Tokyo Tony

Nice fish man! Jeez, I miss snook and tarpon - those are my favorite. Used to live in Miami, FL, now I'm in CT. No fish fights harder than a tarpon.

That's one of the ugliest fish I've ever seen. Would have loved to catch him though :

I think a good general rule is not to tie a non-loop knot directly to the hook eye (unless you're going for a subtle-type action). You need some kind of loop in order to get the full action out of your bait, whether it's a loop knot, split ring, or some kind of snap. I use regular snaps and they work fine. The only time I use a loop knot is with walk-the-dog topwaters, where I don't want any extra weight on the front of the lure, but still want the full side-to-side action. Otherwise, a snap allows me quickly to change colors/styles of lures without having 30 rods all over the place.

That is a freakin' FAT pickerel - can't say I would be ticked off if I caught that slime dart.

When you get a $60 gift card from Dicks for your Scorecard Rewards points When you offer to pay for things with your Cabala's credit card so you can get more points, which makes less than zero sense. When anytime you feel a little down, you go buy lures you absolutely don't need and may not even use, and it makes you feel better.

I find Terminators to run the truest and to be the most durable. I like whitish skirt and silver willowleaf blades most of the time. For night fishing, you can't beat a Strike King black/blue or black/red with single Colorado blade (I like the smooth blade, no ripples). It's actually made for night fishing and also has a rattle. Otherwise, I don't like Strike King and Booyah spinnerbaits - I'm always tuning them.

Johnnydel, glad to see you're trying out the old X-Rap. This is by far one of my favorite baits, and I have more confidence with X-Raps and LC Pointers than with any other lure, even senkos. If I'm not sure if there are fish in an area (that isn't too heavy with cover), I throw an X-Rap, and if nothing, I'm confident no fish are there. I really feel that fish hear and see these things from a long way away, approach it out of curiosity, then attack it either because it makes them angry or triggers some kind of reflexive reaction out of them. Love 'em. All good tips above for sure, but I have one thing to add, and it applies moreso to smallies, but also to a lesser degree to largies. You'd be very very surprised how fast you can work these baits sometimes. Not so much this time of year in the northeast now that the fishing is starting to slow down, but especially when the fish are active. If you see fish following your bait but not committing, speed that thing way up. I'm talking reeling fast while making fast erratic jerks and twitches. When you do this, sometimes it's important to let it come to a dead stop right in the middle for a couple seconds, but definitely experiment with this really aggressive approach. Smallies can't resist. You won't trust it until you start getting fish with the super fast retrieve, but when you do get the confidence, it's a lot of fun. The types of jerks that seem to work best for me are very short and sharp - I prefer braided line with a flouro leader and a medium action rod, but mono or flourocarbon will work well too. I just like the feel with braid more and the tighter, more erratic action that comes with zero stretch line. I actually feel kinda stupid when I'm fishing around other people and they see me working the bait this way because I'm pretty sure I look pretty stupid, but that self-consciousness goes away when the fish start piling in ;D And someone said color is important with these - sometimes it is really important. Last weekend in NH they wouldn't touch anything but an all-white X-Rap. It was crazy. White/blue, white/black, no dice. Just white on white.

A tool I always have with me is a lipper/scale device (Great White I think, about 34 bucks). This thing, for me, has become an indispensable tool when I'm using baits with trebles, especially when fishing for smallies. Get the fish close, and just grab her lip with the device and take the hooks out with pliers. It prevents self-hooking, and it really seems better for the fish because you don't have to touch her at all if you don't want. Sometimes when I catch a smallie on an X-Rap, there's no way I can lip the fish without one of these things, and for the last year I've always had one with me. Can't remember the last time I had to grab a fish by the body to remove the hooks. Oh, and you can see how much she weighs at the same time.

Went to the new Cabelas here in CT last night and walked out with nothing. But it was only because I was going to pick my brother up and go straight back to Cabelas. We went back and I didn't walk out with nothing that time. Bought a few lucky craft deep diving pointers that were on sale for 8 bucks, some plastics, pellets, etc. I don't think I'll ever walk out of there without some product, just on principal.

When it comes down to thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars, the life of a bass doesn't really factor in past making sure it lives until just after weigh-in. I'm always very careful with my fish, but if there were that much money on the line, I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing as those guys.

So Cabelas just opened up 15 minutes from my house. This could be a huge problem for my bank account. The store is amazing though - I've never been in a Cabelas or BPS, but it is pretty impressive. They have a huge "mountain"-type thing in the middle with "museum quality" game, and in the cave underneath there are two tanks, one with trout and the other with LMB, smallies, perch, bream, pike, and pickerel, and a couple of large carp. It's pretty cool to just watch the fish there. Rows and rows of plastics, rows and rows of crankbaits, everything you can think of. They have a whole rack of lucky craft baits, which may be a huge problem for me. Racks of high quality rods....anyway, the list goes on. Just wanted to say that it's a pretty impressive store, and if any of you are in the area or haven't seen a Cabelas, you should stop by.

Yeah I've tried maybe 5 times to skip with a baitcaster, and it just doesn't seem like it's worth the trouble. Even the best baitcast skippers can't skip as consistently accurately or as delicately as someone with a spinning rig, especially with soft plastics, which is pretty much the only type of bait I ever skip. Kudos on being able to skip a baitcaster though, it is really difficult, or at least it seems very difficult to me.

I agree Johnny - a large part of the fun for me is actually holding the fish by her lower lip and taking a close-up look while trying hard to resist the strong urge to kiss her ;D . Weird? Maybe a little...

