umdivx

How deep where they running? What type of structure where they holding to? Sand to rock, mostly rock? Was out there Tuesday last week and pulled in 20 eyes but no smallies. Might head back up Friday.

yea I mean I don't have cheap stuff either, mostly Dobyns Champion XP's (MSRP of $250 range), I did buy the Dobyns Extreme HP 742 (MSRP $350 range), and now I have the Expride (MSRP $280) and the Tatula Elite (MSRP $180). All of which I could sell for more than I paid for them too. I get the appeal but man its a whole different level getting up into the $500+ retail rods.

still about $200 more than I am comfortable paying for a rod lol. My cap is $200 - $250

Baller. Way out of my price range. I'm running all Daiwa Tatula LT's. Bought them all for less than $100 each, so at that price point they're a fantastic reel. Great weight to price point, drag is fantastic. There's better out there but then it's also the cost. You should talk to Punch he's all in on loomis and up to speed on reels, also if you haven't already joined, we have a FB group called Bass Fishing Deal Hunters that we regularly post deals on all things bass fishing.

Got the 7' Medium (EX270MA) spinning. For a drop shot rod I'd be looking at the 6'-10" ML (EX2610MLA). Was more so commenting on Exprides in general. fit, finish, weight, is awesome for the money. I've also got the Daiwa Elite rod as well. The non-AGS version though. Really don't think the AGS version is worth it honestly. I have the 7'-3" M with XF tip (TAEL731MXS) I really like this rod as well, but for different reasons. Weight is super light, but wanted a slightly longer rod and a little beefier backbone. I can do shaky heads, ned rigs, jig worms with it, but I also got it for doing drop shotting on Mille Lacs for the bigger fish. I also picked up the Dobyns Champion Extreme HP 742 7'-4" ML to also play around with drop shotting on Mille Lacs, picked this up per Rich Lindgren's (Hellabass) recommendation, he uses this rod on Mille Lacs for drop shotting. By the end of the summer I'll let you know which one I like the best lol, have about 4hrs on the Expride, and about 10hrs each on the Dobyns and Daiwa Elite rods. I like them all for various reasons, each has their pluses and minuses.

High 40's still. Well the blizzard conditions weren't until afternoon. If I would have hit it at 6am like I was planning I could have fished until noon and beat the storm. Was dead calm on the east side of the lake this morning. Still kicking myself for not going. I saw plenty of people hammer them (based on my IG feed) this morning. Small swimbaits, jerkbaits and tubes are what was working the best from those I chatted with.

I had every intention of fishing Mille Lacs today, but then got de-motivated as my brother backed out, and then the cold morning temps scared me off, slept in, saw it was 50 out, so loaded up and headed to one of my go to spots near me. Normally this lake is stingy for me, like only 10 or so bites but really good bites, was the opposite for me, found a really nice healthy patch of curly leaf weeds. About 100yd stretch in 5 to 10 feet of water, temps solid at 57 and all they wanted was a the swim jig. Pulled in about 25 or more fish, most of them all over 2lbs, lost a really nice one, I'd say close to 4 at the boat, didn't set the hook well enough I guess. Either way I was happy, I usually really struggle with pre and post spawn fishing, just can never figure them out. Once they get settled into the summer patterns, deeper offshore fishing is my jam, but today I was happy to find a pattern that worked for pre-spawners.

Was my 40th last month, and Punch remembered me talking about wanting to level up into a really nice spinning rod, and so he and a few friends all pitched in and bought me an Expride. I'll say I'm smitten, really love it. It's super light, great balance, super sensitive. With our discounts we get through GH at either Omnia or at Capras you get easily get a good chunk off the MSRP so its well worth it.

Dunno, I don't specifically go out and try to dedicate fishing for them.

Punch and I went out to Cedar on Saturday. He is his boat, and I in mine. Did our social distancing but fished closed together so we could still chat and stuff. Was a bit windy and colder than expected but we made the best of it. Pulled in a nice fat walleye and half a dozen largies, no smallies. Punch caught two muskies as well. One of which was easily in the 30" range. Caught on spinning gear too. Punch's Muskie https://i.imgur.com/iAwWUyO.png My eye caught on the jackhammer https://i.imgur.com/FfeAzs4.png absolutely trucked it, thought I was hung up on a crappie crib at first. Hit me up next time you go out. I'll tag along in my boat

Thanks for all that. When this all blows over and we can start socializing again will definitely have to meet up and shoot the **** and figure things out.

ahh, yes I can appreciate an annual family trip like that. Maybe can help Brian and I plan a trip ourselves some time? Pointers on where to go/stay?

yea, he doesn't wear a PFD at all in any of his videos. He was out on Mille Lacs last fall, again no PFD. Maybe not this year, but next year if you're looking for someone to split the costs with, I would love to make that trip some time.

