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He looks great in the PFD! Nice fish.

Carolina rig, black trick worm wacky rig.....at night!

Yes. This is what I have learned to do and it works. I have been bank fishing my small neighborhood lake at night using a Car. rig. I cast with the drag tight, set the hook then lift the rod up and let the fish go where he wants to initially. Then when it has made its move either to deep water or towards the bank, I loosen the drag. I don't really crank the handle as much as I just lift the rod slowly and pull the fish and then lower the rod and take up slack. With the drag loose when the fish gets to the bank, I let him make his runs and the reel lets line out to follow him. The fish will finally give up a little and THEN is when I start getting him close to lip him or if he is smaller to just swing him up. Working drag has become VERY important to me.

Beautiful lake. Have seen some nice bass caught with shakey head jigs.

Auto inflatable PFD saved me and my son from a sure drowning. No fun being under the water and not even knowing which way up is. That was a great feeling when that CO2 cylinder blew and when I reached the surface I saw my son next to me. People who don't wear a PFD...you also don't wear a seatbelt in your car???

When you say your bait "slipped off", did the line break at the knot, or did the knot fail and come undone? If there was enough lure weight there, the bass is going to shake his head and the flesh around the hook will wallow out a hole. The hook can come out pretty easily with any slack. Sounded like a good fight anyway. You now know that there is some serious bass potential there and that will give you some added incentive.

There are some folks who still catch fish to eat. Nothing wrong with that. Your approach was crude. You will never win anyone over like that. Plant the idea in his mind that release in some form or another is good. That way he might at least release some of the larger bass. Removing some "eating" size bass...1 to 2 pounders from a lake may have a positive effect on the trophy fish.

Any one have any tips for making a cheap weedless dropshot weight. I fished a lake this past weekend and if I had not had a weedless weight that my brother made I would have been fighting the weeds all day. His was made from a short length of large coathanger with a eye made with some sort of electricians pliers and then some heatshrink on it. Worked perfectly. I was trying to think of how to make some cheap weights like this. How about taking a large finishing nail and drill a hole in it with a wire size drill and then just hook a swivel through it. Keeps it from kinking up your line. Anyone else here make any cheap non snagging weights.

Anyone use a dead stick technique with multiple rods? Seems like all that down time with only one rod could be reduced drastically with two rods in the water. Anyone do it?

Ditto. :-)

Went down to my neighborhood lake last night that I fish a lot. Lake is maybe 3 or 4 acres. I have fished this lake for a year now and have only caught lots of pounders and maybe a two+. Well I am making long cast from the bank with some 8lb braid, Texas rig with a 1 oz bullet weight to get me some distance when suddenly my line feels sort of different. There was no bite, no tug, nothing, just a mushy feeling like I get all the time from the junk on the bottom fouling the weight. I did not even get a good hook set. I started to reel in slowly and think I have a turtle. There was no pulling or anything, just felt like I had a big grass ball and I am dragging it across the bottom. All around the pond is about 8-12 feet of small leaf pads that are a bear to get a fish out of if you do catch one and it runs into them. I reel in and as I get to the pads I start to feel a tug. I loosened my drag and let whatever is on the line make a few 3 or 4 foot runs from right under the top of the pads to the bottom. I still think I have a big turtle.....NOT....all of a sudden I see with my flashlight the BIG head and body of a bass as he breaks the surface and heads down!! He is about 6 feet from me and I am stunned! I was not able to get him out of the pads and he threw the hook. I would have liked to have been able to drag him on out of the pads, but that is all right. Now I know that there are indeed some big bass in my little lake, so I can now approach them a bit differently and with a better set up. I need some heavier braid so that I can wrestle them through the pads. I also know that the bite of a big bass can be very imperceptable. Still, I am encouraged to know that there are some big fish in the lake only few hundred yards from my house. I will be down there many nights this summer!!

The white out thing is hilarious.

Caught a huge bass in the winter...32 degrees...never pulled or fought. Just came up and flopped sideways on the surface. I just drug it around on the surface. Came time to swim free it just rolled over and slowly eased on down. Temp will have something to do with the metabolism and the fight.

