paul.

thanks y'all. yeah tony, i can pretty much fish all winter. i've never known our lakes in tn to ice up for more than a week at a time. i only stay away if it's extremely cold, extremely windy, or like you said the water is muddy. cold, muddy water is probably my least favorite fishing condition. i don't blame ya for staying away. i hope for another nice trip or 2 before the end of the year, but it's supposed to rain most of the week here i think. that might mean cold, muddy water. hope not.

very nice randall. thanks a lot. i'm glad i posted/asked this. i am learning about some options that i didn't know were out there.

thanks very much burley and tyrius. i know i'm basically asking for a porterhouse steak at a cheeseburger price here. but maybe, just maybe, this jig is out there somewhere. ;D

duh, i forgot the most important criteria - must have a recessed line tie. sorry about that. modified my original post.

looking for a new jig. here's the criteria. 1. head design does not really matter. bullet, football head, whatever. 2. weight - 1/2 - 5/8 oz. range. 3. must have a strong, sharp (preferably superline) hook to keep from being jacked on braid hooksets. 4. must cost under 3 bucks. 5. must have a recessed line tie. closest i have come to this is thinking about buying a pack of picasso ken cook fantasy football heads and just making up my own jigs. but i am uncertain about the strength of the hook on these though. does anyone have any feedback on the picasso heads or ideas about other baits that meet all the criteria above. any help is much appreciated. i have gotten spoiled to using the recessed eye jigs b/c they come through the wood i fish so much easier but these type of jigs are pretty pricey. thanks very much for any help or input.

this is just kinda funny reading this. "too easy to catch" is definitely a characteristic i would like in ANY fish. i don't know that i could ever tire of that. catch one or two or twenty peacocks for me bb.

luck e strike rick clunn jig trailers http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_15761_100007002_100000000_100007000_100-7-2 terminator pro's top secret jig- color is black, pumpkin, and chartreuse. http://www.***.com/descpageTERMJIG-TPTSJ.html# this is my new favorite jig in my favorite all-around color. the trailers are really good too. they are soft enough to have good action, but tough enough not to tear up quickly.

man those had to feel good on that ul. great job. what's the weather and water temps like over there now? don't look too unbearably cold judging from the pix. congrats again man.

i just got finished watchin' joe thomas do a bed fishing show at bienville plantation on the outdoor channel. IT WAS AWESOME!!! it was so cool seeing how he was so excited he missed fish like 5 times in a row. ;D he was catching the males first though which i think is a no-no. but maybe that's all he could get to bite and he had to get something on film. or maybe he just didn't have any live bait. . anyway that show rocked. i want to fish in florida or texas or mexico so bad i can't stand it. :'( but if i went, i doubt my bank account could stand it.

my experience has been that in winter you get exactly the same types of bites as you do in the warmer months - tap bite, mush bite, nothing bite, on the fall, on the bottom, etc. in terms of feeling the bite, it just seems to be a matter of degree. bites are generally much less pronounced in cold water. to answer the other question, i use braid for all my jig and plastics fishing. love it and would never go back to anything else.

i was hoping for a decent day due to the full moon and it turned out pretty good. got to the lake around lunch time. water temp was 42. air didn't feel much warmer. i found a couple of good areas where the water was clearer and warmer than the rest of the lake and caught 2 right off the bat. then lockjaw set in for hours. i figured they would turn on again in the evening and i got lucky. as so often is the case with winter fishing, they went on a binge in the last hour of daylight and i caught several more. ended up with 10, 8 of which came in the brief afternoon flurry. all came from offshore structure and cover anywhere from 6-12 ft. of water. best 5 woulda gone about 14-15 pounds again, mostly on the strength of a nice kicker rather than an overall grade of chunky fish like last time. i guess this trip just goes to show that often it's a waiting game. you just have to have some confidence in your spots and baits and wait 'em out sometimes. here's a fish pic and the 2 money baits i caught 'em on today. hope y'all are catchin' some too.

very cool man. congrats and here's hoping you meet up with that fish again in '09 and she's even bigger. that is a VERY nice fish for ANYWHERE, especially that far north though.

you're right bud. coughlin in ny used to be ripped cause he was too strict and rigid. now look at the giants. won the superbowl and are going to the playoffs again this year. as far as vernon davis goes, i just hope that someday the guy can live up to his potential. better yet, i wish he was as good in real life as he is in madden '09. even though the niners are a bad team overall on there, davis is a beast and a huge weapon. linebackers cannot cover him and he runs over db's. and the madden version does not get stupid penalties. yeah, i'd like to see the madden version on the real life team. ;D

don't know if there's any niner fans out there besides myself. but anyway the team's transformation since singletary took over has been pretty impressive to me. granted, they still have work to do before becoming a serious contender, but thus far he's got my vote to keep the job. he seems to have an uncanny ability to light a fire under the players and get the most from what is a pretty mediocre (at best) team right now. there are several guys coaching in the nfl that are doing less with more.

that's very cool lee. happy birthday.

i like all the options discussed here so far. another one i really like is the back half of a full sized zoom brush hog. most guys use these on t-rigs and c-rigs and throw 'em away when they get torn up. i just cut the back half off and save 'em to use for jig trailers. it will give your jig a totally different presentation/action that is just killer sometimes.

hope you feel better soon bud. school always made me sick too, just not quite as literally.

1. a "Lunker Bass Advice From Guys With Hundreds Of 10 Pounders And No Pictures" forum for members who are so intelligent they figure out how to catch monster bass with surprising regularity but amazingly, cannot figure out how to post pictures. here members can make all the outrageous claims they want with no fear of ever having to provide evidence. and they can preach to the rest of us about how great they are and what we are doing wrong. 2. a "Guess The Weight Of This Bass" forum with weekly prizes to the members who come closest and a free scale for those who post the pics. 3. a "I Know This Thread Is Gonna Be Locked But I'm Gonna Post It Anyway" forum for members who love to start trouble and make life difficult for the mods.

sounds like a fun trip kent. curious though. if you expected that artificial baits would get outfished and you had live bait available, then why did you use mostly artificial stuff? are you starting to cave in to the pressure of the live bait haters on the forum? ;D glad to see you're still on 'em.

very, very nice. i'm jealous of the fish AND the short sleeves. congrats to ya big time.

cool fish man.

way to go man. it's just nice to still have liquid water to fish this time of year. glad you figured 'em out.

yes i'm definitely interested. that would be great. holler at me anytime and we'll go. i've got some spots too. i'm still trying to get out and fish at least once a week. thanks for asking.

that would be cool bro, but i have a feeling you'd be looking for a new partner soon. i'm very average off my home lakes - and quite often on them. ;D

very nice bud. gotta love that fla. weather. i was wearing about 6 layers of clothes and gloves too and i still got cold today. glad to see you're gettin' out and catchin' a few. i wish they had those peacocks around here.