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My 90-year-old father is going in for spine surgery on his neck to relieve constricted nerves. That's a pretty tricky surgery for somebody his age. He could end up paralyzed. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. He could use all the help he can get. Thanks! Glenn

The porch Christmas tree!

Fished the last 1 1/2 hours of the day. Warm, clear , and calm weather. Got 3 on the bama craw dinger, all while reeling slowly on top. Something told me to put on a magnum speed worm ( june bug ) , and I fished it through and around a deep hole with no success. Turned around and threw in between 2 big eel grass beds. After several casts turning from left to right , I got a violent strike , and after a very hard fight, got a 21 inch fish. It was just shy of 4 pounds.On the very next cast , I got a 19.5 inch fish that was 3.5 . Lost 2 more, 1 at the boat that was 2.5 to 3. I will be fishing the magnum SW more often!!

Hey guys, We'll be updating the forums soon, and one of the security updates removes the ability to log in with your Display Name. After the update, you must sign in with your email address. I highly advise you start doing that now! Many of you don't even recall what email address you used to sign up, and you'll be screwed when the change takes effect. So check it now, and start using it when you log in.

Same video popped up in my feed, they look very good. I was tempted to pick some up in 1/2 ounce but I couldn't justify it over the Jackhammers. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts/seeing your success on them, though. Would be interesting to see if these make their way over to the US. Also I lied in my last post, the bait monkey tricked me again today, but I got a good deal out of it. On my way to lunch I stopped into Dick's, not generally a fan of them since they are basically a clothing store now, but I did want to see if they were running their Buy 5 Get 5 free deal and they were. Picked up a mess of Vision 110s and 110 Jrs, a couple of PopMax (blaming @A-Jay for how much he talks it up, fingers crossed I have some success), and a couple of Provokes in the 106 and 97 sizes. All on clearance, and with the B5G5 the Vision 110s came out to 9 bucks each and Jrs were 7.50ish. Color selection left much to be desired but these'll get bit in my waters for sure. All in all retail price + tax wouldv'e been ~460, I walked out with it for 193. It's not buying out the entire Bantam market supply, but I'm happy with that.

Silly me.

Once a year? I bank fish quite often & I ain't talking pond with well manicured lawns. I'm walking through chest high vegetation, up under cypress trees, knee deep marsh mud. I pay special attention to the worm gear area after each trip, making sure its free of any dust & dirt. I'll give the thumb bar area a little love.

I've owned v-hulls, including a 14' Lund with a 10 hp motor, which I used to fish big water like Lakes Superior and Michigan, and several 12-footers with a 6 hp engine, which were great Mississippi River boats. To be frank, I don't miss batteries and oil and gas and electronics and engine noise and yanking that pull cord, again and again and again, one bit. Because I don't need a ramp to launch my canoes, I can fish quiet water where there are no engines, which matters a lot to me. I know for some of you who fish big water, you need a big engine, but if you fished a canoe, you could fish small water where you wouldn't need an engine. Maybe you don't have small water opportunities. In Maine, you don't have to drive far before you see a bog on the side of the road. So, have you ever considered fishing from a canoe? Do you already and if so, where do you use it? If you wouldn't even consider a canoe, why not? Too small? Too tippy? Too slow? Too uncomfy? On the other hand, canoes have taken me to places like this, which is a lake in northwestern Ontario that will never see a bass boat: I literally have caught tens of thousands of lmb, smb, muskies, walleyes, and pike out of canoes. They are fish-catching machines because they're quiet and go everywhere. I'm surprised more of you don't add one to your bag of tools. I know @A-Jay has both a bass boat and a canoe and has used both to outstanding and specific effect. Any others? Lastly, look at the bass in my avatar. She was one of more than ten four-plus-pounders I caught that morning, at a place even a kayak would have been hard-put to reach, unless you're willing to carry your kayak down a steep slope of bowling ball-sized rocks and mud. I could do that with my 32-lb. canoe. #olswampylovesherthreecanoes

Growing up in the marshes/swamps of Southwest Louisiana I've spent many hours pushpoling a pirogue. Don't take long to figure out a Jon Boat fit in the bed of a pickup truck, a outboard laid in the bottom of the boat, could be launched anywhere, & was way more comfortable. Got a trailer now, bigger outboard, & a trolling motor.

Yup, deep clean once a year....and some of those reels are freshwater reels used exclusively for saltwater fishing. To your point @Catt, the saltwater reels get a thorough rinsing with fresh water after every use. Dried with an 18V leaf blower and the worm gear & thumb bar get a drop of oil. Bearings I oil every 3 or 4 trips. Been doing it for years. The deep clean after the season is more than enough. I will make 1 caveat, my work schedule only has me at a weekend angler, so probably not fishing as much as I'd like or as many as our members here. I'm sure more time on the water will have me cleaning more often...I just don't know, I've never experienced it. After 6 months they're outdated anyway ....

