Team9nine

Good job ? my tips: 1. Make your first spot count. It's likely to be the only unpressured water you'll get. 2. Get your bait into places or other spots others aren't, or retrieve at angles others don't. 3. Use baits others aren't using, even if they don't seem like the best or most appropriate. 4. Always have some backup stuff that most others likely don't know about that you can go to after a few hours. This is almost always submerged breaks and/or break lines, whether shallow or deep.

I doubt it's the knot specifically unless you are simply tying it wrong. Alberto is one of the strongest tested knots, and the same knot I use probably 90% of the time. I've landed everything from 30" hybrid stripers and catfish to 40 pound buffalo using it with 6# and 8# fluoro leaders and never had issues. About the only difference from the sounds of it is I use 7 or 8 wraps up and back with "micro" lines (usually one less wrap back down). -T9

Just speculation, but it might be a combination of leader length and smallies in your case (not sure if micros would play any differently in this scenario). I use a 4-6' leader which usually only ends up inside the guides on the cast. With a 10' leader, your knot will be inside the guides on the cast, but more importantly, also when a fish gets close to the boat and has the rod/line under a lot of pressure while fighting the fish. Add a smallie's fighting and surging a lot at the boat toward the end, and I bet your knot is going in and out of the guides under pressure a lot more than most. Might not make a huge difference with thicker lines as some mentioned, but thinner lines as you stated might be a bit more susceptible to wear in these circumstances, especially if being used all day long. -T9

How many Power Poles did said glitzy tournament bass boat have?

... and mine don't, so I think we've answered this question satisfactorily NEXT!

We all have our favorites - none of which are THE best

Are you breaking on fish, when hung up, or just randomly for no apparent reason. I typically use a 4'-6' leader (w/Alberto knot mostly), and only ever retie the leader knot when my leader gets into the 12"-18" range, which might be several trips later if I'm lucky and I use a lot of lighter 6-8# leader line.

Leaning toward the line guide pawl as the culprit on this one, too. Remove it and see if it looks worn. Probably time to replace it.

The real reason trolling is banned from bass tournaments is because when Ray Scott first started and devised the rules for his national B.A.S.S. events, he envisioned a competition where guys who didn't know each other were paired together in boats and competed "mano y mano," cast for cast, one lure each. Each angler was competing against all the other guys, and everyone's weight was an individual score - let the best man win. As such, there was no good way to implement trolling into the game and keep with the spirit of competition and fairness he sought. Since Ray and B.A.S.S. set the rules, most every other bass tourney organization that followed did the same. If you take note of the professional tours for other species you'll see the difference. For example, the walleye guys (PWT, AIM, etc.) are always either paired as a pro and a co-angler in the same boat, and have a shared weight system (work as a team, and the weight for the boat is the weight recorded for both the pro angler and the co-angler), or as a team (with your partner) in the AAA level events. Makes trolling and scoring fair for both partners. Similarly, nearly all professional crappie events are "team" events, where the team get the weight for the day, and you are usually fishing with your buddy. As such, trolling is a perfectly good tactic again, fair for all. Ray set the rules for bass national competition, so that's how we still play the game. -T9

Murray's other bait was a clown colored Rogue - the old style ones from 25-30 years ago... Murray's Old Rogue's -T9

Another vote for the Line Guide Pawl. Super easy fix - do it yourself. Buy a replacement part on eBay for less than $5 and takes about a minute or two to remove the old one and replace with the new. Some reels/manufacturers are better than others about pawl wear, but I've replaced several over the years. Most all will wear down eventually. -T9

Agree with @J Francho There is no perfect line. With any of the major line types, you are gaining some specific benefit(s), but sacrificing something in exchange. The real question we all have to decide for ourselves is whether those benefits we gain by using a certain line type outweigh the negatives (or can the negatives be satisfactorily accommodated). The "right" answer will be different for each of us. -T9

Two quick points - First, Jacob will always have more than BassTrakk shows him having it's intentional... and second, he was only engaged. The marriage won't happen until after fishing season, lol, though a move to another state will likely happen this summer. Lots on his mind, but so is the thought of being ranked #1 angler in the world (2nd right now according to another site). His Toledo Bend pre-fishing went so well though he left early. Said he's never seen so many good bass in a lake than he has there. I took that as a good sign

Mobility rules from the bank. For all my shore fishing trips, everything I carry either goes here: or here: If I ever find myself bringing more (almost never), it simply goes here:

Was it the "rolling eyes" smiley that gave it away?

