Bluebasser86

Thought I'd toss this out to everyone. Would you guys be interested in chipping in maybe $5 a person to get a couple traveling trophies for this deal? Thought it might be fun to have a couple "Razor Clam Classic" trophies done that could be passed off to the winners each time we do this thing. Either that or we could do the same thing and I'll just get some gift cards or some goodies at BPS that the winners could split up. Or we could just keep it like it is, just for fun and bragging rights

Whatever you fish, fish it slow, and then slow down.

We had 80 degree temps 3 days ago, supposed to snow 3 inches Thursday and not make it back to average temps again until next Wednesday

And it's gonna work

What baits I fish varies a lot from 40 to 50 degrees. Low 40's I'm fishing jerkbaits, jig, and a spoon. Once I get closer to 50 I add a spinnerbait, rattletrap, flat crank, and a swimbait to that list.

I'm assuming you mean hard, suspending jerkbaits and yes I do fish them in the fall and yes the can be extremely effective in the fall also. I fish them the same but a lot of the time you can fish them faster in the fall than you can in the spring.

You're getting better consistency and better quality baits like others have said but there is usually going to be slight differences in action also. Might now even be something that you can notice but there will be times that fish notice the differences. Pointers are the most consistent perfect suspending bait out of the box that I've found. It's worth it to me to be able to take them out of the box and fish instead of having to try to weight them right before I can fish them.

Don't have a picture of my third biggest but here's my top 2 and then about number 4 or 5.

Caught them through the ice a few times. My first one from a non warm water discharge lake this year the water temp was 40.3 degrees.

Isn't much a bluegill won't try tro eat. I've caught them on 1/2oz spinnerbaits, DD22s, even small swimbaits. A couple of my favorite baits to fish for both at the same time are 2" grubs on a 1/32oz jighead, or a 2" tube on a 1/32oz jighead with a small safety pin spinner arm.

Good deal, I'll send him an email tonight and let him know the details.

Yeah that means I have you down as a boater but if you have someone with a better boat that wants to fish that's fine also, just let me know.

It does work but they don't stay up the hook very well after a fish or two, the pit boss chunk works much better if you're just planning on using them as a trailer.

I use a jig eye buster before they're painted, after they're painted a heated heavy duty trotline hook works best for me.

Never had much success at Miami this early in the year, seems like it really starts to fire up around mid to late April. When I've gone early in the year the numbers are down and most noticeably the average size goes way down for some reason. What do you normally catch your big fish on at Critzer? A guy at work swears by a jig down there but I haven't been down there since my first time to find out for myself.

What's a buzzbait supposed to look like? What's a brush hog supposed to look like? Or a Senko? The answer we all hope for is something a fish wants to eat! Maybe it's the lack of defining details that make them so appealing to a fish, they look like so many things but not really like anything. Since fish don't have hands the only way for them to really inspect something beyond just looking at it is to grab it in their mouth, that's where you come in

When I was probably 16 or 17 my dad was bragging to his buddies that I could catch a fish almost anytime. It was about 7pm in February and the lake we were at had just thawed earlier that week. My dad's buddies said they'd give me $20 apiece for each fish I could catch. It was already dark out and it was fairly warm but still probably only 40 degrees out. I went and drug a finesse tube across a rockpile in 10' of water near an area where warmer water was running in from a small pond. Managed to catch 3 or 4 and made a pretty good chunk of change. It isn't nearly as effective as it is during the warmer months but if you put a bait in front of them you can still get them to eat.

You guys get any good ones? At least you got one good one. That first picture reminds me why I haven't been back there though. I'm sure I'll still go back at least once this year with them sampling fish almost to 9 pounds out of there. I doubt I'd ever manage to get it out of all those trees but I'm willing to try

Blackberry, Watermelon red magic, and green pumpkin red.

I bought $123 worth of groceries

I've fished through straight 30-35mph winds with gusts to 50 a few times. The wind always blows here, if we get a 10-15mph wind that's pretty good.

Wish I would have seen this sooner, did you do any good?

Still looking for a couple more boaters if anyone is still on the fence. Looking like we're going to have a pretty good turnout and it's a fun time and a good chance to meet some new people and maybe even learn something about the lake.

We can discuss that at the ramp if anyone is interested.

Went to Gardner for a couple hours today just to get out and enjoy the weather for the minute it was supposed to last. Water temp was 42 at the dam, 47 at the south end. Caught one dink and missed another at the far south end on a STX jerkbait. Guys on the bank were catching catfish and a couple bass on minnows under bobbers. Highlight of the day was getting a Misty Shad colored 100 Pointer out of tree by someones dock Actually saw a blow up near the bank today where some water runs in from a little pond that was a couple degrees warmer than the rest of the lake, couldn't make it bite a bait though.