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Depending on the locale, we could probably buy a private lake lol

If eating left over pizza for breakfast is wrong, I don't wanna be right ~ A-Jay

Bass fisherman can light $400 on fire faster than an arsonist at a bank............... With a $400 budget, you can get everything you need to fish a pond effectively provided you spend it wisely. I disagree with the people who say spend half of it on a rod and or reel. You can get good quality spinning gear that won't break the bank, be good enough to catch fish with for years to come, and never need to be upgraded unless you want/desire more high end equipment. I also would expand into casting gear............you WILL need it. If I was starting from scratch, and had $400 to spend.........here is how I would do it: A pair of Berkley Lightning Rod Shocks @ $40 each from Walmart............one 7' M spinning, one 7' MH casting for a total of approx. $80 A Pflueger Trion TR30 size spinning reel for $40, and an Abu Garcia Black Max casting reel for $50..were up to $170 and you have two decent quality all purpose bass fishing rigs. $230 left to go............A spool of 50lb Power Pro braid for the casting rig for $15, and a spool of 10lb Power Pro braid for the spinning set up. Add a couple spools of cheap, but good quality Fluorocarbon for leader material , say 10lb for the spinning, and 15lb for the casting...also at about $15 per spool and were up to $230 The rest of the $170 that's left on baits and terminal tackle: 5 bags of Yum 5" yum dingers in the basic colors like Green Pumpkin and Black/Blue...$15 3 bags of 4" finesse worms in basic colors $15 3 bags of 7" Berkley Power worms in basic colors $15 5 bags of Berkley Havoc 4" Pit Boss's also in the same basic colors.....$15 A pack of VMC EWG hooks for the finesse worms...........$4 2 packs of VMC 3/0 EWG hooks for the dingers/worms..........$8 2 packs of VMC 4/0 "super line hooks" for the pit bosses............$8 4 packs of tungsten sinkers one 1/8th, one 1/4, one 3/8, and one 1/2 oz..................$20 A pack of 1/16th oz wacky jigs..........$4 A pack of 1/8th oz shaky heads........$4 Four 1/2 oz flipping jigs (2 brown, 2 black) $15..(use the pit bosses as trailers) Three SK KVD 1.5 squarebill crankbaits.......one chart/black, one chart.sex shad. one bluegill,$18 Two Booyah Pad Crasher Frogs...one black, one white...........$13 Two 3/8's oz. chatterbaits..........one white, one black................$13 That's a good start to pond and bank fishing 101 and you'll have a few bucks of the $400 left over to play with. 2 packs of

They're an awesome reel. I've been using mine since March and can't hardly put it down when they're on a jig or plastics bite.

Picked up a Beach Umbrella and placed it on the front pedestal... It's terrific until the Wind gets up

I know the feeling Hootie. One day I got snagged so many times at the end of the day I took my last jig in my tackle box and threw it in the water just to make it an even dozen.

Newest member is the Lew's Pro Magnesium.

Family photo - minus 1 Happy 4th ???

As you all know, I fish a really snag infested lake. I have been catching a lot of bass on jigs this season. NOT TODAY!!...I snagged on everything today. Seems some days I could drag a jig through a barbed wire fence and never get hung. Other days I could fish open water, and get snagged on bubbles. This was one of those days. I'll try again Thursday. Over and out. Hootie

I took my 8 yr old out bank fishing at Smithville Lake yesterday morning. He ended up catching 3 fish. 2 bluegills and this really good sized drum. He caught in on a little white crankbait on a 6ft medium action spinning rod. It put up a really good fight that my son handled very well. This was his first time out that he did not use worms or minnows. Needless to say he spent the rest of the day rubbing it in that he caught bigger fish than I did.

Greenish brownish pants, off-white shirt and brown tie

It's Casey's breakfast pizza around here. It's not even fair how good that stuff is and how bad it is for you. Doesn't help that I can walk to the nearest one.

Am I the only one who had to google cormorants?

My line up for this year.

