lknbassman

Definately some truth to that. I fish Senko's a LOT and have guys come to me and say "those sure were hot some years ago" as I'm on my way to the scales with a nice bag of fish.... I'm thinking to myself, "were hot"??? Fish have brains the size of a pea, yes they can get conditioned to lures for sure but if one comes in style and it's hot, don't ditch it for good, maybe for a season or two at the most but realize they are not smart, they are however great survivors. They don't have the ability to reason and make rational decisions. If it looks like food, smells like food, and happens to be in the right place at the right time, it's getting eaten. This is particularly true in a schooling fish environment where they are competing for food. Ever catch 2 on one crank bait? That's my point, reason goes out the window, it's time to eat!!! See the jitterbug, hula popper, original spinner bait, Manns straight tail worm, Culprit purple ribbon tail worm. All classics and all still producing giant fish regularly. I'm all for showing them something new too, heck I like buying new stuff and finding a reason to go over to BPS for an afternoon. I rarely come home with nothing ;D

Which thread are you looking at????

I wish I could be so lucky, I'm still drawing partners most of who can't fish much less go fishing for a day without losing half of thier stuff in the lake as the 250 Pro XS moves us on down the lake and blows all of thier stuff out of the boat. Yes the 21' Triton has a TON of storage, why they choose to sit on thier stuff or try to hold it between the legs or under thier arms when I'm running 75 down the lake is beyond me. I wish my guys would kick my butt, heck we might win something...... I just get the lucky draws for co angler I guess. Ain't it great?

Z Train if you are seeing this, call me dude we'll party like a couple of Pete Maina hair doo'd red eyed smallies in the Detroit 'ROCK CITY" River. 80's hair bands blazing in the tow vehicle, cell phones at the ready for the guys to call us on if they get on some fish, and whole afternoon of Peek A Boo with Mr. L MO. We'll throw some floating worms and bring sexy back like the old school sessions down on Lake Murray.

Stick with the leader in the space. Lowrance. The X Series plotters are out of sight quality wise but come with a pretty hefty price tag too.

Not real likely that's what you are seeing although the depth can be at that level for certain. The lakes are still stratified (mixed at all levels) as the hot and cold air have not done thier thing yet which creates an oxygen rich level in the water that happens to show up on some electronics. See if you have anything depth related signal wise turned on or that might have been set at the factory. That may be what you are seeing. Thermocline this early with air and water temps as close as you are seeing is unlikely.

If you've got the cash, right now. The boat shows are pretty much over, sales are at thier worst in years and gas prices are through the roof and climbing. If you want a new boat, dollar for dollar this is about as good as it will get if you can find one that fits your budget.

Yup, if structure fishing is your deal. Iovino is your guy. Look his DVD up and buy it. Good stuff!!

Yup, super expensive and totally electric with remote control, etc. but worth the cash? Not unless you get your gas for free or just have more cash than you know what to do with. These are big with the salt water guys who flats fish as that's mostly sight fishing. You can do the same thing with the pvc pipe and a good bungee cord hooked to one of your cleats. If it's windy, use 2 and drop $40 worst case...... They work.

Absolutely it's affecting it. I live on Lake Norman in NC and it's a pretty big reservoir. Fishing it effectively requires patterning fish and finding them just like anywhere else and riding around costs money as of late, lots of it. I dropped $150 to fill up my TR21X HP just last week and I'm only driving a short distance to the boat ramp as I keep the bass boat on a trailer and the other boat on a lift just so I don't have to pay for gas on the lake. It's close to $5!!!!!!! This is ridiculous and is way past getting out of hand. So much for an election year helping out with the economy........

Yes sir, they are ORNRY and will pull to the end just to say the least. Pound for pound the hardest fighting fish in freshwater I've come up against. I hear smallies will put it to you as well but I have not ever caught one so I don't know. I hope to do just that this Summer in the mountain lakes of Western NC so I can compare. Nice fish, congrats!

Good work. Congrats on a great fish. That'd be a great fish by anyone's standards. Lot to be proud of there, that's for sure.

