Fishes in trees

A few years ago I found some very stretchy rubber overshoes at Orschlens Farm & Home. I think if you wore them walking around very much they would wear out pretty quickly, however, in the boat they keep whatever shoe I'm wearing that day dry. It seems to me that they weren't that expensive, i.e. less than $20.

A 1/16 oz. Charlie Brewer Slider head works. Either the regular slider or spider style. Their weedless 1/16 oz crappie head would also work for a more weedless approach to the ned rig.

Back in olden times - late 90's, early 2000's, BPS marketed a jig called the "Missouri rig" It consisted of a 3/8 or 1/2 oz football jig with a short wire leader coming out of the back of the head. The idea was that you put a choppers or similar hula-type grub on the football head, tie a short leader to the short wire coming out the back bottom of the jig head and tie on some sort of weightless tx rigged soft plastic. Trick worms and lizards were most commonly used. This rig was semi-popular on Table Rock for a couple of seasons, but hasn't made any headlines for the past decade or so. This rig gave the illusion of a craw slowly moving along the bottom with a different bait stalking it slightly above and behind it. I tried it one tournament with little success, but I think that the lack of success had to do with my boater who all day consistently fished shallow. That day in the spring the top 5 winning stringers came from mid-lake points 25 to 35 feet deep. We fished way up the King river and seldom any deeper than10 feet in water with a foot or less visibility.

What aavery2 said. Pitching is a style of casting. You can pitch anything. Get in and amongst a bunch of trees and pitch a square bill or a Timber Tiger DC 13 or 16 through all the little lanes that become obvious. You will be amazed what happens when you do this. When you get in and around timber, pitching or maybe an Jimmy Houston type roll cast are your best options, for soft plastics, cranks, spinnerbaits, any bait really.

I'm not a big fan of inflatables. I fish around many sunken and water level thorn trees. I'd go for the biggest, widest jon boat I could afford. Another option is that I am pretty certain that you could stand up in a 10' BPS Pond Prowler or some other brand of similar boat. I used to own a Buster Boats 10' pond boat and I would routinely fish with 550 lbs or so of people and gear in it. It was totally safe, as long as you both weren't standing up when you were moving and you hit an underwater stump. Option B - learn how to fish sitting down. You can make side arm casts, roll casts and pitching casts sitting down - all it takes is practice. Mater of fact, I learned how to pitch sitting down, just cause I didn't feel like standing up all the time. The more different casts you are proficient in, the more options you have when it comes to putting a bait where you want it. Financing a boat is always an option. If I had waited until I had a lump sum to buy my current boat, it never would have happened. I financed LOWE in 2002 and paid $150/month. It was a number I could live with and I had a boat that I could fish the smaller conservation lakes, where most of my week to week fishing takes place and I had a boat that was big enough that I could take it on Lake of the Ozarks and Truman, Table Rock, etc and feel more or less safe. Everyone's situation is different, hope you find a solution to your boating issues.

Goose 52 is correct. The Outdoor World Rod & Reel Repair (located in the BPS outlet store, right next to the original store in Springfield, will have the part you want, as far as BPS reels are concerned.

I didn't recognize the numbers, but I do recognize the name "trap caster". I've got that rod. for throwing rattle trap style baits, I think it is great. I get good distance with it, I'm able to recognize strikes that happen at a distance and so forth. I throw half ounce rattle baits with it. I think it would work ok for any reaction type bait.

Drop shot is just a way to present a bait. You can do it with spinning gear, go as light as you want, be more finesse oriented. You can to it with bait casting gear, bubba it up a little bit and get bit in cover that would snap your 8 lb fluorocarbon in a moment. I do both. I've got a 7' Medium Action/extra fast tip spinning rod. Currently I use a 14 lb Fireline/fluorocarbon leader set up for that. I've got a 7'6" pitching stick that I fish 20 lb Abrazx fluorocarbon line with. I can throw that into some gnarly cover, and get fish out when I get bit with that rig. For hooks, I like the Gamakatsu Wicked Wacky hooks, in a variety of sizes. After you tie your palomar knot, threading the line through the tube on the hook shank helps a lot in keeping the hook oriented correctly and minimizing snags. Gear you got right now will work to get started drop shot fishing. Upgrade your gear once you have a notion of which way you want to go - presentation wise - finesse or bubba.

I have one of each, an older auto-inflate model and a newer Mustang hydrostatic inflation model. I wear the newer one most of the time. It has never deployed when it wan't supposed to. I wear it over my rain suit all the time. I keep the other one as a back up and for the occasional passenger. It has only auto-deployed once. I wore it all day on a brutally humid day, threw it into the truck as I packed up for the evening and after I got home, sometime during the night, it went off. It never did cool off that night and I am thinking that the damp clothes in the truck, in the sealed environment, created enough moisture to cause the clay bobbin to dissolve. That hasn't happened since. Before the inflatable life vests, I only wore mine when I had to. Now, I wear it all the time and frequently forget that I have it on.

