Team9nine

I've used about every color of line made over the years, and caught plenty of fish on all of it. As was stated, it's not necessarily what they can see (they can see it all for the most part), but rather whether they care. Most times they probably don't, but in certain waters and under certain conditions, I've heard respectable people tell me they've seen big differences at times, so I don't absolutely discount the possibility. If your fish catching is keeping pace with others, then don't worry about line color. -T9

All great advice above. Might be able to squeeze a small 17 footer in there, but it will be close. Would definitely have to have swing-away/drop tongue, remove engine from the toter and trim straight down, perhaps even turn engine all the way to one side in addition to gain valuable inches - or slightly angle the entire boat once inside to utilize the extra diagonal length. No way to know for certain though because it will all depend upon the specific combination you buy. Every boat will be different. Things like length and horsepower of the engine, jackplate or not, where the tongue actually breaks away on the trailer, the beam and actual trailer width, etc. Only way to know is take exact measurements of a boat you're interested in and then try and measure out in your garage. Better yet, make the purchase contingent upon it fitting in your garage and you bringing it home to try first. Guessing you'll end up with something closer to 16' when it's all said and done -T9

In the big scheme of things, is it really any more or less gimmicky than a Hydrowave? -T9

LJ Brasher

On the trolling ban thing, I believe the primary answer 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 a difference. For example, the walleye guys (PWT, AIM, etc.) were always paired as a pro and a co-angler in the same boat, and had 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). Makes trolling and scoring fair for both partners. Even lower AAA levels like MWC are team events, fish with a "buddy." Similarly, nearly all professional crappie events are "team" events, where the team (both guys) get the same weight for the day. As such, trolling is a perfectly good tactic again, fair for all. Ray set the rules for bass competition, so that's how we play the game. I think the Perry/Eisenhower thing really happened, but the timing was coincidental given it happening shortly before the formation of B.A.S.S. and their professional tourney circuit. -T9 Oh, and Ray Scott once held a fly fishing B.A.S.S. tourney B.A.S.S.' fly rod tournaments preceded a trio of Invitationals in 1975. The events were B.A.S.S. founder Ray Scott's way of promoting fly fishing among the Micropterus crowd. Anglers earned points for the fly rod events that counted toward AOY. About the only rules for these one-day tournaments were that you had to use a conventional fly rod and reel and cast in a conventional fly-fishing manner. Lots of anglers unaccustomed to fly fishing used the long rods to throw small plastic worms and jigs....Ricky Green won one of them, and even Rick Clunn placed high in an event... and it was at a fly fishing conference where Ray first got the "catch and release" idea.

I own hundreds and catch plenty of bass using them both casting and trolling. They'll catch pretty much anything that swims... Good to see Buck and Spoonplugging being discussed - and yes, buy/read the book - it's one that belongs in every fishing library. -T9

Culprit worms is credited with inventing laminate plastics in the late 1970s. That allowed them to produce one worm with two different colored plastics. "Red shad" was Culprit's first such color combination. Don't overthink it. I believe they simply took two very popular worm colors at the time (red and black) and applied their technology. I'm not certain they were really trying to mimic anything intentionally, as they gave many of their color combos melded to black the "shad" label (red shad, black shad, blue shad, green shad, etc.). Could have just been a catchy name, or at best, the black represented the darker backs of preyfish, and the other colors melded to that black representing the lighter bellies. -T9

IDNR does not routinely stock any largemouth bass in our waters unless there is a specific reason for doing so (renovation, shad reduction, fish kill, etc). We are in their native range and they readily reproduce on their own in most of our waters, so they spend the money stocking things that usually won't reproduce naturally such as musky, trout, walleye and wipers. -T9

Jacob never fished the large state tourneys (BFL, IBF) like most Indiana guys do for years and years. Due to their size, the larger state circuits can pretty much only fish Monroe, Patoka and the Ohio R., all very difficult and inconsistent lakes. Instead, he practiced and fished most all his tourneys on Waveland (in it's prime), Geist, Morse, the White R. and Eagle Creek -all lakes where you can catch limits with amazing regularity and thereby fish multiple patterns and multiple techniques. He also had access to a few private lakes with really good bass fisheries (HL included). When he first fished the BFL, he went to the Ohio Div. so he wouldn't have any preconceived ideas by fishing his home division. He only had to do that for 1 year before moving to the national level. -T9 Yeah, I agree, but there is no Midwest subgroup in this forum section. They have placed Indiana in the NE subforum. The question was specifically an Indiana question (you hear bass tourney guys say it around around here all the time), so this seems like the appropriate subforum for it. -T9

Mostly BS in my opinion. Simply look at the number of big name professional bass anglers that have come out of Indiana and made a career out of the sport We've had some really good anglers over the years, but our limited and exceedingly tough fisheries do more damage to creating pros than it does helps. Wheeler is the exception, but he was "trained" differently. -T9

