OCdockskipper

(To paraphrase Steven Wright) I have the world's largest lure collection, which I keep scattered in underwater brushpiles throughout the lakes & rivers of America...

I don't think that laptop will work well on bed fish, probably better to use it on bass in a school...

For a small pond, I would shape it so that every portion of the pond can be reached by a cast from somewhere on shore. A good way to accomplish that is with a few narrow fingers that extend into the pond at different areas This will also give you more shoreline for the same size lake. I also remember seeing a video where the pond maker (I believe it was Hank Parker) recommended the main areas of cover be rock piles instead of standing timber or brush piles. Rock piles will be less likely to fill up with broken line & lures, are easier to fish with a variety of techniques, require less maintenance (think vegetation management) and will last for decades.

Oddly enough, a beaver is usually what stops me from leaving the house at night in the first place...

Are we allowed to push them in the water & motor away as they tread water? If so, then the list would be much different than if I had to play nice. The "Play Nice" list: Gulf Captain - Lives fairly close, seems like a nice guy and is one of 6 people in all of Southern California that likes bass fishing. Scaleface - Close in age and has a similar history with bass fishing as I do. Slonezp - He was dead on about what a jerk a certian pro is, something I didn't believe until I met the pro. Bluebasser & TeamNine9 - Their posts convinced me to try the Ned rig, so I owe them.

You have stumped me. I can't figure out what the " *** " in the line "since the *** of plastic baits" stands for. I don't know any 3 letter synonyms for the word "dawn" or "beginning", so I don't know if that is what it stands for. Is it a 3 letter cuss word? That would be unique. An East Coast slang maybe, something that hasn't yet made it out to the West Coast? This is going to bug me...

Well, if YOU have been known to shorten plastics for a smaller profile, I guess that settles it. (looking furiously for the sarcasm font...)

"Proper" Ned baits and accessories or ones that have been proven to be more effective than others? You can T-Rig a plastic using a tiny trout hook, but it is less effective than using something designed specifically for that application. That doesn't make the latter over thought.

Don't bother PM'ing me. If you don't want to mention in through the course of the thread, no problem. It is not one of the worlds great mystery's that needs to be solved

Yes I did vote. I don't understand your point. Do you have a problem with Midwest Finesse baits being called Neg Rigs? Do you believe that ZMan products such as the TRD are not part of the Midwest Finesse system? Do you believe there is no difference between a 3" senko on a football head jig and a TRD on a Shroomz head jig? Were you once wronged by a man named Ned? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand where you are coming from.

From what I have read from those much more knowledgeable on it than I, neither ZMan nor Ned rig aficionados claim that Zman invented the Ned rig. It is a system, not a particular bait (such as the TRD). Even ZMan's web site talks about Midwest Finesse and how their baits can be used within the system. The difference with Zman's baits and a worm on a jig head is the material. Comparing Elasticel with the plastics used on other worms is like comparing monofilament to fluorocarbon. While they could be interchanged, the characteristics of each lend them to specific uses that make them more effective than the other in particular situations.

In addition to what A-Jay wrote, the lack of an outboard on the rear (or one that is tilted up) can cause a smaller boat to be rudderless. Basically, there is nothing for the rear of the boat to resist against when the front goes one direction, so the rear just spins out. On little pond boats, you can use an old trolling motor chassis and convert it into a simple rudder. Here is a discussion on a product designed to go on the bow mount trolling motor but can also be used to create a rear rudder

I think that may tick off the fish more than the people questioning you...

I'm not too sure about this chart. Had I been born on my due date, I would have been Portagee Bigstick, but instead, I was 3 weeks late and therefore became Cap'n Shortstick? Apparently hanging out in the womb too long changes your nationality and gets you in charge of a vessel, but does a real number on your private regions...

...You are driving down the road, looking at the hillsides and imagining where the fish would be if it was all underwater.

