McAlpine

Ugh. Now I find that I am "collecting" straight eyes. I will never even fish them. They sit on a shelf mocking me from their little plastic pristene coffins. The beautiful art..... The Horror......

JDM Baits. Especially Megabass. Don't do it. Just don't get started. It's a deep hole and at the top the monkey is peering down at you. J D M Baits Swallow your soul as a whole Wallet empty now

Just thought I would post up my experience. I have had a 6-9 Elite Tech Smallmouth rod that was absolutly killer for shakeyheads. Unfortunatly last time out the top 1/4 of the rod just exploded under load and the rod ended up in 3 pieces. So the good news, the Elite Tech rods have a limited lifetime warranty. Process was to take pictures of the rod where it broke, the lot number and rod type printed on the blank. Also needed to send a copy of the original receipt. That's a tough one but I bought it off amazon so was able to pull up my original info on it and print it out (yeah). So, if anyone buys one of these rods, keep your original receipt! So, I emailed everything to Fenwick and didn't hear anything back for about a week and a half. Then I got an email that basicaly said, your good to go, call our Customer Service with this reference number. $9.95 later for shipping, etc and a new rod is on the way. They really did a good job, no hassles. Keep that original receipt!!!! So, just an FYI, thought someone would be interested.

Boomerang snips are awesome. +n

So that was it! I heard you did well and figured you were throwing jerkbaits at Barren, but it must have been Snoop. Now I know your secrets.

Yeah, it's a 6-9. Also it broke this last weekend on a good fish. Literally popped at two places in the top one third on a good fish. We will see how good the warranty service is but as of now I would never buy another one. Bummer, comfy rod to hold.

It is a great show. My favorite part is that the competitors given the format and winner take all, small pool of competitors, live and die each day, etc... They really really look like they want it bad. and I mean BAD. It's awesome to see these guys just killin it to win.

Quiet. Listen to everything around me that is not man made. Just drink it in. When all of that noise is gone, its surprising how loud and distinct birds and squirrels and the air rustling through the trees and the chop on the water can be. Catch a couple....that's the icing on the cake.

Keep in mind, your goal with the Rico is not to pop but to walk and spit. I think that if you work on that you'll see the magic. Nice fish!

Want....it....

I caught a big one in the mouth on a spinnerbait once. That was a surprise when I saw it. There are a lot of guys that tie flies that look like grass to catch those big suckers. What a fight that wiuld be! If you don't like carp, go catch some freshwater drum. No way I am believing something that is in essence a 5-10 lb bluegill shape is not a gamefish.

You could put it inside a larger, non-leaky boat.

Sounds like a good fight. I don't see the problem?

Football head. However; Mike (see one post above) and I were just chatting about this yesterday and I'm going to try out some of those football heads he has with the side cut off here pretty soon. The hook he has on his shakey heads just looks killer. BTW guys, I had a relatively unimportant question I emailed to Mike yesterday and he was Johnny on the spot and got back with me ASAP. Can't buy that kind of customer support. Thanks Mike!

Back in the day I hit a deer with my grandfathers car which had whistles on it. Also, over the years it seems like most of the deer I have hit actually hit me. They are running and run into the side of the vehicle or front quarter panel rather than actually get hit at my grill. Can't imagine the whistles can do much of anything to prevent that.

google up pictures of craws at different times of the year and find the ones that are most prevalant in your area. Interesting fact: In the spring where I am the craws have a little light brown on their back but are otherwise whiteish with light blue and chartreuse highlights. Guess what color jigs I tie in the spring?

I tie 1/8th and 1/4 oz football heads for hair jigs that I fish with a M to ML spinning rod on 10lb braid and an 8-10lb flouro leader. I also like to tie a streamer that emulates a hair jig and use a barbell head or sometimes a bullet head and throw these on a 5 or 6wt depending upon where I am. You can also do a hook wrap with lead wire if you want a slower sink or no bulbus head. Good materials are deer hair as long as your weighting, chenile on the body, rabbit zonker strips, maribou for tails or especially around the body in a bugger style. From there just go nuts, sometimes I tie up all black leech style, sometimes brownish/orangish/greenish craws, sometimes some white and flashabou minnow style. Just depends upon my mood. Best advice I can give you is to invert your streamer hook. (ie, tie it upside down). Makes it much easier to fish around bassy places. Second best advice is if you are going to lead wire wrap at the nose, bend the streamer hook about 1/4 back the length so when the front is laying flat the back 3/4 angles up. I'll see what I have laying on the bench when I get home and take some pics for you if you would like.

