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New Washington Sate Record Caught, Smashing decades-old record! https://www.facebook.com/strikekinglure/posts/10154837260056030

Hit the lotto!

Man its hard to follow up a AJ post. But all the same I received one of my new Fenwick Aetos MODEL # A741MFC LINE RATING 10-17 LURE RATING 1/4-3/4 WEIGHT 4.48 ROD BLANK MATERIAL Graphite GUIDE TYPE Titanium Should be another Aetos coming tomorrow and 2 Lew's reels are on the way as well.

The small Booyah pad crasher. Cheap, durable, and effective. I skip them under docks/overhanging cover on M spinning gear with 20lb braid when they are slapping at the regular sized frog and not taking it. I have caught multiple 5+ lb fish over the years by "finesse frogging" It's not my favorite thing to do, but I do what I have to, to get bites on any given day. BTW............I can NOT recommend the small Spro Popping frog. They are made of tissue paper, and cost twice as much as the booyah. I bought a bunch of them when they first came out a few years ago, and none of them lasted more than 2-3 fish before the weight fell out of the belly, or they just plain ripped up too bad to use.

Just like they say about lakes, in a river, 10 percent of the water holds 90 percent of the fish. The problem with that is you might have to cover 9 miles of river before you find the one mile that holds bass. The good news is that once you find productive spots, they tend to always hold fish. Until a big flood changes everything and you have to learn the river all over again.

There was another thread here lately asking about guys falling out of the boat. I have a story but it is probably better posted here. A year or two after I purchased my first boat, this was at least 25 years ago, I was on a spring trip on Kentucky Lake. It was a warm day and my fishing partner and I were going to break for lunch and make the one mile run back to camp. Like I said, I had my new Ranger a little while and was happy with how stable the boat was. You could walk on the edge of the boat and it would barely tip. Compared to the small tin boats I'd fished in before, I could not imagine how you could tip one over. My confidence was far outweighed by my ignorance. Anyway, I pushed the throttle forward and the nose went up. Just before the boat got on plane and I could trim the motor out, one of my rods started moving and I thought it might fall out of the boat. As I reached for it with my left hand, I must have relaxed my grip on the steering wheel and the wheel quickly spun out of my hand and the boat turned hard right. The next thing I knew, I was hitting the water, having been thrown out. As I said, I was ignorant and neither of us was wearing a life jacket and the kill switch was not attached to me. I am not much of a swimmer but I came up, looked around and saw my boat still turning in tight circles in the middle of the lake. Luck was with me that day. First, that my partner and I were both thrown outside the circle that the boat was making. Second, that other fishermen saw us and soon plucked us out of the water. And third, that my boat did not strike anyone or anything else. A CPO got me on his boat and tried to stall my boat by throwing a bundled up rope in its path but it did not work. After about 45 minutes, the boat ran out of gas and stopped. The only damage done was to my partner who cut his chin on the way out of the boat. I was shaken up by what could have been a fatal mistake but thanked God we came out OK. Obviously, I learned quite a lot that day about the importance of life jackets and kill switches.

Yep, 100% sure it is largemouth, and a good one at that.

365 days, anytime of the day or night. you can fish them from shore but you might lose a few because youre working them uphill. id start with small jigs (1/4oz or so) with 3" trailers to build confidence. id start with green pumpkin or black. sometimes the fish want it presented very slow. scent is up to you, some swear by it. hope that helps some!

The question is "how many personal best hawgs had your lure & ya didn't set hook?"

My favorite part of the story is that he had all kinds of mishaps and didn't even get out on the water until 1:30pm. Just goes to show ya- don't give up, and always just go anyways!

The "Laser" models are graphite framed reels and in my opinion upgrading bearings would be throwing money away. I say that with all honesty, put the extra money toward an aluminum framed reel and then upgrade the bearings. If you upgrade the bearings in the graphite framed reel and you get a small amount of flex, it will throw the gears slightly out of alignment and the reel will be junk with good bearings. Leave it be and when buying your next reel go for one with an aluminum frame.

