The Rooster

Zoom fluke or super fluke, which do you prefer and why?? Or do you use both?? I have a buddy who got me into the fluke and it's awesome in the summer around stumps and rocks. But he says he hates the super fluke, says it doesn't even resemble a baitfish so he just doesn't use it. I'm wondering if they swim or sink any differently than the fluke, they look heavier.

What kind of rod/reel setups do you all use for different lures?? Such as T-rig, C-rig, crankbait, spinnerbait, buzzbait, jig. Many of these can be casted on either a spinning rod or a casting rod and I just wondered if you prefer one to the other for either comfort of using it, ease of casting it, presentation of the bait, or any other advantage that it might give over the other one. Until yesterday I've always used a T-rig and a buzzbait on a casting rod but I was forced to go with a spinning rod while on the water due to an old reel that was not performing right anymore, and while doing so I found I might like it better than the caster. Makes me wonder what other lures I might like better on a different rod/reel type.

I "set the hook" yesterday on some poison ivy on the bank trying to yank my Blue Fox #3 spinner back out of it and it came at me like a bullet and hit my ankle and stuck in my sock. It hurt when it hit too. I wondered if I was even going to be able to touch it to get it out since it had a poison ivy leaf hanging on it and I'm super allergic. Had to take my sock off and pull it out with pliers and then dip my foot in the water to rinse it off for fear of a breakout later. Only thing that would have been worse than that is if I had fallen off the side of the boat while rinsing cause my boat has such high sides, it's hard to get to the water from the front deck.

That is a really great post. And no lie, I got kinda choked up just a little bit seeing the pics of the girls fishing with dad and PaPa. Also, to me...that ain't no dink!! I love fish that size. Wish I could catch them like that all the time. I've got a lot of learning to do.

Those are spectacular bass to me. 3 pounds probably being the largest one I've ever caught, I'd be dumbstruck to catch one that size, let alone 3 in the same day.

Holy Toledo buddy!!! I've never had that happen to me but I saw it happen to a friend of mine while we were out. It was in the back side of his finger though, on the middle joint of his index finger. Wasn't quite as deep as yours but well well passed the barb and hopelessly stuck. He just ripped it out though....OUCH!!!! Then at the same time a bee went in his shoe and stung him. Double OUCH!!!! Needless to say he had a bad fishing trip, but he was in good spirits and stayed to fish anyway.

Tacklezilla. Hmmm.......one of these days I might make it to that level. Right now I'm only at 22 lbs.

Yesterday me and a buddy went to the lake fishing and found water was different all over the lake in terms of clarity. Pretty much the same temperature though, 77 to 79 anywhere we went. He was having no trouble catching quality bass on a Berkley Power worm, T-rigged in a black color. Time after time I heard him holler "get the net". And it seemed everytime he caught a bass I would catch a large bluegill, but no bass. I tried spinners, crankbaits, T-rig, topwaters, but nothing I tried would catch me a bass the way he was. All I could get were those large bluegills on spinners. Well it was late in the day and we found ourselves in some ultra clear water, completely invisible for about 6 feet in depth. I wanted to go on up to the back of the arm of the lake we were on to see if we could find some stained water so we began moving that direction. In the meantime I dug in my tacklebag to find anything I thought would work in that super clear water we were in, and found a bag of Zoom U-tale worms in pumpkin chartreuse color that I had in there for probaby a good 6 years now and never even tried. It was the closest thing to natural color I had and I rigged one up weightless to try it out. By time I had all that done we had found some stained water with just a little clarity left in it. I casted the worm anyway and let it slowly sink. Immediately I had a quality bass on the end of the line. I did this a couple more times and my buddy had not had a bite in a while on the T-rig so I saw him getting one of my worms out and rigging it up weightless too. He didn't seem to have the same luck I was having as he didn't catch any fish with it at all. But I busted about 8 bass on it over the next hour, and went through 5 worms in all, each one seeming to be good for about 1 fish, occasionally 2, before it got hopelessly torn up. Only thing I can see he did different than me was he had 12 pound line and I had 8. Maybe they sank at different rates, but mine was dynamite and his wasn't. At least I caught up to him in numbers before the end of the day, between us we had about 25 fish caught and released. He got one more fish on a white tri-winged buzzbait before we left. So we both had a fantastic end to a good day. Also, there's a bass swimming around out there with a 3/0 hook and a Zoom U-tale stuck to his face right now, cause after about 5 bass in a row I set the hook on the 6th one and snapped the line clean off at the knot. Must have frayed the line some maybe?? Or just stressed the knot from all the fish I had caught on that same hook. From now on though, I'll make sure to inspect the line after each fish. Still had a load of fun on that Zoom worm though, and now I gotta go back to the store to get more of those and in some different colors. Also, something else I found odd about this was that the worm was nearly the color of the water I was fishing so visibility of it was not much except for the chartreuse tail it had. Could that be it?? They seemed to love it dearly as I had no trouble at all getting hits with it.

