Klinger988

abelfisher, since i have been fishing i have come to realize that getting skunked is just part of the game. I have also learned however, that the more confidence you have, the less likely you are to get skunked. Stick with a lure that always catches you fish (tubes and baby brushhogs for me) when the fishing is hard and you should do much better. There are ALWAYS fish to catch, its just a matter of finding them and establishing a pattern. just last week my buddy and i were fishing for four hours and i had only caught a pike. We were trying to fish a cold water pattern because the water was still only around 50. Finally a few minutes before dark we decided to try one of our summer spots and to our surprise we started to slam them. We were fishing a rock wall and the rocks were holding more heat then the place we were at first. This apparently was what the fish were looking for. This just goes to show that you have to have confidence and not be afraid to try something different. Good luck!

I think it is good to make a point of learning something new everythime you go fishing. I myself fish with someone that is much more experienced then me and i am luck that he was so willing to teach me everything he knows. The knowledge i have gained is pirceless and would have taken years of trial and error on my own to figure everything out. I think it is also good to make a point to learn and become good at one techique a year. Last year was jig n' pig and plastic, this year will be spinnerbaits. this is a good way of being able to realy concentrate on one thing and learn to ish it in all situations. We cant always rely on our cofidence lures!

What do u guys do to keep your reels in good shape? I just got a curado last spring, and dont know if I should oil it or just let it go. Any advice would be great!

2 stories for you: The first one happened to me and it still gets me upset when i think about it! I had saved my money for a long time and had bought a real nice baitcasting setup. I was realy excited and ready to go... Well, i meet the guy that i go fishing with at the dock and it just so happens that this day is the first day of the year he was able to take his bass boat out. It had been in the shop for some work, and we had been fishing in a real slow 9.9 hp boat for over a month. Well this was going to be my first time in a real bass boat, (i have only been fishing for a year) and i was pretty excited to see what it could do. well in my excited stupidity i neglected to ask what the elastic straps were for on the boat deck, so i just throw my polls on the deck and hop in the boat. well we go flying across the water at 60mph and hit the wake of another boat. well u guessed it when we finally get to our spot my polls are long gone on the bottom of the lake! i think he felt worse then i did! well the stroy does have a happy ending, we entered a buddy tourn to try to win some money back to get me some new polls and it just so happened that we got first and lunker. that got us $400 bucks and some new polls. moral of the stroy: strap your polls down! the second story dosent have a very good ending but i find it pretty entertaining: This past year i was at Lake Kipawa in Canada on a fishing trip with my uncle. i didnt personaly see this happen, but let me tell you the entire town was taking about it. the week before we had gotten there lets just say a scuba team had to be called in... like i say this is just from hearsay, but here it goes: a husdand and wife were upset after a long week of bad fishing. they are at the dock and are pulling out their boat. the wife is in charge of driving the boat onto the trailer and the husband is in the truck to pull the boat out. for some strange reason they attach the cord from the boat to the trailer before its out of the water. the two were having a hard time getting the boat in right, and in a moment of frusteration the wife goes in reverse to try again. well she forgot the boat was attached to the truck. the husband couldnt react quick enough and the boat pulled the truck right into the water. Kipawa is a very steep lake, and just a few feet of shore it is at least 30ft deep. well the truck went to the bottom and a scuba team had to be called in to get it out. luckly they were able to get the cord off the boat before that sunk too! How bout that for a bad day of fishing?!

I caught a 5lb, 18in smallmouth when i was perch fishing. I was using a dead minnow on the bottem in 60ft of water. what a fight! at first i thought it was a sheephead because i was fishing so deep, but to my suprise it wasnt.

Black and blue jig with a power craw is my best lure. If that dosent work then a baby brush hog should do the trick.