CJ

This is the best one I've fished. Not as cheap as others, I think they are around $5-6 but good lures right out of the package. I add split rings and different hooks to the Silver Buddy or Sonar. Also note that these catch big LM too. Not just a Smallmouth lure.

I have a bunch of spare heads I don't need. PM me, you can have them if I have anything you want.

First off, welcome to BR! You may need to resize your pics by opening and saving them to a different program. Your work looks incredible! Nice cranks with beautiful paint. Nothing like a good custom wood crank. Those blade baits look interesting as well.

He said there were some dead fingerling smallmouth floating there as well. Wonder if somebody dumped them as leftover bait? Look like alewife to me.

When I read the title, I thought you were just being a hater.

A stocked pond would be a must during a zombie apocalypse. But was one of my favorite all time episodes. Not many dull moments and I'm glad the 2 brats got ate even if the momma had to go with em it was worth it!

I think you are talking about a blade bait like the Heddon Sonar or a Steel Shad. Both great lures. Best cold, muddy water bait there is. I throw em out, let them hit the bottom then use my rod to move them similar to a flutter spoon. I just pull them about 5-6 ft. at a time. Start the rod at about 8-9 o'clock then pull back over my shoulder or maybe only waist high. I only move them fast enough to make them thump then kill em. Usually get bit on the pause while it's falling. I like gold or red for stained water but have done good on silver as well. I usually fish them shallow but they work at all depths. I just need a bigger one. Tried to make it but once they get big it's very hard to get em balanced right.

I've used several different flutter spoons. Exclusively off shore structure. Most of the time I lift it off the bottom pretty high. After the spoon hits bottom, I start with the rod pointed at around 5 o'clock and lift to at least 12. You have to be a line watcher to detect the bite cause it will almost always be on the fall. Then I do swim them but not often. Again, I let it hit bottom then I reel it then give it a little twitch so it falls on slack line. It's important to let it fall on slack line so not to interfere with with a vertical fall. It needs to fall straight down IMO. I like to have some sunshine and some wind to help sell the lure. I fish it when the big fish are schooled up on ledges and in a positive feeding mood. At times the big bass will be chasing big gizzard shad toward the surface. You'll see a big shad come busting out of the water trying to get away from something. These big fish will be all over the water column. Not really holding there but suspended and it's like a carnage zone going on down there. That's usually when it's time.These are some of the spoons I use. I really like the 3rd one from the left. The giant Ben Parker spoon I fish a little different(the one all the way to the right). I start at 5 o"clock and rip it off the bottom back over my shoulder similar to a sweeping hookset. This lure will catch big fish but it hits the bottom so hard it looks like a bite. It helps to learn the time it takes to fall. I also use a stinger hook. None of these have them on there in the pic. It's a dropshot hook tied with about a 2-3 inch piece of braid to the lie tie. Hope this is some help.

I thought that's who made it but didn't know if I was right for sure. I was actually turned off from them due to the spinner up front. Still probably won't go stock up on them but I have been sold on spybait technology. They flat out work for me.

Lot's of choices out there but a couple of my favorites are Bandit 200 and a Rapala DT6. The DT6 is probably the best running and I think the best at producing strikes. The durability isn't as good though. They are wood and the lip is glued in for one and I've had a couple pull out. They will crack if run them into shallower rocks hard enough. The Rapala Shad Rap is also great but will hang up a little more than the others. Also, Strike King KVD 1.0 and 1.5 square bills but they won,t go as deep.

The show does have it's boring moments but it's usually setting something up that blows my mind. I will never forget, "just look at the flowers Lizzy".

One golden rule to bass fishing is to know that you can learn something from any or everybody. Might be something small or something that changes everything. There's always something to learn. I don't care who you are.

It's the only girls my wife will allow me to see. So I guess we have an open marriage or to think of it we are full blown swingers

Very nice. I will say that if you will keep your thread and chenille above the collar, it will flare your feathers out more, help hold a larger profile once it's wet, and give you better action. Beautiful jig though. Nice colors and the marabou has great action.

3 hours and 17 more minutes!

Yeah I forgot to send Mother Nature roses for V Day, well I didn't even send a card, so she let me have it again. I got around 3-4 in. snow and now mixed with freezing rain. I'm really sick of this. They're forecasting better weather ahead though. I'm so ready to go fishing.........

Hmm. I had never seen those. I've done something similar with a bucktail jig. Spybaits have lifted eyebrows and opened a door to put props on things that swim under the surface. Though I can't remember who makes the pre-rigged worm that features a prop. It's been around forever. Still the possibilities are endless with this rig. I would bet you could use a bobber stop to keep the weight from interfering with the prop if you wanted to add a sinker.

Well it's Valentine's Day so I thought I would share a picture of the gal I loved the most.This is Cypress Sally. It was love at first sight. She's the biggest woman I ever got to get into the boat with me. I fed her and we hooked up! She was so beautiful. She had luscious lips and one nice tail. But after holding her a short while I had to set her free. Happy V Day baby, wherever you are! I miss you!

Hello, my name is CJ and I am a Walking Dead junkie. The only drama type show I watch returns tonight! I hate that they split the season. Fishing usually keeps me from withdrawing during the summer but I finally get my fix tonight! I can't wait. It's like a kid on Christmas Eve, I'm trying to do something to kill the time until 8:00. I used think my ex-wife was stupid because she watched some soap opera everyday. Now I have become a victim myself and kinda see her angle..... but I still think she is stupid. Anyway, anybody else addicted to TWD?

One thing that is probably going to bring 4 strokes demand up is the new electronics. Structure scan is changing the way many people fish and the way they drive their boats. 2 strokes are best ran at higher RPM. Many people are starting to have problems because of all the idling around looking at their structure scan. I'm not enough of a mechanic to say exactly whats happening but I'm betting all the idling around wouldn't be as hard on a 4 stroke. Just a thought.

I caught 2 of the biggest fish I ever caught in 2015. Only won a couple of small tournaments though. Which I don't fish them like I used to. It was a good year. I learned a couple new lures like the spybait and I tuned in to a new way to fish bucktail jigs which literally put hundreds of fish in the boat and some bigguns at that. I guess I'll go with around 90%.

I squeeze Megastrike into larger ziplocks that I load up with a few bags of creature baits for flippin' and for swimbaits. Only lures I do this with.

Solunar tables would be the last thing I look at and well, I really quit looking at them (except I look at moon phase around the spawn). However, I know a couple old school guys in Florida who have boated countless 10 lb.+ bass that swear by them. Kinda spins off a thread I recently started. They deal with less conditions and elements as I do on a river reservoir. But I believe it has been proven that the moon phase and position does have an effect on wildlife activity. I pay more attention to it around the spawn and during deer season.

As RW said I don't think there could be threadfin that far north. The line is around the Ohio River but they could migrate up. They die pretty much every year here on the northern end of KY Lake but then the next class will migrate from the south by July. Gizzard shad on the other hand live shallow through out the winter here.

Man this is a topic that can go either way. Yes some people especially in certain areas for some reason will try to sabotage you. As some have mentioned, some tackle store owners might try to push something that they couldn't get rid of otherwise then there are good tackle stores that want to sell you something that works and help you so that you come back because you had a good experience with them. It's a political thing. If you are a personable guy, you can usually get good info from people. A good trick in a tackle store is to observe what lures are sold out or nearly out as long as they relate to that season.