fishballer06

Nice fish. I'm glad to see people are learning from the website and enjoying their time on the water more. For future reference, a larger bass like that is supposed to take some drag. You should never winch down the drag to where it can't be pulled. A general rule of thumb for me is if I can pull on it firmly and it peels off slowly (but still smoothly), it's probably set about right. Remember, you don't want it set so loose that your drag is slipping while you're setting the hook. And like deep said, your 16.5" bass wasn't ~6 pounds. A bass that size is likely in the 2.5-3 pound range. Still a quality fish though. Once you start getting up into the 20-23" range, you'll start seeing 6 pounders! Keep up the researching and fishing, you'll trump your new personal best in no time.

One thing you have to realize, is that whenever talking to the average Joe (or Sue), their opinion on an "excellent fishing pond/lake" and the opinion of an advanced bass fishermen like yourself, are more than likely going to be totally different. To the average Joe/Sue, a 2 pound bass (in the 14-16" range) might be a really big fish. These people are more than likely the people that enjoy just sitting on the bank with a bobber and worm and catching whatever bites. More often than not, they probably catch mostly bluegill/perch/crappie/catfish. So if they can catch a few bass scattered in there and they're bigger than the average 6-9" panfish, they're going to be tickled and think that the bass in their pond is a quality fish. This is where your opinion of a quality fish and their opinion will differ. It's good to have some big bluegill and crappie in a lake, because those large panfish are likely spawning and producing baitfish every year whenever their spawn hatches out. However, too many of these fish will also create competition for food with the bass, especially the larger crappie. Larger crappie will be aggressive and eat basically as much as a larger bass will.

A wife who goes onto BassResource to ask what equipment to buy for him?! Sounds like your husband already has everything he needs in life! What a lucky man.

I've got the HDS 7 Gen 2 touch and I prefer the blue/white color. This seems to make the colors pop the most for me.

Welcome! From another local.

I've got a small, private pond back by my parents place that the fish will never hit a crank. The owners of the pond feed the fish there almost daily with bread, corn and hot dogs. It's the oddest pond ever because most of the bass in that pond are 3-6 pounds each, and you can only catch them on doughballs and nightcrawlers. I guess since they've been raised on that food their entire life, that's all they'll eat.

I personally only like to use EWG trebels on rattle traps (or baits that typically get engulfed). Anything else I prefer a standard round bend hook. With the design of an EWG, the bend sticks out further than what the point does, so if a fish just slaps at a bait, I don't have as good of a chance as grabbing the fish and getting a good hookup on it. Hopefully this makes sense to you.

My local store had a Core in stock this weekend that they have never had there before. Only a matter of time until that thing will go on sale, since they have already been discontinued.

Went to my local Dicks last night. Keitech - buy one, get one 50% off Havoc - $2 for everything Arashi - Buy one get one free Yamamoto baits - 20% off Rapala - buy two, get one free Plano - boxes were on sale, I forget the deal Rods - buy any reel at retail price, rods are 50% off

Be careful with those Statos' around that time frame. There was a recall on the hauls because the transom on them was falling apart. My tournament partner just bought a 2000 Stratos back in October and it's currently in the shop getting the fiberglass on the entire back end rebuilt. Thankfully the insurance company is eating the $8k bill to get all that done.

I saw photo's of this back whenever it happened. Pretty cool to see it happen on video.

Another vote here for the Curado I

Seaguar or Albright for me.

A rod for ~$50 that will handle a weightless wacky rig and a 14 ft. deep diving crankbait.... I'm not trying to degrade your budget, but (ideally) you're going to need 2 different rods for those purposes. In order to use a crank that dives 14 ft, you're going to need a MH rod at least, with a moderate action.

Damiki air craws will also stand up because the claws on them are hollow This is an air craw on a Gamakatsu Alien Head jig. And here's a better photo of the craws and the claw design.

I have only used the Fluoroclear and it has worked great for me. I have a spool of the CX but I haven't used it yet. From the talks of others on here, it is also a great line. As far as the differences, I"m not quite sure what all is different other than the available colors they come in.

It was one of the original colors whenever they first released the DT in 2003.

Thanks for the report. I'm getting very anxious to go. It seems you guys are right about where we are here in Pennsylvania. Water around here is between 66-73 depending on the lake.

I know the old green tiger DT's are going for $25-40 a piece, and I don't even feel that it's that good of a color.

Rapala still shows that color in every size except the 10 on their website, however from the way things have looked for the past year or so, I have also been assuming that the standard "perch" color has been discontinued. I have been buying up the one's that I find whenever I find them.

For $130, you can pick up a St. Croix Premier (or even less during most holiday sales, like Memorial Day... hint hint)

Braid: Trilene or Palomar FC: SD Jam, Trilene Co-Poly: SD Jam, Trilene, Palomar Leader: Seaguar, Albright (just learning this one)

In my opinion, Shimano has great spinning reels at every price point. If I were you, I would look at the Saros. If you want to save a little bit, the Symetre is another solid reel. Or if you can get lucky and get a Daiwa Ballistic on sale, those are also great reels, but they retail for $200.

Known for their extreme vibration, classic lipless crankbaits include Bill Norman’s legendary Rat-L-Trap... I believe you mean Bill Lewis?

I have also thought that this would be a good idea for this website. I know a few other online message boards that have a "deals" section where members can post and talk about online sales that are going on. Most of them use "rules" as well to govern what can and cannot be posted in that sales section.