NateFollmer

It needs to come closer to my house haha. I almost went to the one in Florida but it was just too expensive for me to get there and stay... ICAST PHILLY!!!!

I can't believe I am even posting this, but if you all get a laugh out of my stupidity, then its worth it I was fishing a few weeks ago in the Juniata River. I was tossing an old Rapala lipless crank (I forget the model, I have had it for years) in a baby bass color... Wasn't catching a darn thing. I just realized today, that there are no largemouth bass in that river and throwing a baby LMB color was probably the last lure I should have been using! I bet the smallies were thinking "WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!".... I know I'm an idiot! Anyone else ever do anything stupid like that?

Man there has been a lot of people from Pa around here lately - I LOVE IT! I feel a BR Meet up for Pa is in order here soon! I vote Raystown or the 'hanney River.

Chicken Livers wrapped in a small piece of panty hose wrapped around it works great too. The panty hose keeps the liver from being picked at, the cat has to take the whole piece! All of Horny Toads suggestions will work also, but I use the liver probably 90% of the time... I should go cat fishin' tonight, I haven't done that in years!

Who has time to watch sports when there's fishing to be done!? Ah, I miss my old days of playing baseball... I'm too fat and slow now!

No Problem. I don't know how hot it is where you are at the moment, but right now in my area the smallies are in the middle of the river and are holding in the deeper pools. During the morning and the evening, the topwater is on fire!

Haha, I'll take a hat, a shirt, some stickers, some lures.... ok ok, I'm getting a little out of control! Thanks DRhodes, I'll be heading back this weekend and I'm calling the grass flat to myself and catching a pig!

I wrote a small article on this for my WFN Ambassador page, here it is:

I fish Central Pa all the time Colyer, Walker, Faylor, Juniata River, Raystown... I use the Rage Craws and Shad's love em. I don't ever get into any big bluegill that have been able to take the claws off though. The only bluegill issues I have are with ribbon tail worms, they always take the ends off! I have also never had a shad rip on me yet, so I don't know what is going on there?

That it does! I was going to buy the rage craws that are specifically for jig trailers, but the old rage with a nice big bite out of its back works just as good haha. They kind of taste like pepper... I know you were wondering! I must say, I am very impressed with these baits. I like to keep my plastics simple and not have 10000 legs and junk hanging off of the body. These have the perfect amount of detail and the perfect amount of action. I can't believe I didn't buy these sooner

http://www.icastfishing.org/ Vegas! Edit: Missed the when July 14-16

Congrats to the winners! I have been reading the reviews of these rods and they look awesome.

How big is this lake? If it was a big plane and wasn't very deep, it should show up on satellite view on google maps HAHA. Don't let a cold front scare you, just slow down and downsize and you'll be fine!

Well if it was round and oblong (like a football) it may have been a football head jig or it could have just been a standard ball head jig too. Either one is great, but I like jigs with thinner heads when fishing rocks (like swim jigs, they aren't just for swimming you know!)

Brands - Bass Pro Shops and Tru-Tungsten are the 2 I use, but there are a lot of great jig brands out on the market. I haven't found anything better in the football head jig than BPS though. Power and Length - I use a Medium action 6ft. 6inch. rod. Most people go 7ft medium heavy though. I just like having that extra sensitivity in the tip but it is sometimes harder to be accurate when flipping. I use braid with a 4 to 6 ft. flouro leader, depending on the water clarity. And, depending on the cover, I'll throw anything from 20 lb. braid, all the way up to 65lb braid. My leaders are anywhere from 12lb to 20lb flouro. Just use heavier line for thicker cover. I'm going to tell you right now, and remember this - You're going to lose a lot of jigs while you learn! I bet I lost about $40 worth of jigs learning to fish timber and rocks. Wood is a real pain to learn on because if you set the hook into wood, its over. Unless you can reach the jig, you won't get that hook out of the wood.

It's sort of hard to explain, it's something you have to see, but you have to keep your line slack... but tight at the same time, almost like having a slight bow in your line. I do this by letting it fall but lift up on my rod a little as it drops. Rocks are a pain and I lose a lot of jigs in them. You might want to switch to a lighter jig. What style were you using? I try and use swimming jigs or jigs with a pointy end when I'm in the rocks. Football heads and rocks don't mix for me... I'm not a very skilled jig angler though so take my advice for what you will I know enough to be dangerous, but I know most of these guys on here would smoke me with a jig haha.

Cranks are great, especially if the grass is in or near some fast current. I think I've told this story before but I was standing beside a grass patch with about 6 inches of line in the water and a sexy shad crank on the end of the line. I was looking through my tackle box about to change lures and right out from under me, out of the grass, a smallmouth darts out, grabs the crank and I picked it right up out of the water. Pretty boring fight but I think that shows how well a crank will work in grass haha.

