Logan S

IMO, Edwin Evers needs to be in the conversation. Look at the type of tournaments he's won and you won't find a more versatile resume. To my knowledge he's the only angler to win separate top tour level events with all LM, all SM, and all Spotted bass....But even beyond that he's literally checked all the boxes in terms of types of bass and bass waters for professional level wins. Great Lakes Smallmouth (Erie) River Smallmouth (St Lawrence, he stayed in the river) Florida Largemouth (St Johns) TVA Reservoir Largemouth (KY Lake) Northern Largemouth (IL) Spotted Bass (AL River and Norman) Non-TVA southern Reservoirs (Rayburn and Eufala) Tidal Rivers (St Johns and Atchafalaya) ....And his massive Classic win at Grand Lake, OK.....And as much as I'm not a huge fan of MLF/BPT, he's won there too - A tour event, an AOY, and the Redcrest. I'm not saying he's the undisputed #1, but there's no way he's not in the conversation to me.

I don't have any of the latest model DC reels, but I can say that all the ones I do have have been trouble free (a few for more than 10 years now). It's pretty impressive how reliable the DC systems are. The only thing different about DC reels when it comes to maintenance is that it's slightly more difficult to get at the spool bearing on the side with the DC unit, but it's more like adding a step or two to the process...Not a drastic increase in difficulty.

As a co-angler you're along for the ride, for better or worse. Most people out there, boaters and co's, are normal people and will get along just fine. Since you were a boater previously, I don't think you need any advice on the boat etiquette stuff like not stepping on seats, spills, etc...But for anyone else out there reading - Yea, don't step on the seats, don't bring messy/spill-prone food or drinks, if you smoke or dip ask first (and be prepared for a 'No'), and anything else along these lines. The fishing etiquette part can be the tricky one because people have different views on what's acceptable/courteous or not (both boaters and co's). The steering wheel guideline is pretty common and a decent visualization but I don't really like it because the boat is never completely parallel with whatever you're targeting. My version is just to not try to beat the boater to the targets, that's what I tell my co's and it seems to work well....Cast wherever you want just don't try to beat me to a cast or skip ahead of me. Boater's should also be proactive about this stuff. If I'm doing something a certain way that might not be obvious I just tell the co-angler so there's no confusion. Co-anglers aren't mind readers and a lot of times they simply don't have a ton of experience....Being proactive helps them a lot.

I don't know that I know of an official PB for me in many of the lakes/rivers, but I know these... Black Hill: 7-4...Also have two 6-15's Deep Creek: 5-15 (LM), 4-8 (SM) Conowingo: 5-9 (LM) Tidal Potomac: not sure, but have several 6's (one in my profile pic) - haven't broke 7 yet Not MD, but 'local' enough that I fish them regularly... Lake Anna: 7-1 Lake Gaston: 6-1 and 5-14 on the same day (also have 2 other fish that I'm pretty sure were bigger than 6-1 but I didn't weigh them) Everywhere else is a 4 or 5, except I don't know if I ever broke 4lbs on the upper Potomac for SM or LM - But I haven't really fished it since I had my aluminum Tracker which was 12 or 13 years ago now. Also, thread is worthless without pics - It's winter time, cmon man! Here are the two 6-15's from BH, both were caught within a couple weeks of each other in July 2013 (both in tournaments too). A few casts before I caught the one on the left I lost a fish that was very clearly bigger...2013 was a special year for that lake.

I fly fish for trout in the winter, it's fun and hiking though the quiet woods is a nice change of pace from blasting around at 70mph chasing bass . I typically make a handful of fly fishing trips each winter and then I've had enough and it's back to bass. I've fly fished for bass and caught them, but generally speaking its just not as effective. Your casting distance and effective depth range is very limited compared to normal bass tackle. It's fun though, something different. I will say that I've been on lakes when huge mayfly hatches were happening, watched bass munching them (and mostly ignoring my offerings) and thought, "this might be a time you could really clean up with a fly rod." Maybe one day I'll hide a fly rod in my rod locker and try it out (at a lake and time where it's likely to happen) .

Bull sharks are occasionally seen in the Potomac and Chesapeake up in the bass waters. There's supposedly a 'Chessie' that lives in the bay as well. Of sort of similar and interesting note, there's a sunken German U-Boat in the Potomac, though further south so not in the areas I fish for bass. I've also heard of the mega catfish at/below dams - I think that's a universal superstition .