The Live Target hollow body frog is very affordable if you take into consideration how many bass you can catch on one of these lures.

Some of the small Scum Frogs are only $2.99 on TW. Usually hollow body frogs are quite durable. I have a couple of them I've been tossing for a couple of years. They're a way better bargain than going through pack after pack of senkos. Also, if you're going to use a light rod with frogs, you ought to at least put some heavier braid line on to enable a firm hookset.

My partner and I had an AWESOME final day on Kentucky Lake. We were very worried after our first stop yielded zero bass, and then finding the fourth place team (who ended up winning) at our second spot where we had started on day 2. Turns out, Colorado (the winners), and ourselves, had been fishing the same >5acre >5feet cove every day of the event, with lots of big fish coming from it. We were fishing the same water with a different technique. I threw a 3/8oz chartreuse and white war eagle spinnerbait, and my partner would follow up with either a senko or shakey head. The Colorado team was throwing floating 5" chrome and silver jerkbaits!!! I couldn't believe it, but we watched them do it, and they caught some nice ones. On the final day, we could tell the lake had dropped about a foot, and the bass were no longer in the bushes like they had been. So we pulled out to the mouth of the cove and fan casted with the spinnerbait, and a big bandit squarebill. We put 4 in the boat around 2-3.5lbs before leaving, and the Colorado team in the back of the cove was catching some very nice fish. We caught our 5th keeper at another location and pretty much thought we had done all we could do. My partner and I said we would go fish some rock bluffs for smallmouth and just have fun on the final day. On our way to the bluffs, I said "lets hit that spot we fished this morning one more time". We pulled into the cove and I started working the same area with the spinnerbait that the 4 fish came from in the morning. A fish crushes my spinnerbait and after a few nerve wracking moments, we netted the 5lb largemouth. We were ecstatic! At this point we decided we would hang out at this spot for a while longer. The mouth of the cove produced no more bass so we moved into the back of it. There was a small stickup in about 3 FOW that I caught a decent fish off of on day 1, so I picked up my drop shot rod and tossed to it. The line started swimming towards me so I picked up the slack and leaned into the fish. It wouldn't move, I didn't even think it was a bass. I chased the fish around for a while on the troling motor and then she jumped, another 5lb class largemouth! She ran back to the stick I caught her off of, and wrapped me around it once. I stepped on the trolling motor and managed to get the fish out of the stick. A few jumps later we slid the fish into the net! We caught a few more fish in the cove but none that would cull. We decided to head back early to get our fished checked, because unfortunately the 85-90 degree water is rough on bass in the livewell, no matter how hard your pumps are running or how much ice you can keep on them. We lost 3 of our 15 fish this week. I will say that running back early did save one of our five pound fish, she was having a hard time but once we parked in the shade and got ice on her, she recovered. The weigh in was a nail biter! We brought in an 18lb, 9oz limit of bass. They weighed from 12th to 1st and since we were 10th, we had to watch everyone else weigh and hope our weight held! We sat on the hot seat for a few places, but Colorado bumped us out with a 16lb, 11oz bag of fish, a mere 12oz over what they needed! Once we got to the top 4 boats, we just knew we were going to get bumped. 2nd place on day 1 had a 7lb advantage, and 1st had a 9lb advantage. We were stunned when both teams failed to bring a limit to the scales, I think each had 2 or 3 fish. A 2nd place finish was way more than I had expected, and even though it was such a close finish, I was happy to see the Colorado team win. They are both very respectable people, also, they fished the same event last year and didn't even weigh a fish! We talked with them for a long time after the weigh in about the magic cove and how many fish it produced. What was even more shocking, is that the fish they were catching in the back of it, were huge smallmouth! I know that no one could have predicted that the winning pattern would be fishing floating jerkbaits in the back of main lake coves, catching smallmouth! We learned a lot about the fishing industry this week. B.A.S.S. did not interview us until the final day when they pretty much had to, because we don't have jerseys covered in sponsors. We were almost the only team there that didn't look like nascar drivers with logos all over everything. Half of the boat captains had wrapped trucks that matched their wrapped boats! We talked to a team that didn't make the final day cut who said "well, there's a local tournament in the morning, and the entry fee is "only" $250 so we are just gonna fish that!" But it proves that anyone can do it. It's not about money, it's about fishing. I am going to try to do some sort of "road to the national championship" story on my blog, covering everything from out first (of three) state qualifying event, the state championship, and the national championship. That may take a while but I will post a link to it when I finish! Don't worry, we never forgot to have fun. Because that's why we fish.

