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I participated in a secret santa in another group. I received my package today. Can't be mad about that one bit.

I like the look of those Megabass worms. I tried to go river fishing today but it was too cold and the water too turbid, but I did catch some tackle on the way home. I realized the other day that other then some z-man ones for panfish, I had never really fished a grub and that wouldn't do. The 4" Ocho worms are the best four inch stickbait that I have found in terms of action and they are thin enough to rig on the 1/0 twistlocks I like to use for my light river tackle. The jerkbait is just to build up my arsenal a bit and they are the cheapest ones I have found that actually suspend in a meaningful way. My new "plan" is to fish a jerkbait until I catch on it or lose it every trip until I figure them out.

Most bass weight calculators that only use length assume the girth is 75% of the length*. * length being bass laid flat measure from end of closed mouth to end of tail. If I use the BR site calculator and add girth my PB** weighs 23.08 lbs!....would a world record! Length X Length X Girth /1200 is more accurate, still no substitute for a certified scale weight. Tom ** 29" L X 28" G, actual weight 19.3 lbs.

Beast Coast, Live Target and TW stuff.

Going to be tough to beat a Mojo with the specs you gave.

I picked this 7'3" Heavy H2O XPRESS™ Ethos Nano Casting Rod up yesterday. It was on clearance and I had a lonesome reel that matched the blue so well it was like it was meant to be.

I've done a lifetime of pond fishing in shallow,weedy lakes.When I go,I always carry these baits: •Zoom salty super flukes •G Yamamoto senkos 4-5 inch •Zoom trick worms •zoom baby brush hogs •Zoom z- hogs •Zoom super speed craw. • 7 1/2 and 10 inch culprit worms These are all good.I use watermelon seed and watermelon red primarily in clear to moderately stained water.Darker water I use a lot of red shad,june bug,black grape and black.All t- rigged on a 3/0 wide angle hook,or 2/0 with the worm.The 4 inch senko I like 1/0.I use little to no weight,unless I'm fishing a deeper lake.

Entered a gun raffle a couple weeks ago for a his and hers kimber hand gun set. Figuring I just donated my money, I haven't really given it much thought. Until now! I just got a call and was told to come pick up my new kimber .380, and kimber .45! Heck yeah, what a way to start the Christmas season! I'm ready to go shooting!

http://www.orvis.com/news/fly-fishing/layering-for-comfort/

Ice, we are talking about California. They will spend billions on transporting fish if need be. Also, they wiped out half of the central valley farming for 3 smelts. This is California so please lower your standards, common sense and expectations. LOL

Its about as accurate as me asking your height and then guessing your weight based on the average of people that are the same height. I made be dead on or way off. Too me there is no substitute for a scale. I've caught 23" bass that weighed 4lbs. By his formula I should have a new PB

If your gonna have a disease that would be a good one to have.

I've developed over the past few months a sickening addiction to $25 Megabass Ito Vision 110 jerkbaits. It's maybe a matter of confidence or imagination, but when I tie on other brands, I don't catch as much. It all started when I was dazzled by a Sexy French Pearl at Dick's. Now it's my disease.

swimjig, swimbaits, frogs, soft jerkbaits, flukes, worms jigs.

At 5:09 PM on 12/17/2016, my wife and I welcomed our second son into the world. He was 7 pounds 10 ounces and 20.5" long, and we named him Finn Momma and baby are doing great, we should be going home tomorrow.

If I remember right, tomorrow the 20th is Tommy's (Catt's) birthday - I don't know why I remember this or why I'm posting about it, but here I am. Catt, you've taught me so much about fishing through this site; I think the single biggest thing is just to K.I.S.S. As you always remind us, there's no need to overcomplicate. On a personal level, you've been there for me several times with PM's and just in general I've really looked up to you and enjoyed our interaction and always some friendly teasing Hope somebody gets you a phone with a nice selfie camera so we can finally start seeing those double digits. Happy Birthday man. Kyle

Congrats Raider, you made it on the Tailgate Heroes snapchat story. Guess you couldn't find a black and silver santa suit.

It was almost short sleeve fishing yesterday while the front was moving in.The bass and pickerel were hammering jerkbaits. Today it was gloves on and off all day,heat paks in pocket,ice in guides a bit.Mild wind but irritating.WT 40.1 deg.Most bass today were not just tipping,they were smashing 78`s in a few different bluegill colors.Check this 15" critter.Would like to see my face when it came up.Lost two LC`s today,one cast break off and a toothy thing got the other.Still a fabulous day.Winter is me C22

Pffft! Nice dink, Catt.

Personally i don't use leaders with a jerkbait, I just take my chances and for whatever reason, I actually have pretty good luck not losing them.

