Bluebasser86

If it really is a limp, easy handling line it shouldn't need line conditioner though, especially in a 10lb test. The stuff I got was seriously like trying to fish 17lb fluoro on a spinning reel with a shakeyhead.

Stick with what you know before a tourny, not a good time to experiment with different things. Wait until you're fun fishing and then try out some Vicious. I'd suggest the Vicious Elite, it fishes very nicely.

Once you get to that price point a lot of the differences are pretty slight. Personally I prefer a split grip for my "feel" baits like what you're getting the rod for. I like the guides on the LTB better too. I don't know if the LTB is going to be any more sensitive but personally I prefer the LTB, and personal preference is really what it should come down to for you in this case. You can't go wrong either way really though.

Kill it, kill it with fire! Then maybe eat it. Do they move fast or are they as slow as they'd look like they would be?

Thanks guys! Wish that little lake wasn't such a long drive, but I'm sure that's part of what helps keep the fishing good out there

I must have got a bad spool. I bought a spool from TW about a month ago and it was some of the nastiest line I've used in a long time. I bought 10lb for my shakeyhead rod, you would have thought it was 17 from the amount of memory it had. Water was really clear and I could see it almost glowing below the surface for farther than I could see my bait. I fished it for about 3 hours and took it all back off and threw it all away, very disappointing. I tried it because a lot of guys on here swear by it but I won't be risking getting another spool of it anytime soon.

That rod SUCKS for frogs, and I like St.Croix and the Mojo line up. I have that exact rod but I use it for A-rigs and swimbaits heavy enough to load the tip on the casts (takes a bait over an ounce). It works great for those applications but it's too stiff to casts smaller baits because the tip doesn't load well, like trying to cast a crappie crank on your cranking stick. The rod WW2 suggested will work fine or you could go with the 7' MH/F Mojo, it works fine for frogs as long as you aren't fishing any super heavy cover with it, makes a pretty decent pitching rod too.

These last couple years I've developed a ton of confidence in a all black or black and blue chatterbait in muddy water. It's a dark bait and a pretty big profile that can be reeled pretty slow and steady and has a very hard vibration to help call the fish in. Just caught a 4 and 6 pounder out of a very muddy little lake with a 3/8oz black and blue homemade chatterbait with half a candy bug colored trick worm for a trailer and my buddy lost another big fish on an all black one. Big jigs are a good option too. If I was in a buddy tournament at a lake like that I'd have one guy fishing a jig and the other fishing a chatterbait. A rattling squarebill would be my third choice.

I think you may be giving the bass too much credit. I doubt when your crankbait goes swimming by high in the water colum the bass stops and thinks "hmm, I wonder what a crawdad is doing swimming that high off the bottom?" It's probably just a instinct that they see the bait as a crawdad like they've eaten before and now there's another one that can't use it's defenses very well so it would be an easy meal. For all they know a bird may have picked up up by the shoreline and it fought free and now it's descending back to the bottom from it's splash landing.

Not all the time. I caught a 6 1/2 pounder crappie fishing with a 2 inch grub once. I've also caught fish smaller than my bait on several occasions while fishing with large baits. Fish are always looking for a chance to feed, I believe the big bait is just more appealing since it's less work for more reward. If a little grub or worm lands right in front of a big fish though I doubt it takes much energy to suck it in so they take the chance to get an easy meal.

Well I had a big breakdown of our day but my computer froze and I lost it all on the last sentence! So my buddy Jon and I had a plan to hit Nebo for a couple hours (it's only 30 acres) and then run to Perry for the rest of the day. I was throwing one of my homemade chatterbaits when a torpedo wake came of the bank and I got my first good one of the day 19.5" and a little over 4. About 10 minutes later off the side of one of the islands the same thing happend and my bait STOPPED! An intense, drag ripping fight by the boat and Jon got a hold of her. 22" and 6.10 on a homemade black and blue chatterbait. Jon tried one of my chatterbaits and got very similar bite, big wake and smashed bait. Fish came halfway to the boat, stopped, peeled drag the other way, wrapped around a limb and came off. Lost big fish number one of the day for Jon. Another lap around the lake with a few more dinks and a jumped off 3 or 4 pounder and we headed to Perry. Started on the pier right by the state park ramp where I caught the biggest smallmouth I've caught from Perry at 15.5". Jon caught a chunker off the same pier and then an hour of nothing. Fishing a row of docks when Jon caught a chunk on a KVD 1.5. A couple casts later he stuck another big fish. It was pretty much a standstill for a second before it started to head up. I looked back at Jon just in time to see the bend leave the rod. Big fish number 2 of the day was gone for Jon. A couple more chunky fish off the docks and then nothing for the next couple hours. We were pretty much set on going home but decided to hit the pier by the ramp again since it had been good to us earlier. Jon's first cast with the 1.5 got slammed and what looked like a 3 or 4 pounder rolled on the top. A slow hard fight and a fish that was easily 5, probably closer to 6 launched at the boat, sending Jon's crankbait flying the other way, big fish number 3 of the day was gone for Jon. I caught another chunk when Jon's crank got stopped again. I got the net this time because I wanted this fish in the boat about as bad as Jon did I think. Right as the fish came up at the boat I scooped for it, at the same time another fish the same size darted for the bait in the other fishes mouth. For a second I had 2 fish in the net before the second one got out. Jon finally got a good fish in the boat with a solid 3lb 7oz fish. We probably didn't catch 20 fish all day but we made the ones we caught count!