Like scaleface me and my buddies would hop on our bikes and fish various places. It was a different time In that you could ride your bike most anywhere and never have to worry about traffic, never had to worry about being abducted, and when it was 95+ with humidity in the 80's you could stop most anywhere and get a drink of water. Those days brought many catfish, bream, bass, gar, bowfin, and shad. It was a simple time with simple gear but It was durn cool. As for the favorite memory; most anytime I got to fish with my daddy, special time(s) to be sure.

My tip is Dont Take Anybody to your killer spot ..

when the river starts to come to life because of some insect hatch on the surface I have had some crazy fast action by throwing a small popper that has tail feathers

I fish because I'm physically addicted to it and I don't want to go through withdrawals.

I fish to get out of the house. Kind of the same reason I play golf. The surroundings with both sports are generally beautiful. There is almost no better feeling than when you hit a great golf shot. And there is almost no better feeling than setting the hook and feeling that line go tight. Feeling the line go tight and the first head flip of the fish, knowing youre not hung up, is pretty great. Thats why I do it.

That feeling you get when you go to reach over the side - and realize (just an instant too late) that you might have gone just a little too far . .Yup - I hate it when that happens. But that one was Pretty Smooth. A-Jay

I finally replaced a couple rods that I accidentally snapped under a tie down cleat. So far they're performing well!

This time of year, I'm throwing unweighted Senkos and Fat Ikas into pockets and around thick grass. If I'm throwing a weighted plastic, the weight is light (1/16 oz or so) so the rig sits on the grass and doesn't get stuck down in it. The exception is a speed worm, which involves a texas rigged worm with a tail that creates a lot of movement or disturbance. Peg the weight (1/8 - 1/4 oz or so, depending how deep you want the worm swimming) and swim your bait slowly over and through the grass. Also, this weather sucks.

AND!!! You gotta love that wacky rig, baby!! C'mon now! Great story

LOL!! That Colorado pic is like looking at the clouds and seeing Bart Simpson.

Bow To Stern (BTS). Works on fiberglass, plexiglass, vinyl, rubber, and even helps prevent mold on carpet. Spray on, wipe off. http://www.btsproducts.com/

Might seem obvious, but some species of fish tend to fatten themselves up for the long winter. So that may be why you are finding them skinny this time. Other speculations: Hazardous run-off in the river is destroying a food source for these fish or they have to travel farther for food. Over population Something that has recently been brought to my attention, is that fish who are extraordinarily skinny (which these do not seem to be) have been found to have a stomach full of soft plastics when opened for autopsy. So trash in the river may have some effect as well, hard to tell. At least you are still able to catch beautiful fish in that water!

Harvest some of the smaller bass and leave any decent size ones. Sounds like there are just too much competition for the food supply and these small size bass are eating everything. I'm not an expert at pond control, its just an educated guess. Smaller bass will be quicker to the food supply then the bigger ones. On the Alley when the water drops, the canals will be flooded with bass of all size escaping the shallow flats before they go dry. Sometimes we have to add weight to a bait to get past the smaller wolf pack bass to get to the bigger ones deep in the canal. Many times small bass will hit the bait as soon as it lands in the water. Bigger ones are at the bottom just buying their time for an opportune strike. They don't waste their energy!

