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The rain was pouring and there was a big puddle in front of the Bar just outside the American Legion Post. A ragged old Army ground pounder was standing near the edge with a fishing line in the puddle. A curious young Marine Fighter Pilot came over to him and asked what he was doing. "Fishing," the old Sergeant simply said. "Poor old fool," the Marine Officer thought to himself, and he invited the old Army Soldier into the Bar for a drink. As he felt he should start some conversation while they were sipping their whiskey, the haughty Fighter Pilot asked, "And how many have you caught today?" "You're number ten," the old Army Sergeant answered. “2 Air Force, 3 Navy & 5 Marines.”

Stopped at a DSG checking on their Pitboss supply. Struck out on those but they had a bunch of stuff on clearance. Bought my first Pop Max ever in White Python, a Spro Rat 30, a Megabass Flap Slap, and a KVD 300 jerkbait, all on clearance.

Maybe it means " Big ------- Spinnerbait .

I dont even know what BFS means .

Had the first 100+ fish day of the year yesterday before the big storm gets here. Largemouth, smallmouth, whites, wiper, walleye, crappie, and drum all found their way to the boat. Caught fish on swimbaits, bladed jigs, traps, cranks, traps, beavers, even a float-n-fly. I literally caught fish on my first and last cast of the day when I got called off the water. This was my first cast of the day.

Hey folks! I have the opportunity to interview some pros 1-on-1, and I want to include your questions. Literally. As in "Jake from Spokane, Washington asks...." So PM me your questions and be sure to include your real name, city, and state, and you'll get to see your questions answered in an upcoming video! Thanks! Glenn

Your back seat open?

One's luck, two's a pattern Meaning: the first fish you catch in an area isn't necessarily enough to establish a pattern and stick with it. If you catch 2 or more in the same area in similar structure & cover then you found a pattern. But the exact area isn't as important as the details. An example would be: I caught one on the outside edge of the hay grass off a point in 6' of water earlier, I've tried other things since then that didn't work, and I just caught another (even if it was in a different spot) on the outside edge of hay grass off a point in 6' of water... That's the pattern. So you need to hop from spot to spot fishing the outside edge of hay grass off points in roughly 6' of water. It doesn't have to be that specific, that was just an example. It could be that you're catching them in 6-8ft or near grass or near timber, or a combination of those things you see what I'm getting at? Every fish you catch is a clue to help you put together a pattern.

Proper clothing for the weather conditions

Just got home, she's good. Not a scratch. My new frog rod is ready!

Aging backwards, hall of fame football career, supermodel wife... Its too good to be real life. I think he sold his soul to the devil.

check out this mornings ties, the plastic and feather/flash idea came from a jig crafting site, but the double tailed grub and powdercoated jigs are of my design

Ice storm shmice storm. I'll be on the water in the am.

Graduating from a Jon boat and getting my first full rig bass boat its an old boat but had a marine mechanic check it out and he gave me the thumbs up!!! Very excited!!!

Today was pretty miserable weather wise, windy and rainy with air temps in the low 40s, but my little brother and I decided to take the boat out to see how our new fishfinder would do. We went 3 hours without a bite, and he finally landed one on a blade bait. From there we pieced the puzzle together and managed to land 9 largemouth, and a bonus walleye! I also discovered that largemouth will still hit the Alabama rig even in 40 degree water, which is encouraging. Had to call it a day when our fingers weren't functional enough to change the trolling motor battery . Wet, cold fingers and wind are a bad combo!

MH

You cannot "map" the bottom without knowing what the depth is. A "fish finder" (sonar unit) does that. The GPS function saves waypoint. You need a combo "fish finder" and GPS unit to do what you want. Along with that, the GPS part needs to be a Chart Plotter to have any mapping capability. If you want a unit that will create contour mapping, you can do that a few different ways. Some models do live contour mapping in real time, some take recorded sonar logs that are processed by another source to create contour maps that are then used in the unit just like purchase digital mapping products. The processed maps can be personal or shared depending on the unit brand or the mapping product. You will not get any fine details like road beds or creek channels with any map creation product. Those features are added manually by companies that product digital mapping, and that takes another map source for reference--typically USGS maps. Depth data and location data is used to create contour mapping, "down imaging" is not one of those. I use three ways to create contour mapping: Humminbird Auto Chart Live Navionics Sonar Charts Live using Vexilar Sonarphone and the Navionics App Navionics Sonar Charts using Humminbird sonar logs uploaded to the Navionics Sonar Charts server for processing, then downloaded to a Navionics map card after the data is processed. Recently Lowrance has added the Navionics Sonar Charts Live feature to some of their units via a software update. Lowrance has the INSIGHT GENESIS program to create contour mapping. Garmin has a map creation function also-- do not the name of it. This contour map was created from sonar logs that I recorded and upload to the Navionics Sonar Charts program. It can be viewed on the Navionics website's Web App, viewed with the Navionics Mobile App, and download to a Navionics map card as the Sonar Charts map layer.

