warmer

yeehaw, i finished 74th on the boater side. a stellar performance i must say! if you wanted to be in the money you had to be on toho. even if i had caught all the fish that bit i would have been standing on the outside looking in.... somewhere in the 9 - 10lb range. dont be hard on yourself lee that was a rough day, and kissimmee was tough. the area i found the week before had a guaranteed 20lb bag in there and they were just plain GONE. sundays tournament for me was better but not great, we got 11.5 pounds, just hunting and pecking. one here one there. this week the bite is going to be great.

kissimmee this morning. water temps 54-57. wind from the north/northwest up around 20ish. plenty of beds to see if you just like looking at where they were. didnt fish much, mostly looked, but caught 4 in the 2lb range in shallow water with reaction baits.

haha! thanks for posting that. i was going to pile up the 5 or so that i have laying around and take a picture, but my camera has been loaned out.

i told you ill put you on some fish todd my man.

i dont know what i am doing differently. i would say that i got a bad batch of them, as i bought them together in bulk, but i have had trouble since then as well. i do not fish braid w/ my crankbaits. i keep my drag soft enough. i am not easy on cranks, but rapala is by far the most susceptible to breakage. "why do i have them in my tackle box?" muddy asks. well muddy, im glad you asked, the dt has a superb action, and runs true to depth. additionally, the casting distance that i get is superior to all other baits in the same class (although strike king has fixed this problem on its latest release). i am happy to know that they will take returns. i wonder if this is true for returned lips only? i mean, sometimes on a windy day, you just cant find the other half of the lure.

YEA RIGHT!!! yeah right? as in... you think im lying? answer this question, and then ill respond to the rest of your post.

dt4's to dt10's the lip rips out of the bait on me. dt 10's - 20's, the lip cracks and/or rips out. i broke 2 in the last 2 days. i will now commit to making a pile of all my broken and breaking rapalas and sending them back to the company in one fell swoop.

dont be dismayed hurley. dispatchers need love too.

i would be glad to lose to kim bain in the classic this year.

which of them annoy you the most? these guys all get t.v. time and you have to admit some of them are just downright annoying after awhile. 1. Dean Rojas: noone compares... here is a quote from sir arrogance that pretty much sums it up... "Even if other anglers crowd him, he's confident he'll be able to catch fish that they miss. "Nobody can cast like I can," he said." put a cork in it. 2. Aaron Martins: whine much? did you guys see him whining over velvick being "on his spot" down in texas, and then whining again over evers being "on his spot on oneida (the same spot where evers had done well the year before). ugh. 3. "Big Show" Terry Scroggins... im going out on a limb here, but i would bet he got that nickname because somebody was making fun of him.

1. bobby lane 2. edwin evers 3. mark davis

polk county's crooked lake does have some stumps... careful you dont find them the wrong way! what a lake though. lot of great cover. right now i would say get up near the bank and look look look. if i were looking for fish in that lake right now i would spend 90% of my time w/ 3 rods. worm (casting to isolated stuff and in pockets and holes in the grass), flipping (pitching in grass and around thicker cover) and toad. cast and cast and cast. youll find them. my colors would be dark black, blue, pumpkin... whatever.

mid week, mid feb, after this hard front moves through, and after weather held up the jan spawn. even still, i saw a 13+ moving in and not posting up last month... this month WILL BE a major wave. since when is feb not spawn in florida? jan, feb, march. if it is "winter" then florida bass spawn in the winter. there were a TON of big fish caught in the p.a.a. tournament on toho right smack in the middle of a big cold front. im thinking i like my chances for a 9+ in mid-feb. stay tuned... what the heck, i'd wager but something tells me we'd have to arrange the details off-site.