I'm guessing Ben and some of his fanboys have read this thread. I think Ben would like it, thinking that "even bad press is good press," but his followers might be less than pleased. I just know that he's clickbaity and clickbait is a pebble in my shoe.

Yule is here - so my gifting from Spencer has been opened. A few Mike Siebert jigs, some worm weights and a nice selection of plastics....all of this will get use this coming year, thanks man.

Me in my natural environment. It's much more fun upstream of there though 😃

I have a canoe, and a 12 ft John boat. I fish from both. My canoe is a 17ft square back, made by Osagian Canoe, in Lebanon Mo.I have a trailer for it. It's called the Osagian river model, and is about 4ft wide in the center. Very stable to fish from. I can launch and load by myself. I like it. Canoes are old school, and I like old school stuff. The Missouri Ozarks also has a rich history of canoeing. My canoe came from this area.

I did the canoe thing up north but down here when I tried it, it was too much trouble given the high traffic volume on my lakes. So I went and built Bass Trek starting with an old 3-seat fishing boat. My canoe was pretty tricked out too.

A little bit of service this morning. I got some Shimano ACE-0, many of the Japanese swear by it with their small Ambassadeurs so I had to see what the hype was all about. I'll say, pretty impressive! The gearbox is now exceptionally quiet and the cranking action is super smooth. I emailed Shimano this morning to see if I can get it in a one pound tub, thinking this will be my go-to for the foreseeable future.

Truth be told bulldog, I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a reel

Yep

Even a worm that was brand new when this thread was started is old school now. 😆

I caved! I couldn't wait any longer! Thank you, Santa, whoever you are! But going out on a limb, using some ninja investigation skills, I'm going to say thank you @Glenn for the very thoughtful gift! I hope I got that right! There are some very cool baits in there, thank you.

watch glen's video for one if you haven't already. Then I'd recommend watching one for how fish finders actually work and what they are good for showing (and what they aren't good for showing). A couple basics: - A total fish finder setup means a head unit, a transducer, a mount, and a battery. - Live imaging you can be sitting still for. For basically all other bass fishing purposes you need to be moving for the fish finder to give you any type of useful image. Yes it will display an image, but its just taking repeated snapshots of what's directly below you and not a scan of the surrounding area. So keep that in mind- for your fish finder to be useful it means using it while you're paddling along ideally at a constant-ish speed. - Mega live (and live scope and panoptix) are transducers. They are live imaging transducers. Terms like mega SI/DI, triple shot, split shot, and 3-in-1 are the common names for the non live imaging transducers from the various manufacturer. - what imaging type you get will depend on what you buy. Since you mentioned ML2 I'll use Humminbird terminology (with which I am familiar). Side imaging (SI), Down imaging (DI), 2D/Chirp, and GPS are the main features in the head units as you would get them out of a box (let's leave out 360 and Live for a minute). HBird starts with Chirp + GPS. The next status up is Di which includes Chirp and GPS. Then SI includes Di, Chirp, and GPS. SI is the most fully features model. You will also see reference to Mega and '+' in the descriptions which are references to the higher frequencies available on those models and which are depenent on the transducer and not as much the head unit. If you buy a SI unit, then you will have all of the other views available as well. - Mega Live and 360 Imaging are add on transducers. In theory you could buy a control head only (no transducer) which is Si capable and add on ML/360 and in that case you would NOT have side/down imaging though your unit would be capable. You just wouldn't have the transducer for it. In practice, so long as the head unit you buy comes with a transducer then that won't happen. Now to your specifics. What do you want to do with the fish finder? what are you expecting it to do for your fishing? Those answers will inform what you need. I'm going to say that you almost certainly don't need to spend $5k and you most probably don't need 2 head units. For a kayak, the 7-9" size is a pretty big unit but still decently manageable. As you start to get bigger you start to need specialized mounts and the total weight of the head unit gets to be a lot. Even going from 7" to 9" is a huge jump in size. Bigger screens are nice if you're trying to split it 3 ways and still have a big SI or Live image. If you're using live imaging and trying to scan out to 75' in 30' of water while watching a 3" bait then a big screen would be nice. Outside of those scenarios, a 9" screen can do a ton and be very clear. You asked about vegetation. You're in CT and your waters are a lot like mine. I'm going to say that the answer to your question is 'no'- they aren't going to pick up bass in vegetation the way I think you're thinking about it. I might be interpreting you wrong, but if you have a grass bed on a big flat you're asking if it will show you were in that grass bed the fish are. The answer is no. Think of the transducer as a flashlight. From where you're sitting right now, look around the room and pick out a couple objects between you and the wall. Now shine your flashlight at the wall. The objects are clumps of grass. Do the objects block the light from shining behind them on the wall? What if there was a fish behind that object, would it be lit up with the flashlight? That's how sonar works. The beams get blocked by whatever they hit. They can't see behind objects. If the fish is in front of the grass in the open then it might be able to pick it out. If its inside the edge of the grass, then depending on how thick the grass is you probably won't see the fish. Below are two examples. the top is a split screen of down/chirp/side imaging. The second is live from the same place. That grass is 5-6' from bottom to top. Notice you can't see 'inside' of the grass in any of the images (yes, the 2D is 'hot' and could be better). There are certainly fish in there (I caught some skimming the top of it). If the grass is thinner, then you might be able to pick out fish. The image below is a pretty heavy crop from a bigger picture, but you can see the sparseness of the grass in the down imaging (blue) on the left of the image and you might be able to pick up fish in that. The heavier grass on the right (which you can see in the SI on top) you couldn't pick one out. So relying on your FF to pick up fish IN grass isn't something I would do.

