papajoe222

X2 It could have been the fish in the second pic and I don't think that smile could have said more.

Here I thought you were going to share about fishing tubes, not from one. People actually still do that???? I thought the switch was to kyaks. Wait, I forgot. That's only up here in yuppie land. I fished out of a tube for years and have never enjoyed the sport as much. Don't tie into any monsters because that thing doesn't have any brakes and they can take you for a ride!! BTW, Welcome to the board.

Be glad it's your kid and not your wife that's been outfishing you. I'll tell you what, they develop the memory of an elephant the first time that happens, but only from that outing on. Great to see you share your time with the little guy, even if he doesn't develop a passion for the sport, I guarantee you're adding nails to the bond between you two.

You may as well hang up your gear for a while because it don't get much better. Kinda like hitting the bullseye at 300 with your first three shots.......Pack it up and head home to do the yardwork, you likely wouldn't do it again in a hundred outings, so why waste ammo? Nice fish and considering your geographical area, definately bragging material.

Welcome to the board. This time of year can be heaven or hell when it comes to catching. I would target the first major depth change from the spawning areas you've been fishing. Both late spawners and post spawning fish will stage there and as not all fish will spawn at the same time, the opportunity to get into some active pre-spawn females with reaction presentations should still exist. If not, post spawn fish will stage there for anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks before either moving deep to their summer homes, or to shallow water cover. Either way they're headed, they'll go here first and although finiky feeders, they're easier to entice than when they were on the beds. Good luck, welcome to the board and don't be a stranger. There is a ton of great information exchanged here.

Heading up this coming week-end for out annual walleye outing. We're going a few weeks later this year and the fishing season will be open on the lake as well as Lake MI and the arms. Just wondering if anyone can give a report on the walley and smallmouth?

I've been going up to the ST.Croix area of Wisc. every July now for the last eight years. The area is north and west of EauClair about three hours from the Dells. From Rice Lake west to the MN border, some of the best small lake fishing in the state. Bar none. From muskie fishing on Rice, Deer, Bone and many others to Balsam Lake, which in my opinion is the best bass lake in Wisc. I've ever fished. You can go simple to extravagant with lodging accomodations. If you want to target smallmouth, GreenBay from June-Aug. is a serious producer of both numbers and size. The area of S.E. Wisc is also loaded with numerous small lakes. The only drawback to these is their proximity to both Chicago and Milwaukee and that means both an abundance of pleasure boaters and constant fishing pressure. If you're looking for good fishing close to one of the metro areas, I'd suggest the Madison chain. Another great bass fishery whose majority of fishing pressure is aimed at table fare species. Booking week long lodging on most of the major lakes for July will be hard to find, but motel stays near the majority of these lakes is afforadbly priced. The wife and I have been staying at a casino hotel that gives package deals and is located amidst many of the lakes near Turtle Lake.

JJ's Magic is a soft plastic dye/scent.

Not to steer you in a different direction, but the jig head you pictured is a poor choice for rocky bottoms, especially chunk rock. You'll find yourself getting hung up on a regular basis. For bottoms with river rock, I'd suggest a football head jig dragged among the rocks. They come skirted and plain and I'd add some sort of floating plastic trailer. For chunk rock, be prepared to loose some jigs no matter what type you choose. A bullet head, or any style with the line tie at the nose will reduce hang ups, but won't eliminate them. They also come skirted and plain. Some sort of trailer is a good idea. A sensitive rod will also be a bonus as will keeping your rod tip up which helps keep the head of the jig up and out of the crevises.

X3 The baits you'll be using aren't hard on the wrist and forearm, so a lower geared reel isn't of the same benefit it would be to fishing deep divers. Pair it up to a rod with some tip to it and plenty of backbone to rip those lipless baits and you'll have yourself a winner.

Had the opportunity to test these out last week and I can tell you from personal experience that not only did I like the looks of these, so did the fish. Caught my biggest fish (plural) on these. No need to add JJ's, but we did anyway. Fished it both T-rigged and as a jig trailer with success. Your eyes are drawn to the tails on this bait, but the ribbs give it an added appeal to the fish as you drag it over limbs and rocks. All I can say is Big O knows how to design a soft plastic bait.

