warmer

come to think of it, my toads roll on their back sometimes when they crank them hard to the boat.... so slow them down and you might kill 2 birds w/ one stone.

the spinning reels are great the baitcasters are trash

bring it!

it doesnt matter which side is up as long as it isnt rolling.

to each his own my friend... (from experience) i cant help thinking im fishing thicker stuff, because any exposed hook, no matter what cute little hook keeper groove you hide it in, gets hung. here is how im rigging mine, i find with the straight shank it shoots through the plastic, and i dont have any problem with bent hooks... now broken rods thats another thing entirely. 1/64 screw in weight 6/0 gamikatsu (out of print), and butt hooked. word

i never fish an exposed hook, so im not inclined to agree w/ this theory. did you ever feel the fish when you set the hook? what kind of rod are you using? line? it is possible that your rig isnt heavy duty enough. if you have a soft rod in heavy cover and line w/ stretch you may not be able to hit them well. the gar theory is mildly appealing to me. do you have lots of gar? are the fish "waking" on the bait, or just blowing it up. if you can do it (its not easy as a new toad user), this is what i do when they seem to be short striking, go into wormin' mode when they strike: drop the rod, give them line, feel them up, and then hit them.

thanks all! okay matt, i ordered 3 of your lmb swimbaits from the sight to get the price break. i caught the other big ones on a crank and 10" worm. it is nice to have something to drag by them that they dont ever see down here. btw, sundays results: 1 8lber 3 6lbs+, 2 5lb class, and several 4lbers. deep clear lake + low water + untouched brush piles + good moon phase + cool afternoon rains = oh my!

i had to clean out 5 coughed up crawdads in my live well from the fish i caught on my gambler flappy daddy's,

im in central florida, and fishing a dishpan clear lake. typically, i hate swimbaits, but i caught 2 9lbers 2 8's and a six on saturday. and one of the big ones i caught on the matt lures baby bass swimbait then i got hung on a 20ft deep tree. is there a better alternative for a baby bass swimbait? better = more economical and equivilant performance.

you have to read the ridiculous article on espn that is called "gps pirates." i posted a comment in response: what this article gives a slight headnod to is the reality that the gate swings both ways. however the article doesnt go far enough, and is out of balance. pros often underestimate local knowledge and therefore assume that locals "stumble" into their super secret spots. i know first hand of a pig-headed comment from a pro from the elite series toho tournament last year. my friend was in "housboat cove" pre-fishing for a local tournament, saw the pro and backed out out of deference, and the pro was quoted as saying the local "stumbled" on the area. decidedly not the case. in fact, last weeks comments from jeremy starks about the local who was fishing his area strike me as condescending and disingenuous. i dont doubt that these pros are being "bent rod pattern(ed)", but not any more than many of these pros fish a bent rod pattern through local information and fisherman. there are some fools out there running around scalping off of the "pros," but this gate swings both ways.

5lbs 3ozs. she wasnt a rail, but didnt have a bellyfull yet. it was a strange night, lake alfred has so many 13" fish that you usally have to filter through a lot of shorts, but we caught 10 keepers and not one was shorter than 15".

polk county, florida our thursday night tournament lucky streak has continued. in the last 4 we have fished, we have two firsts and a 2nd. not bad for a field of 30 boats. the fish were shallow 2-3 ft in 87 degree water. the tournaments are a lot of fun. they run from 6-9:30 on thursdays out of eagle lake, lake alfred, south chain winter haven, and lake arianna. $22 a boat, and 100% payout. heres a photo of my partner w/ 2 good ones from last night. a couple more @ his blog. http://fladuckdays.blogspot.com

im fairly certain this is a rhetorical question. weve all run into that kind of dnr agent.

consider this: tackle companies work on margins they need dollars. they dont need to give away tackle to every tom, dick, and harry that asks. instead of lining up on the side of the aisle with the 6 million other people begging for "sponsorship", why dont you call up the companies you love and offer up tweaks for their baits? tell them what you do to modify them, etc. if they like your ideas, im betting you will be testing their tackle in no time, for free. now you are on their side of the table and "pro staff" unofficially, but without any "what have you done for me lately?" business. from there it can evolve based on the value you bring. just a thought.

oh, no way, then you cant get that beautiful foreshortening effect that is necessary to take a nice fish to a gigantic fish!

