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There are a number of threads here on the BR forum that include 'rod warranty' stories. Some positive - some not so much. Here's a positive one. While fishing in Mexico earlier this month, I had a St Croix Travel rod blank fail on a hook set (from a surprisingly small bass). This has happened in the past and the first time St Croix replaced them under warranty. Since then, most all of these rods have failed in a similar fashion. I no longer ask to replace them as I've decided to go another direction for my travel rod needs. Instead, I've utilized the Gold Star Up Grade Program - including today. As required by St Croix, I sent them the damaged rod along with the required documents (proof of purchase & a short note describing what happened along with my up grade rod request / selection. Spoke to Gretchen at St Croix today - who said that they had received the rod. (took about a week) St Croix reimbursed full credit for the damage/exploded Tidemaster rod towards the newest 2018 Legend Tournament Jig rod - They are spinning me up a new one - should be here right after the new year - cost me $20 bucks in return shipping - I'd say that's fair. It should be noted here that the two rods (the damaged & replacement rod) had / have the same MSRP. As a faithful St Croix customer, I have 'several' rods from a variety of their rod lines - these travel rods Are The Only Ones I've ever had to mail back. While each rod warranty situation is different, the few times I've had dealings with St Croix, the interactions have always been friendly, professional and super easy. They have met or exceeded my 'customer satisfaction' level every time. So if this is something that is important to you as a potential customer - I'd say buy with confidence. While I hope you never have to use their warranty program, rest assured that if you do, they'll be there. YMMV A-Jay

Not bad first hour in the late afternoon. Waded about thigh deep until my boots took on too much cold water and my feet started to freeze. I may not even touch a crank again until Spring. The t-rig is so productive right now for me.

Water temps 44 degrees and change, but they're still biting. We'll be catching them with ice on the lake in about another week to 10 days.

Crappie bite still going strong here...

My sisters 9 lb 28 inch wiper.

Bottom structure matters. You're looking for smaller interesting elements in much larger elements. Look below. I have like 50 waypoints in this area. Some are catches, others are definite things like rock piles, boulders, or sink holes that the map won't show. There's a even a patch of weeds that used to grow back every year. It hasn't in a while. All those waypoints describe a a path that bait and predators use. Find a large area like this, and start to define your search boundaries, and it becomes a little less confusing. I pretty much use 25-30' line as my "beach." I'm thinking that you'll probably scale that down, but the idea is similar. Fish are sometimes suspended, but usually very close to the bottom. If you can find that breakline between muddy and clear, and there's bait around? You're going to destroy the smallies, lol. Good luck, hope it helps. We got all winter ti think about this!

Hey guys just uploaded a new video tossing around a whopper plopper 130 for river smallmouth. Size dont matter to these fish. Nothing like a topwater strike from a smallmouth especially river fish. Check out the video below.

Thanks for the input everyone. I contacted my local DNR and a fisheries biologist got back to me. The fish is apparently a goldfish several generations wild. Subsequent generations tend to lose their bright colors. I thought that was pretty neat.

These guys are still keeping me busy, but I don't mind

Caught way more bass than I expected to yesterday, considering I set out to chase wipers. Those weren't cooperating like I'd hoped so I chased the green ones while looking for lost baits. Found 14 baits, including a Pompadour Jr, and caught one of the fattest/thickest bass I've ever caught on a homemade finesse brush jig. Only 16 3/4" long, but 3.26 pounds. Caught several nice ones on a wart my buddy painted up for me.

Finally got my baits in from Phil 2 custom painted lunker punkers

I like to get my fish in the boat. If I was purely in this for the fight, I'd be targeting something other than LMB.

BIG girl time on Fork. It's like swimbait fishing - you won't get as many bites but the ones you do get will be quality. As mentioned the road beds & creek channels close to deep water can be key. I always have a 1/2 oz black n blue jig with a blue sapphire trailer or a 1/2 oz white/black hair jig with a 4" pearl grub trailer tied on. My PB came on the latter at Fork in Feb - 27 degress & sleeting lol. I've had my best luck pitching to the stumps lining both. As they move up, they seem to like that cover. Good luck!

Fishing can be good in Dale Creek too! We always stay at K.C. Log cabin in Dale creek and have caught many a bass within sight out the cabin.

Grumpy old man describes me perfectly according to my wife. I am very much a music buff. And, I don't think any of us care if you listen to music any time. But a lot of us do not want to have to listen to your music. To me, it is the height of rudeness. It's one thing to have to endure at a traffic light, or at a busy public park in the summer....but out on the water, where sound carries like no place else on earth...where fishing, by definition, is an experience that involves close relationship with nature...few things tick me off more while fishing. On a very busy lake or river with lots of 'pleasure craft' passing, it is annoying, but almost tolerable....on a body of water that is largely used by fisherman, kayakers, canoers, etc...it is miserable.