Finally, after nearly 10 years, I got back to Colyer Lake near State College Pa! I don't know why I haven't been back since then, but I really regret missing all the fish I could have been ripping out of there! Although the dam is cracked and the water is very low (it went from about 40 to 20 at it's deepest point) the fishing was great. We made the mistake of using the east access area located off of Lake Rd. It was an old dirt launch with a small dock. You can't even get a trailer close to the water anymore, so we had to carry the boat in (it only weighs about 300 lbs, nothing we couldn't handle... ha). If you decide to go to Colyer, use the west access off of Lingle Rd. As soon as we launched, I heard an angler in a canoe yelling "HEY.....HEEEEEEEY". As he approached he said "can you take my picture?" and he extended his arm to show me this nice pig: He took that on a swimbait on a swimming jig. He told us the fish were holding at 6 to 8 ft. (which was the key to the entire day). After getting all worked up over that fish, I took the boat out to the main point on the lake and saw a school of what looked like about 10 fish. Guess where they were suspended? 6 to 8ft... I tossed a Shadalicious swimbait down to them and after several passes I switched gears and dropped a jig down the steep bank. My jig was a peanut butter and jelly colored football jig with a Rage Craw as the trailer (I bite off the last two body sections. They tend to lay better on the jig and fall with more claw action this way). As soon as that jig got to the magic depth of 8 ft a nice bass picked it up! That bass ended up being about 14", nothing to brag about, but it's a fish! We caught a few more off that same bank and then I lost the school on the sonar. I moved us just off the point to an area of heavy grass and timber. I switched the Rage Craw to a Texas rig and tossed it into the slop. I covered EVERY inch of that area with no hits. I put the craw back on the jig and on the first cast, BAM! I watched a nice largemouth fly out of the grass and nail the jig. Seemed like they wanted that larger profile over the T rig... I also tried many other baits, but where we were sitting, the Rage Craw on the jig was the only thing I could get them to commit to. One of many Colyer Dinks! I wish I could have hooked up with a bigger fish like Andy's (that's the guy that was yelling at us haha), but I didn't make it over to the grass flats where he was (plus I wanted to give him his space, he was there first). A fish is a fish to me though and I don't care what size they are as long as their biting!

Just saw a guy this weekend rip out a huge pig on a grassy flat with a Strike King Shadalicious swimbait. He was slow rolling it and just clipping the tops of the grass at about 5 to 6 ft. I'd stick with the soft swimbaits if minnow are in the area. Unless you want to go with a hard bait, then I would throw an X-Rap.

boneil - Thanks for the info! What I meant when I said it's too short notice is I'd need to get the money together and I want to buy a couple extra rods and stock up on the lures before I go I want to plan ahead for next year because I'd only rush and fail if I tried getting in now haha. DoD - Sorry no one has answered you yet, I hate to steal your thread! If I was closer to the bay, I'd help you out but I'm a good 4 hour drive from it.

I know this has been said before, but change the attitude. Confidence is your number 1 tool! A lake is a lake, all 'rules' hold true no matter what the lake, so you shouldn't hate any body of water with fish in it! Anyway, I could type all of my post cold front tips here, but I'll just quote the article I wrote in my WFN Ambassador page:

Haha at least their admitting there is an oil spill in the gulf "its bacteria!" Anyway, there are plenty of lakes around so don't let that spoil the fun. I'm heading to Colyer tomorrow (which is only about 60% full because of the crack in the dam) ill let you know if its worth the drive from where you are!

I don't have an iphone but most of the android apps were originally for the iphone so ill tell you what I have on my droid... Lunar tables - I would just use websites and look it up, unless there's a free app out there. There's a link to a lunar table on this site. Logs about fish - I use two programs. 1 is called My Tracks, it plots gps tracks, and all kinds of other info right on google maps. I can set markers and take photos and info for those markers. The second log app I use is 3banana notes. I use this when I don't care about the location. Plus, the iphone and droid cameras both save the gps coordinates of any pic you take, so you really are already plotting your spots if you take photos at the location.

Senko pretty much summed it up as best as anyone could haha. I tried to do this a few times. I have about 20 designs on paper and some modeled in 3d (along with the mold models). I know a guy with a cnc machine so my molds weren't included in this cost, but for me to start up, get all the tools and materials (and pay the $75 to get a business name in pa) it was around 2500 dollars. This was for 5 gal. Of plastic, a bunch of color, scent and flake, misc. Tools (gloves, pots, etc...) and bags and coffin cases. I recommend lure craft, delmart and bears baits, they all helped me a lot. Check out tackleunderground.com also, you will find everything you need to start over there.

You want to learn how to use these lures, ONLY take those three out and nothing else. I can't believe the jitterbug or the DT lures aren't working for you. They are great producers for me. I have never used the berkley frenzy lures, but I just saw them on G3 sportsman the otherday (they were cranking for river brown trout). Try a stop and go retrieve with the jitterbug. Use the DT lures around grass lines, they are my highest producers when cranking around grass.