I'm not hating on anyone for their opinion. True everyone has opinions but to be parading misinformation around is to me just as bad as keeping fish is to you all. It is like this line you said. How in the world does everyone know you keeping your limit or even a few legal fish is negative? I hear some that think no one should keep bass directly associating that to taking fish will negatively affect it. As if they know this as fact. The point is neither side generally has a clue if they are negatively affecting the fishing. Unless you are in on the studies and managing of the water or possibly read some recent article(s) with sources from a valid study none of you have a clue other than an assumption. Just like this article will show you sometimes to many Bass or other fish need to be removed. http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/stocking_adult_bass.html But the misinformation just keeps being repeated until some think its gospel. Man has been eating fish since the beginning of time. I seriously doubt we will run out of Bass. Unless Sasquatch people come out of hiding. Well I tell ya what I have seen many a guy/gal in icy conditions pass me and a few minutes later I see them as they sit in the ditch. Did they break the law, no. Was it the right thing to do? Maybe maybe not. You shouldn't care its not any of your/my business. I stop and check on them and/or pull them out and move on. Do you know those people? No so quit judging them. They may have very good reason for going faster than you think they should. Could be sick or hurt or pregnant. You don't know could be anything or nothing. Maybe these people fell on hard times and they are trying to feed their kids. How would this look. You assume you know all, start griping at a legal person fishing to feed their family and your worried about a sport fish. I believe they have a name for that these days. Women use them monthly. Or worse yet you catch a bullet as you caught the wrong person at the wrong time in his/her life. Over a stupid bass that you had no business with and wasn't yours to start with. What is it these days where everyone thinks they need to be in everyone's business. Not everyone that lives on this planet fish for sport only. Glad for those that do I do at times as well. But it would be a big mistake, and I hope it doesn't happen, where someone comes up to me and tries to get crappy about me legally keeping my fish.

Scum frogs are probably your best bet. I personally don't like them because they are on the lighter side and I can't cast them as far, but with lighter spinning gear they should do fine. Although a medium rod is definitely not my first choice for frogging, but it sounds to me you don't have the option to use another at the moment. Just make sure your hooks are sharp.

The number 1 difference between lakes and rivers is current. It takes a lot of energy for a fish to swim in current, especially in a big river like the Ohio so they do not spend a lot of time trying to fight the current. What they do, is to hide out in spots just out of the current. Wing dams, in big rivers, rocks and wood will deflect the current causing break lines and eddies. Drift your bait on the edge of the break line, and the fish will find you. As for boat control, either anchor, or position you boat in an eddy. If you have a strong trolling motor and the current isn't too strong, you can point the nose of the boat into the current and match your motor speed to the speed of the current. There is quite a bit more to learn about fishing rivers but for just starting out, if you can identify and fish nothing but break lines, you'll do very well.

The only thing I can say is there are fish in all the UB lakes. The biggest the one that is all muddy all the time is the hardest for me. I have caught bass in there but nothing over 12 inch. I am sure there are some big ones in there and I would love to hear of anybody who has caught in that lake I think its called lasalle. I have caught fish in the other lake at UB and behind the amherst police station. Pretty much all soft plastics have worked for me at these lake. With plastic worms at the top of the list. I was skunked the last time I fished at UB though probably about two weeks ago..... Here is the best bass from my vacation this week. This bass season more than most has me chomping at the bit for fall and salmon/trout!

Any Lews $100 or more would be my vote. Big upgrade without dropping $300 on a reel you don't really need.

Buying tackle for me has been a hobby for the last several years. Even in the last few that I did not have a boat, if a nice rare reel or rod came available, well, let's just say it's probably not available anymore. Now for the how much part? "Your honor, I plead the 5th."

Humans have a great capacity to lie. It wouldn't be the first hoax out there.

You should feel more accomplished for caching multiple fish that size! Heck anyone can get a hook in a 5 pound basses mouth. Heck some can fit a whole fist in there, but to catch something that small takes extra skill!!