as impressive as the fish are. how about that vacation time! nice fish

roadwarrior, the worst part @ kissimmee is that while the drought is real, the water levels have stayed up and the spawns seem to have been successful. im well aware that the fishing changes in the summer. when i compare, summer to summer, spring to spring, fall to fall... that is where im seeing the falloff.

your mis-impression of my information. george, you responded to my post with a shotgun blast of numbers to discredit my impression of the fishing in florida. granted my experience on these lakes is limited to a few in polk county, kissimmee chain, and harris chain, but what i am experiencing is not a result of a lack of understanding of summer patterns. e.g. the pros at the recent tournament on wheeler were shocked at "how far the lake has come". a lake producing significantly better numbers and size is evidence of a turn around. for the better part of this year, if you had a stringer above about 12lbs in kissimmee you were headed to the weigh in because you had a chance to be in the money. the same last year. i can remember a time in the not to distant past that if i didnt have better than 15lbs there was no point in going to the weigh in. as i said in my post above. you clearly believe it is an issue of USER ERROR. you are certainly as entitled to your opinion, as i am entitled to believe you are out to lunch.

roadwarrior, im sure it must seem that we are all such ungrateful novices around here in response to the mr. george welcome's input, but i assure you its not the case. in fact, i think perhaps mr. george welcome isnt giving us quite the credit we deserve. my question had nothing to do with how to find fish in the summer, it had to do with lake cycles (i have adjusted for summer fishing in kissimmee - shell bars brush piles, breaks, outside lines). the last two years summer fishing has been tougher than summers in the past (yes, a few people at a large tournament are going to bang out a good stringer, but a lot of quality fisherman are struggling more than in the past.) i think what george is telling me is apples to oranges, and maybe my tough florida fishing was too broad. i dont care so much about the fishing in stick marsh. and i dont doubt that shiner guides drifting above hydrilla in toho are still able to catch a reasonable ammount of fish. in fact, toho on the outside is still good w/ artificials, but what about kissimmee. why the funk? george says: USER ERROR i say: DOWN CYCLE oh well, maybe i should just go hire a guide.

i prefer dark frogs

i think it is more of a budget question. of course you could use the one that is factory till you get bit, so you know they are eating, and then switch up to the other just to see if it will still produce.

was that an advertisement? lol

okay okay, so not all fishing in florida is tough now. lake kissimmee itself has been tough on me. even shell bars outside lines and brush piles were stingy on sunday.... there has been a day here and there yes, where they have been eating, and every tournament will have a few people that catch them. but its the surprising amount of avid fisherman on the kissimmee chain, that know fish, and know water, and know patterns that cant put a limit together that shocks me... my memory is that it has not long been this way.

What do you guys think the factors might be that have led to tough fishing in much of Florida for the past couple of years. I went to a tournament yesterday, and couldnt get a limit of keepers. I am officially hanging up the "the fish havent turned on yet" phrase. if anyone wants it for their own, im selling it cheap. responses have generally been one of 3 things. LOW WATER? The standard response that I give and hear is LOW WATER, but on the Kissimmee chain the water has maintained reasonable levels throughout. A little low perhaps, but nothing shocking. PRESSURE? Another standard answer is pressure, but I'm not satisfied by this either. I do see a lot of boats on the kissimmee chain on a weekend (and low water in other places has only increased the amount of traffic), but 200 boat tournaments get lost on this much water. I never feel like i have to fish crowded. Beside that, i have fished local lakes with boat on boat on boat and everyone catches fish. PH AND O2 CONTENT? uh... maybe... but im wondering if its more than that... if it could be... Natural Cycles? Im wondering if fish/lakes have off years as a part of a naturally occurring cycles. it seems to me that this is a reasonable explanation. Maybe there was a bad hatch for a few years of bass or forage fish. Maybe the weather screwed up a couple of spawns (hurricanes), so all of a sudden the majority of a spawn class might not be available in the population. what if a lake had too many shell-crackers and they made it hard on the bass population because of eating eggs? what if their were a few years where the forage fish were minimal in population? It just seems to me that this is a more likely explanation for such a significant and sustained downphase of fishing. Would be interested in input.

why are you switching? if you must use braid, anything under 30lb and i have had hastles w/ professional overuns. and power pro is my brand of choice, but only when i have to use braid, and that is only in heavy cover flipping and throwing toad. other than that, and 12lb trilene big game unless i want the bait down and then its fluorocarbon of the vanish flavor.