Slimy R-Edition with SV spool

New summer combo. 68mxf legend elite with a Curado 70. I love this rod, lightweight and fantastic balance. Went out with this rod in the kayak this morning for a few hours and did well. I'm not sure about the reel yet. The braking system is going to take some time to get used too.

A couple of years ago, I beat my buddies PB by 2 ounces on the same lake. Yesterday, I beat my own PB, again by a scant 2 ounces. I caught the 8lb, 4 oz girl pictured below at 8:04 yesterday morning (honestly). She hit a 6" Zoom Dead Ringer, Green Pumpkin color with part of the tail dipped in chartreuse Spike-it and covered with Fish Sticks shad attractant, Texas rigged with an 1/8 oz tungsten sinker. I was throwing that on a 6' 6" BPS Carbonlite medium rod with a Shimano Spirex RD spooled with 8lb Berkley Nanofil and a leader of 8lb P-line 100% fluorocarbon. She was in 3 feet of 81 degree water off the corner of a dock that I almost didn't fish. Nearly all of the fish I had caught before her were in 9-10 feet of water on some offshore spots and I was making my way from one such spot to another. As I was nearing an isolated dock on a point between the two spots, I fired out a cast to the front right side of the dock. The Dead Ringer stopped sinking nearly immediately and I saw the line moving left. I never felt a thing, she must have casually inhaled the worm like it was a green M&M. I reeled down, set the hook and moved her out in front of the dock, at which point she came to the surface and yawned, apparently bored by being hooked with 8lb line . She then decided that life was more comfortable under the dock and stripped off about ten feet of line as she went. I was able to get her turned and led her out one more time. She came to the surface a few times, wallowing, never able to get her body completely out of the water. Her big mouth made it easy to lip her on the first pass by the boat. After pictures & measurements (she was 24 1/4" long), she swam off as nonchalantly as all big fish seem to do. She was in good health, not fat but not skinny and strong as an ox. It was a fun start to a holiday weekend.

Some days are diamonds...some days are stones...some days you're better off not leaving home!

My new carp fishing rig

My last on was 3 1/4lbs, this one is 4lbs 2oz. Caught her on an 3/8 oz green pumpkin/ brown Siebert arky jig with a blue craw Rage Chunk. There's this shallow beaver made channel right off the bank. The beavers use to exit and enter their lodge. There's always a bass hanging out in this channel it being big or small. Stayed back about 5 feet to not to surprise what ever bass is chilling out in this spot. Pitched my jig, saw my line start moving to the left, set the hook, started reeling, no line was coming in, and realized my drag was lose (I loosen my drag every time I store my rods). Had to make sure I kept the rod tip up, and my thumb on the spool to keep pressure on the line while I was tightening the drag. didn't even no how big it was until I got it out of the water. I didn't even feel her eat the jig. Man when they are that big they just suck it in.

Clearly there are any number of baits that can & do work on these heads. Here's a small assortment of trailers that have displayed a decent level of effectiveness here. top to bottom ~ SK Mag Dream Shot (I debated on giving this one up - secret top producer) Yamamoto Swim Senko Berkley Havoc Devil Spear SK KVD Perfect Plastic Blade Minnow Z Man Razor Shadz Zoom Salty Super Fluke Zoom Salty Magnum Fluke A-Jay

Mono: Berkley Big Game Fluoro: Aint convinced why I need it Braid: no brand loyalty; Power Pro & Spiderwire too stiff, most others to limp

I wonder how much money in total has been spent in this thread's disclosures alone.

This was the best of 4 from the 4th. I got in some casts between celebration festivities. She isn't super large, but I wish I had a tape on me. Caught on a watermelon Senko. Literally everytime I put a new senko on, I caught a fish first or second cast and didn't catch another until I switched senkos.

Try it on a shaky head with the wire spring. Flat catches fish!

Who settled down and figured them out?? They had the best regular season ever and went to 7 games in the finals..shots that went down all year just didnt in the finals, not because of d but just due to the percentages.

A nice solid bass on the 316 Baby wake last night. Crushed it running it through some emergent vegetation in about 2 FOW.

Broke down a got a Stradic and Lew's Custom Lite to take care of my finesse needs.