After numerous calculations, 10% more than I can afford.

As much as I need!

Well cant catch the big ones every outing but this is ridiculous. Only caught two in 4 hours and they were both this size.

The Rage Magnum Bug & Rage Swimmer "Sampler" just arrived. Thank You Siebert Outdoors A-Jay

Some swimbaits I've picked up recently

Fenwick Fenglass 8 wt. rod, a non-branded Chinese reel from eBay, a bright orange fly line and a bunch of bass bugs and streamers.

Spent my days off this past week getting us moved into our new house. I walked almost 14.5 miles back and forth loading and unloading stuff to and from the U-haul on Wednesday. Thursday was more of the same, but I at least had my dad to help get the last few big things. Friday a buddy and I carried everything into the house from the shop (we couldn't get into the house until Thursday but we had free reign of the shop Wednesday and needed to be out of the old house by 9 AM Friday, so we moved most everything into the shop). My wife and MIL spent most of the day yesterday putting things away while I was sleeping after my first day back from work. Last night was the first night we got to relax a little and really take in everything. It's a 1,700 SQFT house with a basement, 2 car garage, 1,200 SQFT shop, 8 acres, and a pond (not the septic pond in the first picture ). We're both really excited to be at the new place and out away from things even more than we were. All the way to the tree line is ours.

That's a sweet pad. That shop is unreal... Congrats.

Those videos are insane. Really brings things into perspective

When you get to Orlando, I can't say enough about the great value the boat rentals are at Turkey Lake. It's a cheap way to get out on the water with limited boat traffic and good fishing. Of course a guide trip on Toho is nice too. I can't wait to go back. http://m.myfwc.com/conservation/freshwater/fish-orlando/turkey-lake/

The metal lip Arbogast Mudbug in crawdad colors is hard to beat if soft plastics are not what you are looking for. R2Sea clackng craw was a lot of hype wh little results. Ohio bass and crawdads don't know where they live! Tom

If you're just looking for duplicate OEM spools, then go to the manufacturer directly. Shimano and Daiwa are real easy to deal with, if you call them. I think you'll have to call Lew's as well. Other companies - Quantum comes to mind - has an automated web store front for parts.

So if you borrow money to buy a home or a automobile you need to pay it off at the end of the month or your living above your means? Credit is credit. Some lenders are better than others but borrowing money is part of life. Doesn't mean anything unless you borrow more than your financially capable of paying back. Or your immature and do not pay your debts in a agreed to manner.

As mentioned, the lanyard is not on the remote key switch. If you have the full control head and using it, it would be located in it, but when using a remote switch, the kill switch is also remoted. My key switch is on the left, my kill switch is on the right side of the steering wheel. When I first get in the boat, I hook the lanyard to my life vest. My life vest always stays in the drivers seat, either laying in it while I'm fishing, or on me while I'm running and the lanyard stays connected to it the whole time. I don't fish with my vest on (unless it's cold as h*** and I want that extra insulation), I wear an auto inflating vest I put on before I launch the boat and don't take back off until the boats back on the trailer. I do this because I've seen more than one person end up in the lake just trying to get in or out of the boat. Trip up stepping off the dock into the boat, and you could wind up on America's Funniest Home Videos, hopefully with your vest keeping you afloat.

Chances of catching a 10 pounder that being a largemouth bass is only possible if bass that size are living where you fish. IF your lake has Floridia strain LMB the odds are greatly improved. Northern strain LMB at 10 lbs is equal to Floridia strain LMB at 13 lbs. My personal bench mark is 15lb FLMB to be considered a trophy size, 13lbs or teener is the Texas Share a Lunker benchmark, let's go with that. What are the chances of catching 10 lb Smallmouth or Spotted bass? Obviously 10lbs is too high a benchmark for both smallies and spots, so let's change 10 to 7 lbs. Everyone can play when the benchmark is achievable. Most anglers over estimate bass weight, 10 lbers become 7 to 8 lbs when weighed. Tom