Hawgin

It can be amazing sometimes how a totally off the wall technique will catch fish. Similar to you I was recently fishing a white tube, and one cast was off target so I went to burn it back to me and had a fish hammer it. I fished for the next two hours "swimming" a tube and caught several fish.

Okay, time for a quick editorial interjection. I know you would never believe this from reading this message board, but there actually are some of us out here that own other top in rods besides G. Loomis, and have been completely satisfied with our rods. I think Loomis rods are excellent and I will not bad mouth their products, however personally I own several Fenwick Techna AV's and I've never said, "Gee, I wish I would have bought a Loomis instead." Yes, I have fished with both IMX's and GLX's, and they are great. I will put my rods up against them any day. Guys who fish top end Kistler's, St. Croixs, Powell's, etc feel the same way. If you buy a Loomis you will never regret your decision, but then again you may feel the same about other top end rods. I would recommend that you pick a price point and then handle several rods in that range. Don't limit yourself to just looking at one brand because that's the name you hear the most.

RoLo, Your post is the first time I've ever heard that about the slack line. I've always fished it on a tight line so I can feel what is going on. Hmm....I guess to my benefit I haven't been paying attention.

Everytime I go to Cabelas I stop in the bargain cave and there always seems to be several packages of tru-tungsten weights on sale for about half price. I have loaded up on them, buying 1-2 packs anytime I stop(that way I don't feel like I've spent as much on them.) I would look around your local tackle store in the bargain/clearance area for them.

I only own one heavy action rod, and honestly I don't even use it that much. Unless you are constantly fishing areas with heavy, heavy cover then you should be fine with a MH. I personally think the MH gives you more versatility as to which baits you can use with it.

The biggest difference I have noticed with the Yum Dingers is that they feel heavier than the senkos, and the have a faster fall rate. I have had good success on both the Dingers and the Senkos. I don't think you will be disappointed with them.

You know what, you are exactly right. You shouldn't even bother to fish a senko. Just take all the packages of them that you have and send them to me for disposal. They are junk. Worst bait ever made. Can't catch fish of any size. Everyone just put them down and walk away. Oh, and when I'm cashing checks at the end of tournaments, I'm sure it wasn't a 5 or 6 inch watermelon senko I was using. While your at it, don't bother with Fat Ika's or GYCB hula grubs either. Pure garbage, all of it. ;D

I use fenwick, fenwick, fenwick, oh...and I have one st. croix.

So do you make a lot of 150 yard casts, or have a lot of hooked fish spool a 100yds worth of line on you? I guess I must be different than a lot of people, because I don't get overly concerned with spool capacity. I've never had a reel get down to the last 30 yards of line, because I will respool long before that. I also almost never fill a spool more than 3/4 full at most. If I were fishing the big bass lakes of Cali I might worry about line capacity so I wouldn't lose a giant if it made a run on me, but even then I think I would go with a reel with a large line capacity.

That performance by Tim McGraw was incredible. I will be checking out ITunes to buy that song as soon as it is available. Oh, and Miranda Lambert looked amazing, as did Reba, Sara Evans, Carrie Underwood, Faith.........

Apparently so did Dan! ;D

You rig them weightless with the skirt at the top of your hook next to the hook eye. The big appeal of ika's is the fact that their weight/design allows them to fall backwards on semi-slack line. Cast them out, let them sit, then lift them up off the bottom with your rod tip and then let it fall backwards on slack line. Watch your line for any ticks, stops, or unusual movement.

Well so far God has spared both my folks and my grandparents living in Orrick and Missouri City. Water did come over some of the levees in Orrick, but so far the damage has been kept to a minimum. Yesterday part of the railroad tracks/levee started to falter in Mo. City but the railroad came in with several truck loads of rip rap and were able to get them to hold. In 93 one set of grandparents had 3 foot of water in there house, and the other had 8 foot. I would like to avoid that again if at all possible.

I'm going to take you to task on this one. How is this great mentor going to rub off on the younger players when part of his agreement to return was that he will only be with the club on the days that he pitches. The other pitchers are not going to see the hours of prep work he puts in between starts. Instead they are going to see a guy who breezes in when he wants, makes his start, and then disappears for the next 4 days. The youngers Yanks are going to see a guy who 1.) doesn't start playing until mid-season 2.) comes and goes as he dang well pleases 3.) gets paid a ton of money and adoration for bascially being a hired gun. You better hope he doesn't rub off on the younger guys.