Berkley scientist Paul Johnson has written extensively about all facets of line mechanics. A couple guys have already picked up on this, but if the only thing being considered is line diameter (using nylon mono), the thinner line will be the more sensitive when actually fished in water. Distance from the angler also plays a part. At 20' away, about flipping distance, most every bite will be felt (a bite being defined as a fish sitting still and sucking in a bait, moving the line/bait ~6" or so). At 40', an angler only picks up about half the actual number of bites. At 80', you will rarely be able to detect a simple bite. The bait/line has to be moved over 2' in order to be detected. There are other interesting factors though including line coil, stiffness, and tension among others. -T9

Maybe if you fish a shaky head that slow - I don't. I fish my shaky head similar to my Ned rig, basically swimming slightly off bottom much of the time with occasional bottom contact/rest to make sure my bait stays in proper position. Floating plastic bodies and standing up sounds great and looks good in videos, but much of the time the fish could care less. Likely only makes a difference if you are deadsticking a bait at length. -T9

Lines are constantly being improved, and that includes fluorocarbons. Within your 5 year time frame we now have double-structured fluorocarbons, as well as special formulations for both finesse and flipping presentations. A quick look at what has been released at ICAST the last year or two will give you a good idea. -T9

That would only apply if you believe that a floating worm is somehow better than a non-floating worm for that presentation - I personally don't. -T9

Another vote for leaving it running. Some days I fish 3-4 hrs without ever shutting mine off. -T9

Been in twice over the past 30+ years of fishing. first time was when I was in my early 20s in a club tourney. I was a co-angler (no such thing really back then) and in the back. Fishing with an older retired gentleman whose trolling motor had been acting up. Got in a canal and the wind was blowing us right into some wooden pilings. I went to help and push off one of the pilings with my foot so his boat didn't get damaged. Sure enough he hits the trolling motor at just the right time to try and avoid hitting them. I one-step it right into the drink. The other time (another club tourney) I had walked out on a dock to unsnag a lure and was walking back to get into the boat. One of the straps on my life jacket wrapped over a metal dock pole right as I jumped back into the boat. Strap and momentum grabbed me and whipped me into a circle and I dropped my a** into the water right beside the dock. Had to remove my life jacket to get myself off the metal post. -T9

If they were smaller fish, say 12" or less and moving rather quickly, I would just about guarantee they were gizzard shad. They're just playing -T9

OK - that explains it. No reports because I stopped bass fishing for a while there and was chasing everything else - mostly crappie, walleye, and white bass, and hitting some other lakes in the area. Just started fishing bass again the past 2 weekends. Not getting out much, usually just for 2.5 hours once or twice a week, so not much to write about. Been catching most of what I've been catching on finesse worms, both Ned style and shaky. -T9

Yeah, park the boat, come inside and grab a drink, then jump on the Bass Resource website and post a report BTW, I don't know what "with *** fish" means, but it must be good if it got deleted out -T9

Nope - Only chance of that ever happening would be if you spooled with straight braid or superline, and even then, the line wouldn't pull on the knot until it completely unwound/slipped from the spool. If using nylon or copoly, no chance. -T9

Keep the Exceler - spool with 50# braid and use 20# Big Game as a leader. -T9

I use a simple Uni - shouldn't matter much. If a fish takes you down to that knot, it will be irrelevant which knot you tied -T9

Pretty much agree with the above. "No" is pretty absolute. Tatsu is really good as mentioned, and InvizX is also good. If you're not looking for too high of a pound test rating, some of the specialty "finesse" fluorocarbons are really good in this area. My favorite so far is Toray Super Finesse and/or Bait Casting Finesse, but getting really hard to find in the U.S. Several new finesse fluoros being released though soon by other companies, so perhaps try one of those. -T9

You have the right idea - simply go by the diameter they list in mm converted to inches, not by the pound test rating. There is no standardized rating of pound test for lines, but diameter is a quantified unit that is standardized or comparable. Plus, you basically don't know if they are referring to fluorocarbon or mono/nylon, which are rated differently here in the U.S. As you mentioned, their 25# .40 mm diameter line is approx. equivalent to our 17# rated monofilaments, but that isn't their actual breaking strength (which will be much higher, especially nylons or copolys which will push you in the low 20# breaking strength). Most 20# nylon/copoly lines will range between .41-.46 mm, but have actual breaking strengths much closer to 22# - 30#. .33mm = .013" (about 12# test); .37mm = .0146" (about 15# test); .40mm = .0157" (about 16/17# test) -T9

The thermocline is usually a band of water, not a distinct line. It also is often technically defined as a drop in temperature of at least 1 deg. C per meter of water column, or about half a degree F per foot. As such, in the example given, the top of the thermocline would be around that 15' mark and the bottom of the thermocline would be near the 45' level (though likely somewhat shallower given the visibility reading at that depth). Hard to get much more specific given the large variances between recorded depths. Could be more accurate with readings every 1, 2 or 5 ft throughout the water column. -T9