slinging southpaw

I probably spend more money each year on new Mustad Ultra point wide grip treble hooks than I spend on crankbaits(and I've got my share of crankbaits). It is funny( :'() how one fish will take you 5 minutes to unhook, then the next one spits it.

In the past I've always had a "puck-type" transducer on my trolling motor and have never had a problem, now I have skimmers front and rear, could that be part of the problem?

I bought a new/used boat this and put new depthfinders on it. My problem is that once I get to a depth of about 15 feet, my console depthfinder makes my bow depthfinder useless. It sends crazy signals and eventually stalls. Any advice?

I was wondering if any of you guys know where I can get a fizzing kit? I caught a smallmouth out of 30+ feet of water last weekend that needed to be fizzed and my partner had one and it worked excellent.

Let your confidence in each lure decide. If you start losing confidence in a certain lure, it's time for a change. If you lose confidence in everything in your box, go fish someplace else.

One eye watches for what the guy in the front fishes while the other is watching the other side of the boat, usually the deep water with a lure that can be used to follow the contour of the bottom(carolina rig, grub, swim jig, crankbait, heavy spinner bait.

My first smallie(all of 2.15#) of the year won me the first club tournament of the year and $120 8-) Yes, it was a rough day

I'm pretty sure you can get them at Northernbass.com I was wrong. They have some knockoffs though.

I haven't tried it yet, but I would think a wacky rigged 3-4" senko type lure would work really well under the bobber. Don't forget to pack some silver buddy's

I'm pretty sure you can get them at Northernbass.com

The problem your having with braid is a problem I've seen a lot. Braid simply cuts like paper on rocks. I've had the same problem with 40# Braid and know others that have also. It's perfect for C-rigging on mud, but rock makes the stuff "evaporate". :'(

Now that I've gotten some opinions, I figure I'd post my experiences. I've only used it a couple times, but what I saw was basically useless. If there was any wave action at all(even the slightest breeze) the camera showed a picture that looked like it was going 100mph. I might have seen a lot of fish, but I never got a good enough look at anything to tell what it was. I figured, that the thing was only good for ice fishing.

I think sal669 was on the right track. Your line and rod are huge. Using braid will make hyou tone down your hookset or get used to destroying hooks. Another important thing is making sure you take up enough slack before letting it rip!!!

Putting the rubber hose over the line sounds like a good idea, but only 1/4"? I always ad a rubber collar just before the knot to the swivel to protect the knot, but I would think, you would need maybe 4"-6" before the sinker to do any good. Thanks for the idea

With a baitcaster, I lose very few fish from the line breaking because I pretty much take the drag out of the picture. I set the drag lightly and use my thumb as the drag. I put my thumb on the spool when I set the hook to stop the spool then allow the fish to take line if need be and stop him if I have to. I started doing this over 20 years ago when the drag slipped on me while setting the hook. Plus, I find it much easier to tighten the drag(rather than loosen it) if I need to while fighting a fish. With a spinning outfit, just backreel.

If you have the braided line with a sinker, glass bead, clakker then swivel /then a Flourocarbon leader, how is the problem solved? The braided line is still dragging across the rocks because that's where the sinker is. It may be solved on mud and sand, but just thinking about getting it near a rock will make it come apart

I was wondering if any of you guys had purchased an Aqua VU and were sold on them?

Even though I'm originally from Maine and now live in New Hampshire, both of my strangest catches were in Ohio. I casted a crankbait a little to close to something I saw just offshore on the Ohio River. When I went to retrieve my lure, I realized that I had hooked a dead cow floating in the river. At Grand Lake St. Mary's I noticed a group of fish on my depthfinder. I dropped a worm down there, felt a tap, set the hook and brought in two one pound catfish. The hook had gone into the side of one fish and then stabbed another one in the belly.

I'm not worried about that, I fished with a guy at the STQT on Lake Champlain that scoffed at me when I questioned him about useing Power Pro braid Carolina Rigging for smallmouths, then watched him lose at least 5 Carolina rigs when they cut on rocks. I thought the stuff would be perfect for a carolina rig before the same thing had happened to me.

The problems that I've had with superlines is that they cut like paper around rocks, which amazes me because it's such a pain to cut when your trying to cut it. I love the stuff in heavy weeds and used it on spinning rods with a mono leader. The worst I've used is "Power Pro". Stealth didn't impress me either. What I use now is Stren Superbraid. I haven't had nearly as much problems with Stren, but by the time I started using it, I had learned braids limitations and avoided rocks. I've never had problems with my knots. I had just heard from some Pros(Aaron Martens was one) that "you shouldn't use a Palomar knots while drop shotting with Flourocarbons because your line will break".

I think if you're looking for it and use(disect) every fish you catch and everything else in the area, you'd be amazed at how often you can find a pattern. If you're just chuckin and not taking in everything in, there probably is a pattern there, but you're not noticing it. The problem is you pretty much have to catch a few to find a pattern. If your not catching fish, I guess the pattern would be do whatever you're not doing :-?

After having some issues with the "Superlines" I've been hesitant to try Flourocarbon lines. This spring I'm planning on using Flourocarbon as leader material, but I've heard that Palomar(which is what I use 90% of the time) knots don't hold up well on Flourocarbons. I also use the Trilene knot and was wondering what most of you guys tie when using Flourocarbon. Thanks

That's good to know. The first time I ever fished a Silver Buddy was while pre-fishing for the B.A.S.S. Eastern Regionals back in the late 80's on the Ohio River. All I caught with it was Sauger.

Thanks guys

Making long casts with a Silver Buddy and bumping it along the bottom is something that I've heard is a great way to catch cold water smallmouths, but looking at a Silver Buddy makes me think are you kidding? A metal bait with two treble hooks scraping along the bottom hitting every rock, catching every weed in sight. It would seem like if you were going to use this technique, you would need about fifty of them to account for all of them that you would lose. I have fished a Silver Buddy with a vertical presentation and have had mixed results. In my mind there are at least a hundred better suited lures for bottom bumping. Anybody out there that has had a great deal of success with this presentation?