WIGuide

I've got some that I bought a long while ago when I was in my teens. I used them a bit this summer with a tungsten bead inbetween the weight and my hook. I figured it'd give a different sound that maybe the fish haven't heard before and it worked pretty well.

Glad you made it through the storm ok. Sorry to hear about your dad's truck and I'll keep your cousins in my prayers as well.

A huge cold front moving through the area last Friday sent the temps plummeting from the upper 60's and low 70's down to the low 50's mixed with plenty of wind. I was hoping it would jump start some heavy feeding, but all it ended up jump starting was a very finicky bite. Friday was the best of the days but one of the coldest to fish. Temps only got to around 52 degrees and there was a 15-20 mph wind. The bite didn't pick up until the late afternoon evening. I found a small school on one laydown that accounted for 5 of my 11 fish and I lost two more on it as well. That single tree also produced these two one right after one another. Hopefully by next weekend they'll be out of their funk and back to eating like they should be!

Pretty lake! Keep at it, and you'll get some fish. I'd be looking to save up some money and get my own craft. Those rental prices might be cheap comparatively, but I could see myself wracking up a pretty big bill in a hurry.

Nice fish! I wish there was still a frog bite going around here!

I keep a net in my boat at all times. Living in a land of toothy critters it's pretty much a must. Also a great addition for tournaments. I swear fishing for fun they can splash around boat side as long as you want to let them, but once money is on the line, the fish just somehow know haha.

Congrats on the beast!

If it were me, I'd just buy an extra ram ball with the ram mount. I'd also buy an extra power wire and transducer unless your boat is just open and you can lay the wires out. Put one ram ball on your boat and one on the canoe. You can just swap them back and forth then.

There are a few different sizes, but they're pretty standard. Cheapest and quickest option is to go to walmart as they usually carry them and see if that size fits. You could go Slo's route to as those look sweet! Consider putting some clear silicone around the ring of the cup holder to help hold it down and prevent it from happening all over again.

I can second @Bluebasser86 on the copper blades in stained or tanic water. The black and brown should be good in low light conditions like cloudy days or morning/evening.

Do yourself a favor and buy a pair of grippers. The hooks on scales are generally too small and are a pain to hook the fish under the mouth. After you have a big one or two that you put on the scale start flopping around and flop off you'll understand why grippers are a much better deal. An added bonus of the grippers is you can use them without the scale. They're a great tool when you are using anything with treble hooks. With jerkbait season fast approaching they are indispensable. Unfortunately I forgot to pull mine out a few trips ago and paid the price when a smallie ripped a jerkbait hook across the underside of my thumbnail. Used the grippers the rest of the trip and my hand stayed safely away from any flying hooks when the fish decided to thrash.

I believe the ones I have are 2/0, I really don't think it matters all that much though as long as it doesn't affect the action.

Looks like you found out how deadly a spinnerbait can be. You were fishing it in near optimal conditions, but there's other times it can be good too. It's definitely one of my confidence baits.

I fish a swimjig a fair share. It's not my favorite technique, but I haven't had any issues fishing it and I just throw it on my spinnerbait rods. MH/F I also don't fish them on braid so maybe that's why i have the preference that I do.

If you look at St. Croix's lineup of rods, they split their series down the middle as far as what's hot in the industry and the tried and true classic desin. The Triumph and Triumph X, the Mojo and the Premier, Avid and Avid X, and the Legend Elite and Legend Xtreme are all examples of this. You have to remember they are selling to a picky crowd. Just look at the comments above and you'll find some won't buy a rod without a full cork handle, while others won't buy one that isn't a split grip, some won't buy a rod because of the color, and the list goes on. They put their new technology into these new lines to keep those rods current and on the leading edge, while keeping the rods that put them there in the first place. At the same time they try to update their series as time goes by. They can't reintroduce every series every year, so they pick and choose. At the same time they need to be aware of what's going on in the industry, and the industry had become considerably more competitive at that price point in the bass world. They improved the Mojo line and kept it at the same price point making it one of the best values on the market. Now the Premier hasn't been redesigned for a while, but it is not targeted specifically to the bass market. They aren't technique specific, and they offer many more models. If I were to guess, they're selling just fine despite the price mainly do to their mulitspecies crossover market. I would be guessing at some point in the next few years, you'll see the Premier reintroduced after a redesign, unless their numbers stay strong enough to keep it the way it is. There are a lot going on there, and I'm sure there's other reasons as well. What it boils down to though, is they have made the Mojo Bass one of the best bang for your buck rods on the market.

