soflabasser

Welcome to the forum

I use freshwater to clean my rods and it has worked well for me for the past +2 decades.

Live Target and Booyah

Welcome to the forum

Welcome to forum

Welcome to the forum

Welcome to the forum

Welcome to the forum

A 5 pound largemouth bass is a nice catch especially for a northern strain largemouth bass. Have caught 4 muskies in my travels up north they are a fun species to target. Make sure to use a leader since they have many sharp teeth. Muskies remind me of barracuda and they share similar behavior traits when it comes to how they hunt their prey. You live in a beautiful state with awesome freshwater fishing and I will consider visiting it in a future vacation.

LOL! I live in a big bass paradise so the bass I mentioned earlier are regular catches for me. Biggest largemouth bass I caught last month was 25 inches long with a 18 inch girth. Caught a 46.5 inch carp on the last day of the year which was a nice surprise since I was fishing for cichlids. I am sure I am going to catch lots of bass over 23.75 inches this year and my goal is to catch a couple over 24 inches. Got 12 months to do it so I will be ok if I fish hard and focus on techniques that have worked well for me.

My favorite frog rod that I use from the shore is a heavy action 6' rod. Has done a great job at helping me land big bass (including double digit bass), big snakeheads that I catch frog fishing, and other fish. I am sure the ''frog fishing experts'' will tell you a 6 foot rod is too short for frog fishing but my personal experience says otherwise. With that said I do use some 7' rods for frog fishing but still prefer my favorite 6 foot rod when it comes to frog fishing. I also use a size 4000 Shimano reel for frog fishing which I am sure will shock frog fishing experts since according to most of them you can only use +7 foot rods and baitcasting gear for frog fishing.

I agree with you. Private water bass should not count for this or any other potential world record fish for any type of record. There should be a asterisk (*) for private water fish records to let the world know the fish was caught somewhere a person had an unfair advantage (somewhere most people are not allowed to fish). Similar to when someone uses PED's for a sport that does not allow these drugs. Lets hope if a person that catches a new world record bass on this lure is honest and not make up that he/she caught the bass on this lure when they truly caught it another lure.

Ok I will take your word on it. I still prefer standard high quality guides and will not get micro guides. I have surf fished for over 20 years now and caught many species of fish from gobies to tiger sharks from the surf. Not all surf fishing needs heavy line but you will need a decent leader for many saltwater fish. Micro guides can give unnecessary problems when it comes to letting a leader knot pass through and that is not good if you need to use a long leader. As for bass fishing I still see no added benefit to using mirco guides when I can cast +100 feet with certain bass lures and even that is not needed since I catch most of my bass closer than that.

Some of those BPS spinning reels are built very well. I caught a 42 inch trophy snook on a size 4000 BPS spinning reel and many other hard fighting fish. The reel eventually broke down after a couple years of hard abuse which is expected since I caught fish much larger and stronger than what the reel was originally designed for. With that said Shimano and Penn makes much better reels that last longer and have better components.

Are you using the same brand/size rod, reel, line, and lure or do you use different sized rods, reels, line, lure and that is why you get one casting further than the other? You can keep using the micro guides if you like them but I won't since I have no need for them. I do just fine with my current spinning and baitcasting setups and see no added benefit from micro guides. As for casting distance I cast +100 feet with certain lures and even that is a excessive cast since I tend to catch the majority of my fish closer than 100 feet. For surf casting +100 foot cast are beneficial yet I see no surf casters using micro guides and instead they use traditional guides.

Nice white bass. I caught a bunch of them a while ago while on a fishing vacation up north. They give a good fight for their size. One of them was Master Angler size and also caught other species that qualified for Master Angler awards.

You got that right! That is one of the reasons I don't pay much attention to what advertisers have to say about fishing gear. They get paid to advertise the gear so of course they are going to give it favorable reviews. I rather get reviews from talented fishermen I meet in person than get a ''reel review'' from somebody who is getting paid to give reviews. With that said experience is the best teacher and my personal experience has showed me that both Shimano and Penn make great reels. Ugly Stik rods is another fishing product that do not need much advertising since they have so many happy customers that give them plenty of free advertising.

Welcome to the forum

I caught a 23.75 inch and 20 inch largemouth bass on January 1st so I started the year 2019 good. Hope to continue to do well and to improve my bass fishing skills by the end of this year.

Lots of good techniques mentioned here. One of my favorite ways to fish submerged timber is to fish a topwater over it. Make sure to fish just above the timber and you should not get stuck. You can also fish other lures just above the timber and get good results if you put in your time. Have caught many nice bass this way from the shore. Good luck and have fun.

Thats impressive that a 18 inch bass weighs almost 6 pounds. Must of been thicker than it was long! The typical 6 pounders I catch average in the 22-23 inch range, never seen one 6 pounds and under 20 inches length. The bass down here start getting very thick once they pass 25 inches and by then they start looking like a decent sized grouper.

I have caught bass on poppers when the outside temperature was in the mid 40's. Water temperature was probably in the high 60's. That is considered cold weather in South Florida even though people that live in northern states do not consider it cold. It was in the low 80's today and this past weekend. Good weather for fishing and no snow...

Shimano does not need to advertise itself much since they have plenty of happy customers that do free adversting for them. They are one of the best reel makers along with Penn.

I see no real added benefit in using micro guides versus high quality normal sized guides. Do these ''micro guides'' help you cast further? Increase hookup percentage? I doubt these micro guides do that. Adding micro guides looks like a good way to justify a higher price tag for a custom rod which I am sure the custom rod builders like.

Yes bass grow quickly on tilapia. I fish a couple places in South Florida where there are lots of bass that are thick all the way down to the tail. Those places are loaded with spotted tilapia, blue tilapia, mayan cichlid, and other exotics. Yesterday I caught a 23.75 incher and last month I caught a 25 incher with 18 inch girth. Fishing these places has spoiled me when it comes to bass fishing and the best part is that I catch these fish 12 months a year without leaving my state and have no need to hire a guide to put me on the fish.