I've only fished Indiana once and I have no problem believing that as fact. Our bass actually rarely school in large numbers except during the summer when the young of the year shad school up, but they're very difficult to catch when that happens. They'll also group up during the winter months, which is when Ned seems to most often hit his goal. I've found them in large schools in the power plant lakes during the winter time. I think most often it's so effective because our fish feed shallow and our lakes offer little cover so the targets are very obvious so cast-to-catch time is very short. I've noticed in most of my videos that my time from cast to when I release the fish is often no longer than 30 seconds. Even a large fish will be under a minute unless I weigh and/or take pictures of it.

Fishing a jig uphill in snag prone structure or cover isn't easy for anyone because the line tends to go inbetween rocks and wedges in tree or brush branches, the jig follows the line and gets hung up. You have a few choices, use a lighter jig with a head design to reduce snags and don't try to force the jig loose by pulling harder. Try casting at a angle so the jig comes more across or side hill instead of directly uphill. When you feel the line or jig starting to snag stop and try holding the rod high shaking the rod tip into slightly slack line to jiggle it loose. Anyone who claims they don't snag jigs working them uphill must be fishing in a swimming pool. Tom PS, rocks don't move.

NHBull, l couldn't agree more. I've had a radio on boatd for 20 years, and XM for the last 13 years. I enjoy list listing to NASCAR, football game, and the news, I aim to keep it down as to not disturb anyone near by. I've used a good all weather speakers like that are on the exterior of most campers now days with out any issues. Happy listing on your new Lund

I just thought I would take the time to say that this thread caused me to go out and catch my very first jig fish yesterday. It wasn’t much but I caught it dragging a brown football head with a green pumpkin menace after I had located some active fish with a jerkbait

Just tie on 30' of 1/8 dia Nylon cord to the lure knocker, nothing to break and simply wind it around your hand with a couple of half hitches to store it. I have done this for over 40 years. Tom

Golfing...I thought golfers just lost their balls. Tom

The irony is that 10+ years of grappling didn't do it, getting rear ended leaving the gym did. At least I can still say I never really took up golf

Co-anglers have found it to be no 'big' deal...

Interesting concept Steve ~ Be interested to find out what any of your co-anglers might think about the sudden & most unexpected appearance of your 'applicator' . . . A-Jay

I'm going to also vote for east TN. I have within 2 1/2 hours drive, 14 different TVA lakes. They offer a little bit of everything clear, deep, rocky to shallow and weedy. They also stock trout in the creeks and streams. I lived in NE Ohio for about 35 years. The summers near Lake Erie were hot and miserable compared to what I have experienced in East TN. It's all about the humidity and I believe it is better here than it was near Lake Erie. The biggest surprise in TN was the people, d**n are they friendly here. I do not miss the traffic, the stop and go on the freeway or the rude people. Never once have I been inclined to go back there for anything more than a 1 week vacation.

Boat stereos should be for ski boats or pontoon boats only, they are as annoying as their owners. Another vote for earbuds. Repeat after me, "No one else is interested in listening to your music". Plus a speaker system built into or touching your hull transmits vibrations into the water. Ok if you are trying to catch heavy metal hair fish, notsomuch for other species.

It sounds nuts until you look at most any states electrofishing results and see them shocking up anywhere between 50-200 bass an hour. You quickly realize catching that many fish isn't quite as impossible as it first might sound, especially when size plays no part in the equation. On time to C&R, only 15-20 seconds much of the time. Casting and retrieving usually takes up the most time. Hooking, landing and releasing is the easy part.

I fish a big body of water for smallmouth - Lake Ontario. It's all about locating bait fish, not bass themselves. Bass can be scattered on seemingly uninteresting structural components, but if there are bait fish, and I mean carpets of them, there will be feeding bass. On the graph, it almost appears like they craw out of the woodwork to take your bait. Use the 200 mghz setting for a narrow cone, and get the sensitivity dialed in to be able to see your weight and the worm clearly. You'll see the fish approach, and shortly after feel them take the bait. Reel into them with a light snap set, and it's on. Good luck.

Olathe was really good yesterday. 23 bass, half a dozen wipers, more crappie than any one person really needs to catch, couple bluegill, and a channel cat. One of the bass was crazy thick, 16 3/4" and 3.26 pounds. They were knocking slack in the line on the wart.

...And to think, these poor bass have been living and evolving for hundreds of thousands of years, and only now, thanks to Strike King, do they realize they like coffee aroma, and what they've been missing all this time.

I can't use any bait that has a garlic scent. It makes me too hungry. I forget about fishing and head straight to Olive Garden.