I'm one of the GH directors, my buddy and I co-direct the Wednesday GH series. As already pointed out, you can fish as a team or solo if you want. It's a great league, great group, super friendly and we make sure all are welcome and don't feel intimidated at all. I'm not sure if the Wednesday night is full yet or not, I'll PM you with more details.

I never grew up watching bass fishing, I occasionally watched the shows that the Linder's did but didn't watch any of the Elite Series, MLF, or FLW. It wasn't until I got into tournament fishing that I'd occasionally watch tournaments if I had free time. This was actually the first Classic I've ever watched, and I tuned in all three days on and off. And watched the top 6 weigh-in last night. For as much **** MLF gets because of their format, I think MLF as a whole has WAY better production value, their streams are higher quality, and the comentation isn't so fake and dramatized like BASS is. I got annoyed and just plain get cringe feeling when watching BASS and the weigh-ins, they're frankly just dumb as hell and the production value is NOT good.

Took advantage of the nice weather and the close out of the 2019/2020 fishing season and got out on the sippi for some fun smallie action. https://i.imgur.com/yBcD3tO.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Pp0343O.jpg https://i.imgur.com/sCcM1uS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/f5oOJZK.jpg https://i.imgur.com/RLa4jOb.jpg

Nice. My brother and I are doing the Opticast Sunday Series and then still doing the Wednesday with Brian.

There are also boarder waters regulations, like Rainy river for example is all year round. Then there are the rest of the boarder waters, you just need to review the regulations and what sections are open and are not open. Look at Page 62 - 65 in the regulations book, the seasons are based on given sections of the river/boarder waters. Like St. Croix River from the d**n south to hwy 10 bridge for example is open until March 1st 2020, then doesn't re-open until Fishing season opener in May. And then once you get into the pools, so any section of the Mississippi and lake pepin that boarder with WI it's continuous.

it's a decent show. I enjoy it. yes you get find deals, you just have to be willing to haggle with the vendors, Capra's is usually there and they'll haggle just not crazy, usually 20 to 25% off.

My goal this year? Learn out to better read my electronics, position my boat based on the structure i'm reading and know exactly how my position relates to said structure. At times I can see a weed line or rock or whatever on my side scan but then once I get up front, trying to position my boat to that structure has been very difficult to do. So really want to learn how to better interpret what my screens are showing me and then act accordingly to what I'm being shown. Which new league are you fishing?

No, just that the "live bait knuckledraggers" just chuck out over weighted hooks with minnows and just leave the poles on stands and such and aren't feeling for bites and by the time they realize they have a fish on it's too late and the hook is way too far down the gullet of the fish. I've not personally seen that happen much but i'm not there during the busy times, mostly week days when no one else is around. Wife bought me a pair of the Blackfish Endure rain bibs. Pretty sweet gift actually. Actually no, its from other hard core bass guys. They just want to see better treatment of the fish and preserve the fishery. I can see some of the merits to the argument, but at the same time not. I picked up two pair of Coasta's from Nordstrom Rack of all places, they were like 60% off, crazy cheap.

Less of new ownership and more of a partnership. AT just couldn't keep up with distribution. That is why they partnered up with Clam/BF so they can handle the distribution aspects.

So lets see. American Legacy.... Dobyns Champion Extreme HP 7'-4" spinning rod and Champion XP 7'-3" casting rod to round out my already large Dobyns rod collection. Also picked up a new Tatulta SV TW casting reel. Outkast Tackle.... re-stocked up on perfect ned heads, Golden eye swim bait heads, and a good amount of the money jigs. X-Zone Lures.... loaded up on some more plastics and got a few hats. Biospawn... loaded up on 3.25" Exoswim plastics Rapala.... Finally picked up one of their tournament culling scales All Terrain... loaded up on jigs, mainly 1/4oz, not a huge heavy jig person so the lighter the better for me. think that is it so far. Can't keep track of everything I got.

Went out for my last trip of the season, well last with my boat, getting some work done on the boat (fiberglass/gel-coat work) so figured i'd get out before I drop it off. Kept and eye out for the wind reports and yesterday was absolutely fantastic out on Mille Lacs, the lake was super calm, been a long time since i've seen it that calm. Started out SUPER cold and was getting iced up on all my rods with braid so stuck to my straight floro rods to help prevent the icing. Later in the day it warmed up into the 30's and sun came out and was just a super nice day to be out on the water and not working. Only caught 6 fish all day but man were they chunky, the batteries in my scale was dead so couldn't weight in anything.

We had 3 boats, in my boat (my brother and I) our biggest largie was 4.3 and caught in 4' or less of water. All the smallies were off boulder reefs, most of the bigger ones were in 10+ feet hanging off bigger isolated rocks. Our boat we mainly focused on ned rigs (not very confident in jigs), bombing them out, and slooooowly dragging them back, and popping them off the rocks. Pulled in several 4+ lbers doing this. Saturday our best 5 went for 19.48lbs, also pulled in several 20"+ eyes. Photos