Sounds like you were fishing from the bank also. If that is/was the case, your odds are very slim and you were lucky to get one. If you're faced with the same situation often, consider targeting fish the bank beaters aren't. Fishing deeper water from shore is a different ball game than targeting the same area from a boat. You'll want to use baits that are not only able to reach the deeper water structure and cover, you'll want to be able to get both your bait and your catch back to shore without much difficulty. Not knowing what type of cover, or how far from the bank the area you'll be targeting, it's difficult to recommend a specific bait, however you'll want to avoid treble hooked baits. Single hook baits would include spinnerbaits, jigs, tubes, and Texas rigged plastics. I'd suggest spinning gear for casting distance and (I don't believe I'm saying this) fluorocarbon line or braid with a leader. Sensitivity along with abrasion resistance makes that choice a no brainer. If you can keep some distance between yourself and other anglers, a C-rig is a great option for not only targeting deeper fish, but for it's ability to transmit bottom information back to you. Your choice of areas, if you have a choice, would be points, transition areas where rock meets weeds, or large rock meets smaller chunk rock or where soft bottom meets hard or rock bottom. Don't think fish won't use deeper water to spawn. If water clearity and temps. permit, larger fish will often pick deeper areas to spawn. My last suggestion is to try to avoid the crowds. Week days, especially early and late in the day and later in the week can be the best time for hard hit areas like these.

Jeez, I can't even remember the name of the company that makes them. I bought them in 50packs in a couple of different weights. They may even be BPS'. I prefer a 90* line tie as you get more spiral from them, but if I'm dragging them on the bottom, I like a lot less of an angle as the spiral action isn't as important. If I don't have any 90* ones, I'll push the eye through the tube farther back from the nose to get some good falling action.

If you're using spinning gear, drop your index finger down to the edge of the spool just before the bait hits the water. The same thing applies for topwater baits with props at the front. You can expect a blade bait to produce until the fish really start their move to the spawning areas. Even when they are staging before their last move or when they drop back because of a cold front. More of a swimming retrieve with twitches of the rod tip seems to work better than a ripping retrieve then. Don't be hesitant to switch to a lipless crank if the bite dies off. Sometimes you can stir them up a little and put a few more in the boat before moving on.

I always start out with some form of search bait. With it I can eliminate a lot of variables, even if I don't catch any fish with it. IMO, there is no better bait for this purpose than a spinnerbait. Not only can you cover the majority of the water column with one, you can determine the activity level of the fish. The other option comes into play if the water is calm to dead still in which case, I'll switch to a crank that will reach the bottom. Other baits will catch fish, but my main objective to start with is eliminating water. You can get bit on worms or tubes or jigs or whatever, and when one of those is your confidence bait it's hard to put them aside. Spinnerbaits and cranks will not only get you bit, they'll tell you a whole lot more.

Surface activity isn't always indicative of feeding bass. It could be shad, crappie, or a number of other occurances. This can lead to frustration on the angler's part when attempting to catch bass that may not be there. One scenario you can be sure is the result of feeding bass is when you see the baitfish jumping out of the water. You don't need to see bass busting the surface as what they are doing is corraling the bait to the surface. The bait has one of two options to escape. One is through the school of bass and the other is up which really isn't an option, but the baitfish don't know that. There are two trains of thought when it comes to catching bass in this situation. One is to mimic the baitfish with a top water or by running a crank or spinnerbait high through them. The other is to get below both the baitfish and the schooling bass down to the bigger fish that wait below for injured or dying baitfish to fall down to them. The difficult part is getting down past the schoolies as most of what you toss won't get by them. My two favorite presentations when I'm targeting those bigger fish below are a jigging spoon or lipless crank jigged below, but not on the bottom. The other is a heavy light colored jig with a large natural colored trailer. I'll cast past the activity, count both of these presentations down to 10 or 12 and begin stroking. Casting past rather than to the activity insures that I'll be jigging through the entire productive area and not just part of it. By all means do not pass up the opportunity to catch some of those schoolies, especially with a topwater like a Torpedo or similar type tail spinner. Top water is the most exciting presentation and a schooling topwater bite is the best kind.

