little_stephen

Hey guys, sorry I've been MIA lately, I've been seriously busy with work. But I wanted to ask for help! I just bought my first bass "boat" I got a tip from the VP of the company I work for that his buddy was selling an inflatable boat. I am now the proud owner of a brand new (never used) Sevylor HF 250 Fish Hunter Inflatable Boat! Which cost me an amazing $20 It's cramped, but it will have to do. I'm wondering if anyone has any good tips for me in the following areas: -Preventing heat expansion (the boats dark green) -Cheaper allternative to the Sevylor motor mount -Cheap option for a 12volt trolling motor & battery (plus do I need a gauge to tell me the charge left?) -Anchor options!? Any help would be great! I'm really feeling like a deer staring into the headlights of a huge semi!

gotta love when people fail to read that im back.... lo not new! and lately, life has not been all about fishing..... I WISH IT WAS!

So i was fishing tonite on my new lake i live on. and I saw something really wierd I wasn't sure of. Lets see what you guys think. (I shore fish remember) I landed my first bass of the night, I spooked a TON of bluegill that were up on the shallow over the sand and clay as I landed it. I looked around a bit and started seeing lots of little tiny bluegill and then something i wasnt expecting. Little tiny bass. I knew they were bass based off the black stripe on the tip of the tail and theyre shape. These were a little shorter than my hand in length, and were swimming in a pack with the small bluegill! Ive never seen bass and bluegill interact like that around this time of year. I know they intereact well most of the year anyways. but these young fish were all mingling and keeping in a well defined herd..... Wierd! Not to mention, i had a dink bass.... more than likely la little under 1lbs follow a jig i was BURNING at full speed back to shore. then stop promptly about three feet from shore. I ACTUALLY saw the thing notice me, and then dart back for deeper cover. Are the yearling or fingerling or whatever bass hanging out with the little gills for protection from the other bass??? What do you guys think?

looks like a good pond. especially if the locals all look like the girl in the one pic! jk. looks fun. the clear water isnt somthing im used to..... but those weeds are nice! I just started throwing this new bait i got tonite! Its a seible soft plastic magic swimmer. I toss the bluegill one. it has a nice slit in the back that allows it to cut thru weeds like those! try it sometime if u can afford a pack. they arent cheap.

the line under my profile said it all.... then changed it. lol Small Pond Ohio Bassin' All The Way! (now ive upgraded to my small lake.... but same idea!) ;D

ok.... call off the hounds, BassBrats been all over my email wondering where ive gotten off to. But Im back! Call the helicopters back, notify the authorities..... im ok. Lately Ive been working like a dog. Ive been promoted twice, started a blog, became a twitter phenom! and helped launch anew branch of our company! So, if ive been a little lacking here. sorry. But im back! ;D

so. id love to go. but money got tight. and i dont know if i can do anything over a 1 day trip. if i have to pay for a room for the night im cooked.

not from there, actually im from ohio, about as far from texas as u can get culture wise. But I work with the blood center there....... and someone just today i talked to was bugging me about going fishing. im jealous...... Anyhow. Welcome Aboard! the Aggies are freaking hardcore in everysense of the word!

I tried to find this topic elsewhere, if i failed, sorry. Crawdads, Crayfish, Crawfish........ what ever you call them...... I need to know how to find them..... No where in my neck of the woods sells them. And I'd really like to figure out how to get some for bait. The lake id like to use them at is packed with them. But three problems exist: 1. I dont know where to look for them. 2. I dont know how to go about catching them. 3. I cant go wading around the lake (I dont own waders, and the rangers are sketchy about letting people into the lake for safety reasons.) (But i can get into some water on the far side of the lake.) Help!? In the combined infinite years of expierence we have here, I figured someone could shed light on the most productive way of getting my hands on some of these things!

i was going to mention tossing live bait........ a chunky crawdad would do good. I myself found bass have a hard time resisting a juicy crawler thats wiggling in their face. but spawn throws all the rules out the window!

questions only silly (or stupid) if u refuse to ask it for fear of being called silly (or stupid) btw. i know nothing about Indy..... does that make me silly? lol :-?

SO happy i started this topic! especially when i get to hear about ur nasty mexican stained cruddy undies! JK This is fun..... keep em' coming!

i think they do!? But none of what science says seems to effect the bass in Sippo Lake, the only structure in that entire lake is the MASSIVE amount of lily pads. The fishing pier & boat house which get HAMMERED! the pipeline and its little wooden posts. the cement overflow dam choked back in the padfields down lake where i fish. and the sandbars that you cant get to unless u rent a canoe, and manage to escape the rangers watchful eye and get out on the sandbars on foot in ankle deep water (mind you theyre tiny little sandbars) So they spawn in the pad stems. Its the only place for them to spawn!

That day she outfished me...... lemme think back... oh thats right...... 3 Cat Fish, 5 Bass (Including that one which is our 2nd biggest weve cought there), 4 Bluegill, 2 Crappie, 2 Box Turtles, & A Snapping Turtle to my 2 dinks......... or something like that! My trick is to just make sure she has something to keep her busy when we go fishing! Its worked a number of times! One time i actually got her to go fishing with me on the lake, we rented a jonboat with a trolling motor, and i had her steer me around the lake while i fished, shed read, id just call out, left, more left, right......... ect. lol She was studying for her Nursing Theory Final. and she got an A on it! ;D Sadly she graduate........ :-? (Maybe not sadly, she pays the bills) And now i cant pull the old, "Hey, wanna go to the lake and 'Study?'" Trick!

I have to post here cheering for my boy Jody Adkins. From nearby North Canton, OH Jody got skunked the first day, and only boated two fish the second. but had to earn his birth in the big show! SO thank you for atleast putting North Canton on the map in the Classic. But it wish you woulda had a better showing...... Keep ur head high buddy! Woooo Jody.

