Bluebasser86

My reason for releasing them is simple, I don't like the taste of freshwater fish. Saltwater fish is a whole different story. If bass tasted good to me I would probably keep a few small ones on occasion. We have several lakes packed full of small fish but not many big fish because nobody keeps any of them so they don't have enough room or food to grow. Then some of our lakes if it gets caught its going home regardless of species or size or limits.

I'm an LEO and I've never written a traffic ticket in my 6 years of doing it (other than the senerios in the academy and core training anyways). Mainly because I've chosen to stay in the corrections division of our agency. I work in a building out of the weather with heat in the winter and AC in the summer. Plus if anything ever goes down I've got back up less than a minute away. The job is plenty interesting and entertaining on a day to day basis and it pays better than a lot of people probably think it would. If you make it to Sgt here and don't mind working some OT you can pull 6 figures, we have straight deputies that come close but they don't have a home life because of all the OT they work. It's steady work, great benefits, and with all the stupid people in this world it's great job security . If it was easier to get into I would seriously consider going into being on at a fire department but that can be a long, drawn out process since it seems most of them want you to volunteer for a year or two along with all the school you have to go through.

Yep, they can be just as effective in the fall as they are in the spring.

Nice! I could not imagine catching that many big smallies in a few days fishing.

A prerigged Creme worm with the spinner in front, I caught everything on that little bait.

Really that cold already?? We still have water temps around 60 in the KC area, even mid 60's at the lake I was at last Wednesday that's about 2 hours south. I guess there has been some of that 4 letter word up there already this fall

Did not have any luck with a drop shot last time I tried. I didn't try a zinker but they didn't want a Zoom Meathead or finesse worm. Like PB said if you get some clouds don't shy away from a spinnerbait even if it's cold out. A small hook seems to be kind of key for the Ned Rig to be effective, I think bigger hooks must keep the bait too rigid to do whatever the ned rig does that makes it so irresistable.

That one on the far right is a good looking fish, probably 16.5-17 inches I'd guess.

I've got a really old Devil's horse I believe. It's shaped a little different than they are now, bigger at the head then tapering off towards the tail. It's wooden and painted yellow with black spots. I don't use it anymore but I used to and it caught fish pretty well.

That story has to bring a smile to your face, good for her knowing what to do and for her parents that surely showed her how to use the gun if she had to in such an emergency. If bills and working 40 hours a week make you an adult I've been an adult since I was 13 or 14. Get me with the right friends and I'm about as mature as a middle school boy. I still think farts are funny so I can't be that grown up can I?

They would be cool to catch. I've read they're extremely skittish and mostly caught on livebait. I think they're supposed to fight similar to a tarpon so that would be exciting too.

Those things could eat most of the perch I've ever caught.

Cool, I'd love to catch a redfish and a striper. Never caught either that I can remember. I'm not sure how big reds get but I know surf fishermen catch them over 50lbs in some areas.

Not a fan of flouro for jerks because it sinks and can pull the bait down with it. Mono or copoly is my line of choice for jerkbaits, 8-12 depending on the size of the bait and the amount of cover. I can fling a 78 pointer a long way with my jerkbait setup and have very few over runs.

I like the stuff for moving baits but it has too much stretch to get a good hookset with feel baits unless you go to a very heavy weight. I didn't have much problems with memory, even when I went up to 25lb test for flipping very heavy trees. It had great abrasion resistance, I managed to pull up a whole tree along with the 5.5lb fish that wrapped me up in it, and that was after playing tug-o-war back and forth through the tree for quite awhile. It's pretty tough to beat for the price IMO.

I'm a big fan of St. Croix but I will never buy another rod from the Rage series unless they change a few things with them. I had a casting and spinning rod in the Rage series. The spinning rod foregrip came loose and would spin around the rod at the worst times and sometimes the reel would almost fall off because of this. I ended up trying to use electric tape to hold it in place but even that slipped sometimes, I ended up returning it and upgrading to a LTB. Another member had the same problem with one of the casting rods. I had the 7' 1" MH/F casting rod for a pitching rod and loved it. The feel of the rod was great, it was light, and I loved the grip. I caught tons of fish on it until one day for some unknown reason it snapped 2/3 of the way up the rod while swinging a 2lb fish in. I've heard from several others that have had them snap on them. I haven't broke any other St.Croixs that weren't my fault like this rod, from the Triumphs to the LTB. Do yourself a favor and save up a few more bucks and get an avid.