Berkly Havoc Grass Pig (3.5in) on a MegaStrike Shakey Head jig. OMG, looking at this combination sitting nose down and tail up quivering on a bed, I want to smack it and I'm not a bass! Seriously, the fish aren't picking at the tail or engulfing it and spitting it out of the nest. They're attacking it similar to a topwater frog bite. Just wish I'd have discovered that when the big females were up on the nests. Oh well. The fish up north aren't on the beds yet, so I still have a chance at some big mommas this week on Delavan

I feel for you buddy. My advice is to contact Bill Dance. He will likely have some suggestions for you. Glad to hear you kept your cool, my 'truck driver' mouth woulda surfaced for a good hour or two especially after the tire. Of course I've been known to fling expensive drivers into the water on the golf course while attempting to author some new profanity. Hope MotorGuide will at least replace the mount.

I gotta admit, every time is see you in one of those 'People of WalMart' posts, I think to myself ' that guy is either very self confident, or he gets his clothes from Goodwill. BTW, from those pics I gotta ask why the crotch would be too tight if you attempted to wear skinny jeans???

A priest, a minister, and a rabi are out fishing in a boat not far from shore. The rabi exclaimes: "I've left my medications in the car, I'll be right back." He proceeds to get out of the boat, walk to shore and return the same way. They all sit in silence until the minister pipes up and says:"Mercy Lord, I've left my reading glasses in the car, I'll be right back." Just as the rabi did he walks from the boat to shore and back, sits down and begins retying his bait. The priest is thinking to himself; I'm just as holy as these men, if they can walk on water, I should be able to. He just needs an excuse, so he says:"Mother superior is expecting me to call in a few minutes, but I left my phone in the car. I'll be right back." With that he gets up, takes one step out of the boat and promptly goes under. The rabi and minister laugh so hard they have tears in their eyes as the priest bobs up. "I don't understand" the priest says. "Neither do we" replies the minister, "We both thought you knew where the rocks were, too."

Thanks to all. This is one project I plan to take a lot of time on. Not only the actual building of it, but more so in planning of the components. My last build took me a total of about 20hrs. and was a simple spinning with trim bands, but no butt wrap. This will likely be a split grip with a top quality blank and guides. I gotta have something to do when I'm not actually fishing. I mean besides getting on any number of fishing forums.

Tube jigs are very popular in that area and for good reason. Besides being able to skip them fairly easily under docks, they have a lot of action on the fall and there is no need for a trailer. I'm refering to the jighead that's inserted into a plastic tube. the hooks are normally thinner than a traditional 'bass jig' and you can alter the action of the falling tube by where the line tie exits the tube. You can also rig that same jig head 'stupid' style for a weedless presentation. I've even fished Mega (6in.+) tubes for muskie and picked up some hawg bass doing so.

I base the size hook to use on the size of the plastic I'm fishing and by that I'm refering to the thickness of the bait not the length. I want a gap that has roughly twice the thickness of the bait I'm throwing. If you T-rig, push the plastic down on the hook shank and see how much of the hook's gap is exposed. This, in essence is the hook size you'll be fishing with. If you don't see enough hook for you, go up in size. One other thing I'll mention although if you fish tourneys, I'm sure you're aware of; at this time of year you get a lot of pick ups from bedding bass. Often they'll spit out your presentation before you can set the hook and more often than not, they won't have the hook far enough into their mouth if you can. The result is missed hook sets, not because of poor hook choice or bad technique, or too soft of a rod. The fish just never had your bait in it's mouth. On the other hand, if you have a fish on and end up loosing it, it's likely because of a poor hook set and the hook size will have a big impact on it.

So if I;m building a rod for myself (cranking handle on the right), the guides should spiral counter clokwise? I didn't realize left or right hand retrieve made a difference.

Almost any plastic bait can be used on a C-rig. It all depends what you expect to do. I prefer floating baits when doing so because they're dynamite on fish suspended just off of the bottom. Lately I've been switching to a football jig for bottom presentation. A quick tip; use mono as a leader material if you want your bait to float higher.