paul.

thanks y'all for the kind words.

nice one!

rock on BB and unc!!!! that 8 woulda been enuff to make my day by herself. great job.

wow, and not only that, braden is a h'town homeboy. unbelievable!!!

what y'all are doing is very cool. 8-) i graduated from fhu in 1990, my wife in 1991. small world, huh? good luck to ya in your efforts.

good job man. that has got to be one fast turtle to catch that rattletrap. if your reel was 6.3:1, he had to be at least 6.4.

scents and nonsense. lol. ;D good question. my belief is that most of the time, bass are primarily visual feeders. i think they use their olfactory system at times to reinforce the choice they made to munch on something. mmmmm, tastes good, i'm gonna hold on to this. or yuck, that's nasty, i'm gonna spit it. bass are curious by nature and have been known to try to eat some crazy things. they can't really pick up and examine things like we can before making a decision, so i guess their only alternative is to chomp first and ask questions later, provided that visual cues stimulate their interest. once they do, i think their sense of taste/smell takes over sometimes and dictates the decision to spit or swallow. hence the importance of scents. however, you made some very good observations. i question how effective these attractants really are myself sometimes. salt washes off on the first cast. even it it's impregnated, the fish would have to bite through the plastic to get to it. even the folks who make these things will grudgingly admit that the whole notion of bass following a scent trail like some kind of underwater bloodhound is complete nonsense. they will tell you that due to current and other scent particles swirling around in the water that a bass has to be very close to "smell" even the most potent attractants. this of course is in sharp contrast to catfish and other species which have much keener olfactory systems and use scent as their primary sense for hunting and eating. i am in definite agreement with you. i think visual stimulation first, scent second (or maybe even third in dark or muddy water where the lateral line comes into play). they have done tests on this stuff that i have read about. they've soaked plastic worms in gasoline, and bass bit 'em b/c they were sufficiently convinced by the power of the visual presentation. i guess the best way to sum it up is that in my opinion a bass will bite a bait that LOOKS RIGHT even if it SMELLS WRONG. but a bass will not eat a bait that SMELLS RIGHT if it LOOKS WRONG. just my opinion. anxious to hear what others say on this.

wow, that is some clear water y'all are fishin'! looks like y''all had a blast great catchin'. always nice to share the good times with friends.

you are right dave. it's just a blessing to be able to go- lunkers, dinks, or none. i "turned the frown upside down" for you buddy.

well after dinkfest '07 yesterday, i was determined to try to get a better fish today. went to a little pond and fished for a while basically deadsticking an unweighted tube. took a while, but i finally - THUMP!!! and the line starts moving off. well, well, season's greetings mrs. bass. here's your present...BAM!!! ;D. hook is set, eyes are crossed, and drag is runnin'. any bass over 5 pounds is nice, but this one was real cool b/c of its porky lil' proportions. short, fat, and very thick. i was so impressed i had to measure it. at less than 20.75" long, this fish weighed 5-6. this is the kind of fish that in my opinion has tremendous potential to be a MONSTER one day if it survives, and the kind that is SO important to release. so i whacked it on the head, filleted it, and we're having it for supper. yum, yum. just kiddin', just kiddin'. of course i released her. i really hope to meet up with this one a few years from now. imagine proportioned like this at 27"! . hope y'all are catchin' some too!

yeah i've used it for about a year now, except most of the time i use maps.live.com. it is an awesome tool. i mostly use it to scope out new fishin' holes. not to sound paranoid or anything, but i have always wondered - if the average citizen has access to zooming map technology like this, wonder what the government/military has got? kinda scary, huh? :-?

that's great man! it'll be the first of many,many more to come for ya i hope! congratulations.