A couple of thoughts. First, that pistol grip rod is good for spooks and poppers. Secondly, be mindful that you will tear up your wrist over time using those rods. If you're relatively young and recover easily, that isn't a problem. Me, I just won't use a pistol grip rod anymore for that reason. Well, that and I cast two handed a lot, and that casting style is nearly impossible with that handle. Lastly, the guides on that rod are not comparable to the guides on rods of more recent vintage. If you use braid on that rod, you will groove the guides in a fairly short amount of time.

I use a Fenwick AETOS 7'9" Heavy action rod for my frog fishing. I use a Calcutta 250 GTB reel (I think, I maybe/probably get my numbers mixed up) with 65 lb braid. This doubles as my A-Rig rod and I can also throw heavier buzz baits on it. If I had to flip and pitch with it I could, but I have set ups I like better for pitching and I don't flip all that often.

If you are looking at the Fenwick Eagle, spend the extra $40 and go HMG. Lifetime warranty on HMG rods. I'd go at least medium or medium/heavy with an extra fast tip. (If my primary focus was on soft plastics and shaky heads)

It is slightly past 5 AM. I'm working on my 3rd Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA. I'm feeling somewhat snarky. What is limit fishing? Are you on the right board? I've caught bass. I've caught bluegill, crappie, carp, smallmouth bass, 3 different species of catfish, drum and a 40 pound king salmon the one time I took a trip to Alaska. I've never caught a limit. What does it look like? What kind of gear do you use? I am curious.

I am firmly in the trial and error camp. One of the virtue of owning LOTS of different soft plastics is that you own lots of different colors. Start with a color decision based on past experience, secchi disc reading, whatever. Fish it for a while. If you have indifferent results, choose a different color and repeat. That is my strategy, anyway.

I'VE SEEN THIS ONE BEFORE. IT HAS TOXIC RESIN ON IT'S SKIN!! DON'T TOUCH IT.

To echo what Bluebasser 86 wrote, a club is a good place to start. In a perfect world, you'll find someone who goes fishing every week and doesn't mind someone tagging along, someone who, in fact, kind of likes teaching a novice and passing along some of the stuff they have learned along the way. Should that happen, your learning curve will increase exponentially. Introduce yourself to everyone, chit-chat with everyone and go out of your way to make that happen. I've got no clue how much gear you've got, but I am assuming you know how to use a bait caster. My advice would be to lay off buying gear for now, until you see how different guys in your club fish. Then get similar gear, to start with. Don't go cheap, that stuff will break on you, always at the wrong time. I got no idea what neighborhood you live in, but you might want to check out the local forum for your neighborhood. There is a more than decent chance that guys in the club that you're planning on joining post there. If you have space at your house to practice casting, I'd do that. You can buy practice plugs in various weights or with a modest amount on ingenuity you can create a practice plug in nearly any weight you desire. Be ready to cover your share of expenses, but don't be a dupe and pay for everything all the time. If you go to your first club meeting and it is at a place where beer is served, buying a round is a stand-up thing to do. If you are worried about being the "new guy" - get over it. You aren't the first new guy and you won't be the last "new guy". It really isn't any different than interacting with other kids in the playground when you were a kid only this time it is older boys with bigger toys. Most of the guys, ( really, the vast majority of guys and women) in bass clubs are fun people and you will get entertained. Another thing to keep in mind is how much are you going to progress. After a couple of years in a local bass club, ( mind you, this was a local club that I was invited in to help start ) I realized that everyone else in the club had the mindset that they were going to put in and spend the day throwing at targets on the bank. There was nothing else left to learn by continuing to go and throw at targets at the bank. I did the math and found that costs for gas. lodging, meals and so forth were the same for regional tournament organizations as they were for local club tournaments, except you paid a slightly larger entry fee. That is when I got into BFL and, while I was still on speaking terms with all the guys in the club, I didn't fish with them all that often. BFL offered more learning opportunities for me. I don't know about your situation. Start where you are at and have as much fun as you want to. If you are anywhere close in Missouri, I'll buy you a beer sometime. p.s. you caught me right after I got home from work and it is beer-thirty my time. Sorry for the rant.

That rod holder costs $30. For $30 you can buy a bunch of plastic pipe and fittings and glue and make a much more WTR (white trash repair) version of the same thing. It would be uglier and home made looking. Sniffing the glue while you are cutting and fitting plastic pipe can be entertaining. Or work in a ventilated area and have a few beers while you are playing with grown up tinker toys - your choice. Me - in my fishing shed - I like the white trash rigged look and I go out of my way to achieve it in my rod holders and shelving. If you are doing it indoors where people are going to see it, the $30 for a decent looking rod rack looks better and better.