Not much else to say other than good work and nice job putting that fish back promptly. Keep an eye on the sky in the Summer, lightning is no joke.

Good work Paul. Fast thinking on the bluegill and even more kudos for a clean release. What a thrill that must have been. Great to see someone catching big fish and doing all of the responsible stuff the right way vs what just happened down on Falcon Lake which resulted in a huge fish kill that took place after the last BASS event. Nice job!

Congrats! Senkos are an awesome bait. Often times thought of as popular some years ago. I figure it this way, those fish that saw it a few years ago liked it then so why wouldn't the fish I'm throwing to like it now? If it's the same fish, is its memory really that good? Mine's not...... Nice job on your catch.

Well, you might beat that train through the crossing, too... Hillarious!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D

SLOW it way down. The bigger ones don't seem to chase like the littler younger fish do so we often need to be more methodical in our approach to catching them once we've located a spot that we believe holds that big fish. They got big for a reason and it wasn't biting something that did not look natural to them most likely. I fish deeper and in the tightest nastiest cover that I can find outside of the spawn season. That's when the bigger bites seem to come for me. Doug Hannon does a nice job with underwater photography to show this on his web site. He shows the underside of cypress trees with a pile of 2-3 pounders but when you look way back in there you'll see the giants backed way up in the hardest to get to spots. It's not by accident that they are way up in there. Fish the most difficult looking spots cover wise and up your chances. And fish slowly for big momma.

Feed them something that looks like what they eat. Natural colors and sizes usually outfish big crazy looking baits on average. You entered for a reason and I'd bet it was not because you wanted to throw your money away. Use the skills that gave you the confidence to enter in the first place and SLOW down. Tournament fishing makes us all speed up and sometimes abandon our game plans. That's when we do our worst. The fish are the same tomorrow as they were last week tournament or no tournament. Fish that thing like you are fishing any other day and do your best to pattern them based on what's going on with your lake. Make a game plan and stick to it, audibles in bass fishing rarely work. Good luck

On water scales in different parts of the lake sounds like a great idea and seems easy enough to do with a final adding up of the weights at the launch site. Takes the drama out of a big bag coming to the scales but preserves the resource and it'd be kind of like a lotto drawing drama wise anyway with the weights being called out. Could be fun??? C rigging, I don't even know where to begin with this one. It may be a technique thing or a big bass thing since they don't usually hit a bait as hard as smaller fish do and instead inhale them which can lead to deep hooking for certain. It happens to me with wacky rigged senkos now and again too. When it does I use long hook cutters to cut the barb off and slide the shank back out with long nosed needle nose pliers without injuring the fish as best I can when that happens and have had success with it from what I can tell as the fish seem lively and not really banged up from the process. Don't know what else to do??? Hot water in livewells does the most damage I'd suspect which is why the on water scales seems to make alot of sense to me.

Glad he's off your case now. Can't go wrong downsizing and slowing it way down when the bite is tough. Good work and congrats on hanging in there and grinding it out.

That's a great way to get 2008 off and running. Keep it up. Congrats!!!

