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So I took my grandson fishing this past weekend while on vacation. It was a kick in the butt watching him catch bream and warmouth one after the other. The enthusiasm created by a five year old Is noteworthy In that the smallest of fish and simple fishing made his and my day. Eventually his step-dad came over and took my place to give me a little fishing time. I was throwing a weightless Zoom magnum finesse worm and doing OK. I had landed a couple but did want to put on a bigger bait just to see If I could coax a bite from something bigger. I had only one rod and took off the big worm and threw on a R.I. Skinny Dipper In Bull Frog. I didn't bother to change the hook from an RB 3/0 and made an errant cast that I began to quickly reel the bait In to cast again. I had a swirl on the bait working It as a topwater. I cast In the same spot and ran It slower across the top. There was a huge explosion , I waited 'til I felt the fish and set the hook. It Immediately started pulling drag. I fought It for probably 45 seconds and had It coming my way and It made another run. I finally got it coming my way again when It suddenly came unbuttoned. I never saw the fish but by the fight I am guessing 4-6 lbs. I reeled up and saw the bait bunched up with little space between the gap an bait. The moral of this story Is take the time to do things right. Had I taken the time to switch to an EWG 5/0 hook I more than likely would not have lost that fish. Folks, the attention to detail can most assuredly count! On a side note, we had little time and were fishing from shore. At the end of the day I saw a seed tick firmly attached to my shoulder and later that afternoon after further examination my wife pulled two more from my body. Be careful when your fishing from shore.

loaded up my poles and small aluminum boat got three bait boxes I wanted, drove about 5 miles to one of my old farm ponds,about 3 acres. unloaded the boat ,loaded up all my gear pushed the boat in the water. and man I could just feel it this was gonna be the night. then I realized OH NO! I forgot my oars what now? didn't want to drive all the way back home and back. that wouldn't leave any time to fish . then I thought, use them little bait boxes for oars!.it worked tho difficult . I managed four in the boat, the biggest about 3lb. not the night I thought but it beat sitting on the couch.

It gets better in the fall when you can whack 5 tanks at a time. #23pounds

@Fishin' Fool clearly does not need any help from me or anyone else - #whackingtanks ! A-Jay

Can someone translate?

She took her time, about a week and a half past due but this morning we have a new foal.

Both of your big Punker fish hit on the pause when you got distracted and looked away

I was thinking the problem with certain grippers was the fairly thin or sharp metal variety would tear or gash the fish's jaw? I haven't heard of any issues with the plastic fish grippers I guess. I use them on my scale for weighing, much better than jamming the big hole in their jaw or going under the gill plate imo. I don't use them for landing or holding bass, most bass I catch are swung in and grabbed from the air.

Sooooo...I don't think I caught the fish that shook me off the other night, but I did catch a nice one! My best friend was here for this catch as well and we both agreed that this probably wasn't the fish we saw. It could be, but to me this fish didn't come close to the sheer size I saw when the other one jumped. Even in the case that this is the fish I lost, it's still the second biggest fish I've ever caught at 7 pounds even. When we got to the pond this morning, I offered to let my best friend and my brother take the canoe out since it doesn't fit three people very well. I walked down to the dock while they were getting the canoe, and caught a nice three pound bass on my second cast, using a Castaic BD gunfish imitation topwater. A three pounder is a nice fish any day for me, and the other guys were super jealous that I had caught one so early. They launched the canoe, and I kept fishing. They weren't twenty feet away from the dock when I fired a long cast to an opposite bank and got slammed. Not only was it a topwater blowup and on a long cast, I had a spinning rod with 8 pound line. It was an incredibly fun fight. After I landed her, the bite shut off like light switch and the other guys never even had a chance to set the hook. I realize that I caught her on a small private pond, but I still had a blast doing so even if it wasn't quite as hard as catching a 7 pounder on a lake. Annndddd I can't get the pictures vertical ?

Did A-Jay lend you that fish?

