CrimsonBass78

I've C-Rigged everything mentioned above. The best bite I have had on them is the lizard.

I have fished the BFL's as a co-angler. The best advise I can give is fish the best you can out of the back of the boat. This season I had one boater that back boated me all day. Then I had another who went out of his way to make sure I caught a limit. It all depends on the draw, then even if they back boat you, you can still make it a productive day. Fish something different than your boater, you maybe fishing "used" water but it only takes something different to get the fishes attention. As far as pre-fishing goes I know the boaters I was fishing with had been on the body of water up to a week.

It happens to everyone...Especially when Carolina Rigging. If you do encounter a fish that is deep hooked, if you can see the point and barb you can always cut the barb and reverse the hook. I had a good solid 3.5lb LM this summer get hooked in the outer edge of the gullet. The problem was that when I got the fish in, she tried to swallow the lizard and in turn kept the hook in a positon where I couldn't do anything with it. So I cut the line and put the fish in the live well. About 10 mins later I got the fish out and she had spit the lizard out enough to where I could get the lizard off. I also had enough room to back the hook out, fish swam off no blood and no floating fish. here is a link to an article that was in In-Fisherman about the very subject: http://www.in-fisherman.com/magazine/articles/if2806_HookRemoval/index.html