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Finally, Finally got the boat back after breaking the axle in the beginning of May. Took the boat to our favorite lake, Shasta. Were not on the water too long since someone (me) forgot the key to the boat at home. We got about 3 hours on the lake. A lot of dinks starting to get active but we did find some quality fish throughout the day. Once again Jamie out caught me 12 - 7, but i did have the better size, so thats something. Biggest was 16 1/2 inch spot that fought really well. One of Jamie's better fish, right about 15 inches

22 bass today 19" 18" several 16" 15" threw 3 different paddletails some ikas and hydras.

Caught him during that "Walking back to the car with nothing to show for, and Ooh this looks like a bassy spot, let me cast this Zoom Horney Toad I already have tied on a couple of times, and swim it right beneath the surface thru all that duck weed" moment. Sucker came out of the water like a Great White breaching after a seal. Wasn't really heavy at 2 3/4lbs I usually don't fish this area of the nature preserve (which is actually behind me) cause it's not open to the public like the main lake. It's a marshy swampy area which does feed the main lake but its also home owners' property. I'm on a public bridge so no harm no foul. There, fixed it.

I want to thank Bass Resource and Yum for the package I won. It contained way more gear than I expected. I invited my bass fishing buddies over and let them pick a few bags each. Bass Resource is the best site for information that I have found, and now I got some free stuff. I still can't believe I won!

Let me know your thoughts!

2 & a-half-er on top at a new lake:

Well today around 2pm I finally made the right moves and the right decisions on Lay Lake. I found a spotted bass bite that is pretty astonishing, my partner and I are really hoping it holds for the tournament that starts Thursday! We caught about 25 keepers, but this was with running new water duplicating the things we found the fish on, marking a waypoint after a fish or two, and shaking off LOTS of fish. We probably would have had close to 15lbs of fish today, the biggest was a hair under 20", we also had two 18", and several 15-17" fish. These fish might fight harder than smallmouth! I will fill in with many more details after we hopefully continue with this bite through the tournament. This guy was mean enough to eat a catfish at some point!

Yesterday I was fishing a lake that is always very kind to me. It was cold, windy, and raining on and off. I was fishing for bass and was on a good shallow spinnerbait bite when this happened: My first ever Tiger Muskie The fish swiped at my spinnerbait right next to the boat once, and I missed him. I continued to cast in the same spot and maybe 5 casts later he nailed it again and this time I got him. Not a huge one, but I was so stoked and I got to cross off another bucket-list species. Such a beautiful looking fish. Also got plenty of decent bass, mostly on the spinnerbait. Good day of fishing despite lousy weather.

I see a lot of anglers here looking for good tackle but are on a restrictive budget, and I include myself in this segment. I lost buying power after I became sick and was no longer able to do the kind of work I use to do, so in order to get the best bang for my buck I developed a little strategy to help. The very first thing you need to do is sign up for emails from all the major online stores, TW, American Legacy, another site, Fish USA, etc., you will get notice of sales before they happen. The next thing you need to do is pay attention to ICAST by watching the videos from here or places like TW or Tackle Direct and make note of the things you need. ICAST is important because when a rod or reel series gets refreshed you will find last years model being sold at discount at all the major stores. Once you start seeing the discounts on the things you need stay patient, often the first discounts will be small but as the new stuff begins arriving room will need to be made and the discounts will get very good sometimes more than 50% difference. The one drawback is you can wait too long and end up missing out but that only happens with certain items. Restrict your buying to sale times and make note of prices before hand, places like Cabela's will often have sale items that look good but in truth they simply made the original price higher to make it look as if it was on sale, I've caught both them and Bass Pro doing this multiple times. By saving your money and only buying during sale times and by watching ICAST you will end up with better tackle for cheap, every year I end up with at least 1 killer deal, a few years back I got a nice spinning rod from American Legacy, a Lews HM85, the retail on them was $199.99 and I ended up paying $79.99 because Lews was revamping the entire line. I've also filled up a lot of crankbait boxes with the same system, and this is why you sign up for the emails, yes you will get a few extra emails every month but it will be worth it. A lot of these places will get a lot of certain items, items that were hot and dsales have cooled down and you'll get an email about an impromptu sale, things like Lucky Craft square bills for $7.99 or the Xcalibur XCS when they were being discontinued and they were reduced to $4.99 in a lot of places. There are even bigger discounts at times but you need to have the money and be ready for when it happens and you do that by trying to avoid impulse shopping. Almost all of my rod purchases come in the late winter, when stores are getting ready for an increase in spring demand so some older inventory is drastically reduced. And I also buy at the end of summer, late August through September, this is when products from ICAST begin to show up so stores need room for new stuff and depending on the item your savings can be massive, to give an example one of my square bill boxes cost me $142 roughly to fill but when I added up the retail costs it would have been $400 and change, baits that are normally $8 - $12 that I grabbed for $4 - $8, and last week our local Cabela's had a sale on the discontinued Clackin' Crank from Rapala, the square bills were being sold for $3.99 when that bait retailed for $9.99 at one time, it was a great buy for those that at fans of that series. So that is how I go about purchasing my tackle nowadays, when I get a gift card or some extra cash it wants to burn a hole in my pocket but I put it aside and wait, yes it is painful at first but if you can resist you will be rewarded with more and better tackle, good luck.