Three hundred feet deep! That is a looooonnnnnngggg drop shot.

Try some night fishing.

My brother lives on a 60 acre lake. When the lake management company needs to cull fish from the lake, they bring out a pontoon boat with an electric shock set up and lower two 8 ft chains in the water and send current through the water and the stunned fish float to the top and are gathered in nets and put in large plastic holding tanks. Fish over a certain length are released and fish under a certain length are given to anyone that lives around the lake and wants them for food. So far NO fish have ever gone to waste! Electric shock would be the easiest way, but you need to quickly get a DNR person out there to consult about removal and transporting them. Since you have limited resources, you might want to just get a small "telephone" as we used to call the machine that you crank to shock up fish and try to save some of the lunkers that are in the lake. You would have to do this with the approval and supervision of the DNR. Call them. They may be able to provide you with some resources of some sort. I can't imagine that they would just let the lake drain and the fish just die without trying something.

So sorry for the family of these folks. http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1211554453 May I balance this tradgedy out by this posting I made a few weeks ago where the ending was positive as a result of auto inflatable PFDs we had on. My son and I would not be here if we did not have them on. I do not know, or will any one else know what happened to these two fisherman, but by my own experience I cannot tell you how fast you can end up in the water and totally disoriented and not enough air in your lungs to sort it all out...no matter what your physical condition or your trust in your swimming abilities, you can die dispite your best efforts to save yourself. WEAR a PFD all the time!!!

My cell phone has been in the lake twice. First time it took a few days of heating up with a hair dryer and it finally came back on. Second time it only took one day with the hair dryer and it works better now than it did before!!

Being pro life......when did that include fish??? Fish were put here as food for us humans. You did not mean to kill the fish. If you did, then other animals will use the fish for food....birds, turtles, racoons etc. You can stop fishing trebles if you want, but you can kill just as many with a gut hook on a single.

The PFD we had on were the Stearns 1330 model. They originally sold at WalMart for over $100. We were in WalMart one day in the Fall and they were closing them out for $33 each. I bought three of them for my wife, son and me. Best money I ever spent in my life. They did a great job and again I learned (the hard way) that with these units that inflate on your chest and wrap around your neck, that it is better to lay on your back and swim. If you were not consious, you would be pulled upward and your head would be above the water at all times. Buy the BEST one you can buy. What is your life worth?

Shore was closer than the boat by the time the PFD blew and we surfaced and got our wits about us. My son is mildly mentally handicapped. The reason I bought the auto inflate PFD is that I could not really trust that he would be able to react quickly in an emergency to pull the inflate cord. Looking back, it paid off for both of us. One thing I did learn is that when the PFD inflates, it is much easier to swim if you stay on your back. The device is inflated on your chest and really designed to keep your head out of water if you are unconcious. Took me a few minutes to realize that just lying on my back was much easier to swim. I have not been swimming in about 40 years so you can understand why this was so threatening. You can bet that from now on, things will be even more safety oriented. I have had an eye opening experience about what can happen in an instant on the water.

We said a prayer that God would give us a safe day as we pushed the boat off when we got started. Along with the PFD, I highly recommend it every time you go out.

GREAT!!!!!!! I can honestly say that if we had not been wearing them we most likely would not have made it.

Long story short, my son got in a situation where he lost his balance in the boat and fell in and when I realized he was going in, I went right right behind him holding on to him. After a few seconds of trying to figure out just what my orientation was. the CO2 cylinders on our PFDs blew and we surfaced and made it over to the bank. All was fine and a bad situation is now just a lesson in safety. Whewwwwww!!!!!! Wear em' ALL the time!!!! It will all happen VERY quick. You would never be able to grab a PFD and put it on fast enough.

If the guy was catching small bluegills then harvesting these will actually help out. My brother lives on a private 50 acre lake. The lake management company sent out a letter telling the folks who live on the lake and fish there to just throw the small bream and crappie up on the bank and don't release them. Catch and release ALL THE TIME can actually be detrimental in certain bodies of water.