Well I had a big breakdown of our day but my computer froze and I lost it all on the last sentence! So my buddy Jon and I had a plan to hit Nebo for a couple hours (it's only 30 acres) and then run to Perry for the rest of the day. I was throwing one of my homemade chatterbaits when a torpedo wake came of the bank and I got my first good one of the day 19.5" and a little over 4. About 10 minutes later off the side of one of the islands the same thing happend and my bait STOPPED! An intense, drag ripping fight by the boat and Jon got a hold of her. 22" and 6.10 on a homemade black and blue chatterbait. Jon tried one of my chatterbaits and got very similar bite, big wake and smashed bait. Fish came halfway to the boat, stopped, peeled drag the other way, wrapped around a limb and came off. Lost big fish number one of the day for Jon. Another lap around the lake with a few more dinks and a jumped off 3 or 4 pounder and we headed to Perry. Started on the pier right by the state park ramp where I caught the biggest smallmouth I've caught from Perry at 15.5". Jon caught a chunker off the same pier and then an hour of nothing. Fishing a row of docks when Jon caught a chunk on a KVD 1.5. A couple casts later he stuck another big fish. It was pretty much a standstill for a second before it started to head up. I looked back at Jon just in time to see the bend leave the rod. Big fish number 2 of the day was gone for Jon. A couple more chunky fish off the docks and then nothing for the next couple hours. We were pretty much set on going home but decided to hit the pier by the ramp again since it had been good to us earlier. Jon's first cast with the 1.5 got slammed and what looked like a 3 or 4 pounder rolled on the top. A slow hard fight and a fish that was easily 5, probably closer to 6 launched at the boat, sending Jon's crankbait flying the other way, big fish number 3 of the day was gone for Jon. I caught another chunk when Jon's crank got stopped again. I got the net this time because I wanted this fish in the boat about as bad as Jon did I think. Right as the fish came up at the boat I scooped for it, at the same time another fish the same size darted for the bait in the other fishes mouth. For a second I had 2 fish in the net before the second one got out. Jon finally got a good fish in the boat with a solid 3lb 7oz fish. We probably didn't catch 20 fish all day but we made the ones we caught count!

I was actually fishing them on a 1/16oz head because it was so calm but an 1/8oz should be fine.

That would be really unfortunate if you had to fish Melvern for 2 days wouldn't it??

That's how I found out about the saugeye in that lake, fishing for bass. I was pitching a 5" T-rigged BPS stick-o to the weedline and it kept getting bit in half without me even setting the hook. Had my buddy grab some nightcrawlers at Wal-Mart and we ended up catching 40-50 of them and both of our limits. That one looks like it was a keeper!

My wife and I fished Wyco for a few hours today. Nice weather like usual did not equal good fishing. Few on a shakeyhead, few on a chatterbait, few on a wacky rig, one on a squarebill. I had 2 keeper largemouths, one right at 15 on the wacky rig, the other was one of the cleanest looking fish I've ever caught from the 'dotte. Got her in 15' of water on a shakeyhead next to a stump, little over 17". My wife was getting bit but having a hard time sticking them. She lost a largemouth that would have been a keeper right at the boat before she boated this nice smallmouth.

Welcome to the forum from one KC area member to another! Check out the local fishing forums Central area, there is a long, ongoing thread there for us KC area guys with lots of good info.

Don't drink the stuff, it makes me I do enjoy a good whiskey though

One of my favorite ways to fish, I can almost always fool some fish with a shakeyhead and trick worm.

Very pretty fish! Looks like you fell in, must have really been pouring!

Lets pick a weekend and do it. I'll probably only be able to make it Sunday no matter which weekend unless you guys want to stretch it out to 3 day weekend the other way and do a Saturday/Sunday/Monday thing, then I could be there for 2 days. I'd like to meet some of the guys off here though. I've fished with a couple of you already but it would be nice to meet more of you. My vote for lakes goes to Melvern, you got all 3 species of bass, whites, crappies, walleyes, saugers, all 3 species of catfish, something for everyone basically.

Taught a fishing class for kids a few years ago at a local lake. Almost every kid there that day was fishing for the first time in their lives and everyone of them caught a fish that day but the highlight was a little girl that decided to fish a wacky worm because she thought the name was funny Her second casts she says "I'm snagged," not an unusual thing to hear while teaching kids to fish but as I started walking down the dock I noticed the "snag" was moving towards deeper water. I told her to reel and when she did that little Zebco 33 was whining. Once she started reeling a good bass tailwalked towards the dock and dove into the coontail. The dock was too high to reach it but I was in shorts and flipflops so I dropped what I had in my pockets on the dock and hopped in. I followed the line down and grabbed onto what turned out to be a 4.5lb bass. The little girl got her picture in the local paper and her parents sent me a big thank you card telling me about how that was all their daughter could talk about was how she caught a huge fish and she couldn't wait to go again. It was really a cool feeling to introduce someone into this great sport like that

It's pretty bright white, but a short fluoro leader fixes visibility problems pretty easily and helps with abrasion resistance at the same time.

The Gulp minnows and crawlers just come in a bag like a regular plastic. This bag is very difficult to seal which is nice because if it isn't sealed well they dry up hard as a rock and have to be soaked in the Gulp liquid to go back to normal. The last bag of minnows I bought had a little harder plastic to help them keep their shape a little bit to prevent getting bent baits so I wouldn't be surprised if the shrimp are the same way. Unless you're planning on getting a bunch of different colors do yourself a favor and just buy the tub. I've started doing that with the minnows I can in the tubs.

I like the DT 4's but can't afford to fish them at the rate I break them. I've got a couple of them left that have caught a lot of fish and not broken yet but they are far outnumbered by the ones that deflected off a couple rocks and then I reel in a bill and see the rest of my bait floating between me and where my cast landed. The orginal floating minnow and the shad rap are baits I toss for walleye fairly often though.