I wear wader socks. They are a blend of synthetic and wool. They go up over the knee, and are insulated with faux sheep's wool. They wick well, and are very warm. The "no cotton" advice is VERY sound. We have an expression when it comes to cotton and the cold: cotton kills.

I loved my SCII Mojo 6'8" M/XF for finesse wacky rigs/flick shaking. That rod met it's unfortunate demise in a rod locker lid incident a few years ago, and instead of using St. Croix's excellent customer service, I traded the broken rod to my rod builder towards a small discount on a new rod I requested, and had it replaced with a custom build on a Batson 6'8" M/XF Immortal spinning rod blank........for all intents and purposes, it's pretty much the same rod with a slightly higher price tag due to it being a custom build, and a few personal touches I had my builder add. If that rod, for some reason, ever meets it's demise............I will probably go out and buy another 6'8" Mojo on the new SCIII blank. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the the Batson blank and/or the build, but some off the shelf rods just have "it", and the 6'8" M/XF St Croix's across the board have "it".

I got an 6'8" MXF in the Avid X line for wacky worms (and other weightless plastics) last summer and it is the definition of perfect, as far as I'm concerned. At your pricepoint, I would think the mojo is a pretty close approximation. (and I also hate red on rods and reels! I hate it so much! I thought I was the only one...)

river fishing for smallies? hmmm a bone colored small pop-r white/chart manns classic spinnerbait 3/8 oz 1/8 oz aru patterned pins minnow 1/4 oz football jighead with a 4" smoke/silver flake grub 1/8 oz screwlock wormweight 1/0 gammie offset round bend hook with a black/chartruese tailed berkley power ringworm sometimes I will switch the grub out for a green pumpkin yamamoto double tailed hula grub (is there anywhere that doesnt work?)

Most common for me is a 1/4 oz bullet weight for most presentations. However, I don't see any advantage for using tungsten on your drop shot rig.

Those Fat Alberts are the bomb. I use them more than any other grub. I bought a bunch when my local Wallyworld put them on sale. They also make good spinner bait trailers.

My "baby girl" turned 18 last October. Dude has no idea what the #$%^ he's talking about. Not worth bruising knuckles on his skull, or twisting an ankle helping him hit the high notes. Smile, nod, ask him about his Mom...move on.

Im 2hrs NE of Dallas and we just got slammed with a cold front Saturday night. I was wearing a T Shirt all day Saturday but that afternoon it was 20+ gusts and temp dropped out the bottom to single digit. Tuesday Wed and Thursday it's a little more steady lows mid 30s and highs around 50s. I haven't got to go recently (last 2 weeks) due to work or really unfriendly weather. Before that I was doing OK using lipless cranks chrome with blue back, squarebill in sexy shad, 8" and 10" ribbon tail worms medium brown colors t-rigged, white 3/8oz spinnerbaits, and some other random crankbaits in the 8 to 12 ft range. I know the water temps and the weather have drastically changed in the last 2 weeks though so take it for what its worth. But If they are biting I have rarely ever not caught fish using a t-rigged worm. Oh I forgot Jigs! Jigs 1/2oz are great I use dark browns or darker greens and usually have a 4" Pit Boss or Devils Spear somewhat complimenting in color.

FG knot is excellent if you can tie it correctly. fishing jigs in cold water from shore in a small lake with soft (mucky) bottom will be a challenge. If you insist on doing this then use a 1/4 oz jig with a 2" to 2 1/2" trailer in the deepest area you know of. Tom PS; thanks to everyone for the positive feedback, it's appreciated!

Thanks everyone! I've definitely got some information to sift through and figure out a plan for the spring. Going to be hard to narrow it down to three lures/techniques with all the good suggestions, but I'll do my best. If I manage to get out this winter, I've decided to fish jigs exclusively to try and develop a better feel for them. Just going to have to leave the plastics at home so I'm not tempted to rig one up after an hour without a bite. They're definitely my confidence bait, but like I've said, I'd really like to develop some other techniques to fall back on.

Got mine in today from Clayton. I don't know his screen name but thanks a lot man. He did some research because many of these I have talked about recently on here wanting to pick up. Merry Fishmas!

OP, I bet I fish some of the same waters you do, and this will work very well, maybe tying with flukes as my most productive LBM lure of last season. I like to rig them on an 3/0 Owner straight shank with a 1/16oz steel weight. The hook seems big and is murder on the plastics but I have never experienced such a high hookup rate. I use a steel bullet weight as I want it to be large enough to be a nose cone/bumper for the plastic, which helps prolong it's life. Using a Zoom Ultra Speed Craw makes for a smaller (and cheaper) variant of this technique. I also like the aforementioned flukes and for heavier tackle, paddle-tailed swimbaits rigged weedless on a weighted swimbait hook. Like a Fat Impact 3.8" on say a 1/8-1/4oz hook. They cast far, get down quickly (and look good doing so), and can be slow-rolled along the bottom or burned shallow.