If you want to find them look for them on Little Blaine Creek. That's where I lost them at. We caught a few fish the other day, nothing spectacular. The fish seeemed to be acting strange I thought. All over the lake I was seeing carp swimming on top of the water, in water anywhere from 2 feet deep to nearly 40. Just randomly swimming in open water. Same for the sunfish and bluegills. They were everywhere in open water, not around any cover, and they were violently competing to be first to smack our lures, but they would not take it, only bump it. I took that as a sign that they were about to spawn and were just trying to clear the area of intruders. We did manage to figure out that using a spinner with a chartreuse blade would make them strike it and the hook would catch them on the inside of their mouths, like they were trying to eat it, whereas before if we caught one it was hooked on the outside of it's mouth as if it had been caught by accidently getting hooked as it pounded on the lure. Since no bass where biting, and we assumed they where spawning too, then we started fishing for those 'gills and we caught a bunch of them. Better than wasting the day by going home with no fish at all. I managed to catch the only decent fish of the day, and it was only about a 12 inch bass. Otherwise it was not very active at all out there. Water temperature was 82 to 86 degrees, depending on where you were at on the lake. That's pretty warm for them to be moving much, but yet they were swimming and chasing baits. :-? Bass too, we had a school of about 7 or 8 bass swimming around looking at the baits and chasing them but they wouldn't hit. They were all dinks though, only 10 inches or so. Since I just fish for fun then I'd have taken them if they'd have hit.

The video was only a few seconds long so I couldn't tell much. Looked like the line broke on you. Did it?? And was that a Pflueger President reel?? Looked like it. Aren't they nice?!?!

I've been through so many I couldn't possibly count how many I've ever owned. But currently I have 5 I use all the time, 3 spinners and 2 baitcasters.....and one of the spinners is an Ugly Stik Lite Pro ;D. Then there's one more that doesn't have a reel currenly, and one more spinning combo that I never use. When I have a rod that stands around too long unused I tend to give it away or sell it in a yardsale. Mostly give them away though. To friends and family so they can go fishing with me.

Yeah, I would recommend that with ANY combo you are thinking about buying. When I first looked at the Extreme in the catalog, I wasn't sure I liked it. I was actually looking at the Browning Medallion first. Then when I went to Bass Pro Shops and looked at it, I hated it, it was too bulky feeling in my hand and the grips on the crank were just too fat to be comfortable. So while I was there I checked out several others and when I came to the Extreme, I fell in love with it. It just had so many features of higher priced reels for the money they were selling it for. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was much smaller than it had appeared in the catalog's picture. So it fit right in my hand like it was made for me. Grips were large enough to grasp very easily but small enough to be easy to handle. Everything about it turned out to be great. I didn't buy it that day though, I was just looking. Later on, I got mine from the website on sale and had a gift card to redeem too, so I ended up getting mine for $50, shipping and all. Regular price on the reel alone is $80. It came to the house in 2 days time.

I don't know if it's only on the site or in the store too. You can visit the website and get an 800 number to call them and ask. All I know is I LOVE MY EXTREME!! I don't regret one bit buying it and I think it competes with reels costing much more. Sure there are nicer ones out there but I don't want to spend that much getting one. And expecially at the price of the combo on sale. The rod is normally that much alone. It's like getting the reel for free.

