guest

I'm not a father, but I will share my views. Hitting your children will not necessarily make them respect you. My mother use to discipline us (my siblings and I) with physical contact and we never respected her like we did our father. If she didn't hit us out of anger, she would sometimes give us a choice between an arse woopin' or a punishment. I would always take the arse woopins because her punishments were equivalent to solitary confinement in prison. No TV, no nintendo, no toys, no friends, etc. Sitting in your room all day staring at the ceiling is torture when your friends are outside playing. I behaved as a child because I did not want to be punished; punishments were absolute torture. My friends parents use to punish them and then un-punish them 15min later when they begged for mercy. My mom never let us out of our punishments and would either tack on more days or woop your arse if you asked her to shorten/lighten the punishment. This is why punishing us worked. We knew there would be consequences for our actions, and these consequences were severe and non-negotiable. The moral of the above story is this: Figure out what form of punishment you can do to make your kid miserable, and use it against them to make them aware that their are consequences for their actions. Next time they are considering doing something wrong, they will weigh the consequences in their decision. An arse woopin every now and then to let your child know that you can and will, if necessary, is ok by me. However, there are much better ways to punish your children imo, like solitary confinement. Inconsistency violence and "giving in" are not things you want to teach your children; stand your ground even if it is painful. We respected our father because he respected us and treated us more like adults. He would talk about what we did, why it was wrong, and tell us he was disappointed in us. This hurt much more than a spanking, but not more than a few days in solitary confinement.

I stop throwing top water when the hit/cast ratio becomes very small and I think I can do better on the bottom. This is not always at the same time of the day; I find the lunar cycle has a large effect on it.

Early or late in day: Buzzbait, Hollowbody frog, Ribbit/Rage Toad, Fluke, etc. Try them and find out what the fish want. Nothing like a few explosions to start the day. Mid day: T-rigged or shaky head worm. Start off with a 7" and try different colors. I'm not much on cranks and spinners; I couldn't tell you when to fish them.

7' is the sweet spot for me. I like being able to pick up a lot of line on my hooksets, but comfort also comes into play. I use] longer rods for heavy cover techniques, but they are tip heavy. A good 7' rod will be very close to neutral balance.

If it is a native species, try your best to throw it back in the condition you found it. You go into an innocent, hungry turtles home and dangle food above his head, and then you want to kill him for messing your lure up? The turtle probably pays some vital roles in the ecosystem that we lay people do not know about. You killing it could have a negative impact on the fish population. I try to leave the fishery in as close to the condition as I found it, and only harvest a small, sustainable amount of food.

A bulky, black/red or junebug texas rigged plastic usually works for me. I have heard chatterbaits work well in muddy water, but I have never used one. A black buzzbait or buzztoad usually gets some explosions as well.

I believe the proper name is fresh water drum, down here we call them gaspergoo. I catch them on artificials when bass fishing and night crawlers when catfishing. Everyone I know says they are trash fish (they have never personally ate one), but I think they are great. They are easy to clean, have a firm meat texture like redfish, and have clean white fillets. I like to grill them "on the halfshell" with butter, lemon, and tony's chachere's. The smaller ones are good deep fried as well. Might be my favorite freshwater fish behind sacalait. I don't know how a fish becomes classified as a trash fish. I don't know how a speckled trout isn't trash and a goo is trash. Speckled trout is by far the worst tasting fish I have eaten, and gaspergoo are one of my favorite.

I would turn into a choupique (aka grinnel, bowfin, cypress trout, etc.) angler. They will hit a variety of lures (just like a bass), they put up one hell of a fight, and are good eating (clean while alive and fry immediately).

