dock is in between where he is sitting now and Whitey's. It was merely a convenient place to go fish and get it on camera showing Ronnie and Gary going through the motions, but there is absolutely NO fish hitting anything they are throwing out there which is not surprising. I grew up there in Orange Park where this was filmed at, but this is a little South and west of where I fished in the main river channel just outside of Doctors Lake. When Ronnie really wanted to do some bass fishing, he would call his buddy Gene Odom, band security guard and body guard for Ronnie when on tour as they grew up together in the same neighborhood in the westside of Jacksonville, and Ronnie would call Gene at like 4am and say get your butt up and let's go bass fishing and Gene would drive down to Ronnie's house and together they would hook up the boat Bad Co. and drive down hiway 17 to just before Palatka and make a right hand turn onto hiway 19 south into the Ocala National Forest where Ronnie had himself a secret clean bass fishing lake he accessed through a privately owned ramp and small cabin rentals with bait shop on the property. Just before Ronnie died he caught a 12 pounder down there. RIP Ronnie Van Zant!

Anyone not fishing a Hula Grub is truly missing out

Fat bottom reels, you make the rockin' world go 'round.

Roland Martin

It's like a moped... Fun to ride but you wouldn't want your friends to see you on one.

Here you go!

Customer service and human relations.

I'm the same way with a Carolina rig ~ but if you haven't already, just try D/S with a SK Rage Craw. Don't need to "Fish it". Use it like live bait. Toss it to a likely spot and leave it. You Will Get Bit. A-Jay

I need to improve my fishing platform. A-Jay

Lew's Speed Spool LFS.

Any product that includes the words Ronco or Popeil may be suspect. Also if the term "Just pay separate shipping & handling" is somehow involved, I usually steer clear. A-Jay

"carrot fibers" spun into a rod blank

This was a super secret present so I did not show it during the build. So in mid October I get a FB message from Stephanie, a very stressed out Bride to be. Her Fiance had broken his favorite rod a few months ago and her surprise wedding gift was a custom to replace it. The "friend of a friend" builder that had agreed to build it is nowhere to be found and the wedding is six weeks away. I talk her down off the ledge, tell her to worry about more important things, and I will have her rod done in plenty of time to be the very cool wedding present it is going to be. Here is the build. MHX L 904 MM 7-6 light saltwater blank Microwave guides in black duralite AERO spinning seat in black EVA grips Custom camo paint

I don't see folks fishing something like this very often. But it is a killer, small bait. The body is mostly clear with silver flakes and a black tinted back. I fish it on a 1/8th ounce Keitech super round, tungsten jig head 2/0 or 3/0 hook. It's a 2 3/4" Lunker City Grubster. The tail is its weak point but it's not an expensive bait. A ten count bag of the 2 3/4" Grubster is $4.49. Six count bag of the 4 1/4" is $6.99, and a 15 count pack of the 2" is $3.99. You can swim it. You can fish it like a wacky rig or a shaky head. You can mix your retrieve. It's like a wacky rig because there seems to be no wrong way to fish it. I say there is no wrong way because it frequently gets hit on the fall. It's available in three sizes 2", 2 3/4" and 4 1/4". For some reason they do not make all three sizes in all colors.

The transducer needs to be down there where the hull drain is so the motor does not block the left side SI pulse. It can be on either side of the keel as long as it is not behind a hull strake. No transducer should have been attached where the holes are EVER. Tracker has done that stupid location from the beginning of the stepped transom until the 2012 models. Starting in 2012 they finally got it and this is where the factory installation is now:

Trick worm

Everywhere!

I'd cover the bench areas for sure. Jon boats are pretty noisy anyway. I just put reel covers on, but I'm careful.

I love when the actors take a simple task like cutting paper with scissors and like spaz out and make it look like a big problem then they get the new super scissors and they cut the paper normally hahaha LOOK! These dull normal scissors just flat out won't do the job! But the Super scissor 500 does the job with ease! For the low price of 3 39.99$ payments they could be yours. That's right 39.99$ that's right 39.99 that's right thirty nine ninety nine

Largest largemouth 4" Senko watermelon with black/red flakes Largest smallmouth Shaky head 4" ElaZtech Strike King or Zman, on a Vike 3/16th ounce tungsten shakey jig head Here's another of my favorite baits. You don't read much about it, but it will catch the heck out of largemouth and smallmouth bass. It's a Lunker City, 2 3/4" Grubster Clear water color. I fish it on a 1/8th ounce Keitech super round jig head with a 2/0 or 3/0 hook. The downside is that the tail is feeble, but that's part of what gives it its action. The upside is they are comparatively cheap.

A $200 reel that one of our members is selling in the Flea Market.

Got to wonder how we managed to catch bass 20 to 50 years ago without state of the art materials used today! The rods and reels were too heavy, the line wasn't super braid or FC and we did catch big bass consistantly using the same techniques then as we do today, relying on our sense of touch and eye sight. Magnesium is an interesting metal without natural harmonics that transfer vibration, very dead and the reason it's used to make vibration test fixtures. Any vibration the line may transfer is lost with magnesium. Another factor besides being lighter density than aluminum is it's also further down the galvanic chart making it more sacrificial then aluminum to corrosion when subjected to electrolytes like salt water or acid fuels. The use of high strength composite materials that are lighter weight and impervious to corrosion are far better choices than magnesium. Tom

I can't catch fish on a dropshot, just can not do it. Not sure if it's just not an effective option on our lakes or what, but I'd like to get better at it.

I agree Lews

I own several magnesium reels and that is just one huge steaming recently dropped pile of bull ........ Similar to the one you saw the Triceratops left in Jurassic Park. Magnesium reels have a particular plasticky hollow feel and do sound different but that feel is limited to reel, the rod has no part in that sensation.

At my local honey hole I've seen many colors but I took a few home once and put them in an aquarium and they ended up a dark bronze with bright orange tips. I painted a couple cranks that exact color for this specific spot and have never caught a thing on those cranks. I've painted some of those same cranks in a rainbow trout pattern and smash bass with them there. There are no trout in this water system. Funny how things work out.