GobbleDog

The only thing I can think of is I ALWAYS wear a white or light blue T-shirt while tournament fishing, ever since I fished a tourney years back with a red T-shirt and bombed on a lake where I normally caught fish. "Don't mind me fishie... I'm just a happy little cloud."

Dropped in Lake Conway? I know there are supposedly a bunch of structures in the 3rd lake (southernmost), but I have no idea where they are.

$6,500 a couple years back. She ain't the pertiest boat in the world, but she's a fishing MACHINE.

Lake Butler Water temp: Too cold fer swimming. Weather: Partly cloudy with 10 mph winds starting around noon, but it was generally a nice sunny day. Fishing: Fantastic. But it didn't start out that way, as we only had one keeper in the boat by 10:00 am. But we stayed on the spot and patience paid off when the afternoon bite really took off. We were fishing off-shore pepper grass which is scattered around in 6 to 12 feet. Lipped crankbaits were basically useless from bringing back wads of grass every other cast. But the T-rigged Trick Worms did really well. By the end of the day we'd caught a total of 10 keepers, the biggest at 2.5 lbs. Our best 5 only weighed 10.5 lbs, although not many boats caught anything. The few that did also reported the bite picking up later in the day.

The Bill Dance Fishing Course Step 1: Get permission from a wealthy friend to fish their man-made lake stocked with giant bass.

Do what baseball players do when they're in a slump! Cork your bat and take some steroids!

I don't know about other parts of the country, but my experience in Florida when bass fishing at night has always been that a bright full moon with a clear sky hurts the fishing. Maybe it's the clear water of the lakes that I'm usually fishing at night .?. I don't know. Regardless of the moon cycle or time of the day, for me the bass seem to bite most when there's heavy cloud cover and a light wind.

Hey Rolo man! I lurk quite often, but don't post as much as I should. The start of a new fishing season always inspires me and my club just started up again in January, so I'll be around for a while... at least, until I fall out of the standings. I fished Lake Harris in January (took 3rd) and fished Lake Butler yesterday (took 1st), so I'm feeling extra fishie today. The club has shrunk down to 15 boats and the competition ain't what it used to be, but I'm off to a good start. Now if I can just put something in the boat on Toho, I'll be doing alright. Which is why I'm posting today - looking for all the tips I can get. I totally bombed in my last 2 Toho trips.

I've got a club tourney in Toho next month, so I'll have better information after I get some practice in. But in past years I've usually done well working the shell beds along on the east and west sides of the lake, near Red's Fish Camp. If you watched Ben Matsubu on TV win on Toho last year, I think that's basically where he was fishing. And I generally do what Ben was doing... spend the whole day throwing a C-rigged worms around the area. I also occassionally see some bass schooling up there and snag a few barely legal dinks. That's pretty much all I've got on Toho right now. The lake has changed so much over the past 5+ years from when it used to be chocked full of hydrilla grass and seemed like bass were everywhere (especially along the edges of the thick matts). But nowdays there's hardly any left. I think they keep spraying it back.

My old boat blew a piston and is dead. So, I'm now in the market for another boat and I think I found one... '99 Nitro 640, with a 90 horse Merc (looks virtually unused), a trolling motor and two depth finders. The boat and trailer are in near pristine condition. My mechanic says the retail value of the boat with that engine is around $6,300 so I'm not getting the steal of a lifetime, but it is slightly below market. The seller only wants me to pay off the remaining mortgage of $5,700. The boat is kinda short at just 16' and the storage is limited. But I love the nice engine on the back and overall the boat looks emaculate. Anyone have some thoughts on the Nitro 640? :-?

I've never used a red hook in my life... but I fish plastic worms 95% of the time. I remember when Takahiro Omori (whatever his name is), won the Classic a few years ago throwing a lipless crankbait with red treble hooks (in the final hours of the tourney). But other than that, I haven't really noticed the pros using red hooks. Somehow I gotta believe Omori still would have caught those fish, even if his hooks were black. But who knows. Obviously he liked them. I guess red hooks might help in murky water.

Yeah, I spose that's true. :-/

Man, you guys sure use some heavy line. With Power Pro, I never go higher than 10 lb test. Lighter line equals longer casts and less visible. You'd really have to horse a fish pretty hard to break that line.

I used to fish tournaments in a '88 Tracker boat, so I think I know what your livewells are like. You've got that recirculating system, where you can trailer the boat and the water still circulates, right? I love that! The livewells on those old Trackers are pretty big so I doubt that's a problem. I've never used any "keep alive" products and I must say... I've never lost a bass in my livewell, other than a few gut hooked ones. Even if I catch them early in the day and they sit in the livewell for 8 hours - in the middle of the summer. Although unlike a lot of fisherman, once I put a bass in the livewell I run the livewell FULL TIME. I never switch it to alternate on/off mode.

Zoom Ol' Monster, T-rigged. Pulled very slow over hydrilla in about 10-15' of water. 8-)

;D That pretty much tells ya everything you need to know about the amazing Banjo Minnow.

Holy moly. How do yall Yankees put up with that? Here in Florida, it only feels cold when I open the fridge to grab another beer.

The cheap barometer I bought from Bass Pro was either a hunk of junk, or Orlando's barometric pressure doesn't change very often. Either way, I wish I had money back.

I've never had insurance on my boat. If I hit a jetskier, it won't be an accident.

I once bought a barometer from Bass Pro. The dang thing cost about $17.00. There's a picture of a similar one below: After a few weeks I noticed the needle didn't seem to move very much. I thought maybe it just needs to be outside more in order to work. So I hung to a wall outside and checked on it every day for a few months. That stupid needle never moved more than a milimeter in any direction. The ONLY time I ever saw it move substantially was when a hurricane was about to blow through. I wondered if maybe mine was just broken. So the next time I went to Bass Pro, I looked at the barometers again and I noticed something interesting. All of the barometers had signicantly different readings, despite the fact that they were the same brand and were sitting right next to each other! They weren't even in plastic box's. After that I decided cheap barometers ain't worth crap. >

Finesse, then power. Try the worm, then salt the Earth with crankbaits and such.

Oops. I just noticed my favorite reels are all 2500's. That's the size I'm really looking for.

Three years ago, I fished a small tourney in East Lake Toho. Me and my fishing partner had a misrable night catching everything but bass, then all of a sudden with less than an hour to go, my partner got a monster bite that started peeling off line. We were thinking 'Alright, at least we're going to win big bass money!'. Then after a couple minutes, he got it next to the boat and I scooped it up with the net..... it was a giant catfish. Big letdown. By the end of the tourney, we had caught a mudfish, a pickeral, a gar, a crappie and a giant catfish. We later joked that we should have showed up to the weigh-in with all of them. 30 lbs!!! We win!!!

I used this bait in West Toho last Sunday - except not in this hideous color (I was throwing black on silver). It was 7 feet deep with hydrilla grass on the bottom and I could feel the grass just barely tipping the bait. It worked great and I'm going to do it again this Sunday in the tourney. It takes a bunch of casts, but eventually the bass hit. Sweeping the rod and then pausing it for a half second. Rapala Shallow Shad Rap