papajoe222

I use a palomar also. You can't rig a straight shank hook the same way you do an off set. Enter the nose of the bait on a downward angle rather than straight in, it should exit the plastic about 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch back. Twist the hook 180 and pull the shank through the bait until the eye is in the plastic. Now lay the hook alongside the bait and make a mental note of where it would enter and exit the bait, this will be on an angle toward the nose of the bait. Insert the hook point to where it's almost exiting the top of the bait. You can insert a piece of heavy mono, or a toothpick through the nose and hook eye and then trim off any excess to keep the bait from slipping down the shank.

Chris, have your charger checked out if you don't know how to do it yourself. What happened is an indication that the auto shut down on the charger failed either due to a fault in the battery (deteriorating plates sometimes make contact), or the charger. It isn't uncommon for a two or three stage charger to have one bank go bad. I'd have it checked out before hooking up another battery to that bank.

Until I first heard the term being used by fishermen, my understanding was 'dink' was a reference to one's male part. My assumption after hearing it used when fishing was that a dink was anything shorter than that person's 'dink' until a guy I was fishing with caught a 14in. bass and refered to it as a dink! On a good day I don't even get to double digits, even in my dreams. To this day, I never use the term and you can guess why. (can you say LIDS?)

Here's one I proved wrong right after I first heard it; Your crankbait will run deeper with fluorocarbon than it will with mono because it sinks.

See Matt's post

A Mafia Don calls his only son over to his death bed and says: Tony, lissin a me' I wanna givea you dis chrome plated revolver befor I die. It was my Papa's and now itsa youz. But Papa, I dona like da guns, howz about you gimme your Rolex instead. Lissena a me, some day you a gonna run da bizziness, you gonna have lotsa money, a beautiful wive, a nicea houz and maybe a couple of bambinos. One day you gonna come home and finna da wife in you bed wit another man.........What you gonna do then, huh...Pointa to you watch and say 'Timesa up!"

Slightly thicker line diameter goes hand in hand with abbrasion resistance in most monos, this is one reason many anglers prefer flouro as it is thinner without sacrificing abbrasion resistance. I still prefer mono in the summer and Original Stren and McCoy are my choices , I seem to re-tie more often with Trilene XT. I did try out Yo-Zuri Hybrid (the nylon/fluoro) at the end of the season and was impressed with the performance, but I didn't fish any rocky or timber filled water.

A Kalin's Lunker Grub is a great addition to a spinnerbait in the spring for pre-spawners.

Super Spoolk Jr. with the original a close second after some modifications.

This, but I will go lighter with a tube jig, or heavier with a T-rig if it's windy.

You don't live near a race track do you. If you want to give yourself a good laugh, pay for a $1 soft drink at McDonalds with a $2 bill and watch the cashier's reaction.

It seems that almost every season there is a different go to, or hot bait for me and this year was no different. Although jigs have been big producers for me for years, I relied heavily on them this year. Part of that is because I've been targeting big fish and for me, jigs have always produced in that department. The other reason is that jig fishing slows me down and really gets me into the mindset needed to fish the pressured waters I frequent.

Oh yea. I've been looking forward to fishing one of the legendary lakes of Texas fame. Looks like I'll have the chance. Anyone looking to split expenses and/or share a ride?

Keep it up. Your time will come.

I don't use them much in cold water as it takes some movement to get any action out of the tail. I prefer tubes or hair jigs. They are great in warmer water from re-spawn through fall with any of the presentations you mention

I like to alternate sides and work my way center 9-3,10-2,11-1 and finish at 12:00. That will cover an area fairly well before I move ten yards or so down shore. I'll do two casts to each position if I feel the fish are in a neutral mood.

So after reading a recent post about hair jigs, I decided to attempt making a dozen or so myself. The results look no where near as professional as W W puts together, but for my first try, i'm happy with the results. Here are a few 1/8oz. bucktails;

You sure know how to hurt a guy, but then there's the fact that while your putting in your 40hr. work week I'm out on the water.

Bass are also opportunist and will hit a small, slow presentation that is easy to get without exerting a lot of energy. A reaction bait may work in cold water, but it will just as likely spook a bass as it approaches. Both scenarios can work at times, but I don't have much choice as it's really difficult to cut a long trench out of the ice so I can cast my reaction bait. By the time I'm done with one end, the other end is already starting to freeze over.

Although it is debateable whether or not bass see colors as we do, I think we can agree that they do see colors and can tell the difference between many of them at depths of 30ft. or more and at night under a moonless sky. Many can testify to this and the fact that they, at times, do show a preference for a certain color. The difficulty we face as fishermen is knowing when their color preference outweighs, or becomes more important to them, than shape, size, action, scent, etc. There are way too many variables in a bass' enviornment that affect both their behavior and how they may or may not percieve colors. I doubt that science will come up with any definitive answers in my lifetime, so I stick to my way of finding out the answer as I'm sure most of you do. Trial and error is the best way I can describe how I answer the 'right color' question. If I'm confident there are fish in the area and that they are likely to prefer a certain style bait presented in a certain way, but I'm not getting any action on it, I'll switch colors. If I begin catching those fish, in my mind I believe they have a color preference. If I switch to a different style and color of lure and begin catching, I don't sit and wonder if it was the color change or the change of lure type. I just keep on chucking that puppy until it stops producing.

My inflatable PFD's. They're light, not bulky or hot in the summer and they automatically inflate.

I use it when they're ignoring a shakey head. Something about the free movement of a worm or craw that floats turns lookers into biters more often than not. Not my go-to by any stretch, but i will go to it in certain situations.

As a general rule, I always start out with a long one and work my way shorter until I find that majic length. My reasoning is that a bass is looking upward the majority of the time, so I'm presenting my bait where the majority of the fish will see it, provided that I'm confident that they are within a few feet of the bottom.

Happens to me on my home lake all the time, but the guys will normally wait until I've moved down the bank, or off the break before they swarm in. There's a couple of regulars that I got to sit on a spot with no cover and a featureless bottom after I 'fished it for ten minutes or so. They worked that spot for almost an hour before they gave up. Next time out, they didn't give me a second look.