tyrius.

Pulled a 7lber out of my favorite one last year! That series of ponds is now pretty much the only area I fish regularly. I want to catch that fish each year!!

DuPage county has lots of fishing areas. http://www.chicagofishinglinks.com/dupagecountyforestpreserve.htm I live in Will County and have found the best fishing to be in certain neighborhood retention ponds. Be careful though as not all of them are open to fishing.

I fish berkley powerbait and *** worms.

You may find it hard to believe, but that is exactly how the sense of smell works (even in humans). For humans air passes through the nasal passages and individual molecules in that air stimulate the neurons in the nose. In fish the water passes through the nares and individual molecules stimulate the olfactory nerves inside the nares. The olfactory nerves contain individual receptors which are "capture" the individual "scent" molecules. Do some research on this. You're incorrect. Except in the case where the molecule is too big to activate the individual receptors in the olfactory nerves. I'd say the same thing about someone who is trying to disprove/make fun of another's viewpoints.

This is pretty much all I need to respond to. Everything can be dispersed down to individual molecules but animals do not have the ability to experience a "taste" or "smell" for every single molecule in existence. For example, what does an O2 or CO2 molecule "taste" or "smell" like?

Need to add some power worms to those boxes!!

So let me get this right. Fish can't smell or taste something that can disperse down to one molecule thick??? LMFAOROFLOL Well, it would probably help if you actually took the entire sentance rather than just a few words from it. If I just highlighted the "Fish can't smell or taste" portion of your post and made fun of it, would that be accurate?

Everything you fish with will have a hook on it, so why would the hooks deter the bass from the crankbait, but not from any other type of bait?

Don't overthink things so much. Bass don't care if your pond is crawling with craws or doesn't have a single one. They'll eat them either way. As an example, how many worms do you think go swimming through the deep end of a pond? Bass still eat them. What in the heck is a berkley beast supposed to be? Who knows, but bass eat 'em. I don't have any lizards in the ponds I fish, but plastic lizards still work. When it all is said and done bass will eat anything that they think is alive/dying/was living once. They're not that picky.

The best fish I've ever eaten was shore lunch walleye during our trips to Canada. Holy crap is that some good stuff. Cast iron skillet, open fire, shore lunch, fresh walleye is heaven. Bass tastes pretty good too. I need to start eating some this year. One of the ponds I fish is very overpopulated and needs a lot of thinning. I hate cleaning them though so I may not actually follow through with this plan.

How are goldfish who are kept en masse in a tank any different than any other type of fish (minnow, shiner, etc) kept en masse in a tank? Is it because goldfish are carp? If there isn't an actual reason why goldfish carry more disease then why is it any different than using a minnow or a shiner? I'm not seeing the logic here.

If you don't have a scale at least get measurements (length and girth) of the fish. If you don't have a tape measure then cut fishing line to the length and girth and measure it later. Guessing based solely upon pictures is wildly inaccurate.

No fronts? There was a big one that just passed through IL yesterday.

Not that I don't like a nice marbled steak, but our canine teeth are there to eat wild game that is much more lean than corn fed beef and pork.

I would bet one would hang up more often when pitching the bait into cover like the OP. So, in this instance the trailer hook may hurt.

I think you may be making an unwarranted assumption in the type of study being performed. What if this is for a completely new type of study? If it's only for aging purposes then I would agree with you that killing the fish is completely unnecessary, but if the biologist is worth anything he/she will know that too. Therefore, it follows that this must be a more in depth/different type of study.

You don't really have to worry about region. Bass will eat anything that even remotely looks like food. You're going to be better off with longer/slender (ie shiners) than with shorter/wider (bluegill) because it's easier for a bass to eat something that is longer. Now, live bait isn't any type of guarantee. I live in IL too and just this weekend was out for a short time. A family (grandad, dad, and son) were fishing my favorite spot with minnows and worms and didn't catch a thing. As they were packing up I moved over and caught a fish on my second cast with a wacky rigged senko. They weren't fishing the right spots, instead they were just casting out and hoping to get bit. I also caught a couple other fish on a crankbait. You're best bet is to read as much as you can on this site (particularly the articles) to build a base of knowledge in order to determine, where, when, what, and (most importantly) why to fish.

There were swiping, most of the fish I caught I would get on the second or third strike, barely on the outter lips, never "deep". Neither fish received slack line, at all. tnx! Then I would've been searching for a trailer hook to put on!!

Doesn't sound like a trailer hook issue. You had the fish hooked and almost to the boat. It sounds like they got some slack and got the hook out. If the fish were swiping at the bait or short striking it then a trailer hook would definately help.

Flouro sinks and affects the action of the topwater baits. That's why people use mono for topwater. I use mono for pretty much everything though.

Well the original post does state that the fisheries biologist is "getting ready to do some biological testing of a group of Smallmouths and Largemouths for age and growth testing. " So, the study will not be a sample of 1.

There is little doubt that this is scientifically true when talking about large groups of people. It's also been shown that people on a severely restricted calorie diet will live longer than normal. My question is why would I want to live longer if I have to give up what I like? Is it really worth an extra couple of years to restrict yourself for your entire life?

Do some research on edmunds.com. That site will tell you the dealer's invoice costs and what other people are paying. It's a very good site for finding car buying info. Also, email all of the dealers to ask for quotes. They'll typically start out much lower and many times just give you their lowest price right off the bat.

I wouldn't have a problem with it, especially since that size isn't the true "trophy" size in your waters. I'd have a hard time keeping a 7lber out of my pond but that's because that is the biggest fish I've caught out of that water. I'd "donate" a 4 or 5lber to science without thinking twice though.

I don't ice fish so the day after ice out is my season opener. It's usually pretty tough until we get some warmer weather, but I got out for an hour this weekend and caught 3 so I'm happy to be catching again.