I'm surprised that no one mentioned a lipless crank. (At least what I saw). A Treble hooked lure in the weeds? *GASP* Absolutely. If you have any kind of area between the water surface and the grass below, chuck a trap out there and burn across the top of that grass. Let it even flutter down into it and RIP it out of there. This is NOT a finesse technique...lol...but man does it catch some hogs

Depending on several factors, when it comes to frogging, higher reel ratios have more advantages than that of a very low ratio. I wouldn't advise using a lower ratio for frogging, you will be missing a good share of quality fish. Just my .02

Here's my submission. It's a bed fishing jig

Boom!! of course it going to rain all day today :/

I can relate ~ btw - Gunner makes it look easy - me, not so much A-Jay

A little late, but these smallies are from the Illinois river, I stayed on them from early October to mid November. also caught a lot of largemouth. Most fish are in the 1-2 lb range. Occasionally id hook into 2.5s and 3, but they were few and far between.

What did I learn????...... I learned how precious spending time with the ones you love really means. I learned how I miss fishing with my son. He has decided to become a grown up. He's in a serious relationship and now has to find time to fish rather than just show up at the ramp. With any luck, I'll be well enough to fish tournaments next year, because it's the only time I fish with him anymore. I learned my dad is getting old. Losing his memory old. Can't remember which lid is for the livewell old. Needing to hold onto him as he gets in and out of the boat old. Having "accidents" on the boat old. Gotta hand it to him. That old man will fish from sun up to sun down and then some if he could. I learned how important it is to my mother, that I take my dad fishing. She thanks me every time, because he always comes home happy. I learned that even though I don't want to filet dozens of crappies or bluegills, to just suck it up and do it because my folks love eating them. I learned that even buying my ol' lady a set of Carhartt bibs, she still won't join me on the boat when it's below 50* out. I learned the ol' lady no longer loves me. I bought a second boat and she never said a word about it. Had she loved me, I surely would have never heard the end of it. and I learned that Senkos flat out catch fish. I already knew this but I haven't fished them for years. They were my goto bait this year.

Have you determined whether or not there are fish where you are fishing? If there's no fish, you can change baits a hundred times and never get a bite.

Using a plug knocker. It's being a Marine. No crankbait gets left behind.

Just joined up. Hello to everybody.

Like others have said one companies ML could be another's medium. Now if I wanted to get a rod for those applications I would personally prefer a "true" medium in fast or even extra fast since I want a very quick and responsive tip to work those types of lures, and the medium to be a little more versatile, but others will have different preferences I am sure. A lot of companies ML's that I have felt in person I wouldn't want to use some of the larger jerkbaits I have.

I just wish it would be cold on Christmas but it ain't happening this year !!

Power pro spectra is my go to also. Not a huge fan of the super slick 8 either. I go with power pro spectra mostly but when I can get suffix 832 on sale I will get it those are the only braids I use. However I have been wanting to try the Berkeley trilene professional braid... I may give it a try this year. Tried the seaguar smackdown braid it was good but in the 50lb size the power pro is smaller so I like it to get more line on the spool and still just as strong

The Ice should be here before to long., the ponds I've been driving by in my area are iced over, and the night temps seem to be consistently below freezing for the next week or so, with some days just getting into low 40's,... the rest colder. So its looks to be coming. But,...you know the weather around here, so PLEASE be careful out there, unknown springs and thin ice can occur anywhere. Have a ice pick lanyarded to your wrist at all times, try to fish areas you know, and it doesnt hurt to check ice thickness before going over deep water, or water deeper than you can stand in. With that being said,.. Have fun, I hope you catch a monster, I miss the old cookouts on the ice, Marinated steak tips, pork kabobs, striper, and chicken wings off the gas grill in the cold is awesome, a coleman stove and some homemade seafood chowdah, lobstah bisque, beef stew, or just hot soup in a bread boule works well too...I used to have a blast out there,.. But alas,..I wont venture out there unless I'm guaranteed 8 or more inches of ice,..yeah I ended up ice swimming once, so I'm a big baby now., I may venture out this year sometime if the ice is safe enough, to say hey whats up, nice to finally meet ya's. But to plan a day of fishing? I'm not sure. Just hearing the ice cracking as it gets thicker scares the bajesus outa me. Last time I was on ice was several years ago, at Massabesic in Manchester NH, with over a foot of ice, and it was the cracking that ran me off. I'll keep a eye on the posts and if I can, maybe surprise you out there with a hot dunkie's regular and a frosted doughnut.

80 here in Jax. yesterday.Today -70. lows tonite- mid 50s. We haven't had a freeze yet. No wonder so many people move here .

He caught the record Spot on his "Cody Meyers" signature Daiwa rod, filming a TW ad, think that should help sell a few sponsors products! Tom