I think if you take a pro who's amazing with both casting and spinning gear, he'd say casting gear is more accurate, both for pitching and for long casts. It may not be so for someone who's not proficient with casting gear, but the fact that your thumb is directly on the spool gives you more control than you could possibly have with spinning gear (even if you control the line with your left hand when casting spinning gear). For the same reasons, I believe it's possible to make a much quieter entry when pitching with casting gear than with spinning gear. That's actually something I've worked on all year - making a really quiet entry with my casting gear, especially with roll casts and while pitching/flipping - and I've found it to be more effective than with spinning gear, and I still have a long way to go. Think about the cast - with casting gear, the bait doesn't sling off the rod immediately like with casting gear when the line leaves your finger. Basically, it's a smoother transition at the start of the cast, kind of like flooring it in first gear vs. second gear in a car. That smoother transition I believe is part of the reason that someone who is equally proficient with casting and spinning gear will be more accurate with casting gear. Of course, you can't beat spinning gear for skipping and certain finesse presentations, but each method has advantages, which is why it's important, or at least useful, to get good at both.

In other posts people said the snakes melt very easily, but they look like they'll work on big bass. Just keep them out of the sun

It's easier to make a very quiet entry with a casting rod because you have more control and can keep the bait closer to the water

RW - I assume weightless t-rig for the Ika (skirt up), and a 1/16 to 1/8 jighead for the grub? And just fish super slow? And jaystraw, the lake is called Boston Lot Lake, it's just outside of Hanover, across from the big dam on the right from Hanover to West Lebanon. There's a dirt parking lot and the lake is about 1/3 mile up the mountain. It's really beautiful. I'll be up there next weekend as well - I plan on fishing from shore but if you have a canoe are are anywhere in the area, let's go fishin' 8-)

Just got back from a weekend in NH fishing my favorite little smallie lake. The bite was slower than I've ever seen there, but still somewhat decent by normal standards (14 smallies in 5 hours Saturday, 6 in 3.5 hours Sunday - and this is a lake where a month ago I had a 70+ fish day, literally). I had my float tube with me, but decided not to use it because the water was freezing cold and my waders are not insulated. We just had a front roll through after the much needed rainstorms at the end of last week, so I'm thinking this was the main reason the fishing wasn't as good as usual. Almost all fish were caught on either white X-Rap or white/yellow or silver/blue LC Sammies, twitched slowly, and for the first time, I didn't catch a single largie there. Do you guys have any ideas as to what would, if anything, work better than jerkbaits? The problem is, I had to fish from shore there so really couldn't work the offshore structure, which made it tough. Most of my fish were caught at the end of very, very long casts. I wasn't able to cast a tube far enough to be worth the effort, and didn't get a bite with a jig. The fish seemed to be suspended about 6-10 feet off the bottom, but I could be wrong. Any tips for next weekend? What I am gonna do is respool my 7 foot medium action rod with 6 lb braid instead of flouro so I can really wing it out there.

The best way to combat the slow bite for LMB is to fish for smallies. They're still pretty active, and way better than largemouths Otherwise, get jiggy on deep structure.

Topwater's been hot around this area too in most of the ponds I fish (Connecticut). Been killin' 'em on frogs buzzed on the surface. Jig bite hasn't been too hot, but soon I will probably be using jigs almost exclusively, especially after this little front.

If you're gonna be texas/carolina rigging your plastics I would not spray the scent in the bag. It makes the worm/misc plastic slide off the hook very easily so you'll be fixing the rig all day. Rig it up and spray the bait afterwards. If you're worried about the scent wearing off, don't. Just because you can't smell it doesn't mean the fish can't. The main purpose of scent is to make the fish hold on once he has it, not necessarily to attract the fish to the bait (although this may happen sometimes).

Any of you guys shore fish at Boston Lot Lake near Hanover? I love that place - heading up this weekend from CT for my fraternity reunion weekend, and I always hit this place up. TONS of smallish smallies.

I also keep all my jigs bunched together, organized more or less by color and type, and for me this works fine. As for your rust situation - I reserve a 3700 labeled "used" for all the wet lures I've used during the day, and when I get home after a day of fishing I'll lay them all out on a towel and let them dry before I put them back in with the rest of the lures, and I haven't had any problems with rust.

Burley - nice. That's the same tackle bag I use for my hard baits. The thing is awesome. I rarely take the whole thing with me, but for me, it's a great base of operation. Instead of writing directly on the box though I put strips of athletic tape labeled with sharpies - this way when I get in the mood to improve the system, I can easily switch labels. I usually just take a backpack with me either with a couple of the 3700 boxes and a bunch of plastics, or I'll hand pick a bunch of lures and put them into much smaller boxes to fit in the backpack. For my plastics I use little ziplocks (or sometimes the original packaging) inside of bigger ziplocks, then label the big ziplocks: senkos, kreatures, curly tail worms, tubes/grubs, frogs, etc. Then with that pile of big ziplocks, I dump them all into an older, smaller soft bag than that Cabelas one from which I've emptied the hard plastic boxes. This way I can put my scents, rigging tools, spare pliers, dyes and markers in the outside pouches. It's funny - when I started to get into bass fishing hardcore about 2 years ago, I started with a hard drawer-type tackle box that had all my lures in it. About two weeks later, I graduated to a soft box with 8 3600-ish boxes, and a couple of months later, I graduated to the huge Cabelas one that has 12 3700s that also held my plastics. Now, I've moved all the plastics away from the hardbaits to make room, and my plastics sack is full to the brim. I think I have some issues. Word of advice: don't get a tackle box that is way too big for all of your tackle because then you feel a very strong urge to fill it.

Get some in-line spinners too. They're great in rivers and will catch anything that's there.