the reel ess

I love the anise (licorice) scent.

On the bright side, it'll be mild to you wherever you go.

LOL. Nobody retires north, do they? I'm in SC and I still want to retire further south and/or near the coast.

I was 49. It was last July. 8.2 lbs. on a gold War Eagle spinnerbait. It was the first time I broke into the 8s. I almost beat it this spring, but that bass didn't quite make 8. That one was on a Whopper Plopper and I caught another 6 pounder in that same spot, same day.

Nice! There are no toothy critters where I fish. We do have pickerel and bowfin in some waters. Do they shorten the life of hollow body lures? I fished a lake from the time I was old enough to hold a cane pole until I was mid-40's. I never saw a gar on it in all that time. Now people catch them regularly.

To expand on @DitchPanda's comments, playing the odds, you would concentrate on shallow water near deeper water in the dog days. Having said that, my last 2 PBs came in July on shallow flats. But it was early both times. Night fishing is not an option for me at this place.

He was headed out of the cove when we came into it so we couldn't put a show on.

We just landed every fish we could and left with them. Because my dad thought that if you caught enough fish to cook, you should cook them-every time.

No, I said if you're driving by (or trolling for that matter) and see someone catch a fish, how do you not retain and use that info? I don't mean run right up on him and start fishing the spot. I'd never do that. But it's happened to me.

Yeah, my family had a house on Lake Wateree, SC. I used to go over and spend the night so I had my boat in and ready to go early.

Was that a joke? The spot, not the boat. This thread reminds me of an encounter my dad and I had with a guy who was practicing for a tourney. We were fishing one of our usual spots. He told us to avoid part of that bank because he had a tournament the next day and then he left. Well, you can imagine what we proceeded to do. Sucks for him, but if I have one day a week to catch bass you ain't telling me where I can do it.

I used to do the same. But I couldn't get there early enough. Two boats of fishermen must have spent the night where I wanted to start fishing.

How do you drive past someone who catches a fish and forget it? I'm not going to go horn in on someone's honey hole while they're fishing it. But you can bet I'll give it a try when no one's on it. Anyway, those days are behind me because I have no motorboat.

I'm wearing black today

Yeah, I saw that Terminator has a junior sized frog in 1/2 oz. as well.

If I'm pitching the T-rig into heavy stuff I use straight 30# braid. If I'm trying to finesse a T-rig in more open water, I use a short leader of 15# Big Game mono. I'm not convinced fish care, but I don't want to chance it. I waffle back an forth on this topic.

I use a Cabela's XH-XF 7-3 frog-specific rod. It's stiff as a pool cue. But I'll still use it for flipping T-rigs when the water is too cool for topwater action. But I mostly frog fish on top of lilies or weed mats. It's nice to have that fast tip and backbone to drag the fish and 5 lbs. of vegetation out of the slop. I recently switched to a Booyah junior size frog because I was missing a lot of bites on the popping Pad Crasher. So I put my jig on my XH-XF frog rod and I put that small frog on my H-F jig rod because it has a better tip. I'm going to experiment with these.

I caught a 6 pounder a while back on the Teckel Sprinker frog. But its hooks are a little too exposed. I got by with it that day, but it caught a lot of lilies. Don't let me discourage you. I've always had great luck with Booyah frogs. This is an anomaly.

Light-Even when conditions are not ideal, I still get most bites early or late. Barometer-High pressure/bluebird skies often = skunk Moon-I just catch more big fish around full/no moon. It doesn't usually mean I'll catch a lot, just bigger.

I only had one color, bullfrog I think. It's the same color as the bait that wore out. That bait caught lots and lots of fish. It saved me from a skunk several times. Color might matter a lot in open water. But I don't know how well fish can distinguish them on top of lilies. It's not like it wasn't getting bitten. I would even feel some fish moving off with it. I do have a couple regular full-size Pad Crashers (not popping) that I'll also give a try.

I'm not new to frog fishing. I have a dedicated combo for it. But my Popping Pad Crasher wore out so I bought a new one. I can't seem to catch anything that bites the new frog. I bent the hooks out, sharpened them and trimmed the legs short all to no avail. I've missed a couple of big bass that blew up on it. I started waiting until I feel the fish moving away with it to set the hook. I just yank the bait away from them. Finally, Saturday I gave up and tied on the regular Pad Crasher, junior size. Instant success. IDK what's wrong with that popping frog. I've always had good a experience with them before. But to the bottom of the box it goes.

I can tell from the other replies this will be an unpopular opinion. I'm not very satisfied with the quality of my Fuego CT. It has been gear noisy since day 1. I've oiled it and it helped, but still makes noise when reeled. It's less than a year old. However, aside from sounding cheap it has held up to some big fish that took drag. All in all, I don't consider it that good of a deal. I would probably go for a Lew's before a Fuego next time. I have 3 Lew's Tournament MB reels that are getting pretty old and they all work like champs. Hell, even my Academy TAC-40 reel seems to be better of quality than my Fuego. But I can tell from customer ratings my experience is not typical.

In my experience the 110 WP is a big bass bait. And it gets more bites for me than a buzzbait. This year alone I have a 4, 5.75, 6 and a 7.93 lb. on the WP. The last one is my biggest this calendar year. But the buzzbait is more weedless and a single hook lure, so the percentage landed would be higher with it. Also, it's a great lure to bump up against docks, laydowns, etc. I have a 5.9 lb on the buzzbait and that's the only fish I caught on it this year. Of course, that's a good average, but the sample size is too small to judge. This could all be a function of where I'm fishing.

In my neck of the woods it's the druggies, usually fresh out of jail, that do most of the burglaries. The cops only have to look at the habitual offenders who are fresh out and narrow it down. They don't usually solve small burglaries, but they get eyes on the person and make a drug case against them. So they usually want to steal smaller, pawnable items like tools. I don't even secure my kayaks, but I do secure my fishing equipment. I can just imagine a junkie running down the street with a 10-12' kayak. There were twin brothers living near us who everyone suspected of every crime. They lost their house because they didn't pay taxes and thefts went to nothing.

Yeah, I found it at an antique shop in the NC mountains. They knew what they had but haggled with me a bit. By the time I've replaced the hooks I'll have more in it than it's worth. But I'm gonna use it!