ww2farmer

Rods: Fenwick, Berkley, Abu Garcia Reels: Daiwa, Pflueger, Abu Garcia

CRC electronic parts cleaner. It will not harm plastic, disolves grime/grease, evaporates on it's own, and comes in a spray can, which is handy for "blasting" gunk out of some hard to reach spots.

Black and blue, or green and brown that's all I need.

Not to mention it's the SAME EXACT thing.

Man.......the bottom just plain fell out mid october around here. Things that have been productive for me FOR YEARS in the fall were just hauling water. Brown fish, green fish, toothy fish............didn't matter, none of them played nice the last 2-3 weeks. Not to mention my last half dozen trips or so where just in miserable cold conditions..........no excuses, but I just really didn't put forth the effort to figure it out either. It seemed like ever since my "man over board" episode on Conesus mid Oct. I was just out there going through the motions.

Kids

This reminds me of a story I may, or may not have told here once about a guy at work who was a "prepper" for things like this. He would boast how much water/food/etc.. he had on hand in case of an emergency. I said to him one day " that's great, but, ..................how many rounds of ammo do you have stockpiled" He said "none", I said "thanks for the food and water"

I wait till there is 4" of good, clear ice. The # 1 piece of equipment you need for ice fishing is an auger to dill a hole in the ice. Beyond that, tackle will be subjective to the species of fish your chasing....jigging for bluegills is much different than jigging for lake trout. Things like sleds, portable shantys, heaters, graphs/flashers are all nice, and will help, but not "required" like I said..........you need a hole first.

They only taste as good as the water they came from. The ones from my home lake (Silver) are very good, that is if you can sort through the 33 billion dinks to catch enough keepers worth keeping. They taste like POOP from watersheds where oily bait fish like alewives, etc....are a major part of the food chain.

About 90% of my trips are unplanned. I go when I can.............after work, week days I have off due to weather, weekends I don't have to work, days we get done early, etc....about the only "planned" trips I have are tournaments, and they are about once, maybe twice a month from late june to mid oct. When we are not busy I will use vacation/personal time to go, but I never "know" when the "slow" times will be, it might be a two week stretch in late Aug./early sept. while we are waiting for harvest to begin, or something like that.

20lb braid. Tied direct to topwaters, and with a 10 or 12lb flouro leader for jerkbaits.

I own several spinning rods from the $50 price point up to the $150 range... Of those rods, THE most versatile, and best bang for the buck is 7' M Berkley Lightning Rod Shock. It's primary duty for me is back up to my better rods, but on occasion I pick it up and fish it just for grins and giggles and it's not bad, not bad at all.

I have caught bass through the ice. Usually on small ponds, the bigger lakes not so much, but a few. On the ponds, some days the bass are on fire through the ice. I have caught as many as a dozen out of one hole before.

A good cheap chatterbait rod is the Berkley Lightning Rod Shock. I use the 6'6" mh for close quarters work, and the 7'mh for everything else.

Let me see if I can clear up the confusion. The Big Bite Baits "craw worm" was once, not all that long ago, sold by Lake Fork Tackle as the............"Lake Fork Craw Worm". They are the same bait, made by D&J Plastics. NOW.......................the body of the "craw worm" and the YUM craw bug ARE THE SAME!!! Yum just lops the "tail off" and calls it the craw bug. The 3" Big Bite Baits craw worm, and the long discontinued YUM "Baby craw bug" were the EXACT SAME BAIT, tail and all.

I am a big fan of both the Lexa's and Exceler's. I replaced ALL of my casting reels with them,including several higher cost reels such as curado 51e's,and revo stx's.

Hard to beat the Abu C3. Ergonomic? No. Light? Not really. Will it still work after being dragged to the lake on the road behind the trailer, yup, and for many more years later.I fished with them exclusively from the my teen years in the late 80's/early 90's till about 2007/08 and I don't remember one ever giving me trouble.

Last morning on the water for me this year. Tossed a jerkbait around for a couple hours, caught 4 pike. Fogged the motor, and drained the lower unit.............I am done till next spring.

FFO has the 6-10 MH/MF rods for $75

Wnybassman caught a 20lb carp on a senko during a tournament we fished together a couple years ago. I was actually quite disgusted with him when he proceeded to waste valuable time with it once we saw it was a carp. I even said "cut the GD line, we ain't time for this crap" but he fought on, and then proudly posed for a picture with his trophy after he landed it.... He hasn't been in my boat since.

The Booyah jigs are decent......BUT they have a really light wire hook that is very prone to bending, and I am not the biggest fan of the ultra fine silicone skirts they use, I still like "regular" thickness skirt strands on my finesse jigs (just not as many). Of coarse there is the SK Bitsy Flip, but they are kind of junk. I have switched to the Boss finesse flip heads, good stout hook, cheap, and readily available at TW or from Boss directly. They even have them in light wire hook versions if you like a lighter hook. Boss makes jigs skirts that come with a rattle band in a 5 pack for $4, in over 40 different color combos, I put those on the finesse flip heads, and trim and thin as needed to make a "finesse" skirt. That's a pretty decent jig for about $2 IMHO.

I have been very VERY happy with the SK KVD's. They are the only "cheap" jerkbait that I have ever had that will suspend perfectly, in a nose down position, with a change to #4 Mustad KVD 1x strong/2x short triple grips, and in cold water to boot. Every other sub $10 bait I have had........... Clunn STX's, Xraps, Rouges, etc.....would take a lot of fine tuning out of the box to suspend once the hooks were changed. The only other bait I like is even cheaper than the KVD, is the Storm Twitch stick. With a change to the same KVD hooks, they suspend pretty good too. With there stock hooks however, they tend to be a slow floater. I also liked the excaliber eeratic shad, but Pradco in there wisdom quit making them when Evers jumped to megabass, and they are getting harder and harder to find. My last few were bit off a couple years ago, and I have just been using the KVD's and Storms ever since.

There are current gen. Daiwa Excelers all over ebay NIB with free shipping for less than $70. You can't beat that with a stick right now, and the $99 Lexa's from TEW are a close second. As for your rod, I have Exceler's/Lexa's mounted on a several rods, Fenwicks (Elite Tech's, HMX's, HMG's), Berkleys (Lightning Rod Shocks, E-motions) and Abu's (Vendettas Veritas's) and they feel good, look good, and work good on everything.

SK KVD Sexy Frog, 6lbs 2oz. Lots of 5+lbers on frogs in the past, but that was the only one ever over six. http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/135140-any-luck-in-upstate-ny/page-12

Because most people wouldn't know a 6lber if it slapped them in the face. Once scales are brought to the table, 6's become 3's, 3's become 14"ers, and so on and so forth.