Bluebasser86

Maybe he's not wetting his knots down before cinching them? I set the hook hard enough that I've hit myself with small fish when I'm flipping but I don't break off hardly ever. I use mostly floro and it makes a huge difference if you don't wet the line before you cinch it down. It makes a difference with mono too just not as big of a difference. It might be something as simple as that for him.

Maybe he's not wetting his knots down before cinching them? I set the hook hard enough that I've hit myself with small fish when I'm flipping but I don't break off hardly ever. I use mostly floro and it makes a huge difference if you don't wet the line before you cinch it down. It makes a difference with mono too just not as big of a difference. It might be something as simple as that for him.

Maybe he's not wetting his knots down before cinching them? I set the hook hard enough that I've hit myself with small fish when I'm flipping but I don't break off hardly ever. I use mostly floro and it makes a huge difference if you don't wet the line before you cinch it down. It makes a difference with mono too just not as big of a difference. It might be something as simple as that for him.

I don't know if you can really put a price on being comfortable. I have the Cabela's Guidewear suit and it keeps me warm and dry in some really nasty weather. I fish powerplant lakes all winter long, some days that never make it out of single digits. You have to have a good suit cause you start to get cold or get wet and your day is over.

I love how that bait is hinged, should help keep fish from throwing the bait without messing with hookups like those Leverage spinnerbaits seem to.

Like a lot of fish the striped bass/white bass hybrid has several different names. Around here we call them wipers but some call them hybrids or hybrid striped bass. Whatever you want to call them, they're a blast to catch! I don't know if it's a southern thing but I wouldn't consider Kansas City to be very "southern".

I fished with an older guy in a tournament one time that swore by bouncing Bandit cranks through trees. He said "Only thing that climbs a tree better than a Bandit is a squirrel".

Besides the Little John SPRO is knocking off every bait imagineable that works so NO I will not try a bait from a company who has such unethical business practices. Allen He did say besides the Little John, they have a look all their own, but so does the mcstick really.

I've never had a problem with the $1 spinnerbaits blades at slow speeds. Slow rolling them in the spring is the way I caught all my fish with them when I fished them. I don't have a problem with throwing my expensive spinnerbaits into the brush since they are pretty snag resistant. That's where the fish are usually at anyways! Most of the spinnerbaits I go through aren't because I lost them, it's because the wire bent and broke because I'd caught too many fish with them ;D

I'd like to be but between work and the wife I can only manage 2 days a week if I'm lucky and it won't be full days either. Most lakes around here are starting to freeze but I'm lucky enough to live less than a hour away from one powerplant lake and a little over an hour away from another. One of them has good largemouth and wipers, the other has good largemouth, smallies, crappie, and white bass so I've always got something I could be fishing for.

Nice fish! Those big wipers are such a fun fight and they will just crush a swimbait. Gets your hopes up at first until they start peeling off drag and you know it's not a bass.

I fish them year round but cold water and really warm water is where they really seem to shine for me. I pour my own and paint most of them brown or green pumpkin red flake and catch fish from any body of water that I fish.

Doesn't pretty much all companies make copies of other companies baits? That's really true with soft plastic companies. Everyone has a trick worm, everyone has some sort or brush hog or creature, swimming tail worm, lizard, craw, beaver, tube. Just because a bait looks the same doesn't mean it is. You could make 2 cranks that look exactly alike but put a different number of rattles in it or make them out of different material and they'll work completly different.

I like the Bandit 100, 200, and Flat Maxx. Bomber get's my vote if I'm going deeper running, I've had some 300 series Bandits that didn't run true out of the box. If you're fishing for smallmouth I have to agree with R.W. and get yourself some wiggle warts. When the water gets cold, crank them slowly along the bottom. Not usually a numbers game but I've caught some of my biggest crankbait smallmouth on the crawdad patterned wiggle wart. They are about the same price as the Bandits or Bombers too.

This last fall I found myself driving an hour and passing several good largemouth lakes just to fish for smallmouth that don't get nearly as big around here. Problem is that a 2 pound smallmouth fights as hard as a 5 pound largemouth does most of the time and is way more acrobatic. There is something intoxicating about catching them. I'm very lucky to live within a couple hours of some pretty decent smallmouth lakes or I would be in real trouble.

I've seen bass just cruise the banks before and be totally uninterested in anything I could offer them. That's usually in the spring and summer though but I would imagine they could do it any time of the year. I've see bass that appeared to be sick do the same thing too.

I've seen bass just cruise the banks before and be totally uninterested in anything I could offer them. That's usually in the spring and summer though but I would imagine they could do it any time of the year. I've see bass that appeared to be sick do the same thing too.

I've seen bass just cruise the banks before and be totally uninterested in anything I could offer them. That's usually in the spring and summer though but I would imagine they could do it any time of the year. I've see bass that appeared to be sick do the same thing too.

X3 My dropshot rod does not have the backbone that I'm looking for when fishing a shakeyhead because of the hookset you need to penetrate the fishes lip. Most of my wacky rigging is around docks/grass and I wouldn't be able to pull a big fish away from the dock very well with my dropshot rod.

I like the 7.1 for most fishing anymore. It's so nice to be able to catch up fast with a big fish coming straight at you on a jig or soft plastic. Buzzbaits and lipless cranks are a lot less work too. I think I over fish spinnerbaits with them and I would never use one for other crankbaits.

What's you're definition of a youth? I'm not in school or anything but at 24 I would still consider myself a youth. There is lots of finals coming up soon. Several of my friends and family members that are still in school are to busy to answer their phones or anything because they are studying so much. I think they call it "Having your priorities straight". I don't know though, all I know is I'm going hunting monday and fishing tuesday ;D

I've got one that I found stuck in the water willow last winter. About the same size and profile of a Rogue but a more slashing action like the pointer. I like it pretty well. You might check out Excaliber's jerkbaits. They have a smaller one the size of a 78 LC pointer and a bigger one the size of a Rogue, I've done very well with them and they are in between in price too.

I had a Shimano Calyx several years ago. It was my first "expensive" baitcaster. I think it was 79.99 and I'd bought it for my big trip to Canada with my dad. It made it through that trip but it didn't make it past many more before the thumb bar stuck and the levelwind quit at the same time. Thankfully I worked at Cabela's at the time and new the Shimano rep because he gave me credit towards a new reel and I got my first green Curado. That was the first time I realized that spending the extra money was worth it to get better performance from my gear.

I've caught most of my walleyes on accident in the spring fishing for bass with jerkbaits. This last year I had great success with a Berkley Gulp minnow on an 1/8 oz jighead, way more than on livebait. I've caught a bunch in the fall on rattle traps while fishing for bass also. I caught a surprising amount of them on hula grubs this last year from several different bodies of water. I've also caught them on bass crankbaits, shakey heads, eakins jigs, shad raps, and a few on spinnerbaits. It's not livebait but we catch a lot of catfish with chunks of bluegills under bobbers floated over submerged weeds. Last summer my dad caught a 22" walleye on a bluegill head under a bobber.

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