Simp

Now thats more rare then getting bit by a snake! ;D

Well Directv has another new sat (D11) that is being moved to it's orbital slot as we speak. Once that is done I'd expect Directv to add this channel and many many more HD channels. I have series links set to record Bill Dance, Hank Parker and others in HD on the VS channel. I'm glad to see Dish adding channels but the recent loss of a satellite meant for HD is going to set thim back compared to Directv in the long run.

Ok I just read 11pages of a two year old thread to see the results. What did RW have to say??????????

Do you guys have any good suggestions for a scale/clamps. The one I have has a very thin metal hook that couldn't really grab. I would be interested in something that could be used to bring in a very large fish into the boat and weigh them. When I lost that HUGE catfish years ago it was only because we (my father and I) couldn't figure where to grab. We agreed it's mouth would not have been fun but it seemed to big to grab by the gills. Any suggestions?

I guess the only think I could add that the pics don't show is it was very fat. It may have been full of eggs.

Unfortunately it wasn't my lunker bass, but without the help of this forum and the articles I couldn't have put us at the right place at the right time. Even though I didn't catch it I take pride in knowing that I knew where to look and that I put us at the right spot. I consider myself a novice but certainly not a beginne angler. I'm been fishing all my life off and on but mostly for panfish and catfish. I consider myself one of the top fisherman around if you want to catch a mess of bluegill ect. Then this year my sisters long time boyfriend started to get into the idea of becoming a fisherman. He has some friends who are into it and has now been in Southern IL long enough to start to catch the fishing bug . So this year he started looking for a boat and motor, and found what he wanted for a good price. So this was our 4th trip our on his boat (he supplies the boat and I the truck). I'd been doing allot of research on trying to decipher fishing patterns for spring bass. I took the knowledge that bass were moving from deeper water into shallow watter to heart and looked for drop offs ect.. I got my lake map out and planed where it was best to hit today. I was using a large Strike King spinner and he had a crankbait plus several other lures. I always make fun of him for switching baits every 15 min. Today that paid off for him though! After hitting out first spot with no luck I went to the next location I had wanted to make sure to hit. The second spot was a area with allot of stumps and trees in about 10-15ft of watter. I was working my spinerbait as deep as I could and was wanting to move to something like a jig but thought I needed to use a "search" bait for a while longer. While my partner went to a jig and pig lure. It was funny because he just got his first bait caster and it was a fairly light jig. So I'm sure you get the idea of what it was like for him until he adjusted. He didn't jig long and he hooked a good 2-3 pound bass. I told him that was really a good bass. Then not 15 min later I hear him should "I got one and he's bigger then the other". I said to myself I doubt that! The other one was fairly big. I asked " are you sure your not hung again..." ;D I mean it sure looked like it was with the way he was tugging and the pole bending. He didn't even need to answer because the next thing I know the thing made a bee line for the boat. At this point I started becoming the "back seat" fisherman. We had one of my extra polls with the smartcast depthfinder on it and it started to get tangled with him. I was pleading for him to "watch out don't get tangled!". I wasn't concerned about the smartcast but him losing the fish. It continued it's run underneath the boat and he started trying to tug it back and I yelled "no!!! Go around the motor ,go around the motor!". He did and was then able to get the fish to the side of the boat and I stretched out and grabbed it by it's mouth. I lost a monster catfish (well over 40 pounds) once because I hesitated trying to get it in the boat because of it's size and I wasn't going to let his bass get away. So here is his bass. It measured just over 20 inches and the scale I had was horrible and I couldn't get a good reading. Any thoughts on the poundage? I think it was between 5-6pds mayeb even 7...???? Note on the second pic I brought the brightness down because the flash went off and the fish was super white. I think it helped provide a better view of the bass.

Is this for under 18 year olds or something? In IL I don't think we have anything like this.

Ok those are freaking insane big!!!!!!

Sure seems like some of the big fish are coming out to play .

I could have used a good scale today :-[

You have to love $1 baits. I probably caught more fish on $1 baits then enything 5$ or over. Each time I loose a $5 bait I also get very mad lol.

Thanks for the videos.

How do you fish a frog??? I've never used one but I have a pond that I know has some good numbers of bass in it. The problem is when I fished it for 15 min, and caught two bass two months ago I could tell the pond was going to moss over. I haven't went back to that pond yet because it's a long walk on our wildlife refuge and didn't want to walk that far and get nothing but moss. So I have instead went to the other pond that is a mile in the other direction walking but it seems to be heavily pressured.

Can we also all agree the Zebco commercial with him and his "grandson" is ;D.

This is a little off topic but I find this funny. I came in the thread to get some tips on fishing worms because I don't do it often now. I've had more practice with spinerbaits and top water ect. I also fish for Bluegill for the most part up until the last year or so. The last time I actually caught a bass on a worm was when I was believe it or not about 6 or 7 years old. My dad used to fish in his local bass club all summer and I learned allot even though I was so young. At one of the youth events I was taught hot to rig a plastic worm. A few weeks later I rode my bike to the local park pond with my Zebco and tackle box. I set up my plastic worm and started casting and reeling it in slowly and moving the tip up and down like my dad would (I'm all alone fishing). I then saw a fish jump and I threw the worm the best I could at the spot. A few seconds later BAM!! a bass hit it. I reeled it in after a 5-10min fight and it was huge by far the biggest bass I had ever caught! In fact at 4-6 pounds it was to big to ride home on my bike with. So I kept fishing and caught a couple more that day that soon turned into night. I was just to proud to let my fish go without showing it off to my mom and dad at that age. Then finally at 11pm my mom showed up scared out of her mind wondering where I was (I used to ride my bike for miles and it was ok as long as I was back by sundown.). She finally noticed my pole and tackle box were gone and she realized where I was. She started giving me the talking to about scaring her to death and why I didn't come home on time. Then I pulled out the stringer and said it's to big to ride home with ;D. She took me to where my dad worked and I got to show it off plus we snapped some photos. To this day that's the last time I caught a bass on a plastic worm lol. Maybe this year I'll change that .

I went to scout a local pond in a wildlife refuge and brought this lure. I fished for about 2-3 hours and caught 5 bass with the smaller eel.