It was a good weekend for big "other" fish. Monday I had 3 trout over 4 pounds, including a 6.31 and 6.76 pound rainbow off the same spot on the same bait. I'm still not convinced it wasn't the same fish, just not sure how to account for the half a pound it would have had to gain the 5 minutes between catches. Tuesday I was after wipers and they showed up big time. I caught several, had a giant straighten a 4X strong #4 treble on my jigging spoon, and broke my lake PB twice, first with an 8.22, then a crazy fat 9.04. A "little" 6.5 The 8.22 that was almost digesting my jigging rap shad. and the 9.04 that was about as tall as it was long and super thick.

Thanks Man! Those fish were ferocious. Had a few others like the last one that went 4lbs bit threw the hook. Oh well. This river is where my love for bass fishing began at around 10 years old.

I will second your solid recommendation of St Croix. I have used their warranty program several times, all but one my own fault, so I gladly paid the greatly reduced fee for a new rod. The one time a rod broke while actually fishing, the only thing I had to pay was the shipping to St Croix, and even that was reduced through their FedEx shipping plan. Their customer service is top notch!

Picked up Panoptix PS22 transducer to go with my 1042xsv... “a drop-shotting video game at its finest!”

^^^I like those pull ups bud!! Nice deep stretch, no swing, no cheat at all! Those are the ones that count right there.

sounds like a bunch of grumpy non music liking fishermen on here. I am not a music buff by any means, don't own a pair of ear buds, my iphone has 0 songs on it. Pretty rare for a 28 year old like myself. But when we are on the Missouri river setting catfish lines, or bowfishing, or watching fireworks on fourth of july some music would be nice. Or after bass fishing all morning maybe I want to go in the middle of the lake and kick back for awhile. Definitely not going to be listening to music while trolling the banks bass fishing. I will look into the bluetooth speakers, I will have to get some music on my phone though. Would prefer to have the option of just radio, of course there is probably ways of getting radio on my phone, then bluetooth it to the speaker.

So how did you do?

all we ask in return is let us know when you find a big school of hungry bass!!!!

My boat, my rules! i like listening to music on the ride out and on the return....not so much while fishing. i usually listen to both types.....county and western, and if my buddy doesn’t like it he can buy his own boat.! ?

That's what sold the wife and I. Been down a couple/few weekends to check it out....haven't found one person who wasn't friendly...and I've been known to bring out the unfriendly in people at times

Come to Virginia!!! Avoid northern VA (aka NOVA) as the traffic and cost of living is ridiculous. I'd recommend central to south west VA. You can get multiple acres of land on the cheap and still be within 30-45 mins of Richmond. Within a couple hour drive you have an unbeatable array of species you can target: James River - Largemouth, Smallmouth, Stripers, Blue Catfish (100+ lbs), Walleye (yep), American and Hickory Shad run in the spring Like to fly fish? stocked trout streams in the mountains, muskie in the Shenandoah Inshore fishing - Rappahannock/Piankatank/Chesapeake Bay - redfish, sea trout, striped bass, croaker, cobia! Offshore Fishing - Hampton Roads/Va Beach - tuna, marlin, 50 inch red drum, black drum, tilefish, flounder A dozen public impoundments with great bass fishing - check out Wayne P.'s posts here on Briery and Sandy Creek near Farmville. 50+ fish in a day with multiples over 5lbs common. 10lbers occasionally. Smith Mtn Lake/Lake Gaston/Lake Anna/Lake Chesdin Plus farm ponds everywhere.

Clearly Father Time is Unbeaten – but I have no plans to make it easy for him . . . Here's part of this mornings upper body training - working the back. A-Jay

Your doc can also give you the 7 day steroid pack to jumpstart the recovery. Pills won’t work if you don’t solve the problem or do the work to get better

This is my 146. It looks like yours dwarfs mine by 10-20 inches. Maybe I'm going crazy. Great deer regardless. Congrats

Dee Thomas is shorter than 5’9” and flipped with 14’ rods. longer flipping or pitching rods are a big advantage. Keep in mind the longer rods have longer handles moving the reel seat forward so the rod length in front of the reel isn’t inch to inch length increase. Tom

I think length should be what you're comfortable with. The 6'6"-7'6" is simply a ballpark range. Longer rods help with casting distance and line pick up. Shorter rods gain you accuracy and maneuverability. I am 5'10". I have four rods ranging from 6'6"-6'10". Any longer does not feel right to me. Just preference.

Good suggestion for a high end jig rod. Would love to have that stick someday. BTW, nice tardigrade photo.

Reality Check ? The Jig is one of the most productive lures for fishing heavy cover of any type known to anglers. The Jig is one of the most productive lures for catching larger than average bass. But despite its pure awesomeness the angler must keep in mind there will be days when the bass simply do not want a jig. So to all the young anglers (not chronological but experientially) struggling when casting, flipping, pitching, or punching with the Awesome Jig keep in mind there will be times when the Jig aint gonna be that AWESOME.

Good choice with the NRX 853c. Not sure what to think of the Enigma, it's a mystery....