Nick

I am a little late, but save Mark Twain for April. Dark waters there and often high spring levels combine to make the lake a muddy, unproductive mess until the water temps hit 55. Check with the 7/24 website for tourney results in March and April before venturing down. Petrol is just too expensive to burn for nuttin. This lake is often at its best from Mid May until July 1.

I have, but it's not home for me. If you like smallies, fish the tributaries and the Mississippi itself if possible. Excellent smallie fishing. Also, you can get a Metro fishing guide free from the Minnesota DNR which lists about a jillion small lakes to fish around the Metro area. Check the fishing Minnesota website also for more info.

Marty, Glad to see you're still cranking them out. I'm determined to win a big tourney on one of your baits this year, but Norfork Stren wasn't the one, obviously. Better das are ahead. Keep on whittling! Nick

Grand is a great warm water lake. When the water temps are 55 or over it is very good. There are some big boats esp. on summer weekends, but the lake is very good for bass and white bass fishing. Most of the time it is necessary to only fish the upper 15 feet of water, and do hit the numerous docks in summer as they are often the key anyhwere in the lake. Every weekend in warm weather has tournaments so watch what those guys are doing. The bass usually spawn in April and by early May they begin to stage on the points esp, if water is running through the reservoir. The shade of docks is key for red shad worms and jigs. Use at least 17 pound line around the docks' gnarly brush piles. About one in ten docks will consistently hold bass, so it's a trial and error sort of thing. Depth of the dock and position of dock i,e, point, main lake, cove, etc. kis also a factor. -Spinnerbaits along windy shores in warm water can be great in warmer waters, as can shallow and deep cranks. Lots of guys fish the willows when the water is hig enough to allow it, but shallow Texas and C-rigs along the rocky banks, and drop offs can be good too. Grand is a very fertile lake with dark enough waters to allow most folks good angling opportunities.

You ought to hear Guido and Dion as they "hold court" outside at the meetings for any of the FLW's they enter. What a hoot! And if you ever get a chance to fish the Highway 5 tournament at Lake of the Ozarks in October, Guido is the emcee. You just wouldn't believe the good natured, but rankerous comments that fella gives. I think the crowd just comes to hear him.

Countdowns work, but since they hang up so much, they are hard to use around cover. That suspended bait is the deal in colder water, better than a sinking minnow most of the time. You can psuse it over tree tops, then b-l-u--e-e, fish on!

Most topwater success regardless of the lure used is simply getting it in the right place at the right time. Notorious good times for topwater are the 1st and last hours of the daylight. A slight ripple helps but don't rely on them in whitecapping situations. If you can cast very accurately, that's a plus, and the last ingredient needed is confidence. Give me a shad colored pop R and I could catch you some fish nearly any day provided the water was over 60 degrees, but give me a bubble gum colored one and I would have no confidence in it, and probably wouldn't get a bite, even though the bass may not care what color I use. The really great anglers do have chicken feather tricks, and walking eh dog tricks, and thea are able to adjust the style of retiieve according to the basses desires, but one doen't have to be that good with the bait to get bit. Just execute some decent casts, give the lure a few small pops to bring out a ring of water around the lure in places the bass are looking to eat, and you'll get you some strikes.

Yep, One more thing, When bass tear up the top half, use the bottom half for a great jig or spinnerbait trailer to get more out of them. I usually leave the wings on for a jig trailer, but pulll them off for the spinnerbait trailer.

The wind spiiner bait approach should help. In all my pond fishing years, most of the big bass haunts are the shorelines with cover especially those with deeper water nearby. Rip Rap on pond dams are hard to beat. If the wind is blowing in that's a plus. Use those lipless cranks and spinnerbaits as suggested. Since most ponds around here are just bowl shaped with nothing to hold bass away from shore, it's easy pickings, but don't know about your situation. Now, if you do have a good pop. of frogs, use those plastic frog baits while they are active. If you can twich a plastic frog across grass bead or mats or near brush, you might catch some big bass. Use a cheapie water temp guage to judge how fast you can fish. When the water temps are above 55, I wouldn't worry about speeds of retrioeve, but below 50 esp. slow down every presentation.

I'm nor an official for Rapala but I think you have the jist of those mysterious depths. Based on lenght of cast and line diameter, you'll get some differences. For normal casting, I would use the shallow end of the schale also. FOr sluggish fish that extra 2 feet of depth achieved with a suspending bait can be very critical. In clear water situations where the bass are often hold at twice the depth of the bait, that extra depth gives one quite an advantag. I almost always perfer to ude a dd 78 instead of a regular 78 pointer becaue the dd runs 2-3 feet deeper yet still retains it's quick sided to side action. Often fish are made sluggish as a product of the water temps. When the temps get into the low 40's and below, I go estra slow with my lure movements often pausing 5-10 sec between tiny twitchs. Just my thoughts.

A serious bad bait was the Vampire spinnerbait made by Mann's. That was a real crock! They also made a spinnebait with a jointed spoon for a blade. Durndest thing ever. Of course, Roland Martin's helicopter. And Berkley once made a leather porkfrog that was toughter than the siding on my house. This was about 20 years ago. LOL y'all.