Let me start by saying that I have always considered Oscar to not be nearly as good as the hype surrounding him, but for this one night I will root for him to win. However, I don't expect it to happen. DLH should be better at this weight than he was when he went up to fight Hopkins but I'm just afraid that he no longer has the speed to keep up with Floyd. Floyd is one of the fastest fighters I have seen, and he also has excellent defense and does really well rolling his shoulders. I can see DLH hanging strong with him for the first half of the fight, but I think Floyd dominates the second half and wins a fairly easy decision. If Oscar can just land a couple of big left hooks he has a shot, but I can't see him getting enough of them in clean.

Getting Saban is awsome for you guys. I hope that you are just as pumped for him in few years when he tucks his tail between his legs and walks out on you. I guess as long as the Larry Brown of college football wins a few bowl games then half the state(bama fans) will be happy, and when he quits to take the next glamor job the other half of the state(auburn fans) will be happy. Sorry Hibachi, nothing against you but I have developed a hatred for him and I hope your program turns to crap under his control. Now with that out of the way, I am so pumped for my Mizzou Tigers this year. Chase Daniel throwing to two potential All-American tight ends, a solid running game, and hopefully and improved defense could put us in solid contention for the North and earn us the right to get ran over by Texas in the Big 12 title game.

I think with the medium action spinning rod you will be able to cast lighter lures better because the rod has a little better load to it. With a medium heavy you may not be able to cast and fish with light jig heads, etc. I think, however, that a medium heavy rod provides a little more sensitivity because the stiffer rod and tip. The medium action is going to be more fun because the fight is better, but the medium heavy will help you land fish quicker because of the stiffer backbone.

Then again, he might be the Forrest Gump of fishing.

I have both. The 100DSV is smaller in size, and it weighs 2 ounces less. The 100DSV has 1 less bearing. They have pretty similar line capacity. Honestly I own both and there is no noticable difference in performance of these two reels. I like the 100DSV better because of the reduced size and weight, but they are both very good reels.

Easily one of his 3-4 best songs. I have always really liked his song King of Broken Hearts.

I was one of the people who was so excited to get out of my small little town, and I didn't talk to anyone from my hometown except my brother for 5 years. After I got out of school I ran into some people I was close with in high school, and to be honest it was about 50/50 that I did or did not like who they had become. Several of them I was glad I no longer had ties to, and the others I'm closer with today, 13 years later, than I was back then. When you go to college make friends, join some campus clubs that interest you, and leave your dorm room door open when you are just hanging out in your room so others can stop in to hang out and talk. Know up front that a few of them will burn you, but some of them will become your closest friends, and when it's all over and you've learned many life lessons you will come in contact with those high school friends and you will rekindle that closeness you had with the right ones.

I use a 6'6" MF St. Croix Premier w/tru tungsten ball buster jig head and either a Zoom finesse worm or the Mann's hard nose finesse worms.

85 yards is still a lot of line, and I don't think I've ever spooled a reel out that far fishing for bass. I think guys are willing to take the trade off of less line, for the reduced size and weight.

I have a fajita marinade that I tried out at a group dinner party a few weeks ago that was amazing. For the marinade combine: Juice from 1 orange Juice from 2 limes 2 cloves chopped garlic 4 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp salt 3 chipolte peppers chopped (the canned ones in sauce) 1 handful of chopped cilantro Combine the ingrediants and pour into a ziplock bag. Add either chicken or flank steak. Shake well to cover all the meat. Let marinade for 2-3 hours (if left in the marinade longer than that it will start to turn the meat bad because of the acid.) Grill up the meat, and in a seperate pile cook up red peppers and onion cut in long strips with a drizzle of olive oil, and the juice of one lime. Serve with your favorite fajita fixins.

I think the guy just might be a borderline genius. Why do I say that? Well, I think this entire discussion proves it. How many "Hey what you guys think of...Tim Horton, Kelly Jordan, Skeet Reese, Steve Kennedy, blah, blah, blah" discussions do you ever see pop up? Almost none. Ike discussions come up every other month or so. Also, because of his antics he gets more tv face time than any other angler which means he gets his sponsors more face time. Seriously just take a second and think about how many of his sponsors pop into your head, and then try to think of a couple of other anglers and see how many of their sponsors you can come up with. My wife knows nothing about fishing and she knows who Ike is. My dad fishes a lot, but doesn't care one bit about tournaments, and he called me a few months ago to tell me that Ike was coming to KC for a seminar and to see if I wanted to go with him. GQ named him one of the most hated athletes. How many GQ editors do you think have ever picked up a bass rod? I've met the guy away from the water, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. Maybe he really does get emotional when he fishes, but maybe a lot of it is just him playing up the "bad boy" character because it gets him a lot money, and opportunities that may not otherwise be there for him.