sully420

I use strike king slither rigs 1/2 oz to 1.5oz. I change the skirts to boss skirts with the keepers for rattles. I like the trokar tk 130 flippin hook surgically sharpened.

The best time to fish is whenever you can for as long as you can.

I own a tracker pro guide v16 and i upgraded to an 80 lb TM and it makes all the difference use the 6 gauge if you go with the 80ln thrust. The downside is you can only fit group 24 batteries in it but i can run all day in a 20mph wind no problems. A 12volt system won't move the boat very well or long.

50# power pro

79 degrees here in MN

Your rod was probably defective or the wrong type for heavy cover.

Don't you have horn's on your boats?

I like Dicks but there fishing selection is limited where i live.

I have no problems with flurocarbon line and find it superior to mono for my needs. I just can't deal with the stretch in mono and the fact that it floats doesn't help at all. All i will say is not all fluorocarbon is not created equal. I wont mention the brand i use because i am not paid to sell products.

I just had a terrible experience at cabelas last Friday. I purchased one the there tournament zx rods last spring because the salesman told me they had a life time warranty. Well last week i broke the rod setting the hook on a 2lb bass. So i went it to exchange it and came to find out that the salesperson lied to me about the warranty and that it ended when bass pro bought cabelas. I informed them that the only reason i bought the rod was the warranty and the staff at the door when i walked in on friday told me it was under warranty. So when i went to customer service and was informed that they weren't honoring there warranty i informed them on the 3000 dollars i spent there last year on a tm and electronics they didn't care and asked me to leave bluntly. So ill never be shopping at bass pro or cabelas ever again, i can't believe they would loose a customer over a 100 dollar rod that they make. Guess I'll have to get my power poles and helix 10 elsewhere.

Algae and stained water are stunting the health and growth of some vegetation. Keeping fish a bit shallower and reducing there strike zones as well as limiting there willingness to chase and the duration of time they spend chasing bait. I've found that the better bass have been on natural cover (vegetation)3 to 8 feet of water roaming early in the day and getting tight to cover as the day progresses. Bigger baits have been more effective for me. The fish seem to bite good you just have to put the bait in there face or look for signs of bass pushing gills to the surface and squeak out some bites with a topwater or bait close to the surface. Look for areas that are near the deep edge of flats also look for activity on those flats and fish the area with activity with a topwater or swimbait then fish the best cover nearest the active area jig or t rig. If the bottom isn't hard the bass don't want it on the bottom. They will eat it on the fall or after you lift it off the bottom.

Get out the check book and pay the piper. Steel leaders reduce bites it sucks but if a pike gets your bait right there nothing you can do. I know @A-Jay has some slick leader material he uses. I've lost 2 spinner baits and 2 tungsten punch rigs so far this season.

Caught these last Saturday in Minnesota flippin pads and swimming jigs. Had a 22lb bag between the 2 of us

I'd worry about where you put the jig not the color so much. I've been killing it with black blue skirt with summer craw trailer at the same time my buddy was getting them on green pumpkin skirt and trailer.

I personally never trim mine. Jig is my best hookup ratio bait and i don't have problems. I would just select jigs with thinner weedguards if i felt like i needed to.

Great info here from some of the vets on this forum. Grass pitching and punching is hard work and it really takes lots of time and effort to locate bass in these grass fields. There's no ez answer anyone can give you. One day on the lake I met a guy that showed me 2 6lb bass he caught and he told me he got them flipping grass. Since that day i have spent 3 years working on locating bass in grass and working up my skills and confidence. I agreed with everything randall tharp said in the video. But if you aren't out there working at it i can see how it wouldn't make any sense. The way i break down a grass is like this. 1. I fish the whole thing with a top water this allows me to see where they are holding. Inside outside or middle. 2. If i didn't get bit on the topwater i fish the outside edge the edge adjacent to deep water. 3. I fish the inside edge the edge adjacent to the bank. 4. I fish the middle and all the edges between the inside and outside edges. This includes all the holes in the grass and the matted areas as well. Matted areas are also an edge as are diffrent types of vegetation. So if i have a grass flat that 50% milfoil 30% cabbage and 20% lilly pads those are all edges and need to be fished. Most of the time in this scenario I'll fish the pads first the cabbage second and the foil last. To save time i look for areas that have bait then i look for areas that have lanes or pockets, holes or mats. At the end of the day you just have to fish it and gain some confidence that fish are there.

Yea the good fish seem to be shallow and on the gill bite still

In no tournament fishermen but on prior i would have been fishing docks and grass. I don't like doing what everyone else is doing. Try smaller bodies of water, less traffic and pressure

The middle of the day seemed like the best time for the flippin bite. The water was so dirty that it was really hard to get them on topwaters or reaction baits. I could see bass feeding on top and chasing bait outside of the pads i was fishing but couldn't get them to bite until they moved into the pads.

@FryDog62 I fished from 5am to 12:30. I bet we could have stayed there all day and got bit. Bass kept moving in to the area as the day progressed.

Had a great day yesterday fishing a north west metro lake. We were flipping arrowheads in 4' of water. The water temp was 74 degrees and visibility was 1'

I went with aluminum because its more forgiving for an new boat owner line me and i went with a modified V hull because i can fish any water and feel safe and have a great ride. There's alot of things i like about bass boats and fiberglass bass boats in general. Ant a nitro z 18 will be my next boat, but im glad i started with an v hull aluminum boat. Or @A-Jay's boat that thing is awesome. I might go that route.

I think MLF is awesome just the way it is. Sometimes its close sometimes someone dominates the championship. I love it, KVD got it done and it was great to watch. The only thing MLF needs is Scott Martin and Bryan Thrift, beyond that its great. I've learned more watching MLF than all other media combined including Bass Resource. Can't wait to watch the MLF championship in mexico. I think Martins takes it this year.

@Dubtee yea clean topped out grass flats 5 to 7' deep with lots of holes in it the bigger the holes the better. If you get a chance to fish early morning you can run alot of it with a frog to find hot spots then work it over with a jig or t-rig. Look for sunnies in the area thats a big clue. I don't think bass are really setting up deep yet. The rain is keeping the water up and sunfish really want to spawn so they are staying shallow for the most part. It seems like the pike are feeding on the deeper stuff and the bass are tucked in a bit shallower.

Been fishing lots of metro lakes with algae. I've had good results fishing grass where the algae was gone or there was less of it. Frogging and flippin.