tyrius.

Not necessarily. A lot of it depends upon the manufacturer. Each company seems to vary between what they call ML, M or MH. Personally, I'm buying a new rod for the exact same applications and I'm going with a Shimano Crucial 6'8" M X-Fast spinning rod.

Tie the palomar and set your drag correctly.

Lake County? There's a lot of water up there. Most all of those ponds will have fish in them. The way I'd go about finding them is to take some bread with you. Make small bread balls and toss it in the water. If fish come up and eat it then there are fish there. If not, then there aren't Also, here's an example of a western suburb bass that I just caught from a retention pond on Sunday. Right at 22" long and 17" around.

Not really. I don't trim the skirt because I fish jigs for big bites and want a jig that presents the biggest profile possible. If I'm going for a smaller profile, I'll use a finesse jig (which I haven't done much of). I'll trim the weedguard sometimes but that just depends upon my mood and if I have the jig tied on the night before or not. If I'm tieing it on at the lake I don't mess with trimming the weedguard.

Anyways, I was able to get out fishing for just a couple of hours yesterday before I had to go to a b-day party. Wasn't having much luck, caught a small one on a jig, another one on a wacky rig trick stick, then one on a crank. None of those are really worth mentioning. Then moved to a final spot that I haven't fished yet with like 20 minutes left. Made a few casts to get a feel for how deep it is (fish from shore so I don't have a depthfinder). Fished for about 15 minutes there with nothing (fairly shallow rocky bottom with the overflow flowing out of the pond). Was going to wrap it up and head back after my last cast and was that cast every worth it. Got the jig into the slight current area and the typical jig bite occurred. Just got heavy with no reason (wasn't hung up). Set the hook and immediately knew it was a big one! She fought for a minute, but didn't stand much of a chance against 17lb Big Game. She made a few swirls on the surface, but never got any part of her body out of the water. Got her to shore and was around ready to freaking freak out. She was massive. Northern IL doesn't have too many fish that big. Carried her to the car for the scale and measuring stick. Measured her (cut some lengths of mono for the length and girth too), photo'd her and released her. Still psyched about it! Hopefully, that doesn't out to be the biggest one I ever catch. Next time, I need to get one with the ability to take more pictures!!

Scale said 6lbs 12 oz, but I think it's a little low. I tested the scale with a 5 pound weight and it was accurate but when I put 10 pounds on it the scale only says 9 lbs (piece of junk!!!). I'm going to do more testing to figure out what the weight actually is. Freaking ridiculous though. That's the biggest bass I've ever seen out of the water. I just wish someone else would've been with me to take more pictures. I was rushing around to get her weighed and measured and a couple pics to get her back in the water. She swam right off so hopefully I can have the opportunity to catch her again!!!

new personal best!!! 22" length and 17" girth!!!

Fish the day before and during the front. Also, don't pay so much attention to the temp as you do the cloud cover and rain possibility. You're going to have a better chance of catching fish when it's cloudy then you will when there are no clouds. I'd fish as much as possible on Saturday and spend Sunday with the family.

How do you know this is true? I don't. It's just an approximation (I wish I had a solid gold model F-15 so I could find out). But even if it weighed half or twice as much, the question would remain about the same). I think the difficulty in figuring this out is in the fact that the approxiamation is GROSSLY incorrect. A gold bar that is 7" X 3 5/8" X 1 3/4" weighs 27.5 pounds. A 1/48th model is bigger than that. Also, a 1/48th model is 1/48 of the length, 1/48th of the width, and 1/48th of the height. You can't just take the weight divided by 1/48th as that only takes into account one dimension out of three. The true scaled down weight of 31,000 lbs would be about 0.28 pounds. 31000/48/48/48.

How do you know this is true?

Yes you should. If you're kids break it you should pay for it too. Wal-Mart cashiers are so shocked when you try to pay for this stuff that they don't even know what to do. The lying on the return policy bothers me too. The stores have calculated all of this return activity into their markups. Therefore, the average honest consumer is paying more for products to support the liars who take advantage of store return policy. Oh well, I'll continue to hope that karma exists.

A catalytic converter converts (shocking huh?) the REALLY bad exhaust fumes into not so bad ones. Acid rain is directly attributable to nitrogen oxides in the air which without a catalytic converter is emitted from your exhaust. Acid rain is not so good for lakes, streams, etc and smog is not so good for urban areas. How is a catalytic converter "out of hand"? Because you can't have your exhaust sound super loud? Sure I did, but instead of holding onto an uninformed opinion I researched the issue. Environmentalists have little to do with the current fuel prices (even when they were much higher).

Never really understood this line of thinking from someone who enjoys outdoor activities. Shouldn't fishermen (outdoorsmen in general) want to protect the environment that they enjoy? Guess I'm just weird. :-/

You've tested this theory then? Care to share your results showing increased break strength, shock strength, etc?

If you want to catch fish then get out there on Saturday! Overcast and rain are good. Bluebird skies are bad. You want to fish while the front is moving through and not after it. If you could get out both Friday and Saturday then you'd have a good chance at a real good weekend!!

I lost a chatterfrog on a cast because the eye broke off that holds the jighead onto the blade! I only casted it about 10 times too! Last one of those that I have purchased.

What happens if you've had a few on a week night?

Talk to the teacher and get access first thing in the morning. Bring them in as described above and put them in the tanks as soon as you arrive at school. There is no reason to wait until the end of the day.

Well, you can slack off but instead, why not do something good? The best science fair project that I ever did (in like 7th grade), was to show the effect of cigarette smoke on plants. I bought 4 of the same type of plant (basically some green thing that didn't flower) and covered them all in saran wrap. Two of the plants did not get any cigarette smoke and the other two did (helps if your dad smokes). This is more of a longer term project and actually shows some pretty marked differences. The two plants that had the smoke were stunted significantly (like less than half the size) even years after the project was over.

Well, I'd prefer the shakey rig. Only because it's easier to tie and I have more experience with it. However, the two options are two differing techniques and as a well rounded angler one should be able to determine when to use each technique.

If you want Kinami's in a more quantity, buy Yamamoto. They are EXACTLY the same thing, but you get more in the Yamamoto package.

They'll definately work in all situations, but there are times that a different jig head will work a bit better. The style Catt posted will come through weeds and brush easier because of the head shape and vertical line tie presents a very narrow "face" to the jig whereas a football head is like a bulldozer coming through the weeds. That doesn't mean that a football head jig won't catch fish in the weeds though.

Have had good luck with them. I fish all sizes from the smallest on my UL setup to the big skirted ones through the weeds.

This coming from you? : You may be using English words, but I don't think you're using the English language.

Yes it can. The style that Catt posted is an excellent one. However, you'll quickly find that if you're fishing a rocky bottom you'll get stuck in the rocks much more often with that head style. I fish football head jigs in the rocks and the style of head that Catt posted everywhere else. That one will come through weeds and wood much easier with its streamlined head and vertical line tie. If the fish want something smaller then I go with a finesse head, which is basically just a round ball. If you're looking to stock up without breaking the bank, I'd suggest trying out GMAN's (a member here) jigs. They are high quality jigs for low prices.