That generic three rod choice does not work everywhere. Down in South Louisiana you would be much better off taking #3 off the list and adding a long, heavy slop rod. If you do not have any baitcasting combos, don't spend $400 on one combo. Buy two/three combos that will cover a wide range of applications that are useful in areas that you fish. Decent budget rods: Powell Diesel for cranking Veritas, BPS Carbonlite, Powell endurance (discounted at TW) for worming/jigging Decent budget reels: Daiwa exceller BPS pro-q AG Orra SX AG Revo S Okuma alumina (discontinued, check ebay for bnib) Citica

I fish from sunrise to sunset in the scorching Louisiana heat. I can catch fish all day long, even at 1pm - 3pm when it is 95F+ out. My advice to you is try different techniques and locations; don't limit yourself to a crankbait. Sometimes the fish want a slow verticle/bottom presentation, some times they want top water, and other times they want a horizontal presentation. A small lake is a great place to learn how bass move throughout the day with changing temperatures. Become comfortable with jigs, T rigs, C rigs, topwaters, and your depth finder. Start fishing all techniques (including your cranks/spinners) in different areas and different times until you find out what the bass want. After a few outings you will start to see a pattern, then you can build on that knowledge. For example, you notice that the fish are in deep cover mid day and like slow/bottom presentations. Now you know what they want and you can hone in on what bottom baits they prefer at mid-day and experiment with other bottom lures.

Right now you can pick up a Revo S for $99 from TW and a veritas rod for $99.95. If you purchase them before June 30th you get a 25$ mail in rebate off the combo. That is a killer $175 combo. If you are buying two setups, make sure you get two that cover a wide range of fishing styles. A flipping stick can double as a punching setup, frog rod, and small swimbait rod, it will not be perfect for all these techniques but it will most likely be able to get the job done. A 7' MH fast action rod will cover worming, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, etc. The favorite rod and reel in my arsenal are not the most expensive in my arsenal.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoys the benefits of a durable plastic . I bought some of the trailers as well, which was probably a mistake. That is one duty where the elaztech plastic will probably prove to be problematic. At least they were only $2 from my favorite online tackle shop! I feel like these worms will save me a fortune in the long run. I used to be lucky to catch 2 fish on one worm, now one worm last me all day! I hate loosing a plastic because it pollutes the waterways and can be ingested by fish, harming them. These Z man plastics will significantly reduce the amount of plastics I lose on missed hook sets.

If something has my lure in its mouth, I'm going to cross it's eyes. This usually results in goggle eye (warmouth/rock bass) flying out of the water on the hook set. You can usually tell a panfish by the tick, tick, tick pecking motion. However, I've hooked into bass that bite like this. I might be targeting LMB, but i'm happy to catch anything without line damaging teeth. I keep the decent size panfish for food and release my bass, works out well.

I have a young cat (~2 years old), in fact he is watching my cursor move as I type right now. When ever he starts to have accidents in my house, is when I will have to get rid of him, or at least put him outside. I am not a germ-freak, but cat waste is disgusting and loaded with infection causing bacteria. I would give an honest attempt to remedy the situation. If i'm ever in such bad shape that I'm soiling all over my care takers home, I would want to be put down.

Lews tournament speed spool, or tournament pro speed spool. Great reels for the price.

Don't limit the veritas to just top water duty. That is a very light, sensitive rod; puts a mojo to shame. I bought my veritas solely for top water duty, but end up tying jigs and plastics on it due to the amazing sensitivity. Just purchased two more can't wait till they come in. My veritas arsenal will be as follows: 7' MH fast (top water) , 6'9" MH fast micro (worm), and a 7'11" heavy mod fast flipping stick (jig/punch).

I know you've already decided, but in the future don't overlook okuma. Lew's and okuma both make a great quality reels and offer an amazing product for the money. The bps pro-qualifier is also a good bang for the buck reel.