I used to have this EXACT same problem. The stuff never broke off a fish on me, thankfully, but it did seem to have a frequent problem of breaking when I tied on a lure, and also when I was snagged up, I'd lose the lure before I could retrieve it. I switched to Stren (not sure of the tag that goes with it, like Trilene has the XL, but the Stren I use is in the purple box, and I use 8 lb. for spinners and 12 lb. for baitcasters, clear/blue mono). I get my Stren now in the exact same size as the Trilene XL I used to use. It pretty much feels like the same line, casts just as smootly as the XL used to, it's very limp feeling, but it doesn't break on me when tying on a lure now, and has not broken by accident yet on a snag, sometimes I cuss at it cause I'm TRYING to break the line when I'm hopelessly hung up and the rig is out of reach either in 30 feet of water or 30 feet up in a tree......but the stuff still won't break!!! I don't know whether to be happy about that or not sometimes. At least I'll never lose a fish due to line snapping off!!! As far as I'm concerned, I've found my line and it's Stren. But trust me, when they say it has cast control, it does not mean it won't go into the trees. ;D

It is possible to find a decent rod/reel combo for that price. But first let me say that if you're thinking of spending the kind of money that KVD combo is, then you can find some others as well that would be good. Don't know about the KVD combo, I'm sure it's nice though. But for that money, I'd personally like the Bass Pro Shops Extreme baitcast combo. It's actually a bit cheaper due to the sale right now, only $100 plus shipping, and I have one of the reels myself and I am here to tell you it has a good backlash control. The inertia brakes it has are wonderful, they allow me to make decent length casts of light weight baits RIGHT INTO the wind without backlashes. It may take a bit of practice to get there to do that, but it's possible with this reel. Then when the wind is not blowing it will make some very long casts as well. 60 - 70 feet is what I'm capable of throwing with it on average. It's also a smooth reel, very comfortable to fish with, and built quality too. The Extreme rod, I do not own one of but I am looking to buy one, another combo actually, and they are available in a wide variety of actions and sizes. A lot of options there. The reels are available in 9 different versions as well. Check them out, here's one of the combos and there are more on the site. http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_98422_100003001_100000000_100003000_100-3-1

Anyone know of a place online to download and print a basic map of lakes FOR FREE?? No details needed like topographical or anything. Just a basic layout of the lake, and ramp locations and such to help me find my way around while I'm out there. That's all. This passed weekend I was looking at one of my maps of the lake we were on, and I had two more under the console of the steering wheel on the boat in a plastic bag. I should have put them up, but I thought they'd be alright there. They must have blown out on the way down the lake cause we couldn't find them later on while we were fishing. So I'm sure there's a map of Grayson lake and Paintsville lake on the bottom of Yatesville lake now. ;D

I would probably have looked for a spot farther up the lake away from the jet skiers, on my lakes that's an option if you have a bigger engine that can get you there faster so it doesn't take all day to get there. I like fishing water that is shallow enough they can't really run in it, and loaded with stumps and/or rocks so they just avoid the area totally anyway. No wake zones are great for that. They can't go very far in there unless they idle and they don't seem to like to do that much. Otherwise, what I'd have done differently is NOT caught as many fish as you did, I'm lucky to pull out over 5 decent ones in one trip. Usually none are over 2 pounds though, most are only a pound. You had a great day it sounds like.

That's always been my way of thinking too. I usually just select a color based on how well I think the fish can see it or not, and if I think they can then I don't want them to be able to see it so well they can tell it's not live. Just see it enough to find it and feed on it, and that's all. Like in muddy or murky water I'll use black, in stained water I'll still use something dark but maybe not totally black, maybe a dark green or dark to medium brown instead so it's a little lighter, and sometimes with some chartreuse or bright orange on it to help it stand out. Then in somewhat clearer, cleaner water I'll use maybe a white, and then in totally clear water I try to go with something translucent, in the very natural shades of what I think baitfish are "wearing" ;D, such as light greys with white undersides, very light browns, stuff like that. Maybe with some black on the back. But to just look in the tackle box and say "hmmm, maybe they'll bite on red today, or purple"........I never do that.