Lunch break today near a pond.Thought I'd give it a try.15 minutes later this was the result.She bit a 4 inch GY senko in watermelon.Absolutely incredible fight with 8 pound test.I helped the drag by stripping line off several times.The fish was nearly symmetrical at 21.5 inches long,and 21 inch girth.Extremely heavy bodied fish.Weight chart says between 8-9 pounds.Thank you Lord!

Yeah, the weight criteria is whatever your BFS rod is rated for also, it's Baitcast Finesse System

For me, it's not all that scientific or complicated. I tend to start with what worked yesterday (or round about this same time last year), if in an hour or two that doesn't seem to be the deal today, I do something else I have confidence in, somewhere else I have confidence in, until I find out what's working today. It always seems to work out for me, at least more times than not.

It’s often said that in most cases catching them isn’t as tough as finding them. That statement has never been truer than in the winter. They’ll bite for sure if you can find where they’re holding. In locations that do not have hard water, here’s how Greg Hackney does it ~ http://www.bassmaster.com/greg-hackney/finding-winter-bass-part-1 http://www.bassmaster.com/greg-hackney/finding-winter-bass-part-2 http://www.bassmaster.com/greg-hackney/finding-winter-bass-part-3 I really like GH's Style. If he wrote a book, I'd buy it. A-Jay

I've been using Tatsu for finesse tactics for years now, and found it to be more abrasion resistant than Fluoroclear (was a longtime user of it before I switched Tatsu). That said, the new finesse lines from Seaguar really intrigue me. I talked to finesse guru Shaw Grigsby about it (video below), and he had some interesting things to say about it. However, it doesn't come in 4lb. The closest is 5.2lb - yes ".2" is accurate. Just shows how precision this line really is.

Break in will drink oil on the ProXS. At this point in time I wouldn't be overly concerned. Mercury 2 strokes do not like cold water. They never have. Make sure she's warmed up before you stomp on it. After 10 hours of break in, the oil consumption will go back to normal. Although, Mercury doesn't require it, there are others in the industry that recommend having the first service at this time. When I broke mine in, I went out on 2 trips @ 2 hours each and just broke it in. No fishing, just running at the recommended rpm intervals

.......and I thought I was dumb, no clue of what is means. Maybe someone will tell us.

Cool stuff though! I fish a lot of jigs as well. Have you ever thought of buying jigheads and adding skirts? I just broke down and bought the JDM Metanium MGL HG. the JDM spool is more shallow than the US version. Going to put braid on that and buy a deeper spool from Shimano USA. I also received some used topwater lures from an Ebay seller in Japan. Megabass Anthrax and Pop-x

Choose the one you feel will be the best choice for you.

Try the search feature it has lots of threads on these exact reels. They have been beaten to death picked up dusted off and beaten to death again. The Shimano lovers will say Shimano, the Daiwa lovers will say Daiwa, Lews guys will say Lews, Ardent ...Ardent and so on with every brand see my point. All three are proven reels so go to a store that lets you hold them try them on your rods and see if you like how they feel in YOUR hands.

From what I've heard tatsu is extremely abrasion resistant.

There is no "set" length. Do whatever your comfortable with. For pitching and flipping I keep my leader short enough that it's out of the guides when I am pitching.........because sometimes the knot will hamper pinpoint accuracy, but I keep it long enough, especially around abrasive cover, that I can re-tie a couple times if I need to without having to tie a new leader. I am usually pitching with a 7 to 7'6" length rod, so when pitching, with the bait in my non-rod holding hand, the leader is about 5' -6' long. I usually flip with a 7'3" -7'11" length rod, and often when i am flipping, it's in stained water, or really heavy cover where your right on top of them...........I skip the leader, unless I am bouncing around....flipping this, flipping that, then pitching over here, or pitching over to that....if you follow me.

Amazing how expensive this crap has become. Everything was on sale and it still cost $160 bucks!

Scored 2 slp zillions the last week of december. Bought a 9.1 sv zillion, and before I even took it to the lake, I wanted to upgrade it. Decided to sell it because this was the more cost effective route given the yen. The slp already has the carbon handle, +2 bearings...and lats face it....ghost purple knobs are proven to catch more fish. Either that, or maybe one of those topless grand lake sunnrrs will make their way to the boat deck when I brandish one

Guys thanks so much for all the help. I went to a smaller weight head a 1/16th head and I haven't had anymore problems. I also went to a shorter leader on my drop shot and over 300 cast today I was only hung twice... I also caught 19.78lbs of spotted bass in 4 of my biggest fish today....14 fish total, 43 degree water. It was a great day on the water.

He may be a great quarterback, but just let him try reeling in a crankbait for 6 straight hours with those arms.?

