Airman4754

Stare it right in the eye. The first one to blink loses!

Jet skis and ski boats aren't that bad. They can actually improve fishing a great deal with their chop as most summer days are blue bird sky and no wind which is tough. The thing that gets me are these new wake boats with ballasts that throw out a ridiculously huge wave to one side. I had to help some folks out last summer in a little 14' aluminum boat that got swamped by one. The wave hit them from the side and they lost their boat. Last weekend on Pickwick one went by me in a glass calm canal, I pointed my 21' X model head into it at idle and still had two feet of water come over the bow. It's ridiculous and dangerous. An 18' fun boat shouldn't be throwing tugboat under load waves.

I would watch it on TNN as a kid. I thought Ray Scott was cool and Bob Cobb's name and how seriously he said it made me laugh. We would go to the lake to troll around for trout (insanely boring) and I would see guys over on the bank standing up actually fishing which looked infinitely more appealing.

My letter of resignation from bass fishing.

Depending on how long you had it on and what you are fishing with you can get it to bite again on the same cast.

If I had a place to stay for free in an area with great fish they could tell people whatever they want. I don't fish for pictures.

There are guys that will watch you pre-fish with binoculars. There are guys that will come pretend to talk to you after you take out to see what you have on your deck. It's pretty easy to spot the vultures and the guys who just want to have a conversation. I will tell people everything I know about fishing, but you've got to be someone I know before I tell you when and where.

The government! Get a useful degree like engineering, accounting, etc. Being a veteran gives you a much better chance of getting in. I work 40 hours a week, between Monday and Friday, but still have the spare time to coach football and fish about 300 days a year along with the financial ability to do anything I want within reason. I started doing this around age 26. Work sucks, but if you can get a career that allows you to really do what you want when you aren't at work then you have a great career. Another thing is to have a great spouse. My wife is absolutely amazing. I'm a never sleep, never stop, never slow down type and she supports it.

Helicopter Lure and two buzz baits.

As a disclaimer I use nothing but Lew's outside of one Revo MGX and some Calcuttas for swimbaits. About half of the respenses when you compare any non Shimano or Daiwa reel with one of those two brands you get the responses that equate to it being a no-brainer even though they have no experience with the reel that is being compared.

I completely agree with this. If you can find an Orra SX those are very solid reels for the price.

Oddly the only two St Croix's I have are XF so I can't compare their F lineups. For me I like an XF on something that I lose contact with frequently. Techniques like a jerk bait or a Ned rig. All of the action comes from the rod and I need it to reset and be stiff right away if I have to set into slack line. On the flip side I like a MF for techniques where I want to load the rod up before I set like swimbaits, C-rigs, and football jigs. A Fast action is just kind of the Goldilocks for everything else.

You have to understand that this is Bass Resource and those two brands aren't allowed to be compared. If it were a Lew's Spaceship and a Shimano Pinto the Shimano would be voted 70/30. It's Daiwa vs. Shimano only, everything else is for beginners or people that like to waste money, or something like that. Seriously though this isn't the place to ask for reel advice outside of Shimano or Daiwa. If you have interests outside of those go check them out yourself and make a decision on what you like. I assure you they all will work.

It should be about the best finesse jig trailer on the market.

It's a beautiful stick that's for sure!

Call Gary or Richard. They will answer the phone and talk anything you want to talk.

About 90% of my DS fish will come on a Robo, Custom Leech, or 2.8" Crazy Flapper. Any small plastic will work.

Exactly. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't even wrap my mind around this question. I don't think I've ever thrown one more than about 30 feet. You fish something very specific with a Senko. You can cover water with a wacky jig head but that's a different technique.

They make some good stuff. The Pitt Boss is a very versatile craw bait/trailer. The Devil Spear is a solid punch bait and is tremendous on a scrounger. The little wacky worms with the balls on the end are about the best thing I've found for that technique on a drop shot.

Same. The Big Bites are identical. I'm not sure if it's officially a creature, but I would go with the Rage Space Monkey.

Swimbait fishing is the same across the board from the big Hudds to the little Keitechs. You have to be patient on the hookset and don't want to jerk it away from them. When you feel a bite or when you feel resistance point your rod towards the fish until it's really solid then sweep the rod. Never stop reeling during this. If you have nothing after the sweep kill it and let it fall to the bottom but watch your line like a jig or Senko. Then start your retrieve back. If you jerk a bait five or six feet away from a fish it's hard to get them to come back. That's why it's important to keep it in their zone even if they miss initially.

My next suggestion would be swimbaits. Big fish eat little fish. There is no easier way to catch active fish.

If it is an urban pond they have nowhere to go. We would use suspending Thundersticks and sight fish them. I did most of my fishing at night down there and a Zoom pumpkin lizard was very good.

It really depends on the bait. I use a 1/0 EWG for real Senkos. Gary says it was designed for a 2/0, but I like the flutter more on the smaller size. For a non-salt core stick bait it's a 5/0. I normally won't go higher than a 3/0 on a worm unless it is over 12". Bass head shot most things, so a massive hook isn't really getting you anywhere except making the bait stiffer.

I use as realistic of a craw bait as I can with this technique and small as possible. There are better ways to present bigger craw baits with a lot of action. The little Yum craws and Big Bite makes a little 3" craw worm that is insanely productive on females during the pre-spawn. They have have almost no action. They just pick up and fall really slow horizontally back down. They are dirt cheap too.