My friend:... My new pants are way to loose. What's the best way to shrink them? Me:...The best thing I have found to shrink a pair of pants, is "pizza,..lots and lots of pizza". Hootie

Today I caught my first striper ever. It wasn't a huge fish, only about 2-3 lbs. But while unhooking him hooked my index finger with a treble hook (for the first time as well) from the lure past the barb. Pulled it out, and caught two more stripers. It was a good day.

Probably enough to buy a really big house boat for the BR gang to use!

Got back to Hunting Run for first time this year on Sunday. I'd always rented their boats in the past, but this time, my wife and I were in kayaks. I have a sonar; wife does not. While she often out-fishes me, she was skunked, while I had one of my better days there. Thanks, @Wayne P. for all your help over the years -- I have learned a lot and applied a lot of it this weekend. I even found a brush pile with my electronics The larger fish were a pretty even split: ned rig and cranking. I never had much luck with hard baits at HR in the past, but the water was calm and it was very easy to find the feeding frenzies -- casting a crank past and through the boils was a blast. The ned fish were much more boring, but fairly reliable. All those over 2# were at or near the bottom in 11-16 feet of water. Not one fish from either of us outside those two conditions, however; plastic on the bottom in about 15', or cranking through boils

This was the minus 1 from yesterday. I had to wait to pick it up this morning.

Fixed that one for you Blue A-Jay

How do I DISLIKE a post

I use it for a compact flipping bait. Durability isn't an issue unless it's hot out, but most plastics soften up when it's really hot out. I usually get 3-5 fish per bait. The nice thing is, they're probably the best bladed jig trailer out there for me. So when I use one up on a T rig, I save it, cut it down a little, then catch a bunch more fish using it as a trailer on a bladed jig or even a regular jig.

Are they going to remove a little clothing? It's summer for goodness sake!

Sometimes I will catch nothing but pickerel and not a single bass, other times I'll get a mix of both, and sometimes just bass. Happens in a ton of different conditions too. I have seemed to notice that if I am catching large pickerel (getting up around 2 feet or more) then there is a better chance that I catch bass there as well than if I was catching small guys.

Stay Safe ~ A-Jay

Stradic fk, 7'3 bigbear heavy rod, 50lb powerpro, bunch of pad crashers, keitech swing impacts, senkos, lot of tungsten.... d**n i gotta stop going to cabelas

x2... finishing college, getting a real job, and starting a family did the same thing to me. Pretty sure it's just my wife's laundry process though, because there's no way it could have been something I did or stopped doing...

They are evil evil birds. They destroy fisheries and vegetation. Couple weeks ago I was the victim of a fly by pooping. My son and I were about 100 yards from a known nesting area. A small flock that was flying back towards the trees intentionally shat on us. Normally they save this delightful experience for those who choose to approach the nesting grounds. Guess the birds decided we were fair game. They are evil....

I appreciate everyone's input! Thanks to you guys it helped me nail this 6.56lber today! My personal best!

He got a new PB today...2.64lbs

My dad says the same thing about these modern "cheap, chinese-made bathroom scales".

All my cloths shrunk when I got out of highschool. Bought all new cloths, but then those ones shrunk again when I got married and became a dad. They just don't make stuff like they used to I guess.

Georgia Tech eh? So black and gold? That was covered a few months back but in case you missed it. Then it joined forces with the next two builds. With these 3 outfits I can cover anything from 1/4 to 3/4 ounces.

got these and a some plastics for 30 bucks off of craigslist.

Here is part two of my latest custom build acquisitions as the other was posted a few nights ago. I chose a modded Core 50mg7 to pair with a MHX Hi Mod MBR 843. Fugi alconite guides with black and red thread wrap helped dress it up. The foregrip piece was soureced from Matagi and all other parts were from Mudhole except one piece from GetBitOutdoors. Between the foam grips is a red and black carbon tube and there are red winding checks throughout. It turned out pretty sharp and perfect for the core. Will be using this for weightless plastics and smaller jigs and such.

Here's the shiny boat shortly after it was polished.