Everything. And I could add additional items to the wishlist, then to cart, and it would receive the discount. THEN after messing around I realized that once the code was entered, anything I added straight to my cart would be discounted. Didn't even need the wishlist function. My email said the sale runs through Dec 24 so you might still have time to give it a shot.

The key issue can be summed up in 1 word…..Intent…..Did he intend to deceive or was it a simple oversight. All of the rest of the comments of “I dislike him because” or “ I like him because” are just inflections of personal opinions which sway the individual to assume his intent. If he thought his license was valid, and had no intention to deceive, he would have filled out the form that way. If he knew his license was expired and filled out the form knowing that, then he intended to deceive.

I don’t know if they make those fur hats in my size 😅 I fished a small tournament last Saturday, last one of the year. It was a weird bite for me. I struggled to get bit on a jerkbait like I planned on and my Ned rig fish were tiny. Water temps were 40-42, so I switched from a suspending jerkbait to a slow sinker (Stunna), in almost the same color. Almost immediately caught a 15” fish, which was by far my biggest fish. I made a long run to one of my best areas and caught another cull fish that was 14.75”. I was still expecting more fish but there was another rounded point on this cove and I knew there was a tree that usually holds fish. I pulled my bait across the point and my line jumped on the pause. The fish was surprisingly thin for this time of year but a huge help, culling an 11” fish with an 18.25. My next cast. Another big fish loaded on over the tree. She drug in slowly with heavy head shakes. I saw a big fish with my bait crossways in its mouth, then it shook and my rod relaxed 😭 It was an easy 20” fish. Next cast, another heavy one loaded on, and just as fast, it was gone. I culled one more 15” fish and a 13”. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

^^ This ^^ It's one thing to forget to renew something, it's another level to willingly submit false information to get a $10K reward. It speaks to his character. It makes you wonder what else he's done.

Yep. And no Nitro nor Ranger can launch here: So true. Bass boats are above my pay grade, but I'd love to fish out of one just once in my life to experience it. One day, I'd like to buy an aluminum 12' V-hull. It could be 40 years old. And I'd like to mount a modern electric outboard on it. If Nitro decides to sell 40-year old 12' hulls with modern electric outboards, I'm aboard. Until then, Nitros are far beyond my means and Rangers doubly so and even if I owned one, I couldn't tow it and couldn't launch it at any of my ponds/bogs. It would just sit and decay in my driveway like @airshot's neighbor's boat. Maybe @Darth-Baiter, you should consider buying a 12-foot v-hull too. I've caught thousands of bass out of such boats. The hulls cost a few hundred and the motors cost about a thousand. Like @Captain Phil wrote, you can catch bass out of anything that floats. Gim, I've learned over the years that you take no short-cuts other than shortening your screen name. I wish I were more like you. I take so many short-cuts. Look at my canoe above. It's a mess. It's always a mess. To cut myself a little slack, poling through the swamp will forever keeping it from shining.

Some nice ones, Mike. It’s fun how one good day can put a particular bait into the favourite pile. (Yes, “favourite” is spelled correctly 🇨🇦 😝) Great job on the slow bite win @Bluebasser86 👍🏻 Update from Canada: It’s cold, and diving off the dock really hurts now.

Gotta love responding to a thread old enough to drive a car...which I'm currently doing. I throw Augertails and Jelly worms, and found a mold that is similar to the 7 5 Culprit that I use too. I'm 47, and a lot of my baits come from the 80s and 90s unless I'm making them myself.

