Shad_Master

I have an '88 Tournament V 18' Tracker that I just bought from a guy who weighs 350# easy and has fished it pretty hard over the years. Unfortunately he fell in a 20' Triton a couple of years back and has had to cut down considerably on his fishing. For my $ Tracker's are a very stable boat and you should have no problems.

Have somebody hold your ankles while you stick your head over the side of the boat (Sorry couldn't resist). I have never heard this and will be interested to see what you find out.

I have mentioned this before, but here goes again. My favorite is "Think Like A Fish" by Tom Mann. There is not a lot about how to catch fish, but it is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read and tells a great story about the fishing industry and a true legend.

Just like with any living creature, fish react to sudden unexpected noise negatively. With trolling motors, I think fish get accustomed to hearing them and don't react negatively unless the TM is banging into logs, brush or rocks. As for the splash of a bait, I have seen fish turn and react to a bait when I was less than stealthy in getting it to them. I have also heard professional fishermen advise arch casting a jig to get it through a weed mat and it didn't seem to have a negative effect on the fish. I think as long as you aren't churning up the water with a lot of excessive noise that it shouldn't be a problem.

I've got two stories that are similar to this. Last year, early in the spring, I stopped at city lake that was on the way to an appointment. I decided to try my luck and was throwing GULP turtle back worms along the bank. I began to notice the blue gill were cruising around the area and took an interest in the GULP. They weren't big enough to swallow it but they would bit the tail and pull on it. I was tempting this one and he was an aggressive little ***. He kept going after the GULP. But this one time, as I was dragging him along, there was an explosion out of the weeds and this bass came shooting out and the blue gill was gone! Several weeks later, I was pre-fishing from the bank before a club tournament. I noticed that the blue gill were bedding along the bank and knew that we had an early blast off the next morning. Figuring that bass might move into the area to feed on some of the blue gill, I decided I would start there. But a storm came through just before blast off and we had to delay for about 45 minutes. When I got there the water was milk chocolate, but I decided to throw a few anyway. I was using a 7" turtle back worm to try and keep the blue gill off of it, but they kept nipping at the tail until it was down to about 3". I laughed and decided to make a long cast to clear some of the mush on my reel before re-rigging and a 17" bass hit the remainder.

Road Warrior is wrong, they do need a brain in order to function. The problem is what we are all saying is that this creature with a brain the size of walnut that is used exclusively for instinct and reaction is able to outsmart us geniuses with all of our high powered baits and tackle :'( Quick, somebody change the topic, I don't want to think about this. :-X

I was flipping channels last night and caught a fishing show, don't even know which one, and the guy was giving a tip about using swivels to keep the plastic bait from slipping down in heavy cover. He put on the bullet weight and then slipped on a barrel swivel before tying the hook on. Then when he rigged the texas rig, he did something with the swivel after running the hook through the head of the worm before running it into the body of the worm. But I couldn't see what he was doing and can't get it pictured in my mind. Have you heard of this or did someone watch the show? If so, can you give a clearer explanation of what he was doing? Thanks }><)))°>

My club does not have an age limit, at one time we had a 14 year old that won the "Mr. Bass" trophy for the year. He is now about 30 years old and does not fish with the club anymore. My 13 year old fishes with me as a permanent guest for the Calcutta tournaments and I have told him when he is old enough to drive the truck and back the trailer down the ramp that he can join and fish the club tournaments as well. We do have annual membership dues, $20 per person and $20 to fish the calcutta series. We also have dock-side pools for big stringer and big bass at each tournament that are optional.

Check out the Small Boat Bass Club of Omaha, NE. Our website is www.smallboatbassclub.com. We were mentioned in that article on small boat clubs, but they kinda misunderstood. The focus of our club is not to exclude anyone, but to allow everyone interested to join in.

My local club has a "Sportsman's Flea Market" every year as a way to raise money for the club. We sell tables to vendors and have several tables for the club. People bring their takle and equipment and put it on the table for sale and the club collects gate money from the public for comming in to browze around. Some of our regular vendors are small mom & pop bait shops and some are specialty vendors (one guy ties bucktails for Northerns) but a lot of them are either other clubs or just guys who have a ton of stuff they want to get rid of.

I had a guy tell me last year that when you feel that double bump and come up empty, what is happening is the fish is sucking the bait in and blowing it out. He suggested that I try putting some scent or attractor on to help them hold a little longer and it worked.

Don't know where you are or where you were fishing, but generally if fish are chasing your bait and not biting it, you may want to change colors. Also, if you are sure there are fish in the area, you may want to try vertical jigging with a drop-shot with the Senko wacky rigged.

I've been a Minkota man for several years now. My old one had the flat pedal that you rock side to side to turn and it would sometimes get stuck and spin me around in circles, but a little WD-40 usually took care of that. Now I have one with the front to back peddle, it's hard to get used to the change, but they are a workhorse. Last night I saw part of a show that was talking about a Motorguide TM that can be set to follow the contour of the bank - you set it to hold at say 14 1/2 feet and set it on continuous and it will pull you around a point. They probably don't give these things away, but it sure looked cool!