Don't you know that Mr. Mast was leading a Walleye tournament and that those other boaters were encroaching on his livelihood? That family had an entire lake to fish, why did they have to choose his honey hole?. Poor Mr. Mast was just trying to earn enough money to put dinner on his family's table, while the interlopers were intent on keeping everything they caught & wiping out the fishery. It costs Mr. Mast 30 million dollars a year to fish on the American Walleye & Skeetshooter tour and last year he only cashed twice, earning 38 bucks and a coupon for a free ham. At least I think that is how the argument from some folks goes...

As a pre-teen getting into bass fishing, I saw casting gear being used by B.A.S.S. pros while spinning gear was being used (upside down) by people using hot dogs to catch catfish. Therefore, I used casting gear exclusively, even when it wasn't the right tool. 40 years later, I use both. I don't try to make my casting gear do stuff that is better handled by spinning gear and vice versa. I can feather a lure with my index finger on a spinning rod as well as my thumb on a baitcaster. A side benefit of switching between the two is it helps fight off fatigue that older body parts are susceptible to when using one type of gear exclusively.

This is no longer true, I have a new PB found lure. While fishing Saturday, I saw something near surface of the water. I motored over to it and at first thought it was a dead bluegill attached to some kind of fish stringer. As I reached down for it, I realized it was a medium sized hard body swimbait in bluegill color (Jackall Gantrel Jr.). Great lure, it even fooled me. Took it home & it cleaned up well (before & after pictures below). In regards to the poor soul who lost a $30 swimbait, I am 99% sure it wasn't one of the other two serious fisherman on the lake. Since I found it close to a green belt area that is accessible to the public, my theory is that a knowledgeable fisherman who doesn't have lake rights snuck down here to do some fishing and hung up the lure on something. If it was another homeowner or a guest of a homeowner, most likely they would have jumped in a boat and motored over to retrieve it. I do get this is Orange County, but a $30 floating bait is worth some effort in retrieving.

I always had a problem with the thin Roboworms tearing when rigging them with a conventional Texas rig. A friend of mine uses the old style Mr. Twister Keeper hooks, which work really well in this combination. The front "keeper" section of the hook is thin enough to stay in the slender Roboworm, it has multiple barbs to stay in place and doesn't tear up the nose like coiled keepers or traditional T-Rig hooks. It is old school hook in a new school worm...

According to what I hear, their costs are real low. My cousin's fiancees stepfather knows a guy who says Elasticel is made from Soylent Green...

Binoculars

Nice of that bass to tell you his exact weight. I am assuming this is the infamous bass that broke the new 8lb leader in the middle, meaning that it had to weigh more than 8 lbs. I wonder what the breaking point of the knot was?

Most expensive usable lure I "found" was a Storm Arashi crankbait attached to the mouth of a big catfish that ate my swimbait. He also had a football jig stuck in his side, so he had been busy breaking hearts & lines. Changed out hooks on the Arashi & it was like new. The lure I was happiest to find was one of my own. I busted off a Strike King 3XD in a brushpile and then found it floating in the same cove about 5 months later. I say it was mine because it had the red hooks I always switch too that I am pretty sure no one else on the lake uses. It had some moss & gunk growing on it, so it had been underwater a while. Not sure how it finally broke loose & floated to the top, maybe that catfish freed it. .

That reaction, those exact words, is universal for anyone the first time they see a really big headed bass breach the surface.

8 am on July 2nd of this year, I caught one that beat my PB by 2 ounces. Even though it was overcast for the first few hours of the morning, the ongoing warm weather had more fish deep than shallow. I was making my way from one deep water spot to another, passing by an isolated dock on a point. Out of habit more than anything, I made a cast towards the corner of the dock as I approached it. I never felt her inhale my 6" Zoom Dead Ringer in Green Pumpkin, just saw the line moving away. I set the hook, she came away from the dock, surfaced & shook her head. She was unimpressed with my gear, peeled off about 20 feet of line & went back under the dock. I was able to turn her and after a few minutes, on her first pass by the boat, was able to lip her. She was in about 3 feet of water, 8 feet off the shoreline while almost every other fish in the lake was in 10 feet of water as far from the shoreline as they could be. Thank heavens casts are free, else I probably wouldn't have made that one on that morning.