People tend to over emphasize how easy new tech makes fishing. I remember the same thing with SI when it came out and it will probably follow a similar path. As it becomes more widely available and more people use it the 'magic' perception of it will wear off. Part of that will also be from the fish adapting to it. The point is to catch fish right? This isn't snagging or netting them or anything else unethical, it's just helping you be more effective/efficient at targeting them. (I don't have live sonar on my boat currently)

In your price range you'll be getting a relatively new/modern boat and as such, any of those brands will be solid boats. There's a lot of flak out on the internet, but I know people that own all of the brands listed and all are happy. The decision point really comes down to things like layout, storage, motor, and accessories. IMO, yes. But plenty of people run AL rigs and are happy with them and would probably disagree with me. The performance and fishability is maxed in a traditional glass bass boat. You'll probably be looking at boats that are 3 to 6 years old...The average 'avid' bass fisherman probably puts 30 to 60 hours per season on their rig just to give you a ballpark on what the hours average out to. Of course the x-factor is how well the previous owner maintained it and it's rare to know that for sure unless you happen to know the seller personally. I think if you can find something that averages in that 30-60 hour per year range or less you'll be looking good. Powerhead replacement many times is done under warranty and it's tough to know how to feel about it. I know people that have had powerheads replaced and then never had another issue, but also have known people that have the complete opposite experience. Wish I had better advice, sorry it's a gut call I guess. Good luck with the search, hope you find great one!

FYI, 2021 season is around the corner so here's my annual plug . Check the main post in the Clubs forum for additional info...Feel free to ask any question here or in a message!

I'm one of the crazy people that thinks magnesium framed baitcast reels make the combo just a hair more sensitive than aluminum or graphite/plastic framed reels...I also think you can balance a rod a little better by choosing lighter/heavier reels to match the rod (IE, heavier reel on a longer heavy-power rod). So yea, I believe you can optimize a rod's performance with certain reels. It's a nuance for sure, but its fun for gear junkies like me.

I was actually talking about cold weather...Seems like they start dying off when ice starts forming and BH freezes frequently in the winter. I just think it's a bit too small and doesn't have the inflow/outflow and structure that a 'real' lake has where they would survive/replenish...It's more like an overgrown pond. Not a biologist though so this is just me shooting the s**t on based on what I've seen .

This is my new favorite feature of the forum --> There's been golden shiners in the lake for as long as I've been fishing it, which is about 20 years now. I doubt shad would survive in the lake, it's too small for them. I've always thought it was managed fine and it was a good lake to bass fish. There was period a few years back where I'd put it in the conversation of the best bass fisheries in the region....But that doesn't last forever and it tapered off. The massive development in the area has slammed the lake in the past year or two, plus the COVID crowds this year. We call it 'Yak Hills' now ....It's completely overrun with kayaks. If it wasn't so close to me and easy to get quick trips in, I'd likely write it off these days.

It'd be nice to see some variety, but I'm just glad they aren't coming to any of my home waters this year .

Front/Boater will always have the advantage - If for no other reason than it's their plan and they can control what they want to do. Then the obvious stuff like having the first opportunity at targets and all the other fishing related things. Whether they execute or not is another story, but the raw advantage is still there. The trade-off is that the front/boater has more of a burden since he/she is operating the boat, making the decisions, etc...

Any size 2 ring should be fine and MB uses regular round rings, not ovals. Like was said previously, the ones intended for the Japan market usually don't have them on the front. I don't think there's anything 'special' about the rings MB uses, other then them being flat black as opposed to silver or metallic black. A snap would be fine too, but I would probably jut put the split ring on so it's the same as the rest of your jerkbaits...That way you don't need to worry about adding or removing a snap when you use or switch from that single bait. I have a few that came without rings too and I put rings on them for this reason.

I use the stock outbarbs, #6 for standard size 110's....But I have a buddy that uses the #5 Gamakatsu Nano-Finesse trebles and he says they are perfect, same weight as the original hooks. When I run out of my stock of outbarbs I plan on trying the Nano-Finesse ones. You used to be able to buy stock hooks in bulk from MB-USA but I'm told they don't do that anymore - I bought a big supply of them several years ago so I won't be trying others for a while.