My new setup is finally complete. Got to take her for a test drive the other day and it was just as good as I had hoped. My DC735 + Zillion SV TW and DX704 + Shimano Exsence DC setups have both been demoted from my top rod combos and replaced with this guy. There will always be a special place in my heart for the DC735 (probably one of the best overall jig rods I've used), but this new one takes the cake. I got some HedgeHog Kattobi spool bearings on their way too for this guy. Already put new bearings in the handles when I changed them out.

2-11 fatty yesterday during my lunch break

Up north is a little different. With all respect to @Catt, transitional periods can really mess with you. Spring smallmouth on Oneida, or fall largemouth the bays of Lake Ontario are two situations where searching comes into play for my fishing. These are natural lakes, loaded with prime structural features. Sometime, take a spin around Sodus Bay or Oneida on the Navionics web app, and you'll see what I mean. Where to start? The hot bite in fall might be in the River for Oneida. It might be 5 miles away. Whip out twenty or thirty casts with a bait that covers water, catch an aggressive bass, and start collecting clues and evidence. I've learned my lesson on being married to structure during transitional periods, and even lost my butt in a few fall tournaments, because I was drowning jigs and worms where there weren't any fish. My stubbornness didn't help either. That said, when you are in a well established summer pattern, know the local bass haunts, then the idea of searching makes little sense. I guess I can see covering water with a "search bait" when fish are scattered on a large flat. But are you really searching? You already know they're on that flat. This topic got interesting, real quick.

Got this today at cabelas/DSG, total came out to around $14 or so. Now that I think about it, probably should have gotten some more cranks, along with some storm arashi's considering they were only $3!

Welp, I did it: Talked to Gary at TT and he thought that the Tout Versatile was the best rod from the Orochi XX line for what I was looking to do, so long as I was reasonable in my expectations for the lower end of the range. Having only had cast it around the yard for about an hour, I am impressed! A 5" senko will load the tip, but no deeper. It will fling one pretty far and I can make short range roll casts with what I think, with practice, acceptable accuracy. One the high end of the range, a 1.25oz total weight jig, cast very well and pitches like a dream. I will say that my thumb is not at all used to casting lures of this weight and once I actually released the lure about 10' out on my back-cast. I spent the most time with a 3/4oz jig and it really shines there. Very easy and smooth to cast. I ruined a jig pitching and casting it at the trees along my driveway. I am so excited to get this thing out on Saturday!

Yup, overthinking it > How would you know if bass are eating bluegills? > Is there anytime when bass won't eat bluegills? Roger

A pencil, run through the spool of line, clamped in my toes. Never have to look to hard to find it.

Well after hearing about them forever and getting a stupid good deal from dicks (20 bucks each)...I caved

Mobility and simplicity rule from the bank, IMO. One outfit, all the time, every time, and whatever fits in my pockets for tackle. Which outfit is based on season, as well as expected weather and water conditions.

Evidence that "long arming fish" has been around for a while.

got eight more this evening to add to a great week of evenings ,all 2 to 3 1/2 lb plus this monster bluegill

A NJ evening Fatty.