When your frog game is to strong

as long as its running true and catching fish, why not use it till you hang it up or the rest of the bill breaks?

The Lightning Rod Shock 7' MH has been my go to frog rod for about as long as they have been available. Great rod for this. I am almost ready to retire my originally purchased one that is probably 10 years old, and landed 1000's of bass. The grip is falling apart, and the end cap on the butt fell off last week. Not bad service for $39.99 rod at Walmart. I have others in reserve stock that I have picked up over the years when Walmart has had them on sale, some for as low as $5 each.

If there's a will there's a way

I use it but only when I want my fish on scale, and only when fish look to be more than 2lb. That was my plan too, to have a gripper plastic type roped to kayak in order to let fish stay in water while I prepare scale or camera.

I took a trip up north with some buddies to catch some smallies. This was our first time at this lake and it for sure won't be our last. Air temp was 45ish, water was between 47-50, winds were 10-15 everyday. We targeted wind blown banks and points. I was throwing a Megabass vision 110 magnum in sexy french pearl on 10 lb flouro with a 7'2" poison adrena. I caught more 4-5 pounders in 3 days than I have in my whole life combined. Biggest fish went 6+ on the boga. These we're the most flawless smallmouth I've ever seen. This was the kind of trip that has me searching for a cabin up there to call my own. Also caught a 22 inch 5 pounder that we we're told was a male.

My favorite overhead spinner is the War Eagle 1/2 oz Indiana/Colorado. BTW I've fished a great deal in NJ, NY and PA (Delaware Bay to the Thousand Islands) My best advice Dave is to get back slowly and buildup gradually, otherwise you'll end up like the rest of us Roger

This post is dual purpose, first it is to test my resizing of the pics to ensure I can add them and first to show how my Bass Raider adventure started. It all began with the purchase of this trailer about a week before Black Friday of last year. These trailers are a pain in the butt to assemble, but once you get it done it works out just fine. I'm going to do a post with a ton of pics of everything I have done so far. Hopefully someone can get something from it...I researched this site for ideas and watched a ton of kayak videos on how I wanted to setup my Bass Raider 10e. Until I have time to resize all the pics...here is a link to my google album...it should be in order from the first pic back in 2016 up to the last pics I took yesterday. Enjoy! https://goo.gl/photos/ykH8q7QCHjWiwJvc9

Lost gear vs. lost life. I'll take lost gear any day. Eldest son and I capsized our canoe and lost a brand new cell phone, $350 camera, and more. But we survived and lived to tell the tale So have you.

Enjoy mother nature in her purest sense. These are marvelous creatures and highly intelligent. You are lucky to have them in the neighborhood. .

Got a really soft spot for the old & venerable Hula Popper, have caught tons of fish with it.

As a guy who fishes all braid all the time and most of the time with spinning reels, this does not match my experience at all. I've gotten wind knots on fresh line that hasn't had time to get twisted. As the OP said, my wind knots come when a line loop lays on top of the spool, gets pulled off during a cast by the line going out, and then all that line is now spun while you are retrieving, causing the wind knot. My habit is to tug on the line, right after the cast to make sure there are no loose loops. The only time I get them is when I forget to check for the loop.

In most cases, no management is the best management because 'man' is the spoiler, not Mother Nature. Having otters is a natural indication of a good fish supply. If the fish population became depleted, the otters would have no choice but to move on. Simply put, a high otter population indicates a high fish population. On a low note though, the problem with the Wallkill River is not the fish population but the health of the fish. By all accounts, the Wallkill is sky high in phosphorus as well as fecal coliform, which are both man-induced. One can only feel sorry for the otters. Roger

Cast to catch video of a nice Wisconsin bass, caught on a 8.3" Mr. Zorba perch glide bait.

I got out this morning right at day light here in arizona. Almost to hot now to fish during the day. But i started off throwing a 9" MS slammer with nothing to show for it. Saw a few small shad bust out in the middle of the river. So i was like hmmmmm thought to myself that i should tie on a lunker punker. Well glad i did. Tied on the 8" punker and hit two nice ones. They were randomly busting every 5-10 minutse and both that i caught were right in the general area i saw a fish bust. Caught over 13 ft of water right dead center of the river on long casts Got both fish on video which i will be posting later.