The big question is what are you looking for or hoping to find? Because outside of some specific scenarios like schooled, actively feeding fish...Most of the time scanning is done looking for cover/structure, presence of baitfish, or just get general lay of the land in the areas you're fishing....IE, most of the time it's not actually a situation where if you find what you're looking for you're going to immediately catch a winning stringer. I generally don't do much scanning on an actual tournament day...Here and there sure, but really only to check or confirm something I already know about, like scanning across a point to see if it has what I'm looking for (bait or fish or other activity) for a single pass before dropping the trolling motor on it. It's very rare that I go out and scan/scout for new stuff on a tournament day itself. Most scanning can be done anytime beforehand...Whether its immediately before the event or not. I spend most of the winter scouting and scanning at places that I'll fish tournaments on the next season. Structure, topography, and most cover (besides grass) doesn't change...So you can find it in December and put it to work in May . Also, club level stuff is almost always just a single day (occasionally 2)...So you can't really compare that to practice for a 4 day pro level event, it's almost apples vs oranges. You need a lot of stuff to support 4 days of tournament fishing, so when you see the pros talking about scanning for so long in practice it's because they need at least 4x as much stuff. They need to account for the 4 days plus factoring in other pros finding the same stuff they did. Most of the time they aren't locals either, so they need familiarize themselves with the place as well. One day events can usually be supported on a single 'milk run', so the strategy for that relies more on your experience on the specific lake/river and what your backlog of successful areas/patterns is like. Even with zero practice you can put together successful single day tournaments if you have enough experience/history on that body of water. If you are fishing mostly local/club one day tournaments, a very good strategy is to focus on building up your own milk run for each place you fish...Whether that's deep, shallow, or a mix is up to your personal style and the types of waters you fish. Scanning is a big part of all that, but not really on the tournament day itself .

Yep, I was 99.7% and 112th overall - Crazy. Pure luck, I'm next year I'll be at the bottom like I usually am :) I do a small group with some fishing buddies also and whoever wins gets baits from the others - So I've got a little tackle coming my way at least :)

For the Silver Buddy specifically, replace the hooks with better trebles but don't add split rings (Buddy's don't come with them anyway) - Clip the hook eye and bend it out a bit near the base, slide on the blade and bend back. Do it in a way the at 1 prong of the treble faces down and the other two face up, then clip the downward facing prong off. If you do this to both trebles it's surprisingly snagless. Hookup ratio is not as good so I keep some with normal trebles and some with clipped trebles on hand, if I'm snagging too much I swap on one of the clipped ones. EWG trebles do a little better than round bends also, but further decrease hookups. Like this...Clip the ones I crossed out. But honestly even with this, you need a plug knocker and large supply of blade baits if you're going to fish them a lot . If they won't eat the blade, try a tail spinner fished in exactly the same way and in the same places you fish the blade on the River...Sometimes it works .

Last weekend I was down at Gaston for a 2-day club tournament, where we had 7 hours of fog delays...2 hours on day 1 and 5 hours on day 2. I've never seen fog hang around so long as I had on that 2nd day - It was bright sun and hot by like 10am but the fog persisted right near the ground/water...We could actually see the clear sky just above our heads very close but without horizontal visibility we were stuck. Been in a lot of fog delays over the years but never one lasted this late into the day. When we got to fish, we caught good numbers of spots but very tough to find them bigger than about 1.5lbs. I had a good LM pattern at the very end of the days where and caught decent LM (up to about 3 lbs) each of the 4 days we were there - Had to leave them biting to get to weigh in on the tournament days. Caught the spots on jerkbaits and fishing vertically with sonar and the LM were on lipless cranks. This picture was taken just before noon on the second day, right before we officially launched (my Co was clearly thrilled with sitting the boat for 5 hours before doing anything).

The 65 gets a TON of bites...As you'd expect a lot of smaller fish but you'll get quality ones too. I typically use it in places where I expect to catch smallmouth or spotted bass and most often in the fall. Hardest part is casting distance, I use a spinning rod and 6lb flouro to keep my casts reaching normal distances - So when you do get a decent fish it gets pretty fun with those tiny hooks and light line....Have a landing net handy .

Since you asked specifically about swingheads, that's one that I prefer lead. The point of the swinghead is to bounce/crawl along the bottom and deflect off things is bumps into....You get more of that with a wider head (why they are mostly all football shaped). The smaller and heavier profile of tungsten take some of that away. In general, I prefer tungsten for worm weights. For jigs I have mostly lead, but a few tungsten here and there - But that's more about liking the specific jig regardless of the head material.

HA! You know that's already in the works . I might make it inside to check out the house at some point too....Eventually

We bought a new house and now FINALLY my boat can be inside a garage...My boats haven't fit in a garage since way back when I had Tracker which was like 12 years ago now so I've had keep them under a cover in the driveway...Not anymore Here's the new home port...

I love the Megabass XX Diablo Spec-R for full size walking baits. Might not seem like it on paper, but it's fantastic for the full size walkers IMO. Loads well for long cast, tip is good for walking, and the mod-fast taper handles trebles very well even on braid.