How many of y'all have ever read that a very slight color difference in one lure vs. another can have a big impact on the fishing?? I have for one. But how many of us have ever actually seen it, not just read about it in a magazine?? Until yesterday I have never experienced it at all. Dad and I went fishing for Father's day. We weren't having much of any luck at all. We think the fish are on spawn in our lake, they usually do this time of year. To make matters worse the fish finder was saying the water temperature was anywhere from 82 to 86 degrees. But there were a few fish active, mostly some large bluegills and a few small bass. Since we're there we figured why not, at least it's fishing, so we started targeting them. We were having lots of hit and miss fish, they'd bump it but not take it. They seemed very willing to chase the baits, just not take it once they caught up to it. And the ones we did manage to catch were hooked on the outside of their mouths, more like they got snagged by accident as they charged the lure (let that be a lesson to you about sharpening your hooks, I ALWAYS sharpen all mine straight out of the package, sometimes you'll catch a fish that you may have missed otherwise). After a while of swapping lures from one to another, experimenting to find something that would work, Dad managed to hook a couple of fish in the mouth on a Mepps firetiger colored inline spinner, with a green painted blade. When that happened I decided to switch to one too. I didn't have any Mepps but I did have a Worden's Roostertail inline spinner in the firetiger pattern that had a chartreuse painted blade with glitter on it. I had already tried a firetiger pattern earlier but it had a gold spinner blade instead. I had no luck with it. But the one that had the chartreuse painted blade was loading the boat. I was catching fish every couple casts. But Dad's luck seemed to have ran out. He started using the same exact size Rooster as me, even the firetiger pattern, but he still was unable to get a fish to take it. He's not one to use anyone's lures but his own, but that time I think he was frustrated at seeing me nailing fish left and right while he caught none. So I talked him into using the other one I had finally (I always buy them no less than 2 at a time, same size and color so I had an extra one just like the one I was using). Once he tied it on he was catching them left and right as well and we had a great time for the next couple of hours. As far as I can tell, that little chartreuse spinner blade was the only thing that made any difference at all. His green blade was what had started it but it was apparently not quite enough to make ALL of them want to hit it, only just those couple that did. But the yellow in the chartreuse was really turning them on. Eariler though, I had even tried a different Rooster that was chartreuse colored, exactly the same as the blade on the firetiger one, glitter and all, only it's body was that color instead while it had a gold blade. I got nothing on it. Only that firetiger with the chartreuse blade was what worked. And every fish we caught on it was hooked in the mouth. Must have been something about the chartreuse color combined with the movement of it spinning, just chartreuse alone wasn't enough. Now I have to say I'm finally a believer in subtle color differences make a difference. Before I never would have believed it. I was always thinking more along the lines of size, action, weight, shape, even shades such as light, dark, neutral, but actual color was last on the list in my lure selection process. Now I'll have to give it more credit. Oh, and for whoever doesn't believe fish can see colors......they should see this.......or better yet, they should have this experience. NO better way to learn than by that. And what a happy lesson it was.

Yeah, sometimes I switch rods just to give my hand a break from using the one type. Baitcast to spinning, or vise versa. My hand gets tired and starts hurting, so I get a different one that I can hold in a different way. No reason at all associated with my fishing. I just do it so I can KEEP fishing instead of cramping up and quitting.

I don't buy it either. How does Rick think we're supposed to fish a weightless soft plastic with a 7' heavy action rod?? I think it's all about personal choices and preferences myself, but I definitely think we need more than one type of rod, let alone just ONE ROD ONLY. And as for her saying you only need one rod, tell her even though Rick said one rod would cover everything, by his own words he still uses 10 of them. Whenever my wife starts talking like she thinks I'm wasting money on fishing gear, I sometimes try to explain to her why I think I need or want it, and if that doesn't work then I just tell her to deal with it cause I'm gettin' it anyway. Luckily for me that doesn't happen very often. 2 weeks ago she practically twisted my arm to buy two Pflueger reels instead of only the single one I was going to get. Ended up with a President and a Trion, both spinning reels. Line on all 4 spools came to $120 when it could have been only $45 for one reel with one spool lined up. "

OK Paul Roberts, with the possible exception of my rock leaping for whitebass, those stories you told top anything I can ever come up with. That's just plain death defying stuff you're doing there. I always think to myself that one day I'm gonna slip on one of those rocks, maybe twist my ankle in some way like last month, and then fall and they'll find my body a day or so later impaled on one of those giant rebars sticking up. The thoughts of some of the stuff you typed there, or the impalement along the Ohio river, makes be queasy. They're all a certain death, but most of them would be a slow death where you have time to think and regret what you did just so you could fish.

I'm the type person that no matter how careful I am I just seem to have accidents. Like last summer I bought a new Shimano Sedona spinning reel, went to the lake later on that summer, boat rubbed up against a stump and knocked me off balance and I ended up stepping on it and bending the bail completely beyond recognition. Took me a good 2 hours working with it to make it fishable again. If it had been more than just a $50 reel I'd have been beyond sick. Even at that price I was very disturbed by it. So I won't allow myself to spend that much on stuff. But at the same time, I can't fish with very cheap stuff, just is not nearly as enjoyable. I try to hold my purchase price on a single reel or rod under $100, $200 for the pair at MOST. I figure I might break the rod, or destroy the reel, but the odds of me destroying both at the same time are not as high as just getting one of them. ;D And to date, I've never thrown an entire combo overboard while casting (as that would be the only way I could think to destroy the entire combo)........but last week I did see that done while fishing at the river..........someone else done it though, not me.

