tyrius.

What about weed growth? Or is the blue dye a result of chemicals used to kill the weeds? My favorite baits for ponds are soft plastics. Power worms, trick sticks (senkos), tubes, fat ikas, beavers, etc. Fish them slow and on the bottom with as little weight as you can get away with (as small a weight as you can cast). If the pond has any hard bottom areas then try a jig.

One other thing to think about is that bass are not always feeding. These bass may just be soaking up the sun in the shallows and relatively inactive. Catching these "sunning" bass is exceedingly difficult. Now if you see them feeding in the shallows then you're in luck. I had just such an experience this weekend. I was fishing a small pond and could see nice sized bass cruising the shallows. Every once in a while the bass would smash some bluegill, I would actually see the bluegill come out of the water at the waters edge. I caught a few of them by pitching a jig or soft plastic past them and then slowly dragging it in. The bass would actually swim towards where my lure hit the water (this let me know that they were active and hungry). Then they would check it out for a second before sucking it up. Great fun.

No, but without more detailed info it will be difficult to help you out. What's the primary cover/structure of the pond? How deep is it? What's the bottom composition? What do you consider "everything in the tacklebox"? Is the pond heavily fished? Etc, etc.

No secret, just lucky enough to work with someone who has a house on the lake. Now I just need to convince him to take me more often! Since you're from Peoria you may know it. It's Lake Wee Ma Tuk out by Cuba.

Im guilty of this as well. Though lately, I've been bringing only a couple of specific baits with me. For example, Ill grab only plastic rigs and spinnerbait rigs for an outing. Ill focus on getting better with those. Plus the lack of options makes me focus on fishing rather than second guessing my choice of lure. Im certaintly guilty of overthinking on more than one occassion. My new mission for my time on that water is to make things as simple as possible. The trip is only a waste if you didn't learn something during the trip. Before tieing on a different lure you need to think about why that new lure would be better given the situation that you are currently faced with. If you can't think of a reason why lure B would be better than lure A then why change? And to clark, if you caught a fish on the rip rap, then you should've tossed that jig and craw on the rip rap and pretended that the brush didn't exist. You knew at least one aggressive fish was on the rip rap so you should've stayed there and fished the area (at least for a while) trying both fast and slow moving baits. I don't fish tourneys so I can't help you there, but I do know that a large number of anglers fish entirely too fast. That includes retrieve speed as well as leaving prime spots without fishing them completely.

First off a craw pattern spinnerbait isn't mimicking a craw, in fact a spinnerbait doesn't really mimic anything. If you want to make a change based upon the fact that the bass had a craw in its mouth then switch to a jig or a soft plastic and fish it on the bottom. Secondly, if the spinnerbait worked and there is cover/structure large enough to support multiple fish then keep throwing that spinnerbait in that location. If you caught the fish on a small stump or something and there are more in the area then try the spinnerbait there. If you don't get a bite then flip a jig or soft plastic in there and see if you get bit. If you find more fish hanging around these stumps then you may be able to use that pattern (same depth, same cover) in multiple areas. In essence, the first fish could've been telling you a couple of things 1) the white spinnerbait is going to work well today, 2) the location that you were fishing was ideal but you could do even better with a different bait, 3) you just got lucky! Until you thoroughly explore each of the three possibilities you won't know for sure which one it is. My disclaimer is that the above is assuming that my approach to the beginning of the day was to throw a white spinnerbait around the area that you caught your fish. A LOT of decisions are made before I even take my rods out of the car to begin fishing.

As JFrancho said, a meaningless poll. I also misread your post. Forget I even said anything! Trilene XL, XT, or Big Game for me.

It would be interesting to see, but I doubt that they would win.

The avid is highly regarded on this forum. One suggestion on BPS rods/reels, NEVER pay full price for them. They will go on sale multiple times throughout the year for significantly less than their normal retail price.

You get what you pay for. The Bionic Blade is not one of BPS's higher level rods. So one should expect it to perform accordingly. I fish with the Extremes and find them to be adequate. I'd like to have better rods, but my fishing budget is rather small so I make do with what I have and keep saving for upgraded equipment.