Well, he probably has to wear the same clothes for 6 days to film some episodes. On the Arbogast site there's an article about a pro catching an 11 pounder on this bait. http://www.arbogastlures.com/articles/dudleys-new-personal-best-bass/

I had the best success on windy days this year, but I had success in pretty much all conditions I tried it in. I think the loud commotion it produces compared to other topwaters gives the fish more to key in on when the wind is producing a lot of chop. Now I fished mine on 40lb braid and a heavy fast rod and did pretty well. I actually fished mine with the rod tip kind of high and dropped it when I saw a blowup because a lot of time they would either miss the hooks or just hit it and not eat it, and I didn't want to rip it out of their mouths immediately. Almost like frog fishing, I dropped the rod tip and then started to reel and if I felt that the fish had it I hit em. I had a pretty good hookup ratio doing that. But looking back I do think I lost fish because of that setup. The stout rod combined with the braid there was almost zero play in the system and I had a some pretty nice fish (and what would have been my personal best smallie on two different occassions) throw the hook when they came up to shake. Ideally I would probably fish it on like a 7'6" MHMF with braid to absorb some of the headshakes. But I don't have a rod like that so I'll probably try fishing it on my MHF Tatula this year and see if it makes a difference.

I know nothing .

I think I'll just throw the worm first .LOL

A friend of mine sent me an older dirty CL10H Carbonlite to clean & grease and fix the drag. He knows its Winter and I enjoy this kind of stuff. I was able to replace the drag washers with new ones plus a new side plate assembly which includes new bearing and brake drum. The spool and pinion were polished. I used Suberlube & TSI 321. Its noticeably smoother and quieter. Here's is the finished product. I guess a before pic would have been nice here. Thanks Goose for the info.

Sunline sniper FC #16 Definitely some great line!

Back in the late 70's, my parents had a house on Canyon Lake in Southern California. At a time I was just learning how to fish for bass, California was in the middle of a historic drought. Canyon Lake was lower than it ever had been with many homeowners docks now sitting on dry land or just inches of water. That winter, storm after storm pummeled the area and by February, the lake was full and water was flowing at a heavy rate over the dam. Since I was just a beginner, the variances were extreme for me. When the lake was at its lowest, fishing was really good because the bass were concentrated on the diminishing amount of structure & cover. The first year after the lake returned to full pool was actually a little more difficult (for a beginner), for now there were so many more targets with the same amount of fish. The second year at full pool is when the explosion began, for all of the smaller fish had been able to hide for a year and increase the survival rate. As team9nine said, the fishery then took off for another 3-4 years, mostly based on that one year of increased survival rate.

Lake Isabella has a bigger problem then rain, it's dam was condemned and the lake can't be refilled to full pool. I wrote a article for In-Fisherman titled A Rare Chance for a World Record Bass* when the Isy was producing 18+ lb bass. Isabella has the forage base in both Threadfin, Gizzard Shad, a good trout, golden shiner, bluegill and crappie population. Isabella is fed by 2 rivers the north fork of the kern river is a class 5 white water River at 9,000 to 15,000 fps flow rates in the spring, it's not lack of water for this lake. Our northern Cal lakes are currently topping out and overflowing the dams with emergency and spectacular water releases at this time, several lakes closed to fishing do to the dangerous conditions. The SoCal lakes are another story, we have had a wonderful January rain fall, no down pours, the lakes at this time are still at historic low water levels but a few more storms and things should change. When lakes fill the ecosystems have lots of new forage for bass, it's good! Tom * book 64, Jan-dec '86

Agree with the above post. Historically, any time you get lake level rises that cover large areas of previously dried ground, the fisheries tend to take off for several years. This is for a variety of reasons including nutrient influx, expanded surface area (more living and spawning area) and increased cover and food options. -T9

On the contrary, I think it will be much better. Fish will move way up in the Spring, higher than they've been able to in a long time. More spots to bed, more room for the fish and less stressed. I'm also in CA and loving all this rain. 12" over the past week with 10' of snow at higher elevations. I love a 10yr storm.

Hmmmmm, I disagree. But since this is a family friendly forum, I'll leave it at that.

....and it worked. He says in below 50 degree water stop jerking the bait and do long slow pulls with longer than usual pauses. I had been having almost no luck with my standard technique so I tried his today just before heading in and caught 3 fish in about 20 minutes. The one pictured was the biggest but I was very impressed with his technique. Will be trying it again tomorrow.

A good Normal Crankbait ? as opposed to a bad abnormal one. Is this a trick question ? A-Jay

New 100MM basszone carbon handle to replace the 80mm on a steez sv i bought recently. Really nice looking handle, knobs are squishy kind of rubber. But it did take about FOREVER for it to get here from Thailand. I think it took a vacation around New York for 2 weeks while it was "held up in customs"!

They don't see it, they feel it!