WIGuide

This past weekend, I got to fish in the first club tourney of the year that was over on the Mississippi River in pools 4, 5, and 5a. The morning started off early and brisk. When we left the house at 4 am the temp was in the low 30's and dropped to into the upper 20's before take off. Luckily with the rise of the sun it was back into the 30's at take off. The water temp had dropped a good 7-8 degrees since my prefishing trip the weekend before so I had my fingers crossed that the fish we had found were at least close to the same area. The morning definitely didn't start as planned. My motor, was having some issues and a last minute landing change (due to a city ordinance) had over 11 miles of river and a lock sitting between us and our primary area. Someone must have been looking over our shoulder though. We pulled up to the lock just as the doors were opening. Despite freezing our butts off, we made it to our first spot; a very shallow sand flat with current running over the top with a quick drop into deeper water on the back side. It only took us about 10 minutes before my dad got the first hit on a jerkbait, but missed it and had the same thing happen two casts later. Shortly after that is when the magic happened, we managed to boat 6 keepers off this tiny little stretch with all but two being over 3 lbs. and one of the two that were under was just barely under. We had our limit in just over an hour and caught the 6th shortly after. When things finally slowed down, we worked out way out and went over to another area we were going to hit. We had idled up a creek arm a little ways to another small area that we thought held some fish. We weren't there for more than 15 minutes when I pulled in an 18" smallie that bumped our smallest. Didn't get to cull after that, but that was ok. We ended up finishing in second place with a 5 fish total of 17.41 lbs All the keepers were caught on either a Rapala Shadow Rap, an Xcalibur XCS100, or a Bomber Suspending Long A. Hand an absolute blast and am pumped to get back out again!

Nice work!

That should work for you as long as you throw in some fresh water every now and then. You could add a permanent install to it for not much more than the cost of the cooler setup.

They are both great sticks and I don't think you can go wrong with either of them, but I really love my LTB's.

I don't know that they desert the shallows completely, but I think they have a tendency to move towards the outer edge of them. I would think a lot of them will have moved back to their previous locations by the weekend, but when you get there start in shallow and work your way out. You'll find out pretty quick where they are.

For topwater you really don't need an expensive high end rod. As long as it has the power and action that you're looking for you're set. The 6'6" M/F will work as well as the 6'8" M/XF the choice is really yours.

It should be the 45" shaft unless you fish a lot of big waves and open water.

And from what I'm seeing you need some help uploading/linking pics? On a serious note, congrats on the good finish at your tournament. It really stinks when you don't start out on the fish and stumble on day one. I've had that happen in a few 2 day ones too, being just a keeper shy the first day and then being only that far out of the money or higher. Keep at it though man!

I'd get something in a medium heavy power with a fast action. Buy a length that feels comfortable to you. That rod will give you a bit more backbone to handle some heavier baits.

Well, as far as cities go I'm pretty much in the middle of nowhere haha. Even if you go by my address I'm technically a Conrath resident, but I have a Sheldon phone number, and yet I live closer to Holcombe than either of those. Going by other places you may have heard of, I'm a little over an hour south of Hayward, an hour north east of Eau Claire, and about 7 miles north of Holcombe, WI. Big Chetac is a pretty good bass lake. I'm roughly an hour south east of there. It'll be interesting to see how Chetac fares after the controlled weed kill they had out there this year.There's a lot of good lakes up that way though that are pretty good bass fisheries. Red Cedar, Grindstone, Round Lake, Murphy Flowage, and the list goes on. She was. Poor girl must have had a rough life. Blind in one eye, big healed gash in her back and stomach, and part of her jaw was missing on the other side.

Looks like you two had a great day on the water! Props to you for taking a youngster fishing too!

Being a predominately shallow water fisherman, the two stomping grounds intersect quite often, at least around here anyway. Northers will spawn earlier in the year, but are just as active in the heat of summer.

Either the 723 or the Carbonlite.

In the long run, I think you'll be better off picking up an ultra light combo. When you're panfishing, there's not a lot of strain put on a reel so you don't need anything fancy. Bass Pro usually has a cheap UL combo for right around $20. It's not super fancy but gets the job done for panfish

Don't give up on team fishing events. Very few times will you have a bad experience. This guy sounds like a piece of work and I wouldn't even consider fishing with him again. If he's going to be that big of a dbag I don't think there's a chance he will straighten out. Find a different partner and have some fun. You'll be overjoyed when you even get an average one after this experience.

Haha I just can't bring myself to pay that much for a bait that is going to last 1 bite from a northern. Maybe they're even better than my normal boot tail swimbait, but I think I'll stick with what I'm using as it seems to do ok for me.

I use it for everything other than top water and on my flippin sticks. Honestly I haven't had any issues with it so apparently I'm in the minority here, but until I start having issues with it, I'm going to keep using it.

I haven't used that particular bait, but I fish similar bait's on a 6'6" M/F Legend Xtreme.

I had that happen this year as well. I had a reel seat come loose, took it up there to get it fixed knowing that the rod was past its warranty. I was just going to pay whatever the cost was to have it fixed. They didn't even question the warranty issue, just took it in and fixed it free of charge. They're definitely a top notch company that will keep me using Corix's.

It's probably a bit too big for that rod. I'd have a 1000 series or smaller on it.

Hey welcome to the forums. You might want to head over to the introduction section to introduce yourself. To answer your question, you might want to build your own combo. The new tourney special rods are not as good as the old ones and they have the hook hanger positioned in a kind of crappy position as it'll catch the line every so often. I'd probably suggest either a Berkley Lightning rod or Berkley Lightning Shock. The models are going to depend on what you fish with the most and what you're comfortable with. I'd probably suggest you pair it up with a Pflueger President reel. That will put you right around the $100 mark and get you set up fairly well.

Pretty sure you're calculating something wrong since braid is thinner than mono. Even if it was just slightly thicker it'd cut your capacity some but not 100 yards off it. That's besides the point though. 80 yards is plenty of line. Next time you're at school, go down to the football field and stand under a goal post and look towards the other one. If you were to make an 80 yard cast, you'd be casting to the 30 yard line on the opposite side of the field.

Congrats on the new PB!

I used to have to lift 4 days a week when I was playing college basketball. We did a lot more in the way of just maintaining strength throughout the season and gain a little in the off season. We never dead lifted, but I used to bench 225 and squat 375. I really need to get back to working out though. I actually kind of miss that soreness that lets you know you did something well.

I've got one and have also had mixed results. The eyes on the crankbait also light up and glow red every few seconds. I'm not sure if they produce great or not. I've caught some decent smallmouth on it when I used it. I might need to do some more experimenting with them. It's still debatable that he actually won it on that bait. He was using a Rapala DT6 for the majority of the tourney, and if I remember correctly he only switched AFTER he had his limit for the final day. Granted he caught some kickers to cull some of those out, but we also don't know that he wouldn't have caught what he did if he had kept using the DT6 or switched over to another crankbait with a different profile.