Most upholstery shops can modify a cover for your needs. I would have them add velcro flaps that you can run your lines through. A lot of places out there can make you a custom cover as well if you don't have one that will work already.

I'll be fishing as long as I can. I've fished in the snow a few times before, I've fished with temps in the mid 30's with 25-30 mph winds. The last few years I've fished right up to the weekend before hunting season. I wish I could get out after at some point, but that late in the year, waiting 3 weeks to get back out it's going to be over before I get the chance. I definitely can relate to all these feelings as the season comes to an end. I hate it...every single year, but I still make sure I enjoy every trip.

You might be able to find a motor with a blown powerhead and just use the one you have. I would check local marinas to see if they have any, or craigslist. You can always check the bay too.

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day here as the temp was in the 70's. With the days getting shorter there isn't as much time to fish after work anymore, so traveling half an hour or more to fish a different lake almost isn't worth while. The lake I live on has been on a downward spiral the last few years. The bass fishing there has never been all that great, but it used to be great for northerns and although they're rebounding, it's nowhere near where it was. I've hardly fished out there the past few years, but if you can time it right both in the spring and fall, you can get into a decent population of smallmouth that migrate into and out of the rivers that feed the flowage. Anyway, it was too nice of a day not to fish yesterday, so I headed out for about 2 1/2 hours. I managed to boat 7 smallies. They were stacked up on what wood is in the accessible part of the river. One small tree with hardly any branches on it had 4 fish on it and possibly a 5th as well. Everything I caught was one of two baits. One was a Bomber Long A model B14 and the other was a Rapala Shadow Rap Deep. I kept them moving pretty fast and every one just crushed it. It was a fun night to be on the water. ^ Just a little 15", but he looked so pretty in the sun I couldn't help but take a pic

Most of the fish I caught last night were really dark like that. I know they're shallow river fish so that's probably why but I did catch a few smaller ones that were considerably lighter.

It's getting to that time of year again that there isn't much time to fish after work. I'm not letting that stop me though and it just makes catching one like this in that short window that much sweeter.

I guess you did well!! Nice work!

Only managed one decent picture worthy fish yesterday. I caught her on a Rapala Shadow Rap Deep in the molten copper color.

This past weekend, instead of fishing I headed over to visit my girlfriend who is going to school about 3 hours away from where I live. We had a great time, but my weekend fishing suffered haha. I figured it would be ok because things are slow at work right now and I got Monday off because of it. I decided to take my aunt to a small lake over by her house and commenced to struggling. With the weather being stable all week and weekend I figured not much would have changed since last weekend. I had been catching them on the outside weedline so that's where we started. Unfortunately there were only a few still there. They were not wanting to cooperate at all. I had bites, but they must have just been barely nipping my jig as I didn't even lose an appendage.I had tried a few different techniques thinking we'd get something going and I finally hooked into a good one on a jerkbait. My aunt decided to tie on a crankbait that was close to the same color, and within a few casts hooked into a decent bass as well, but she lost it about 10' from the boat when it jumped. She did manage to avoid the skunk by catching a small northern a few minutes later. Not much to show for 5 hours of fishing but at least one was photo worthy being just shy of 18 inches. As much of a struggle as it was, it could have been worse..... I could have spent the day at work!

Lifting with a rod anywhere other than the handle is a bad recipe. It changes the forces on the blank and is most likely at least partially at fault for this break. Also, just lifting a 4 pound bass is generally not a good idea either. Both of these reasons are most likely why your rod broke. Something also could have been done to weaken the blank there previously and maxing out your rod the way you did would account for why it broke this time.