papajoe222

Their MB843 blank is a good all purpose blank and they are available in different color options. My first was a white blank and I'll be working on a metallic green one in the near future.

This is one of the reasons I began building and one reason many anglers will continue to purchase custom rods. It's all about personal preferences. You're building the rod to please only one person. I have two rods with 12in. rear grips. I wouldn't dream of deep cranking all day with anything shorter.

I grew up with 60's and 70's rock and Mowtown, but my education in music came when I discovered jazz. During my college years, I'd hang out on Rush St. in Chicago listening to some of the best live jazz ever. Buddy Rich, Albert King and so much local talent back then. They were true artists, not performers, and their canvas was their music.

My girls are 35 and 40 and my proudest moments were seeing them come into the world. She'll always be your little girl and your boys will learn to live with that. Best Wishes and don't forget who to thank for the blessing.

We used to do something similar in biology lab with frogs. Great way to get the gals shrieking and disrupt things. Tried finding a way to do it with a pig in college, but without some form of electrical stimulation nothing happens. More recently, I've been trying to find a way to get the wife.........................never mind.

Back in the day, I'm talking late 60's and early 70's, I talked to plenty of fish and they didn't hesitate to reply. I just needed the right amount of drug induced perception to be able to understand them. Most of the time they were just giving me grief about the hook sticking out of their eye socket or in the roof of their mouth. Other times, it was just a stain on the boat's carpet that was talking.

One thing I learned years ago and I'm surprised more muskie and walleye anglers don't do, is to change directions during the retrieve. I rarely point my rod tip at the lure when retrieving. Somewhere during the retrieve I will move the rod tip left or right, up or down. The effect on the bait is similar to a baitfish changing direction or speeding up to avoid capture. I learned that little trick from an old muskie guide way back in the 60's. It's one of the best triggers to getting a following fish to commit to your offering. It works great on bass and most game fish.

I've used one or the other. The first (plastic trailer) to allow a slower presentation which all but eliminates the necessity of the trailer hook. In weeds and brush a trailer hook can spell disaster. A paddle tail trailer not only allows a slower presentation, it adds some lift to the mix also.

For a C-rig, I recommend a mono leader as it floats. The majority of the time, you'll want your offering up off the bottom and fluoro will, at the least, drag it down some. Unless it's chunk rock, I wouldn't worry too much about using braid. Most river rock is smooth. As others have mentioned, a C-rig is a headache waiting to happen in river current. A drop shot or split shot would be my choice with a short leader on the split shot rig.

My favorite smallie lake has a maximum depth of 40ft. and during the summer, 22-24ft. seems to me the magic depth. They love to suspend about 25yrds. off the drop, but occasionally I find them right on the lip.

Sounds like a great alternative to a weighted swim bait. I absolutely love a Kalin's Lunker Grub as a trailer. I use them on spinnerbaits in the spring and fall, too.

It all depends on your own expectations. I'd say to list the features your tracker has that you like and then list what more you'd like. Add the two together and find a used boat that has ALL of them. Then you can concern yourself with the price and more importantly, the condition of that boat.

I stock up on the majority of things during the big store's pre-season sales. We shop Meijer and WalMart. For groceries, so that's where I'll pick up hooks,sinkers and such as needed during the season.

For docks, I prefer a jig if here holding by the pilings and skipping a tube uder the dock. For bridge pilings, nothing beats banging a crank into them and their bases.

That and the Magnum II. JuneBug and Black up here. For decades a plastic worm T-rigged was my go to presentation. Now it's just another presentation, but one I still use a lot.

Eagle Claw offers a quality treble, Lazer Sharp, that is an affordable option. I believe it's their 3X. I know it comes in red, but I'm not sure about nickle. #4 should cover most of those baits.

I like the idea of calling your tackle a 'collection'. When it comes down to it, that is exactly what it is. Now I can just tell the wife I'm in a mood to add to my collection. She should understand as she has a few collections of her own.

You don't need to go deep to find cooler water, or the bass. Thick weeds are like a forest providing shade and cooler water for bass. Canopy types of weeds are the best as they provide plenty of shade and are easier for the fish to not only move around, but to see your offering. Docks that are low to the water don't allow as much sunlight under them Rocks, rip-rap and wood will retain heat well into the night, but don't abandon them just because of the warmer water. The moss that grows on them attracts baitfish and in doing so attracts bass. So if you're not confident with targeting deep fish, stick with the cooler shallower water,but change your target cover and you can continue to catch 'em.

I'd venture a guess that 50% of the baits I carry have caught fish for me. Another 40% are the same baits in different colors. The only hard baits I have that have never been used are a handful of jerkbaits, a Lucky13 and a couple of Rapala DT16s

Flip side is fish slow and tight to cover. A reaction bite is great when you can get them, but even then, you'll need to get close to cover or find suspended fish.

The beauty of most soft plastics is that there are so many different rigging options, some of which the majority of anglers would swear couldn't catch fish. Go ahead and experiment to your heart's desire. I, personally, like to rig a Fluke on it's side to get more of a gliding action out of it.

Welcome to the forums. They are another style of sinker commonly called casting sinkers. No sure exactly what their specific use is, but I'm guessing some sort of trolling or surf usage.

Check the line guide on your reel if it's a baitcaster, or the roller on your spinning reel bail. I'm not sure if that's a spinning or casting Duckett you're using. Either could be nicking the line and on a hard cast or hook-set is the opportune time for it to fail.

I had planned on doing some night fishing the evening before heading north on my yearly trip in July. A severe storm blew it and I canceled the idea, but headed out early the next morning to get in an hour or two before leaving with the family. I caught 23 bass in less than two hours, 21 of them on topwater. I headed home, packed up the family and headed out on the six hour drive. Fifteen minutes after we arrived I was on the water. Seven smallies, four largemouth all over 3lb. and four pike later, I thought the Lord was preparing me for my demise. I almost had a heart attack when I hooked into my biggest muskie to date. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't stop thinking about getting out there again in the morning.

Shortest was two days and the longest was five. I'm five minutes from my BPS, but I have my orders shipped there to save paying the sales tax if I were to purchase from the store.