My vote is for none of them. I couldn't find a bladed jig that didn't have something about it that I didn't like so I started making my own . Now I have the action, colors, and hooks that I wanted. The original chatterbaits got a lot of hits for me but the hooks sucked. Never had much luck with the Pure Poison or Booyah.

I have a couple of the XR6's and have had great luck on all sizes of bass with them along with lots of crappie and white bass. The fish great on spinning gear with 8lb test.

A 7 pounder is a freak in North Wisconsin. I'd stick with jigs or swimbaits along those weed edges with some kind of structure like a drop off or rockpile. If it's an option you might consider live bait also if you really want to up your odds, something like a 4-5 inch bluegill freelined or lightly weighted in those same areas is sure to find a big one eventually.

I've got some silent RES, they work for sure. They have the same vibration that fish can feel to help them find the bait but without the noisey rattles so they work in dirty water also.

Shad raps are great baits in the fall as the water cools off and good anytime you need a more finesse style crankbait. Good looking fish!

Yep the wind has been a pain the the midwest the last week or so. I went out Wednesday and did really well despite the 25-35mph winds. I try to stick to smaller lakes and I pay attention to what direction the wind is supposed to be from and select a lake that is best set up for that style winds. With the south wind Wednesday I went to a 100 acre lake that isn't too long to the north and south and had lots of high banks and trees with some coves to hide in. It worked out well and I ended up putting 106 fish in the boat with a 5.68lb largemouth being the largest

I guess I'll go ahead and post some of my pictures from the get together now. Our computers hard drive got fried during a storm about a week ago and then with the move we haven't even been able to use our laptop. Chris with our first fish of the day and looking like he just rolled out of bed. 16 3/4" largemouth on a KVD 1.0. Chris with a super chunky smallmouth on a Ned or a tube, can't remember which. I think this was the first fish I caught on my 1/16oz shakyhead and Stick O and when I started to figure them out a little better. Got momentarily distracted by this guy cruising the bank, hard for me to pass up an easy shot and fun fight Our biggest of the day, 17.5" on the shakyhead and stick O off the dam about half an hour before weigh in.

Well I wish I would have tried to get ahold of a couple more of you guys to see if anyone wanted to go with me Wednesday but with the wind the way it was supposed to be I decided I didn't want to drag anyone else out in it, should have tried harder. I started the day at Bourban State Lake and spent the last hour at Richmond City Lake. Bourban is a great little lake if you want to just go catch a ton of fish or take some kids fishing because they will hit just about anything. Now they have the road coming in from the west paved until the last mile too so it isn't as rough getting to. I caught 100 at BSL before heading to Richmond and catching 6 more with a much better average size. Had a pretty good mix of largemouth and spots at Bourban on a bunch of different baits, with a squarebill, trap, chatterbait, jig, and shakyhead doing most of the damage. Of all those bass I only caught 1 that was a for sure keeper over 15", thought it might have been my biggest of the year when I first saw her. I pulled one of my chatterbaits through a brushpile at the south end and my line just went slack. She rolled on the top at the hookset and I saw a big white belly, thought I had a catfish at first. When that big head and mouth wallowed on the top she looked huge, I thought she might go 7. Once I got a hold of her I knew I'd over estimated her a bit but at 21.5" and 5.68lbs I can't complain. She was fish number 69 of the day. She had a 8-10 inch spotted bass sticking out of her throat, made me wish I'd thrown the 6" swimbait I had tied on at her first, oh well, first good fish on one of my new LTB rods and my Lew's reel One of my bigger spots I caught, fish number 99. I may have only caught 6 at Richmond but at least I made a couple of them count. Didn't measure or weigh either of them but both very solid fish. I missed the first one 3 times before finally connecting on her. This one was in the middle of the brushpile in the background and she must have hit my jig and just started swimming laps around one of the limbs because she was all kinds of wrapped up, thankfully I was able to reach her and pull her out. .

It actually kind of requires a smaller boat, at least one that doesn't need much water to float. A lot of the White is shallow and a strong, dependable trolling motor is a must a long with a dependable gas motor. Renting a jon boat to float the river then using your normal rig on Bull Shoals would work well or if someone just wanted to go fish the lakes you'd be fine. Last time we took my boat and it worked fine but we were limited to what water we could fish/get to on the river. This time we'll be taking Jon's boat with a jet motor so we should be able to get to a little more of the river. I have no doubt it will be a blast again this time. I'm hoping for a big brown on the river then a nice striper on the lake. I finally got to cross the brown trout off my hit list last time, even caught a nice keeper sized one, but I honestly can't say for sure I've ever caught a striper so they'll be in the cross hairs big time this trip