Wayne P.

Good questions, yes I let both sink to the bottom when the fish are on or close to the bottom. With the Super Fluke and weighted hook, I am using it in about 15' depths and working it through the timber laying on the bottom. I use the wacky rigged woms in the same areas. If you will notice my presentation description I use the term "weedless wacky" and if you are not familiar with how I rig it, send me an e-mail to purdum43@aol.com and I'll forward instructions. For your presentation of a Fluke or wacky rig, I prefer to use a suspending hard jerkbait. Another note, I haven't gotten my last three fishing reports posted on the other site since some parts of the site are experiencing some problems.

My floating frog choice is the Scum Frog Bobby's Perfect Frog. For longer casts and heavier presence on mats, I remove the legs and glue lead weight in the leg holes. Small Mojo weights is my choice most of the time.

No coves were involved in my catch yesterday. At no point was I fishing anywere within 100 yards of shore. I don't fish the shorelines unless it is prespawn and spawn. I caught all but four of the fish on a weedless wacky rigged Zoom Trick or Finesse worm. Two came on a Super Fluke with a weighted swimbait hook and the other two were on a Chatterbait. The cove you mention where I marked is not referring to the shore, its the creek channel just offshore in that area. I don't use topwater lures early when the air temp is very much lower than the water temp. edited: this time of year when the air temp is within 10 degrees of freezing.

I checked my fishing logs for the cold months. Jan 7, 2008 it was 65 degrees and on the 8th it was 70 degrees. Feburary 5, 2008 it was 70 degrees and on the 15th it was 63 degrees. Each of those days I fished the downwind part of lakes and found active/feeding bass. I caught a total of 87 bass for those 4 days. Mid afternoon was the most productive time as the warmer surface water was stacked against the shoreline. The water temp ranged from 41 to 52 depending on the amount of surface water contributing to the downwind stacking.

I fished Briery today. The water in mid lake area was brown tinted, I assume from turnover since the last few nights have been close to freezing and the surface temp was 59-60. I didn't see the thermocline with my electronics. I fished the upper end where the water was clear. Didn't catch any big ones, just 28 bass under 3# and 5 pickerel. The 10-30 mph winds made finesse presentations difficult. I didn't see any bass chasing shad or any shad schools on my sonar units.

Either one will be the best one if you have a problem with the other. From my travels, I see more Motor Guides in use than Minn Kotas.

Even Roland is embarrassed about that one when asked about it.

If you are concerned with "piercing fish with worthless jewelry" maybe you should use a heavier line and learn to tie knots correctly. Glue won't make up for a poor knot.

Wider is better. The higher the weight carried and higher the center of gravity, the wider the boat should be.

osbornj2, when you are ready for some early pre-spawn fishing, I have another one.

Judging by the looks of the skeg, its made by Motorguide.

I've posted this before, the blue string is one I bought at Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, Mo. It only has 15 beads (not enough for me) and just the one color, so I made the other two. I either clip them on my belt or on a boat seat for quick access. The only time it takes extra time is when I reset the string and add the 20 count to another string.

BassBoss, "Ultra Soft" can mean anything or nothing without a qualifying statement of what it is compared to. Its just like "low stretch", "more abraision resistant", "low memory", "low visibility", "stronger", "superior knot strength" , "super knot strength", "maximum sensitivity", "America's strongest", "greater control", "easy handling", etc. as stated on line packages and advertizements. Those are statements on mono line packages that I have.

osbornj2, e-mail sent. Thanks for asking

I've never used that knot and from the looks of it, I never will. I see some elements that may result in an imperfect knot (double line, two line loops and multiple twists pulled down to the hook eye). I don't have any problem with the Palomar or Uni-knot.

Superlines are not co-polymer lines but are a braided or fused line of multiple strands of the same material (either Spectra, Dyneema or Kelvar).

I have used the digital Normark and Rapala scales: the Rapala scales are more accurate and last longer. I test my two scales (15 lb and 50 lb) occasionally with a couple of known weights to verify their accuracy. I'm not a touchy/feely guy that is concerned with harming the fish when weighing it. Sometimes I will punch the hook through the bottom lip to get the weight or I'll hook it at the gill plate (depending on the fish size). I don't bother to weigh the "little guys". edited: The Rapala scales also have the capacity to store a number of weights.

ring fry, VA BassHound's numbers are better than that at his home lake. The other places he fishes keeps the average down some. I'll be picking on those bass soon since my best producing lake is closed until March 2009.

I do keep records and have been since the late 1970's. I use a couple of homemade bead counters to keep up with the numbers when fishing and then enter them in log when I get home. A friend of mine does the same and he has caught over 2,300 bass this year so far. Both of us are retired and do our fishing during weekdays while most of you are otherwise occupied. This year I have already surpassed my previous best year for numbers of bass which was 2,537 in 2007. So far this year I have caught 3,036 bass thanks to one new lake that has contributed 1,989 of those. This year I have had 4 - 100+ bass days and 23 days with 50-100 bass.

I prefer this model of hook keeper: http://www.reeltimedesigns.com/Drop-ShotWeightKeeperSystem.html

PM sent

Like many novices using LCR sonar units, you assume that the display is like a TV screen with a picture of the bottom. It is not, and the display just shows what is directly beneath the transducer and all that is within the cone shaped beam. There is no left, right, front, or back. Those directions are determined by the direction your boat is moving. Only the first verticle colum of pixels on the very right of the display shows what is beneath your boat in real time. Everything else is history. A example of what is displayed is to go into a dark room, shine a flashlight on the ceiling without looking at the room walls. What is within the beam on the ceiling is what your sonar beam would show of the bottom except that the display will only show everything in the round beam as a straight verticle column of pixels.

The Chatterfrog is not an original Chatterbait production, it was made after the original company was sold. Since then the quality has gone substantially downhill. The original Chatterbaits were of top quality, I still have a few.

McCoy's Mean Green is the most manageable mono I have used.

I haven't been there since Sept 23 just before I went to Lake Guntersville for a week. I fished Hunting Run yesterday and today which were the last two days the lake was going to opened for fishing this year. My total bass caught there this year is 1,989. I'll start picking on the Briery bass now.