snookie baby, i really was throwing my post out there hoping everyone would jump on me about it... lol, but apparently they jumped on you. i actually dont dislike salt, and... i fish live in salt mostly i sold my flats boat a year ago because: 1. i didnt have the time to do both and i prefer fresh and 2. i was approaching broke as a joke. i dont fish for bass because they are the hardest fighter. by that argument you need to get offshore and hit some BIG fish. i prefer bass fishing for a plethora of reasons. HERES MY POINT as it relates to tbassfin28. he is coming to florida where we have lots of trophy bass especially as compared to his home state. and he will be here in FULL SPAWN. if he goes home and says i pulled on a 10lb jack (and yes i have caught big jack) you should see how hard they fight. it is apples to oranges. theyll say, when i went to hawaii i yanked on a monster tuna. whatever! when he goes home and says, hey man, you ever yanked a 13lber off the bed site fishing and slipped her right back in? his buddies jaw will drop. asta

Ditto. And I live in Florida. I agree with these guys... IF, you are like them and the thrill of the catch is more than the thrill of the hunt. if you like to have somebody bait your hook, if you like to have your bait do all the work casting out greenies or shrimp and letting them swim right into the fishes mouth. if you like catching trash fish (like jack). in short, if you are an impatient wuss, go saltwater fishing. the real fisherman wake up on the frost covered morning in florida in mid-feb and get out there to try to out fish the green fish. all the others say (in a very squeeky voice) "man i bet i could catch a bunch of redfish over in the bay, and if they arent biting ill go get some trout, and if they arent biting ill run over to the power plant and catch some jack, or if they arent biting ill just catch some catfish. i just want something to pull on the end of my line." saltwater guys are the guys that go home from the bar with whoever is available.

fish are food not friends.

my buddy has a shop, and he put it on there for me... thanks guys, im excited about breaking it in.

2 stories; - a friend snapped off on a fish on 16ft brush, 2 casts later i caught the fish on the same worm. it had his line hanging out of its mouth. - we had a fish in our pond we called one eyed willie, because it had one eye and 2 hooks sticking out of the back of its throat. i saw the fish no less than 3 times. even so, to my way of thinking some of them learn to greater and lesser degrees, and it is likely that the bigger ones learn better, which is why they got so big. why do i think so... - fresh new baits produce surprising results... for a short time. - fishing pressure effects catch rates.

you are kicking the wife out too? welcome.

the 225 opti should be running at 5800 rpms. sounds like a prop problem to me. i have a 21ft stratos of the heavy kind from '99 and a 225 opti on it. i ran a tempest on mine that pushed it around 72mph at 5800 rpms. one caveat, my tempest was pushing me around 64 - 65mph and then i sent it off to a guy in alabama, i can find his address for you if youd like. he's a magician. i described the problems i was having, sent it off w/ $150 and got it back 6-7mph faster.

i got a great deal on a 25p fury prop from merc, and my hole shot is dramatically improved. im shocked to find that i will likely be able to creep into my max rpm's. i thought the fury moved a lot more water, you would think that would make it harder to turn and less rpm's. so... what would indicate that a leap to a 26p is possible? when i trim it out just right it pushes it up over 5800-5900 on the way to max speed. but it doesnt thrust over, it just crawls up to those rpms. i am getting a little less on the top end than i was with my tempest 25p. i know the diameter of the fury is smaller than that of the tempest, and im guessing this is the cause. any input would be great. i run a '99 201 stratos, and a '01 225 optimax

i re-powered my boat with a newer version of the same thing i had before. a 225 optimax. went from year 2000 to 2001, but couldnt pass it up because the price was right. so i sold my motor of 300 hours thinking i had replaced it w/ a motor of about 300 hours as well. turns out... after i had the new one on the computer today, it has a grand total of 48hrs. yipee!

good decision on their part.

great research. are you taking requests on research projects? i like co-poly and or flouro on my cb's. the line sinks, which also helps me achieve greater depths esp w/ sinking cranks. my main concern w/ braid is that braid smaller than 30lb will end up flying off my real on a long cast if there is any overlap or digging in on the reel. i watched to many rattle traps fly off into the distance when the line snapped in the reel. mono is fine, i find i have to change it out more regularly than i do flouro, and i guess i know why now. if it is absorbing water and weakening that would explain it. thanks!

tough tournament. pretty good start though for some. a 13lber?! nice.