Went fishing in the evening once during winter months when it gets dark before 6:00 PM, so it was dark on us. It was very very cold, snow flurries blowing, but we wanted to go so we went. Didn't catch any fish though. I finally said we should leave when I snagged a spinnerbait and put my hand in the water to retrieve it and it felt like it was burning instead of freezing, it was soooo cold. Recently I was fishing and fell along the bank, twisting my ankle badly. This was about a month ago. I thought it might have been broken cause it hurt so much and I was unable to stand on it for about 10 minutes without excruciating pain. Finally I was able to stand, but very weakly and shakey legged. I thought it might only be sprained instead.......so I stayed and kept fishing. Hopped around mostly on one foot. Occasionally still today it will hurt just a bit but it's nearly well now. Rain doesn't bother me at all now, I've learned to carry an emergency poncho in my tackle so if rain shows up I just put it on and keep fishing. Years ago though, I didn't do this, but still wouldn't quit. I'd just get soaked to the underwear but I'd still keep fishing. Many of my best days have come when the rain was steadily falling. If I see lightning though, I will quit. I notice myself looking when I enter a cove to see if there is a place where I might get out of the boat on the bank and take shelter under a cliff if there's not time to get back to the ramp. Even if there's not a cloud in the sky. Also, I will fish if the temperature is cold enough you need a hat and gloves, or hot enough you risk heat stroke to be out in the sun. 90+ degree temps don't phase me much, I'll fish on. I work outside though year round so that helps a lot, I'm used to it. Sunblock and an occasional 5 minute break under an umbrella and it's back to fishing again. Once I got to the launch ramp and discovered that there was a pretty large bolt stuck in the front tire on my truck. It wasn't leaking air at the moment but it looked as if it might come out any time and I'd have a flat. I thought I should probably go somewhere to get it fixed instead of staying to fish, cause I didn't have a spare tire with me, but I'd already put the boat in the water. I decided to take a chance and go fishing for several hours anyway. On the way home that bolt flew out of the tire and luckily I was only 1/4 mile away from a service station along a 50 mile stretch of highway where there is virtually nothing else anywhere. I heard it fly out and hit the wheel well on the truck and I knew immediately what it was. Inside that quarter mile I was already having to steer the truck as if turning very sharply left in order to stay straight on the road, while towing the boat. The air in the tire came out very quickly and soon I was on just the rim doing 60 miles an hour. Luckily it wasn't a blowout or I could have lost it and wrecked. I barely made it to the station, used the phone and called for help. 2 hours later I was on the way home again. I should have known better than to drive that fast once I found out the bolt was in there, but on the way up I didn't know it and was doing 70 MPH and it held. So I figured it might hold so I could get home. Oh well, live and learn. There is a place along the Ohio river below the Greenup Kentucky dam on the Ohio side where they dump broken up concrete and rebar from demo'd buildings. I'm talking very very large, car sized, chunks of concrete and rock. There is rebar as much as 2 inches thick and several feet long sticking up out of these in many places. Then the bank is very steep as well and about 70 feet or more down to the water, in a nearly vertical decent. But if you can manage to climb down this to the water's edge, the whitebass fishing is pretty good. You end up jumping from rock to rock in order to climb down, and once you commit to the jump there is no turning back. Hope the rock isn't loose or you're going for a ride. I've been there many times and done really well fishing. It's a really treacherous climb though and if you fall you will most likely be killed. You could be impaled on the rebar, crush your head against a rock or concrete, break your neck, break your leg and be unable to climb back out and not be found for several days (slow death), any number of gruesome injuries can happen. It's a big risk, but it's worth the climb if you are able. The fishing is great. When I go, I carry a duffle bag with my Plano tackle storage trays inside, strapped to my back with the shoulder strap, and about 2 or 3 rods in one hand, carefully balancing them while I jump down the rocks. By some standards these may not be hardcore fishing stories. To me though, sometimes these defy logic and common sense.

I think sometimes the manufacturers just f up good when they're packaging their products. As many worm colors as there are, it would be easy to mix up one with another and package about 1000 of them that way before anybody at the plant notices it. Red with purple glitter, or purple with red glitter. Probably trained a new guy that day.