Don't know really what you're lookin for, but if I had the $$ to buy a new boat, I would take a long look at Trackers over a john boat. It looks like you get more bang for your buck. I just bought a used Tracker after selling a 35 year old Starcraft. Can't wait to get it out of the garage and out on the water this weekend. I went with a used one 'cause I got a great deal on a boat that I know has been taken care of.

there are crawdads in the water around KU and the surrounding areas, but I wouldn't be so concerned about "mathing the hatch". They come in a variety of colors and change colors as they go through the molting process. I would concentrate more on setting up a variety of sizes of jigs so that you can see what the fish want to eat. In the spring you may want to focus on blue, black and red colors. Later in the year switch to more natural colors like brown, pumpkin, etc. But you can't go wrong with black at any time of the year, especially if the water is muddy or stained.

My local club has an annual "flea market" every year where we sell table space to vendors and hold out several tables for club members to sell off there "over stock" of the latest bait that worked only once or those that just caught your eye. You really don't recoup all of your expenses, but you can make some of your money back and also pick up some good deals on next year's "over stock".

Soldier, how do you have time to fish with all that reading? : Thanks for the list.

I have been taking my 13 year old fishing since he was 4. One of the best trips we ever had was one where my reel fell apart on my second cast. I spent the rest of the day helping him to catch fish and we both had a blast. I once heard Hank Parker talking about taking little kids fishing and his advice was to leave your tackle at home and just let them have fun. It sure worked for me. Now 9 years later, my guy is fishing some club tournaments with me and still enjoys it.

Keep on thinkin that way, you will never regret it!! That's from an almost 54 year old posting from "work".

My local club has a "human bobber" award that is presented to anyone who "takes the plunge" during the year at our annual banquet. I was one of the lucky recipients this year. We were fishing a calcutta tournament at a local lake near my house. That morning my regular net man (12 year old son) had decided he didn't feel good when I woke him up at 5:30 so I hooked up the boat and headed out without him. When I got there I found another one of our club members didn't have a back seater, so I decided to leave my boat in the parking lot and ride with him. He set up the seat on the back of his Nitro, but used two poles to set it up and it was way too high for me to sit on, so I decided to just lean against it, kinda like a butt seat. After fishing for a while, we stopped to talk to some other guys fishing and as we started to move off, I leaned back against the seat, but only caught the corner of it. This caused the seat to swivel and my feet got crossed and I fell down on my hands and knees on the edge of the boat. My buddy turned around to see what the commotion was and this caused the boat to rock in my direction. By this time, my butt was higher than my head and it just pushed me out into the lake head first. I now have my "human bobber" award proudly displayed on the wall of my family room.

Another method I have seen demonstrated that shocked the **** (fill in the blank) out of me was when a guy pulled out his line and then dropped the whole rig (rod and reel) down the line toward the hung up bait. I believe the first time I saw this, the guy had hung a jig. I thought, why would you throw a $200 to $250 rig into the water to save a $.79 jig? But it works. Maybe this is not such a big deal for guys like J.T. that have all these sponsors , but for a weekend warrior like my self, I will cut the line if I can't get it back anyother way.

I used to have a Hummin Bird that acted like this. It worked great while sitting still, but when the trolling motor was on, it would act up. I was told it had something to do with interference comming off of the battery. I was too dumb to figure it out, so I sold the boat.

There is a private pond near my house that I am not supposed to fish in, but I do (you know what I mean). Any way, after fishing this pond for several months, I discovered that I was always catching at least one fish off of a stand of grass across the little channel from where I usually started out. It got to the point that I would walk to the bank, turn to my right , throw a crank bait (any color any size) and catch a fish. I started looking and noticed that this fish had holes all around it's mouth from being hooked and I am pretty sure that I am the only one fishing there. Is it the same fish being caught day after day? Who knows, but it makes a good story.

Many years ago, when I was in college, I went out with a buddy. We left in the middle of the night to go get his Dad's boat and then had to travel about three hours to the lake. We got there right at sun up and spent the morning chunking and winding with nary a bite. Around noon time, the sky started getting dark and the wind got up so bad we had a hard time holding the boat (this was in the days before trolling motors) but the fish started biting everything. The clouds got darker, the wind blew harder and it started to rain and then hail. We headed off back to the ramp and by the time we got there the sun came out again. The rest of the day was pretty slow, but we had a boat load from that period when the clouds rolled in. We didn't discover until we got home that night that a tornado had hit just over the mountain from where we were. The low pressure associated with the storm really turned those fish on.

Mike, the "feel" of a big ole bass hitting on your soft plastic bait is about the most fun you can have with your clothes on . What you will fell is a series of slight tugs or taps. When you feel this, you need to lower your rod tip, reel up the slack and then pull on it like somebody just slapped your Grandma. Getting hit on a moving bait, like a crank or spinner is different. You will feel the fish pull and begin to shake. Not too much different than when you get hit on a top water. The only difference is you don't need to wait and let the rod load up before setting the hook. If you do, the fish may throw the bait. Hope this helps, but nothing beats just doin' it. So rember the process is cast, retrieve, repeat!!!