If the reel still works, I would fish it until I broke it - a season or two at least, anyway. I don't know what is available where you are at, but I'd look at Fenwicks, the Aetos or HMG series. Lifetime warranties and their customer service is easy to deal with and you don't break the bank, staying under $180 for the Aetos even if you pay full retail. They have several different actions and lengths. I think a 7' MH extra fast tip would be great for throwing flukes and tx rigged stick baits. If you are driving your boat in amongst trees and other cover, sometimes a shorter rod is better. in their HMG line they make a fairly stiff 5'9" rod (I think that they call it a medium power) with an extra fast tip. That is the one I pick up first, if I'm throwing tx rigged stick baits.

Believe it or not you can argue this issue either way. I let god decide because she determines what is available when I've got to scratch that new gear itch, and she is the one that put that new gear notion in my head in the first place. This being said, I have found that there are some less expensive reels that meet my needs for certain presentations. For instance, for throwing jerk baits, I haven't found a spinning reel that works better for throwing jerk baits than my US Reel 240. I know it makes noise, and the cranking is herby/jerky sometimes, but that wide spool lets me throw jerk baits into the wind easily and I like that. $40. The rod I use for that presentation cost 4 times that when I bought it - 8 or 9 yard ago.

If all you want is leaders for your braid, bit the bullet and buy fluorocarbon leader material. It is much more abrasion resistant than regular fluorocarbon, i.e. is is what that stuff was made for. A 30 years spool has lasted me several years and I'm not nearly through with it yet. There is a little bit of a learning curve to tying knots with it, because it is stiffer and more springy than regular fluorocarbon, but it isn't that hard.

Walmart close outs are supposed to start soon, When they start theirs, the other chain stores start also. Your best bet would be to make the rounds of Walmart, Dicks, Academy, BPS, whatever else is near you. Make a decision based on what is available to you. My current favorite cranking bait casting rod is a 7'4" BPS Extreme Med action that I got on sale for around $70 several years ago. It seemed like a good enough deal that I got 3 of them. I can't go more than a week without walking into some fishing tackle store, often more than one. I'm always on the lookout for an upgrade, so far I haven't found a good enough value for me to upgrade the crank rod, though. Having said this much, I would point out that when I decide to throw cranks, the rod I first pick up is a MH Kistler spinning rod, with a curiously flexible tip. Rigged with a large spool spinning reel and braid I find I get more distance when I need it, without the need for a strong wind up and it allows me more flexibility in the wind. Really, I don't know, crank presentation is something I mess around with a lot. One thing I do know is that I'm not a fan of the flexible, parabolic action fiberglass rods. Too heavy, too tippy and decreased sensitivity.

When I was a co-angler, I found that 2 medium sized bags worked better than 1 large bag. For whatever I wanted, I didn't have as much stuff to dig around through. 1 bag was full of soft stuff that I didn't care if it got kicked around and it went underneath my feet or shoved under the passenger side console. the other bag was secured with several velcro straps to the post of the rear deck seat. That was only in my way and totally out of the way of my boater. I also had a rod bag that worked great for transporting rods from my vehicle down to the boat. That got folded up and stuck into a bin during the tournament. The bag would hold a variable number of rods & reels. 5 rods & reels comfortably, 8 if you carefully packed them. Really though, every tournament was different and I don't think that I ever used the exact same set-up 2 tournaments in a row.

95% of the time when a fish throws a hood on me, I attribute it to operator error. The other 5% of the time, I attribute the experience to an old and talented fish that bites lures and throws them just for sport.

In Missouri, I've found that black and blue is a good deep stained to muddy water color. In waters with 3 or more feet of visibility, it has been my experience that other colors work better.

Last year, my favorite lure was a half ounce home-made jika rig with a brush hog. Fishing a lake I've fished for 9 years, targeting edges of deep weed lines in 12 to 19 feet of water, a couple of different days it was like I was on an untapped population of fish. I got bit every 5 or 6 casts all day long. When I first got my boat (2002) the hot ticket was the wacky rigged senko, drifted down the trunks of main lake trees in15 to 25 feet of water. Strikes generally happened 7 to 9 feet down. At the time, I was unskilled at any kind of fishing that didn't involve beating the bank, and that opened my eyes and my imagination as to what was available off the bank. Going further back, I remember the first spring after I learned to use a bait caster, and what fun it was to run a spinnerbait past a stump or pull it over a lay down and let it drop. The 3/8 oz okiebug short arm spinner bait with a brown pork frog trailer was a great bait that spring. I was a bush hippie meat fisherman then and that bait caught me literally hundreds of fish.