Road Warrior, I cut back a little this year. I'm fishing (poorly) the Central Stren Series and a few charity tournaments and the Charger Tournament. I'm not writing or fishing Heartland this year.

I have fished it the last 3 years. I usually have one decent day and one clunker day. I am very frustrated by my performance. The field has shrunk a bit down to about 300 boats, and they don't let them off 50 at a time. Actually the take-off is a joke because once you get boat checked, no one really watches closely to see if the correct boats are actually going out when called. I hae planted lots of brush the last two years only to have some bad luck getting good fish in the boat. Last year they wouldn't use my stuff in 10-12 ft. of water so my 40 new piles didn't hold a single fish. You just never know up there what will happen in mid September. The best thing for me is that I have another tournament scheduled that weekend so I can save face this year. Good luck.

Having had quite a bit of tournament experience from local to national events, I have seen a fair amount of cheating at all levels. In fact, I'm very hesitant to fish buddy and esp. nighttime buddy events. Althogh only 1% of the entrants may do it, that cheater can completely wreck a circuit. Paul Tormanen did just that in 2005 Heartland Series in Missouri. He wasn't caught until he was nabbed at a BASS event in Louisiana after he had fleeced Heartland for over $70,000 that same year. His technique was so well planned out that he was able to catch keepers in Pro-Am events that even his co-angler was unaware that these bass were tethered on trotline. Since I've seen cheating on all levels; it's quite insidious, harmful to the sport, and has made me more suspicious through the years. A few rotten apples can certainly ruin a great competition.

Top notch work. Now go catch a bunch of largies on them!

Yes. you must get some local knowledge on smallies. With all you've done, I would conclude that this is a marginal fishery (unless you can prove it otherwise.) Have any tournaments fished that area? If so, check out the results. Otherwise, find a different place to fish for smallmouth.

Ika's cost lots more than they are worth. A green or brown tube will do just as well. If you want the best soft plastic with low water throw a superfluke. Your MN smallies will really crush it in the low waters. Been there and done that. Enjoy your new found skills, and tell the wife that chasing smallies is better than chasing skirts.

Bizzo, I drive up from Missouri about once a year to fish your great Mississippi. This year in mid June, I fished several pools in your area with Monticello being one. Of the four days we fished we had to change patterns each day to have success. The pattern for the day will depend on current flow. When the dams were releasing more than an average amount of water, we had to seek the most protected spots available. With the stained an fast moving water, behind the small islands was the most protected and we caught numerous bass from 17-21 inches that day all in about 1-3 feet of water. Three days later with just a modeate to weak flow, we had to seek out the swiftest water we could find. Shallow shaded water with a rocky bottom was the ticket that day. All fish were caught on a spinnerbait as the water was still a bit colored. On another day, we had to fisnd the protectededdies just behind the current. Those 15 to 50 foot areas really held the smallies. What's so neat about your river up there is that there are so many bass that you'll find the pattern quickly. As the summer continues to bring heat and lower water levels look for the fstest and rockiest areas to try a topwater. You'll really enjoy it. By the way, the one constant I've found on this river through the years is the bite from early morning to 11:00 is far superior to the bite after 11:00. I'm too danged tired to fish late evening, so I don't know how that bite is. A good day on most of the pools that I've fished is about 30 bass between 14 to 18 inches. It's really heaven!

Hard to tell what you are doing for this dismal ratio of hook ups provided these fish are decent sized. I tend to agree with those who believe a topwater with treble hoks should be fished on mono. I'd go with 8 or 10 lb. P Line CXX in a heartbeat. Wait a count longer than you have been to set the hook. I've fished with several guys who are setting on the explosion and not the feel of the bass actually taking the bait in. You'd be surprised how much more successful you'll get by waiting a count longer. I would also go with a 6-7 ft. medium to medium heavy rod. Sometimes smallies get that killing attack going instead of the sucking in or "eating" strike. If you feel they are butting the topwater with a closed mouth, I'd change approaches like go to a fluke.

Avid, Actually, I think a cousin of mine is the financial backer(maybe creator?) of the porcupine that Dance promotes. He lives near Kentucky Lake and I acutally saw one near a dock on Ky Lake this spring. Not that my relatives are geniuses. LOL

Let us know if BPS replaces a three year old rod. I'm curious. By the way, how did it get broken?

Marty, Yep, the pine is the way to go, and I expect so see some dandies made by you with some fine wood that I hope you found in your mailbox! The cranks are being oput through some preliminary testing.

I brought one a year ago without the orange. I believe that Daiwa makes them for Dick's. The reel I purchased is just a tad heavy, but it has performed well. That orange sideplate apparentlycosts an extra $10 over last year's price. I got the regular sized model probably same as a 200 model Shimano.

That's poorly designed. I would take it up with the manufacturer. You might get some satisfaction.

I've ruined quite a few baits by heating lips. If you try this, be forewarned. Nick