Watched the motor jump off the back of a river boat on a guided trip on the White River, AR once. The guy hit a rock when we shot the gap in some rapids. He had to be close to 80. By some miracle the fuel line stayed connected and I was able to haul the motor back into the boat. My buddy and I spent the last 3 hours of our trip pulling his boat against the current in our waders. At the ramp he actually still tried to tell us we owed him for the trip

Caught my first fish on a crankbait tonight. Kind of unexpected. The wind whipped us into this cove and we were ready to call it, but we kind of casted around for a bit. It was a slow enough day to get me to try a crankbait (tried spinnerbait, drop shot, senkos, soft jerkbait). It was not a significant catch whatsoever, but it got me wondering what you guys do to catch fish on crankbaits in weedy lakes? I can never tick the bottom because I just get grass on my first few cranks, and there are hardly any rocks on the lakes I fish. It seems to be all grass and no bass. Thoughts?

Lead is cheap, easy to work with, and dense, so in that respect it is the perfect choice for sinkers and lures. Unfortunatelly, its also a very toxic metal that we as anglers are continually depositing in the environment to the detriment of the health of humans and other creatures. We aren't going to find a material that will rival lead in cost. What will drive down the price of alternate materials is a ban, which will bring innovation and scale in the production of lead free products.

The problem is 2-fold. The first thing is the density, the ultra steel and tin don't have the same density as lead so comparable weight sizes in those forms tend to be pretty large. The second is cost of raw material, I purchase hard lead through a place called Rotometals, lead is around $2.00 - $2.25 per pound most places, the tin/bismuth alloy that is often used is $14.00 - $14.75 per pound. Right there is a cost difference of 7 times as much, and buying in bulk only lowers it slightly and we all know Tungstun is better but that is even higher in cost because the manufacturing process is more involved along with material cost. So I hate to be the bearer of bad news but unless lead is banned in every state, or a majority of them, then there won't be many alternatives and the costs associated with them are still going to be high for quite some time. While there is increased demand the simple fact is that it isn't even close to be able to effectively lower the price, and my guess is that even is it would end up lower, it will still be a minimum 3 to 4 times the price of lead so having something even close to the price of a lead jig will probably never happen.

FREE TACOS!

The Jackall is nice, it's a 1/2oz but a much smaller profile than normal 1/2oz buzzbaits.

What a great game....

Bamabass pays a yearly fee to fish the private lakes he has access to. Learning about lures from him is as useless as learning about lures from Bill Dance on his stocked ponds. Why people follow him for advice blows my mind.

I have both and the MHR is pretty much a fast action. I use it for spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, topwater and bigger lipless cranks. You can use it for jigs etc. without an issue as well. The 7'1" xf is just an awsome rod. I have 2 and got a Cronos in the same action. Kind of at the lower end of medium heavy I think with the light tip but plenty of backbone. I really love the original Tatula rods, great bang for the buck. When the local BPS was dumping Daiwa I grabbed 6 assorted for less than $100 each including another 7'4" frog rod which is also a great rod.

cgolf: Here in MA, lead weights or jigs under one ounce are a no-no. My approach is to purchase from vendors that carry non-lead products. Nothing gets a vendor's attention like customer support. And it is tough to find appropriate equipment, I admit, but I did find Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp Tin Bass Jigs at Dick's Sporting Goods for about $3.50 each and I can say from experience that the green pumpkin with a 3-inch Chigger Craw catch fish ... well, until I set the hook on a many-pound obstruction and lost it! Will be trying black/red and black/blue. The price is less than many other tungsten jigs although I do intend to make a small order from Siebert Outdoors. I e-mailed them regarding their tungsten products and got a very helpful response very quickly which gives me faith in their customer service (something that is critical to me). I am hopeful that vendors will expand their selections of tungsten, bismuth, and other ecologically friendly products as demand increases. By the way, I got the steel sinkers at Walmart too and while bulky, they work. I'm debating whether or not to paint them to make them less obtrusive. And, as I mentioned in another forum, I suggest getting a small kitchen magnet to help sort the steel from the lead. Might even help if a game warden happens to ask about your sinkers and jig heads.