Went on a fishing trip at a co-workers lake house (old stip mine lake) in kind of close to Peoria, IL the weekend of 8/22. Friday night didn't have much luck, Saturday early morning was the same. We then tried finesse jigs and caught fish around 5.5 pounds, 4.5 pounds, and 3 pounds in a short period of time. I lost another that was likely 4.5 pounds (jumped at the boat and spit the jig). Wasn't real happy about that!!! Later on that afternoon I got another one around 5 pounds and later that night a co worker caught another just over 3 pounds. We caught the 5.5, 4.5 and lost the other 4.5 along a bank with railroad ties as a retaining wall and a rock bottom. The 5 and the 3 came from fishing scattered weeds and rocks near the dam. We were dragging the jigs along the bottom. Regular jigs, senkos, cranks, beaver craws, etc got me nothing on Saturday, but the finesse jigs proved to be the ticket. We didn't catch a ton of fish (had some other smaller ones not worth mentioning), but I'll take that size any day of the week!!! Pics are the bottom four http://www.siebertoutdoors.com/index.php/trophy-fish Thanks to GMAN for the jigs!!!

Gman's jigs won't ever fall apart on you. You'll literally have to tear the strands apart to get the skirt to fall apart. No rattles, and no real reason why I don't fish them. The main reason is probably because GMAN's jigs don't come with them. I fish 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 oz jigs in basically the same depths you're fishing. I always use a trailer. It's almost always going to be a Rage Tail product or a Netbait product too.

What you're not getting is that this lure is BRAND NEW!!! Not many people have even had an opportunity to fish it. Matt's other baits are great (soft gills, hard gills, soft baby bass, etc), therefore one can expect that this new bait will perform as well as all of Matt's other baits. Many of the people posting on this thread have likely already ordered one and will fish it as soon as they get it.

Sorry man, but the Yo Zuri and P Line are far from 2 of the most popular lines in use. Regular nylon monos in all of their varieties are much more popular. Trilene XT, XL, Big Game, Stren. Power Pro, Sufix, Fireline, and Spiderwire braids are also probably more popular than these. Yo Zuri isn't even widely sold in retail stores. I'm not saying that the lines are bad (haven't used them), but they are most certainly not the most popular lines in use.

It's equally annoying to hear this refrain all the time. People who don't buy a Loomis and don't like them as much aren't necessarily judging anyone. They're simply expressing their opinion the same as you are.

I wouldn't walk down to the corner if the bunny ranch delivered to my doorstep! 60 miles of driving each way means that you paid a lot more in gas than *** would've charged in shipping fees.

Fill it up! You may have less RPM's, but you'll have more line coming off per revolution. Also, since there is more mass, once you get it spinning the spool will continue to spin for a longer period of time. By the way, he's talking about baitcasters. The spool on my spinning reels don't have any RPM's.

Sounds like a money loser to me!! Buy something for retail price and 20-30 years later you have something worth maybe half of what you paide for it. Doesn't sound like an investment that I want to make!!!

I would agree, but since the barb doesn't protrude further than the hook eye, I don't see it being an issue.

You do realize that the actual breaking point of this stuff is much higher than the rated strength don't you? You can probably fish 10lb YZ or PLine and have a higher breaking strength than the 12 lb mono that you're using.

Stuck on the Tarmac at ohare and am REALLY gla I have an iPhone. Chacking br makes the half hour (so far) delay much more bearable!!!

Should've gotten an Iphone. ;D Then you could view BR with no issues!!

Yep. Growing up I fished a 5'6" pistol grip rod (Ugly stick) and I stuck fish with it. I fished a 6' 2 piece ML spinning rod (Ugly stick too) and used frogs and such over moss and stuck fish with it too. For some reason bass anglers think a monster hookset is required. It really isn't. It doesn't take all of your strength to force a hook through a bass's mouth. A specialized rod (Heavy action/fast tip) isn't required either. It helps, but it isn't a requirement. Just this weekend I was out fishing a strip pit with some co workers and one was fishing a jig with a 20 year old fiberglass rod (that thing had all the backbone of cooked spaghetti). He stuck a 5 1/2 pounder on a finesse jig with no issues. Another one was fishing an ultralight setup with 4 lb line and caught a fish just over 4 lbs on a t-rigged 5" senko.

A fraternity brother of mine would eat them uncooked!!! He'd sprinkle a bit of the seasoning on a corner of it and munch away. Needless to say he was one of the crazier guys in the fraternity!

I do that too, but it's better to stop people from littering in the first place.