Ouch! I keep a pair of hook cutters to help me get embedded hooks out of a fish's throat if he's taken one deep (happens on wacky rigs a lot for some reason) where I'll cut the barb end off and then remove the shank. Yeah you lose the hook but save the fish usually. If that thing went straight in then there's no tool minus a general surgeon that's going to help you as you just found out. Bummer for sure. I had a short one Saturday with a guy who my wife calls my "charity case". He's a less than fortunate man in his 50's whose been down on his luck more than not. I've kind of taken a liking to him and try to share some of the things I've been blessed with with the less fortunate and this guys been around for a few years now. He came down this weekend and stayed with us at our home on Lake Norman in NC and I took him fishing in my bass boat... Usually he comes down and fishes from my dock and does OK but he wanted to ride in the Triton 21X HP w/the 250 Pro XS and see how the tournament anglers go about it so I obliged. Now this guy is not the model of health, he's half blind, got stomach problems, heart problems, prostate problems, this problem, that problem, and about any other problem you've heard about or thought of (at least if you ask him on the right day anyway). I think most of it is in his head but he's usually dying of something that could kill him at any moment until he forgets about it and comes down with the next major illness. Been that way for the past several years and he's not dead yet. So we load up the boat, get to the water and getting a hand launching is out of the question so I put him in the boat and have him sit tight while I launch, tie up, park the truck, etc. I keep the pontoon in the lake and the bass boat on the trailer for mobility purposes. Should have stuck with the pontoon and cut bait for white perch that day.... We take off and the wind kicks up, clouds come in, and before we are at our first spot he wants to go back. He's gotta pee.... Guess we went too fast, it looked like rain, he got nervous, etc and back we went. I tied up, let him out, he hit the latrine at the ramp and then stood around wondering if he wanted to fish anymore... I convinced him to get it (I wanted to fish, it's my Saturday too...) so we go back out and start fishing. I boat 5 in an hour, he's zeroing so I focus on helping him catch fish and stop fishing. While doing that the rain comes in so he's panicing. I put my goretex on him and troll over to a covered dock, let him out to stay dry and I fish for the next 20 minutes in a deluge with a T shirt on and shorts.... I'm happy right? Yeah..... Sun comes out, he gets back in, we keep fishing, he can't do anything right and wants to leave so we quit and go in. This all happens in about an hour and a half which is about as short of day fishing as I've ever had. There is good news for him, not so much for me. Sunday AM I take him down on the dock, rig up a jig and craw for him and am teaching him how to flip and pitch back up under the fixed pier from the floating section. He catches a nice 2 pounder and all is well with him. I land 7 on a weightless fluke and jig duo. I miss the whole weekend on my boat and now it's back to work for another week with little chance of fishing other than from my dock which I know is a great thing to have. It's a noble thing to try and do but it can be hard so patience is the rule of the day. At least he did not hang a treble hook in my head or any other part of mine. I only let him throw TX rigged soft plastics or shakey heads as he catches fish on them usually and he won't bury a hook in my noggin with one of his wild casts. If this made you laugh or smile then I did my part. I was frustrated about it yesterday when he left but realize now that we're really blessed and not to forget it. He'll be back this summer providing he doesn't die from bird flu, cell phone radiation to the head, chinese toxins that have been released into the air and floated all of the way to Asheville, NC and landed directly on him, prostate disease, acid reflux, or unevenly sized feet.... When he does come back down, I'll take a dose of patience as well as a stiff drink or four and we'll try it again....

Looks like a spot to me. BaitMS called it however. If you want to really know, look for a patch of teeth on its tounge or where it's jawline ends. Those are the only real ways to know as they can look a lot alike color wise to any of us . Some have more pronounced rows of spots that make them easier to ID but this one is so big (awesome fish by the way) that I'd think LM too just based on size alone. Confirm by looking at and in its mouth. Jawline and teeth on the tounge. So tell us, what was it?

Yup, it's called a Carolina Jig and it's been around these parts for a while now. We'll tie anything on to a leader behind an egg weight and drag it around covering water searching for a bite. A jig made it on to the line a few years back and the smaller ones with the wider flanges (the kind you'd skip under docks etc) ride a little higher in the water column on a steady retrieve and do pretty good. Good for fishing points and up and down over humps and other structure with. Good deep water technique. Bassmaster did an article on it recently as mentioned with one of the elite series pros.

Rarely, if it's slack water (side or down stream below a dam) then it may hold fish. If it's got current on a regular basis, LM and Spots generally won't hang out there. Smallies are a different ball game so it's species dependant. Also, if it's slack water and the bottom is right, it could be a spawning area or a staging area for pre and post spawn bass. It all depends on what that riverine section is and what the water there does normally. If it's moving, shallow, offers little to no cover then skip it and go fish the larger body of water. Bass are lazy and don't like to work for thier food. If it's slack water, has cover, depth changes, then it may hold fish so check depth, color, bottom makeup, and lastly current. That will tell you more and provide you with a game plan on how to approach it.