I have a sportsrig trailer myself. I looked at the harbor freight deals and wasn't impressed. I went with a trailer designed for kayaks etc.. instead of a utility trailer designed for having heavier loads. This one uses motorcycle suspension and larger tires to handle lighter weight loads with no bouncing around. They aren't cheap by any means but i have zero complaints with mine and can see it lasting a long time.

This is my very high tech version. It's risky though as I didn't dispose of the TW box and the evidence may be found by the wife

After you launch and head to the no wake on the left that separates the two main parts of the lake, the area on the right of that no wake zone(before you get through it) is a large weed flat that drops off to about 12ft of water. I crush in that area most of the season. If you continue thru the no wake zone and get into the other large part of the lake, stay on the far right shoreline. I am sorry I don't know if it is the south or west shoreline. Lucky Craft LV's, swim jigs and 6" works have always done well for me. I can't seem to catch a cold by all of the docks. So I stopped trying over there.

I don't think so. I think it is going to be a sweep. GS looks real tight on both ends of the court. It kind of ruins basketball for me. How is a team expected to compete against a stacked team like that. Meanwhile I'm still stuck here in Philly trusting the process.

Read this over and over. It's a good primer. I always add this to any night fishing thread; Be durn sure you know your water well as It's very different at night. Lastly, wear your PFD. If you take nothing else I say In any post please take this to heart. WEAR YOUR PFD, DAY OR NIGHT!

Most of the places I fish in the Grand Rapids area are spawning or post-spawn now, with temps in the mid/upper 60s, but it's still quite variable lake to lake. Three of the better ones over the last few weeks: :

Search bait? This is what I search with

I'm actually searching for the location of the fish. Fan casting at the front, are they shallow, deep, or both. Spinnerbaits and rattle traps are my favorite. Once I determine it's one or the other, I'll keep fishing that bait until it stops producing, or is only producing small fish. Then I'll slow down with a jig or plastic. I most often go through this when I don't what is going on, and I have guest(s) in the boat that aren't as proficient at casting. That way I can get them on fish.

Everstart deep cycle marine battery, group 29DC is $99 right at your price point and a decent battery that you can return to Walmart anywhere. Tom

This I do believe is on the rise. As the popularity has boomed, I see a lot of stupid/dangerous activity on the water. The main thing is as simple as wearing a PFD.

Just more sensationalist click bait. I haven't seen any evidence that the accident rate has gone up.

My best fish so far this year, caught this past weekend on topwater. 6.37 lbs.

I was contacted by a guy in Morocco about how to find a small outboard using Side Imaging that had accidently been dropped overboard while trying to mount it on his sardine fishing boat.

My wife works every other weekend so if I want to go fishing without getting the stink eye the boys going with me!

Some more for you lmb since I got a small order or parts today in the mail.

I buy things as the monkey commands me to. No real rhyme or reason, I just see fishing gear on sale, everything goes dark, then when I wake up all my money is gone and there's banana peels everywhere.

45 yrs ago Leo Kissinger a guide on Toledo Bend told me for every bass you catch on the bank there are 5 behind you waiting to be caught! I would be willing to bet 80% of the members here can not find or fish offshore structure! I normally prefer fishing during the full moon vs. the new moon even though the gravitational pull is three times greater during the new moon. It is more difficult to fish a new moon because it is harder to keep your boat off of stumps. And it is harder for the bass & angler to connect. If I fish a new moon I will usually fish open water and avoid shoreline areas. The light from the full moon illuminates the bait against the surface for more contrast. Night fishing areas: I normally fish the same areas fished during the day with one exception; night lighted areas. Lighted docks, lighted boat ramps, a row of camps with lights along the bank or a single camp with a light near the water. I know a killer spot on Toledo Bend where a road parallels the water's edge with several streetlights within 10 yards of the water. These lighted areas are also productive during a new moon and should be fished thoroughly. Shallow verses deep water: I have not noticed a distinct advantage one way or the other. I will normally fish both areas thoroughly staying with the one that produces the best results. However shallow water does offer a greater opportunity to use different lures. Darkness covers up an angler's presence and most of all his mistakes.

I"m no expert, either. But, I can't help liking that sentence.

Same places I fish during the day