Frog rod attributes: It needs to be long for pulling the fish out of cover and taking up a lot of line on the hooksets. I like a 7' - 7' 6" rod. It needs to have a good backbone for solid hooksets and pulling fish out of cover. It needs to have a soft enough tip so you can launch the frog way back into cover. It does not need to be sensitive if it is strictly a top water rod, you can save some money here. Frog fishing with mono is asking for hook up problems. I get frog hits from up to 100ft away, I can't expect to get a good hook set with a 100ft rubber band between my rod and the fish. Even if you do manage to set the hook, good luck getting a big boy back to the boat once he gets tangled in vegetation. Braid is the way to go on all non treble hook top water lures imo, especially those used in heavy cover. The hookset has to be hard and I find that waiting three seconds is often too long with a hollow body frog. The fish will spit them out pretty quickly. As soon as I see a blowup I simultaneously look for my frog and reel up slack. If I feel the fish or have minimal line slack and can't see my frog I immediately set the hook.

I use a 6'7" heavy, extra fast powell endurance casting rod. The extra fast tip allows me to slingshot the lure on a sidearm cast. The real deal with skipping baits with a baitcaster is thumb control. The reel must make a difference as well, because I have much better luck with my okuma alumina than I do with my higher end baitcasters. I might get a minor backlash every 20 or so casts. I use braid which I'm sure helps fight backlashing.

I like a single, three blade prop. I can fish it extremely slow due to the extra lift from the three blade prop. I also like to throw black.

I live in southern Louisiana. You could go outside blindfolded, throw a rock, and chances are it will land in a bayou. All the guys at work from the area have been fishing before. Most of them have boats but are what I call "meat fisherman". They target sacalait (aka crappie) and catfish. Only two of the workers in my area of the plant are bass fisherman. One actually owns two tackle companies, fishes tournaments nearly every weekend, and usually comes in 1st or 2nd. We talk about bass fishing a lot and he mentors me on bass fishing techniques. I bass fish probably 80% of the time. The other 20% is when I'm trying to catch fish to eat. Around here lots of people fish, and there is no shortage of bass fisherman.

Like mentioned above straight braid (50lb - 80lb) is the way to go. Use a straight shank flipping hook with a bait keeper. If you snell the hook (simple uni will work) you should improve your hook-up ratio. However a palomar knot will suffice if you don't want to snell. For a braid to flouro connection consider learning to tie an FG knot. It is not easy to tie, but is very slender and will pass through the guides with ease. Another knot to consider is the slim beauty.

I purchased a pack of Z Man finesse worms on a whim last week, and after using them (one of them) I feel like I have to post about them. They are extremely tough and have great action. I caught 4 bass on one worm and was admiring how well it was holding up. On the next cast I hooked a small (~2lb) alligator gar and after carefully removing the hook from his razor sharp toothed jaws, the worm was still in tact and fishable. After this I switched to a top water lure, and the used worm went back in the pack for later use. Another great thing about these worms is they hold on to barbs very well. I like to fish all of my texas rigged plastics on a straight shank hook with a heavy cover bait keeping barb on the shank. The Z man finesse worm did not slip down the shank of the hook once, even after catching 5 fish. Due to the amazing durability, I just ordered a bunch of Z man plastics. I wish the offered more colors and varieties because I would replace all of my plastics with these.

Have you tried with a small pegged bullet weight?

I'm assuming you are fishing with a t-rigged plastic worm. I don't think the length of the rod has much to do with the hook up ratio. The power and action of the rod will. You want a medium-heavy to heavy power rod with a fast to x-fast tip for worming. I recommend a graphite rod of decent quality so you can feel subtle bites. If your walmart carries the abu vendetta rods (mine does) consider a 6'6 - 7' version with the suggested power/action above. If you cannot afford a vendetta (~$80) i recommend saving up until you can, you could give the vengeance a try if you really must have a rod for this weekend. The most likely problem with your hook-up ratio is technique. You are probably either not setting it hard enough, mistaking non-fish as fish, or waiting too long to set the hook. Purchasing a sensitive rod with a decent backbone and a fast tip will help improve on all three of these areas. You won't be second guessing if you have a bite as much and will be able to react faster. You might want to consider giving braided line a try as well. It will increase sensitivity and hook setting power. Good luck.