Yes, there will, but you also have to be willing to live with the trade-offs (generally stiffer lines, poorer knot strength, etc.). Many new FC formulations coming on the market to address the "issues" now days.

Trolling for bass = good ? If it was allowed on Tour, you'd see at least 1 or 2 events won with the technique. As it is, they already push the limits to that end of the spectrum in certain events. Also good to see politics and BS making its way into yakkin' tourneys - it will only get worse

Considering I wrote it, I think rather highly of it ? Tried to be as objective as possible. Has been referenced by numerous similar articles written later. Personally, I use fluoro on 90% of my baitcasters, but If XL works for you, don't change. Congrats on the PB by the way! -T9

As you can see from the wide range of responses, the bass don't care which one you use - they love 'em all

Another vote for the new/damaged one...

I never exactly match, always going at least a little different, the degree to which depends on the bait and the water color. Contrast is good.

^^ THIS ^^

Not the same thing at all. Wobble heads as you pictured are kind of similar in action to a scrounger head, except pretty much always fished with a straight tail worm. They seem to be a regional thing though. The company is out of Louisiana, and I can tell you that when Jacob Wheeler was down there at Cross Lake for the All-American (2011), he quickly found out how popular they are in the area. Lot of guys throwing them, and he did too during pre-fishing to check them out. Seems like they would do best in sparse but expansive cover. On Cross Lake, that was cypress fields and pads, but I could also see patchy submerged veggies being another good area. Really any place you might fish the old Johnson Silver Minnow. There are other "wobble heads" now if you do a search that are a bit more hybrid and closer to a shaky, more like a biffle head molded to vibrate like a scrounger. -T9

Have fished the Indiana stretch of the Ohio River for nearly 30 years on and off. Have also seen many of the IDNR surveys from those pools. There are several factors that seem to be at play based on that research. The first is that it's a pretty tough living being a bass on the Ohio. Shocking surveys in our pools show that the overall population is only about 1/10 of a good bass fishery, and about 1/5 of an 'OK' bass fishery. Recruitment is really low, as would seem to be survival. Very minimal spawning areas due to heavy siltation, and huge water level fluctuations from year to year. One of the more recent surveys on what is considered to be one of our best embayments showed no YOY, 1 or 2 year old bass. Growth is another problem. Seems the ones that do survive grow quick for their first 3 years or so, reaching 12" ('keepers') within that time frame. However, growth after that is well below average. Our oldest bass in that survey was just 7 years old, and it was only 16." There used to be a huge stocking effort that went on for years down in the pool near Cincinnati/Lawrenceburg and it barely helped. There are big fish in the system, but they don't show up routinely. Fishing there really runs in spurts. You can get a couple good years when rainfalls are normal and the river doesn't do anything crazy. That allows the grass to take hold, the water to clear, and extra cover to be provided. But it's such a large drainage area that huge floods always end up happening sooner or later, wiping out any good that had occurred. Timing is often terrible too, with some of the highest flooding through the winter months when bass are trying to settle into their wintering areas which can be pretty limited and specific in some pools, and when their metabolism is lowest. When I tracked it many years back, the overall trend in the bass fishing seemed to be declining over the past 20 years. I think it will just always be a marginal fishery. -T9

No doubt there will be some in both places (back and front). A nice deeper slot that leads into that area as well as a good hole further back, plus plenty of deep water at the mouth by the island. Don't pass up the spawning canal right there either. I could easily see you spending all 8 hours in that area if you fished everything thoroughly.