Master Bait'r

Rods. Reels you can get all dressed up, add a bunch of parts and these days you can pretty much make anything cast over the moon. Rods are just rods. There is no changing them. You either bought the right rod or you didn't.

That's sweet. I love the art of dialing.

Wow that BFS is silly awesome. How do you like the small hard ZPI knobs? Comfy?

When in Rome... Throw frogs.

Every time I fish a new small pond (which is pretty regularly) I like to start with small tackle. I poke around and see what I can get to bite on very small baits for a while, and I use that information to gauge what is probably going on with larger fauna and forage in the deeper sections or at magical times and zones where the fat bottom girls play. I never use electronics so it sometimes takes a few outings to truly learn a body of water but it's worth it. Small roboworms, slug-gos and bentos/flash Js are usually my litmus test baits. Work the edges of the cover and see what's shakin', then drop shot the middle areas and see what depths you're working with, put the puzzle pieces together and work the zones appropriately with either cranks, spinners, swimmers, drop shots or jigs for targeting whatever hit my light tackle or I learn is present. So yeah... I work pads with frogs, the edges of the pads with light finesse baits and then map and work with other bait presentations depending on what I find for depth and cover. If you don't have a boat, get a kayak or build a $10 raft out of random wood and styrofoam and use a single paddle. I know a guy who does exactly that and he kills it! Leaves the raft in the water all the time and just hops on and paddles way sitting on his bucket. No BS!

Also works great for chapped lips.

Well there's having no idea and there's inflating one's own ego through falsities. There's a difference, and I'm not afraid to admit I have never weighed a fish so I have no idea what any of them weighed to be honest. Don't care, since it's just for fun for me anyways and I'm putting it back no matter what. I take pics to remind me of the good times/share fishing stoke and that's it really. If someone cares how big it "really" was, that's too bad for them. I don't care. There's two types of people out there: The kind that see a nice fish and want to high five you -and The kind that see a nice fish and feel like less of a man. The latter has issues. The former has good times.

I think the proof is in the pudding- there is no wrong time to fish, but there are definitely better types of fishing to do at certain times of the day or certain conditions.

With all the lips getting ripped around here, I figure we should have a place to share shots of our catches regularly. Took a cool pic of my catch of the day today so I'll start She was pretty... And not a fan of Sesame Street apparently

I'd add as much structure as I could, and stuff as many baitfish as my manager thought was pertinent.

Ah ok, cheers... But his PB is bigger than mine though!

Lol... How about over $30? I never understood how people can lay down big coin for a rod/reel and then honestly worry about the money for the line. It's like buying a Lambo and then putting $75 tires on it to save cash imo.

This is the key. Make sure the line goes slack for just a split second before the next twitch, and getting down that cadence, power input, duration, timing and all that jazz are really subject to the individual specifics of your setup and what you're throwing. It's just going to take a bunch of practice. Fortunately practicing is a blast

Whether you're breaking a sweet stick, losing a tire on the hwy, exploding a complicated wire harness or blowing your ACL- a pop is never EVER a good noise. Ever. For any reason.

For me, ponds mean working cover as few are deep enough for the full monty. Pads, weeds, laydown... So I usually reach for some kind of frog in the muck and either some finesse plastics or squarebills/buzzbaits where it's open. If there's deep points or shelves, I'll drop shot mostly. Ponds you can keep it pretty simple though, which is great when you're fishing from a kayak like I am.

My WalMart sucks. Seriously the only thing they have is shame, disappointment and insanely good people watching. Just driving in the parking lot is enough to make me want to leave most of the time though.

Hope everybody had a nice weekend! This is my NRX 852c and Curado 51e w/ Abec7s aaaand of course my beverage of choice for the afternoon.

Our shop's town water/plumbing inspector is a notorious jerk and overachiever. People tremble in his signature's shadow and he has a terrible reputation for being just the most overbearing, obnoxious paper pushers this side of the Mississippi- or so I learned after I had about an awesome 2 hour conversation about fishing the river along the shop and told somebody about it. I thought the guy was awesome, and they couldn't believe it- they said he was just about the biggest jerk he had ever met and that he is known far and wide as being an insufferable ******- he went on to say that he knows at least a dozen plumbers who refuse to do work in that town because of him. I was just like "d**n, maybe you should try talking to him about fishing next time" hahaha

Lakes if I had to choose. But I'd say some of my favorite stuff is the lakes in the area that are formed alongside rivers. Kind of like river tidepools, they keep the water fresh and the fish... Well, there could be anything in there. Complete with pads, coves and tons of laydown... They act like catch-all for dominant fish. Tons of fun to go to those places.

I have a 6'3" *** Black spinning rod and a 7'3" *** Green casting rod... Backbone is actually the best part about both of them. My *** is actually an ML and has more backbone than some of the M rods I've used. Very impressive. The same could be said of the *** Green- the F action coupled with the sweet backbone make it great for a lot of things. I would venture to say that their 6'3" *** Black spinning rod would be an outstanding rod with plenty of backbone and would be my first choice of those three.

Haha that's a a good way to put it.

Power = big rods, heavy line and big baits, often running deep or being yanked across weeds. Finesse = lighter rods, lighter line, usually at or near the surface and usually unweighted plastics or drop shotting etc.

I feel like Roboworm makes that. Check TW. My favorite worms are Roboworms (hot tips and FX styles especially) and Slug-Go SS worms- the latter combines the front of a 4" slug-go for that erratic jerky motion, and follows it up with a whiptail that seriously gives it a sashay unlike anything I've ever seen. It's the best of both worlds- the wiggle of a worm and the action of a soft jerkbait. Each has their strengths, but I love them both in their own way.

Throwing one's back out must sound like science fiction to people who haven't experienced it. Mine is killing me right now- I KNEW I shouldn't have moved that mattress alone!

Depends on the size of the body. Usually trim off about 1/3 of it, but it's all about a good body/leg length ratio so I just kind of eye it. They're all different.