You all are worried about a fish laying on the grass, what about Zona playing a big bass like a guitar and rubbing him all over this pants and sweatshirt? Now that is completely uncalled for and irresponsible. Especially for a guy who outside of this type of idiocy is a great icon of our sport. Ugh.

Ok seriously.... The one thing I know I can always get bit on when the chips are down. Cold water, warm water, moving water, doesn't matter. J7 Black and Silver jointed Rapala. Just flat catches fish anywhere.

I completely disagree and can't believe you would even mention that bait. This was supposed to be the "Secret Bait" thread with whatever the top producer in your box is. The real secret bait is: A 4" green pumpkin stick worm.

That color is blue back herring that someone has added a purple back, blue face, blue spot on rear, yellow and orange/red underneath then repainted eyes. Custom job. Also, Bandit's are freaking awesome. The price point just makes them better.

BPS is usually great about returns. Always keep your box and receipt. If you have those your golden. Pack it up, take it in and tell them what the problem is. If it's broke, tell them it's broke. if you just dont like it tell them you dont like it but there's nothing wrong. They'll take it back.

Need? I only NEED one rod. As a teenage boy trying to find every opportunity to wet a line, I had a medium action spinning rod. I spooled clear blue stren on it and I caught everything from bluegill to bass to a 12lb lake trout, an 18lb pike, took it out east and caught bluefish...etc. A medium action spinning rod can do everything. That was a long time, alot of education, alot of jobs and alot of hard work in the past. Today I NEED about 300 different rigs. I probably carry 20ish on the boat any given time and have another 10-20ish around the house. However; I can gaurantee you that if my wife asks how many I need, the answer will be "about 300 dear". So, If the zombie apocolypse were to occur today I could fulfill my fatherly duties with an AK-47 and a medium action spinning rod. Until the zombies appear I still need as many toys as I can get my hands on.

The Ghost is probably the better deal of the two for casting and I would go for it unless you are flipping/pitching. The Veritas is an incredible rod for that use at a great price. The Ghost just feels weird flipping because of it's lightness and the longer rods have a really annoying long handle. Buddy of mine picked up the 7-3 H Ghost for flipping and we both hate it for that application. As above I would suggest the 6-8 MH for spinnerbaits. Great thing about the Ghost is your getting a phenomenal blank for $100. Where they save money to get to that price is by cutting the warranty to 1 year and putting on less expensive components such as foam handles and chromed guides. So, it comes down to how your going to use the rod. I personally could care less about the handles, that doesn't affect the rods performance. Warranty is meaningless to me. If your going to break a rod, more than likely it will be your fault. Rod's that have great warranties usually have the cost of the warranty built in like an insurance policy you pre-pay for. I say lower the price and I'll take responsibilty for my rod. As far as the guides are concerned: "Proprietary 316 Stainless Steel frames with industrial grade hard chrome inserts". From their website. To me, that says nothing really. So I assume there is a possilibity that I will groove these with braid. Answer to that. Don't use braid. I have a couple Ghost rods I picked up and I really, really like them for the price. The forementioned 6-8 MH for spinnerbaits and the 7'M cranking for squarebills. Great rods, I run 15lb mean green on the 6-8 and 10lb invis-x on the 7'. So, no worries and I get a great, light rod with lots of backbone, sensitivity and flexibility all in a single package for less than $100. What's not to like? On the flip side, *** makes a 6-7 MH rod for $100 that is great for spinnerbaits also. Some people do not like the grips, they fit me excellently and other than that I don't think you'll hear any complaints. These rods are freaking incredible for what they charge for them. good luck.

The important thing is that when the water rises and the current gets very strong you will know exactly where the fish will be. They will pull in tight to banks and current breaks/eddies. They dont want to be out in that mess any more than you would want to.