Yes Sir! Especially if ur fishing a lake with little else for cover. My favorite lake only has lily pads for cover....... thats it. If you can focus on a place where the pads have some sort of secondary structure ur golden. I landed my biggest bass so far off an emerging pad field really early in the spring with a jig by crawling it through the stem systems. But my best spot where I got the fish from had a row of small posts that ran through the pad field.... they hold a pipeline of some sort in place..... that was where I got the most bites from. But if you can find a spot where the pads create a wierd structural formation, or where theres an isolated pad stem system close to a larger one..... things like that youll find the fish! Some bass spawn in the pad systems, so if its gunna be spawn focus on holes in the stems. Prespawn ive had luck landing fish cruising looking for food along drop offs so I target spots where the pads drop off quickly into deep water. Alot of it has to do with knowing where the pads are in the summer for me. But the short answer, YES fish those things if thats the only cover the bass have! General rules to remember (as far as Ive learned) Lily Pads tend to grow in water as deep as 10feet. Not much more..... Pads like to grow in muddy or silty bottom composition (Bass dont like to spawn there)- so try spots where bottom comp changes and stops the pads when theyre grown If im wrong here, im sure someone will strighten me out. but those are the rules i fish by! And all ive done for the last two years straight is fish lily pad fields from shore! (Cant even get to open water in the summer) Good luck! and let me know how it turns out!

mini zip ties..... two of the attached to the tipe of ur rod one at each end of the mini sticks should do the trick. and theyre really easy to remove!

Im a huge fan of the beaver under any circumstances. i toss it all over the place! ive liked the space monkey tho! havent landed any fish on it becasue its about the last thing i fish with. buts the actions great! ive even tossed it as a highspeed alternative to a horny toad when i want something alittle morecompact with more limbs and higher retrieve speeds! hope that helps.

keep in mind i took all these from a cellphone. well, 3 different cell phones to be exact, so they all vary in quality from crappy to not good. lol oh, and sorry about the bug. i couldnt help but post it. its a giant metal statue that someone i used to live by had in their front yard.

Thanks. I think Im gunna try floro first. Ive got some highstrength PLine somewhere around here i found at the flee market.........thing is, im gunna hold off on a big decision until ive seen/landed a pike or two or three from the lake. its small, really small (the lake) so ive got a feeling they arent gunna be huge...... so well see.....

Not a person, a thing......... Depression. Ill explain real quick. A few years ago, I was in college and suffering from a pretty dark time in my life. It was fall, and one day i went into the garage, saw one of my dads old fishing rods on the floor, and decided to go fishing! I went, didnt catch a thing, but really enjoyed the sun on my face, the smell of the air, and the breeze blowing. Never went back! It took me a full year to learn and then catch my first Bass ever. But I did! Now its all i wanna be doing! Wouldnt have it any other way! I was always an inside kinda kid, would rather be playing videogames, or sketching, or building a model or something. College marchingband showed me that being outside was good for me, but it wasnt keeping me happy. fishing filled in that void....... Bass fishing literally saved my life. I know its cheesy, but its true. Past that, Id wanna thank u guys for teaching me how to catch more fish. Because u can learn alot from reading magazines, but its hard to understand what youre doing right and wrong without real people to talk to! SO THANKS! ;D

im pretty sure that each gander mtn is indepently stocked by what the managers feel sells at that store.......... our store is stocked well all the time! But Gander Mtn stocks seasonally, mine wont put out their full arsensl of rods until they feel they cant sell anymore ice fishing gear...... its silly, but its biz. i dont know how yours is run..... but mine is better than going to Walmart! If you ask me, youre overshooting your expectations for what your buying..... its supposed to be cheaper than other brands, which is the whole reason gndr mtn offers them..... but i think theyre over priced. theyre probably just trying to compensate for the economy. 5 of my 7 rods i own are all Gndr Mtn Im7 Classics. ones an Im8. but theyre the simple green ones. they work really well, and i got each of them on sale for under $40 a piece. my bottom line point of view. if your complaining about how expensive they are, then maybe ur looking in the wrong place. you wouldnt go to walmart and get mad because the TV's were over priced for a low quality TV. u'd leave and go to an electronics store! (Ok, maybe walmarts a bad expample. lol) I just think people hold this high expectation of "off brands" and sadly, thats why theyre off brands. lol

this thread really got a life of its own! My fiance is kinda like the one eyed bait thing. she was fooling around with one of my rods after she got bored one time, and landed a bass that alone outwieghed my 3 bass combined! It nipped a pwer grub that I bled into a custom color (Smoke Green Pumpkin Seed!) Doesnt sound like much, but it works WONDERS on the pond we fish together! When I said it nipped it, i mean it clamped onto the grubs tail end, and somehow didnt let go! And she pulled it up on shore without it getting hooked! Now, EVERYTIME we go to that pond, she insists I let her try that same grub (The concept that the actual grub she used is LONG gone and that its not easy to match that same color when ur custom mixing them in a plastic bag on the window ledge all winter! lol

when the ice melts, FISH ON! You cant go wrong early season 'Eye fishin on Erie! And if all else fails and you cant fish the prespawn, plan your trip and find a multi-species capt. Youve got a shot at great perch, walleye, and smallmouth fishing if your capt knows what spots are close enough that you can hit a slam on Erie!

i neve fish without a heavy work glove with me. lots of cats where i fish, if I can just twist the hook free with the fish over the water, ill lip it (with the glove in) and use pliers to get the hook out. I still dont understand why so many people are anti-glove wearing fishermen!? I wear gloves to 1. protect the fish, 2. protect my hands, and 3. keep from getting stuck/stung (Cant tell you how many times that jig flies free at the last second when im unhooking and ends up in my finger!)