BaitMonkey1984

Welcome. Great Site for beginners and pros alike. Enjoy.

Post some photos already.

Could not agree more. Been fishing for 10 years, got serious the past say 5 years. No one I know used bait casters. I wanted to try them, but heard the horror stories from people who had tried them and failed miserably. So I don't want to spend the $ if I am going to hate it. Not knowing how baitcatsing reels work, I think thats sound logic. Well dead wrong. I pick up an $80.00 Quantum combo. Thing backlashed after backlashed. Could not get that thing dialed in. Ended up not using it and gave up on baitcatsers that summer. Luckily, I bought a handful of different brand reels for approx $100.00 and it was night and day. I would suggest the Lews carbon fire or the abu garcia orca. Great reels for under $100.00 and pretty user friendly.

Boats require work. Plain and simple. Nothing is worse than having a motor issue though. I got m first boat from my grand dad with a 7.5 Sears Gamefisher motor. Motor ran great for five years. Then needed carb rebuilt. A few years later another carb rebuild. Then it all went to crap. I finally had to realize that the sentimental value of the motor exceeded the value of the motor. Got myself a motor that was a few years old, and no more issues. So my advice, try to get it fixed right. If your can't do it take it to someone. It is well worth it as you have no down time when it is done right. Hopefully the motor doesn't need that much work to get it up to speed quick and cost effectively.

Agree 100%. To the OP, if you get Glenn to respond to your post 2X he is fired up and feel strong about this issue. Everyone here has lots of experience, but c'mon GLENN is telling you don't do it. So simply put, don't do it.

I am glad that I wasn't the only one with OCD that saw this. However, as CarlF states a lot of times the hooks can't look terrible but still be pretty sharp. I replace the trebles at first sign of rust though because I don't want my lures having rust spots on the paint (see first picture). Lures are too expensive to ruin yourself, I let the fish do that for me.

This is becoming the norm. Call your local school district and see if they will allow you access. If not let me know, people hate getting calls from a lawyers office and I don't mind helping you in any way that I can.

Alibino, pearl, green pumpkin all do well. Arkansa shiner is probably the best for my area- clear lakes. If you use the white flukes which are also great, don't get the white flukes with the chartreuse tails. Get the albino or pearl flukes and dip the tail in JJ's magic. You get a better, more vibrant chartreuse plus the garlic scent. I saw my catch rate increase dramatically on the flukes once I started using JJ's. I don't believe in anything named "Magic" but this produce flat our works. Comes as close to magic as you can get in my book.

Dont mess with perfection. I will fish any worm wacky style so long as it is a 5" GYCB in watermelon creme.

Misread the post. Thought it said " Any Havoc guys? " 1/2 Havoc on TW as we speak. Just got 40 bags Im going to have to hide from the gf.

Don't get me wrong I see the allure of a bass boat. Thats why I have a babied Ranger. But, I didn't start out with that. Started out and still have a 16ft aluminum Grumman my grand dad gave me. It was all I needed to get on the water. Still to this day is more than enough. Everyone always thinks bigger/ more expensive is better. I like to keep things simple and enjoy my days in the aluminum boat fishing with only 3 rods. Plus, don't know if my grand dad has something to do with this, but I catch more and bigger fish out of his boat.

To answer the OP. I have spares from upgrades that I keep in the boat. But with 20+ combos in the boat most days I have something already rigged up that I end up using instead of switching out reels. DCM I have actually bought a few reels for spares when it has been too good of a deal to pass up. BPS had some nice OKUMA reels on sale for like $70, which was like half off. So I bought a few. Purely as spares for when I wore another out. Then, a week later I had that spare reel on a brand new spare rod. Gotta laugh.

I am going to say something that isn't flashy or fun. However, its absolutely necessary- terminal tackle. I almost exclusively use gamagstku hooks. They are not cheap, especially if you are getting snagged. Getting a new lure, or a new reel is fun. Spending $100 on treble hooks and split rings to replace the hardware on crank baits isn't fun. Trust me I did just that last week. I always make it a point to buy those boring yet critical items in the winter. That way when summer comes I am stocked and can fish. I have plenty of tackle and therefore if I go through a few bags of watermelon creme senkos in a day, it does bother me as much as if I went to the store that day, spent $30 bucks, and by days end have no more worms and only a few drinks. Do the same thing with seafoam, oil, and enzyme treatment. Stock up in the winter then when summer comes- your wallet gets a reprieve.

If you asked me at the beginning of the year- over the past 10 years of fishing I would have said 5" GYCB watermelon creme senko. Always catches me fish. This year I progressed with my bait casters(2nd year) and learned new techniques. One of which was a texas rigged Powerboat Crazy Chigger Craw. This bait produced all year. I think I have 20+ full packs in the garage and buy some more everytime I am in a tackle store. Fantastic bait.

I ran into this problem a lot this year. My local BPS and other stores don't carry a mushroom jig head. Like the OP, I thought the crappie jig heads would do the trick and they were dirt cheap. I cannot street enough that those cheap war eagle jighwads fro mwalmart/dicks are not unstable to bass fishing. The hook breaks right before the bend when fighting fish or when simply bending the hook in/out. I would never use those jighwads again and as such when organizing my terminal tackle box a few weeks ago I threw them all away. Get the original zmanheads from TW, they work better and you aren't going to lose a fish. No one wants to fish all day for one bite and then have that one bite break off bc of an inferior hook.

Not even any sign of ice on the smaller farm ponds. Such a shame.

Straight Blasphemy!

I use a majority of the keitech products. Love everything except for their salty sticks or whatever they call their stick bait. It doesn't catch fish here. Beginning of the spring, the ez shiner on a yum money minnow keel weighted hook flat out killed the bass. Was going through several packs a day. I would say these baits are even more fragile then a senko. However, they need to be so that the tail action continues even with a slow retrieve. Time to go into the garage and compare the keitehcs..will report back.

I am going to say the bigger used boat. 3 years old is not very old. Just take a deep look into the maintenance records and have an experienced independent boat mechanic go over everything. I bought a 19ft and for 2 years it was great. I was fishing from an aluminum before my first bass boat. Now 5 years in, the 19ft is way too small for me. Then again, I am the bait monkey.

Nice "small" buck. That is a great looking buck, congrats.

Consider yourself lucky if you just lost a handful of jigs in a summer of fishing. It can be tough if you only have al limited tackle supply, but as you spend more time on the water you will learn that its just part of the game. I expect to lose some tackle overtime i go out. I just hope its soft plastics and not an expensive hard bait. I still get ticked every time I lose a hard bait. If I lose a hard bait, I generally buy a replacement that very day. That way I keep the bait monkey at bay.

Not sure, but believe the cost would be prohibitive. Haven't had a small trolling motor in years, but think I got mine for $100.00. I would buy a variable one instead, as the cost difference would be nominal in my opinion between buying a replacement variable drive and selling the trolling motor and buying a variable. If money is tight, then I can see our point. But to me, its a no brainer to buy a variable.

Just replaced all my split rings and hooks on all my hard baits. After hunting season ends, I usually go stir crazy until the ice freezes.

Never heard of a bass that won't eat a wacky rigged 5" senko. Must be a new sub-species.

Nice fish. My PB is 6.0 even at 19.75 inches. Short and fat fish. Your fish seems to be skinnier but longer. Did you happen to get a length measurement on that fish?