Hookhead

My nephew hooked me through my hat and into my scalp past the barb. A fishing buddy had to push it through to get it out. It was either that or walk back to the car 1.5 miles then go to the hospital. It all worked out in the end.. I kept fishing afterwards.

After carefully reading you post I can tell you exactly what you are doing wrong. You are humming the theme song to "Bonanza". Everyone knows that the secret to spinnerbait fishing is to hum the theme song to "Gunsmoke". Sheesh. While I cannot say that spinnerbaits are my "go to" baits I can say that I've caught bass on them. For me the secret to spinnerbait fishing is slow rolling them on the bottom. If you do this correctly you can feel every contour of the bottom and all the rocks, stumps, etc. along the way. That is what makes it exciting for me. I'll be slow rolling it feeling the bottom and suddenly WHAM, a fish will hit it like a freight train.

While I do know that 'deadsticking' is casting your bait at your target and letting it sit, I figured it applied mostly to Senko type baits. As in 'stick baits'. Some of my biggest fish were caught deadsticking a senko. I'm sure there are plenty of other members here that can attest to that method of senko type fishing. Oh yeah, WELCOME!

If I were to guess what happened at Dixon I'd say they happened upon her and her nest and tried like hell to catch her. They probably tried everything in their box, she's big (still alive) for a reason right? After a few hours or so they were probably dying to see just how much that fat girl weighed so he rigged his smallest heavest bait, a jig, with an oversized treble with the intention of snagging her. After finding out she was a WR he realized he couldn't do anything but put her back and try to catch her legally. I'm just guessign here but I can see why he did what he did. He probably thought it wouldn't get around until he pulled her out of the water and realized she was huge. Having witnesses doesn't help, especially when intentionally snagging a fish. Curiosity got the best of him in a moment of weakness.

Sorry but... Too many details don't add up.

I'm still a little confused. What size Power Pro are we talking about here? 800 or 1000 ?

This is why I stopped TIVO'ing his show. I've noticed his tried 'n true formula for every show is: 50% product placement 20% landing private pond fish 30% information on how/why fish respond to barometer change. voila! He does seem like a genuinely nice guy. Can't fault him for that!

Good for you Squid, I'm totally jealous! That sounds like tons of fun.

Cut it open and see what's in its stomache! Perhaps it was one of these:

WOW! What a monster! I think that angler is really Burl Ives....

NICE LR! Thanks for posting those pics. I've seen people shock fish before and it is pretty neat. At lake Davis here in Cali they (scientists) set off underwater explosives in quarter mile runs to get an inventory of how many pike had infested the lake. That was truly a sight to see. After it went off you'd see a long line of fish come floating up. Good stuff.

I caught 2 that went 16" and 17" each on a Norman's. I thought I had a clump a weeds at first, all weight no fight.

This happens all the time and I'm not surprised. I'm disgusted but not surprised. On a related topic, I was watching BPSs fishing show a few days ago. They had Woo Davies and a BPS general manager on a boat trolling for swordfish. There were 5 deck hands rigging and setting up planer boards while the BPS GM was doing some full-time brown nosing with davies. During the conversation you see one of the rods bend on the back of the boat and a deck hand sprint over to it, yank it our of its holder and hand it to the BPS guy. The BPS guy proceeds to fight the fish until it gets near the boat where the deck hands bring it onboard. The next 5 minutes are spent posing next to his fish while he boasts, "it was a hard fight.." It makes me sick knowing that at some BPS store there is a huge picture of this fool with fish he "caught". I have absolutley NO RESPECT for these people. > How would you get any sense of accomplishment knowing that someone else did all the work it took to catch that fish? Woo Davies was next and the exact same scenario took place. That's not fishing. That's "reeling". Any idiot can reel in a fish. It's just like Jimmy Houston. I've watched several of his shows where he's hunting with a guide and miraculously comes across a GIANT deer or elk. I've hunted deer for 20 years and I know what it takes to locate and kill a decent buck. It certainly isn't that easy.

I live in Cali so the answer, naturally, is YES!

I love to hear stories like yours Muddy, that is just awesome. First time fishing: Like many of you my father got me into fishing. Strangely, I've never really fished with him. He was into gold-panning in the late 70's and would take me with him to the American River here in northern Cali. I must have been 7 or 8 years old the first time we went. He bought me a little white and green Zebco setup with some worm hooks and weights. He'd be running his sluice box by the river bank and I'd be floating live crawlers. I caught a few nice rainbows and he'd glow in disbelief every time. When I was 9 I started fishing at a neighbor's pond and would catch giant blue gill on almost every cast. That went on until I started high school and didn't pick up a rod again until 1998, 15 years later. First time bass fishing: In 98 I hooked up with an old high school buddy at our 10 year re-union. He convinced me to go bass fishing with him so we could get away from our wives, BS and have a few beers. I borrowed a rod and bought a Luhr-Jenson Kwikfish about the size of a grass-hopper. At that time I had absolutely no idea what I was doing (kind of like now). I clamped on a few split shot weights about 10" above the kwikfish and chucked it as far out as possible. On the first retrieve I nailed a 10" dink. That was it. The beginning of an almost unhealthy obsession. I'm trying to get my 9 year old son out on the boat to go fishing with me but he's isn't the least bit interested. I practically have to twist his arm to go bank fishing with me. I'm wearing on him though!