Yes. Still have some Mann's, some The Tube Worm's and Creme's pre-rigged from 40+ years ago (my grandfather's before he died). Creme are still making these.

John Crews goes over some quick maintenance that you can do and the oil he uses in this video: if it were me I'd probably start w/ this and see how it goes...

Just realized after seeing your comment, this thread was recently dug up from 16 yrs ago. 😂🤣

OG 7.5 Culprits for sure. Surprised nobody has mentioned Renegades. Grew up in the 90's in a small town, Wal-Mart was all we had.

Some time ago, Zaldain claimed that according to Megabass, Randy B is responsible for a big boost to their bottom line through his affiliate links to TW on YT. Milliken has a much larger social media footprint. Combine that with his affiliate links I imagine he's huge driver of sales for 6th Sense. Also, they're currently hosting his "Free Ben" Hats, hoodies, and Ts merch on their site. They don't seem to be all that mad about it.

Most bearings come from the bearing manufacturer oiled. This is a case where they might have missed a batch or something and the reel assemblers either didn't notice or care. In a post Covid world where you can't get your Big Mac made correctly, I'm not totally surprised

It wasn’t long ago that the internet was filled with complaints of “over greased “ reels that need immediate cleaning out when new. A reel not being visibly slathered in grease is not a problem. Like Jfranco said oiling bearings is S.O.P.

I've logged a lot of hours on @Fishing Rhino's Nitro over the last 10 years. I believe it's a 2007 with a Mercury 200 HP 2-stroke. He doesn't drive anymore so I've taken over getting him and his Nitro out on the water. It's a lot bigger than my RT178 and handles the waters we have up here quite well. Tom's always garaged it and is 100% on maintenance and repairs. I've been through it myself wiring a couple fish finders for him. It was easy to work on and good quality. I'd consider a Nitro if I wanted to pay more for it than I did my first house.

Nah. I just use them till they make bad noises then throw them in my pile and buy another one.

The bass are always biting somewhere, our job is to find somewhere. The only "lull" I see is in my ability to locate actively feeding fish.

Swore I would not buy anything but bullet weights and line this year. Fell off the wagon and spent about $300 in the past two days. Started innocently with looking around the internet for some Hayabusa shooting star jigs that then snowballed out of control. Allen

Very true. Ben didn't, and he got a simple citation for that. That would have been the end of it in any other situation where an 8 or 13 pound Share A Lunker bass wasn't involved. People seem to persistently ignore the fact that he got into the bigger mess for knowingly committed fraud- not the actual license violation. They are linked, because Ben lied about the "fish was caught legally" requirement. Ask any politician- it is rarely the first offense that is the most serious. The actions that result FROM that first offense is where things typically start to go south.

And how many videos has Milliken already made about this? He’s a professional fisherman. If he didn’t have a valid license when he was fishing then that’s not good. Contest or not. Professionals keep their paperwork up to date. At this point he has to let the legal process play out. He has a very lucrative YouTube Channel it’s not like he doesn’t have the means to procure one. He makes enough money that he can basically fund his own Elite Series career independently which is to his credit. But it makes you wonder about him. These days it takes 5 minutes on a website to get one. This is on him. He’s not being targeted that’s ridiculous.

I haven't connected all the dot yet but I'm convinced this incident is somehow connected to the drones that are currently terrorizing New Jersey. 😆

We can take the dog out of the snow, but we can never take the snow out of the dog ~ Remembering Miss Fenway ❤️ A-Jay

Because the crime happened many months ago. Did you assume he just turned in the fish and the paperwork this week? It seems like this thing was sat on or dig up, maybe for publicity, maybe even by his own camp. I'm not trying to argue with you. I said it in the first reply to this, something seems fishy, and it ain't the bass he caught. None of it is how these deals go. He's not that big a deal.

No. One of "our own" doesn't do stuff that winds up in the headlines if they do what's right and follow the rules like the rest of us.

There's a Facebook bass page that deliberately posts controversial and provocative things just to get a rise out of people....and it works. Dumb people take the clickbait every time and comment without fail.

Call me an old fashioned cynic - but this is just in line with the typical de evolution of the culture of pro bass fishing into something resembling pro wrestling. I don't have any dog in the fight - pro wrestling is fine - but it's entertainment - not sports and the pro bass leagues are cashing in on drama and controversy. Seems like during the off season when people are in a tree stand or shopping for Christmas presents - overblowing something minor could indeed just be manufacturing clicks and attention. I mean - it's working - we are talking about it! 😂😂😂😂