i had pretty high expectations when i looked at the weather last night and saw it was going to be about 60 degrees for a high today. what i failed to notice in just glancing at the weather was that this high was going to be in the morning and it was going to get progressively colder as the day wore on as a cold front moved in. > didn't take long to figure out that the bass were in a funk once i got to the lake. i got one bass on a jig and that was it for about an hour. no takers shallow on the trap or s'bait either. matter of fact, all the shallow water i fished was a degree colder than the deep water, so i abandoned hopes of a shallow bite pretty quick. it was obviously gonna be one of those "just be glad you ain't at work" days. ;D well the tube worked last time it was tough, so that's what i fished again today. i caught 10 real quick like in a brushpile/logjam about 15 ft. deep. they were all dinkers, about 1 - 1.5 pounds. i usually don't leave biting fish, but i was hoping for something a little bigger so i moved on. fished 3 hours and caught absolutely nothing anywhere else. > so i went back, resolved to rid the deep brushpile and surrounding area of all the remaining dinks, and squeaked out 6 more on the tube. biggest was probably 2 pounds. that made 16 fish total, but no size to 'em. at least i wasn't at work. the conditions have been real unstable around here. no consistency in the weather or water level at all where i fish. this is just an excuse for my inability to put a nice fish in the boat today i know, but i really think bassin' will pick up once things stabilize. i might try to hit a pond tomorrow or sunday. we'll see what happens then. if i can't bang a biggun soon, i'm gonna have to change my name to "dink caller!" ;D hope y'all are catchin' a few.

good report man. schoolies in dec.? only in forida. way to go.

o.k., o.k., you talked me into it. ;D i'll go in a few minutes. but right now it's so foggy outside i can hardly see anything. hopin' this unseasonably warm weather makes for a killer bite!

^^^ ^^^

biggest freshwater fish i have caught is a 31 pound striper when i was in high school. without a doubt the fish i am the proudest of is this 14 lb. 2 oz. largemouth pictured below. probably the biggest bass i'll ever catch in my life, even though the 13-8 in my avatar came close.

thanks buddy. 13 lbs. 8 oz.

way to keep on keepin' on! i know a lot of guys who just get mad and leave when things fall apart and don't go right. but you stuck with it and reaped the rewards. way to go man.

thanks buddy! you know, i wish SO much that what i said WASN'T true, but in my experience unfortunately it is. wouldn't it'd be great if you could just go down the bank slinging a spinnerbait and every fourth fish you caught was a 10 pounder? for that matter, i'd be happy if every 500th one was a 10. but it just don't happen that way, at least not for me. in my experience "pattern fishing" produces "pattern fish" which ususally end up being all within a few pounds of each other. unless of course you can get on a "big fish pattern" which is very hard to do most of the time. in my opinion, you are much more likely to catch big fish fishing "big fish spots" thoroughly with a variety of presentations if necessary. even then, no guarantees b/c timing seems to be everything with bigger fish. i'm just so glad other people here can relate to the way i feel and think. let's me know that maybe i'm not crazy after all. ;D good luck out there.

you caught my attention with that chris. that's the reason i'm gonna drop all my current bass subscriptions when they run out - not enough info on targeting big fish. everything just seems dedicated to catching numbers and keepers and tournament tactics. not that i have anything against any of that, it's just not what i'm into. that "bass west USA" you mentioned, is it dedicated especially to cali fishing or does it have good info that will work anywhere? just curious. i'm tired of reading about how to catch 2 pounders. ;D. the more i chase big bass, the more i realize that at times it can be almost like fishing for a different species altogether.

my suggestion would be to check out the articles above. they go into some serious detail about winter patterns. but to be short and sweet, for me its jigs and t-rigged plastics on deep structure and wood. sometimes even carolina rigged plastics. then in the afternoon on sunny days i check for shallow fish with square or coffin bill med. running crankbaits, rattletraps, spinnerbaits, and jerkbaits and lightly weighted plastics. sometimes i even try flipping a jig. some guys like a drop shot or a shaky head, but the lake where i do most of my fishin' makes these kinda difficult.

click on "fishing articles" at the top of the page. you'll be amazed at the great info you can find there. answers to your questions and then some.

welcome back and thanks! is there somewhere that i can see some of your jigs? hope for a speedy recovery for you and hope you can get back after 'em soon.

i'd say absolutely give it a shot. you can learn something from every trip, good or bad, if you pay attention to what is going on around you. if your best efforts fail to produce, i'd say go out there and dedicate your time to learning a new technique or more than one, even if it's something that may not be very productive this time of year. that way you have it when the time for it comes. if your fishin' spots are not producing for you at other times too, it would be a good idea to also spend this time looking for new water. google earth and maps.live.com are good tools for scanning the area around you without wasting a ton of gas. you might just have some great honey holes a lot closer than you think.