Just got done with a weekend trip to lake seminole, Didnt catch anything the first day and my boats motor about flew off the transom, so I had to get towed back and fix that.... but the next day I caught four banging a sqaurebill off stumps! That lakes awesome, for sure gonna go back this year. This was the biggest one I lucked into, sorry about the picture being flipped sideways...

I took my Dad fishing last summer on the Youghiogheny River. I loaded the canoe, rods, the electronics, the vests, the tackle, the lunch, and pretty much everything else. He needed to bring, a fishing license and the oars. Guess what he forgot..... I ended up running out to walmart and getting a spare set of oars, and he did some bird watching. We ended up catching one red horse the entire day.

or MSU Spartans(if we're talking about college teams)

Got out yesterday, and hung 2 real ones on a chatterbait(plus 2 big pickerel) 6, and a tad under 8. I feel like wearing a cape. And just to be fair and balanced, last week caught one just a tad bigger than the pop-R he hit from the same spot.

Ned fishes the Finesse ShadZ, which is a 4" bait. You're right though, it doesn't have to a half ZinkerZ or TRD to be a Ned rig. This is a great Ned rig bait, but I didn't tell you that.

Forgot my kayak paddle once after driving 30 minutes to a sweet looking new spot. I loaded back up, drove home, went back to bed. Some days it's just not meant to be.

Make sure you get your picks in by tomorrow. The Sam Rayburn tournament starts on WEDNESDAY this week.

I don't use mine for landing bass but they are nice on a kayak when I want to put the fish back in the water while I get my phone out for a picture. They are also handy when it comes to putting a fish on a scale

Thats what I've been using for the past couple of years and I've been really happy with its performance. I don't spend big money on frogs rods as I tend to abuse the crap out of them!

I can't tell you exactly where the fish are going to be, even with the best and most accurate topo maps. It just isn't possible to predict where exactly the bass are going to be. My pre tournament research has three stages, first I spend time looking for reports online to get a few general areas, then I study maps and highlight which areas look like they have the right structural requirements for the season, and then I go out prefishing (if possible) and cover as much area as possible and try to establish a pattern. So while I couldn't garruntee the basses location from a topo map, I can get a good idea of which areas have a higher likely hood to be productive.

Seems like the wrong hook to me .

Arbogast Hula Poppers are still available, TW carries them! Tom

maybe your good buddy can help you replace some of your gear

And then there's this: http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/8668086/1

Between the years 2005 and 2010 I used 'only' spinning tackle and braided line (both my wife & I). During that 5-yr period, the number of guide inserts we lost probably outnumbered our noteworthy "wind-knots". Though I'd like to contribute to this topic, I simply lack the experience with wind-knots (whatever they are) Roger

I figure any critter out there has as much right as I do to fish or hunt or whatever - folks can get crazy. We've had guys shooting canadian geese and leaving them to rot because they pooped on their river bank. I did have an otter strip a trotline of mine one time - gave me a chuckle.

Both the hula stickz and the finesse shadz are 4" long, according to the zman website. And not to be nitpicky, but he usually cuts the hula stickz down to three inches long for the record.

Sometimes I want a lot of noise like mid day during the summer on standing timber lines / breaks . My favorite then is the Rebel Magnum Pop R .

So now we have farmers building dams and river otters terrorizing fishermen. Rough Neighborhood Roger

The shock 7ft mh heavy is a great frog rod

Hand feed them the fish you catch to befriend them, then you can have them attack anyone fishing your spot due to their loyalty to you.

I have been married for 26 years, as newly weds I used to tell my wife "I cannot be your sole source of entertainment"....I think it is healthy and important for couples to have "space". I would seriously talk to her about this, it will not get better....only worse.

Unhappy yote.

Water