Josh Bassman

"Your first problem is you have to get them suckers wet!" LOL, Thanks Catt I'll try dipping them in the water next outting... baby steps. I will just have a force myself to use them. Maybe I won't bring anything but lipless cranks.

Help me out. I do pretty good with a spinnerbait, but don't use my lipless cranks very much... there is dust on them. I would like to catch some fish with a lipless. How would you use a lipess crank in a deep water lake? I mostly fish long points. Thanks.

I love fishing tubes. I use tube jigheads with an exposed hook(work it like a craw). I also will tex-rig it with a split shot(work it on bottom like a minnow). In both cases, I used the lightest weight and gear possible. On my lake in open water, I use 6lbs fluorocarbon. Tubes are my goto bait when the bite gets tough.

Has anyone tried to use a nail weight to get a Fat Ika to fall faster?

"that is true about their slime coat , if you were to use a plastic bag to weigh them , put water in it , zero out the scale , then put the fish into the bag .." I love the fish and want to protect them, but I'm not that concerned with them being comfortable. I saw a bass that looked like it had healed from being hit with a boat prop. I couldn't believe that it's spine wasn't severed, but it was still alive and put up a good fight. They are tougher then most people believe.

Randy, thanks for the help. The article "The Superline Advantage" linked below is great. http://ozarkoutdoorjournal.blogspot.com/2008/05/superline-advantage.html Good luck

Diawa Samuro braid is a lot of $$$$. ***.com 300yds of 15lbs = $72.95

"Using high visibility superline (for strike detection) with a fluoro leader is something I've been doing for years, and it's a great set-up." What type of fireline would you recommend? I would like something that I can see easily. I will be using a 6lbs fluorocarbon leader. Also, what is your opinion on knots? My plan was to use a double uni, but the Albright Knot looks good? I like the 6lbs fluorocarbon, but it's hard to see sometimes. A lot of my bites are very lite, and it's important that I'm able to see my line.

My reasoning for the braid is visibility. I can see the braided line easier, and an add benefit is I can cast it further.

I use a plastic grocery bag. It works good. You can give the fish a little bounce to get the scale weighing "correct"... the harder the bounce the better the fish looks.

I'm thinking about using a 10lbs braid and a 6lbs fluorocarbon leader and a double uni knot for my shakey head fishing. I also use the same rod for wacky worms. Do you think the braided line will float to much for the wacky worm setup? Or will the small dia. braid cut the fluorocarbon? Good idea or bad?

I'm going to do a lot a "rigged" wacky worming. The rigged wacky worm is weighting the head end of the worm with a nail. I catch a lot of fish with two setups: a shakyhead and a wacky worm. The "rigged" wacky is almost mixing the two. We'll see how it works.

Thanks Dave, They must have been updating their online inventory when I looked.

lol, I caught that beast on a kastmaster. That poor little fish had his mouth wedged opened as far as possible with hooks. It is the smallest fish I've ever caught... other then a snag.

Has anyone heard why Cabela's online doesn't carry Minn Kota PowerDrive motors. I went one their website about a month ago to buy a reconitioned PowerDrive and noticed the motors where taken off the website. I saved some more money and went back today and all the PowerDrives were gone. What happened?

In March the lake will be good everywhere. Fish the points and you'll catch them. PM me after you fish Clearlake and let me know how you did. I'll have fished shasta a couple more times between now and when you are here. I like to fish Clearlake in March and April. It can be fun.

I use old beat up hogs as trailers with good results. Give it a try.

Why do you crimp the barb? I'm thinking about going barbless because my girls (8 & 10) want to go fishing more with me, and I'm afraid of them getting the barb below the skin.

Robo worm on a darterhead. It's a killer on my lake.

Hey Hammer, Thx for the help. I went out yesterday, but my fishing buddy's boat wouldn't start. We were able to use the minn kota to get around the bay, but we couldn't get out on the main lake. I talked to another fisherman who landed 30 fish with a dropshot and shaky head... we got 3, fishing the dock.

What do you mean by "condition of the lakes bottom"? I'm going out fishing Monday and I'm going to do some dropshotting. I need all the help I can get. I will be fishing for spots on a deep lake... mostly long points.

My fishing partner just bypassed his plug because it kept coming unplugged and heating up. He wired it straight to the battery with an inline fuse.

For me the Senko is my most influential bait... in the last few years. In the future, it will be the flat shaky head with mothers finest worms. HOTSTUFF!

I haven't fished Shasta Lake since late Nov., and the fishing was very tough. We had some nice weather for a week and then it dropped to low 30s just in time for me to hit the lake... If you go to Shasta this time of year, you should fish main lake points. Try fishing with the boat position close to the bank and pulling a worm up the points from deep water to shallow. Darterhead with a 5" mothers finest hand poured worm. Good luck.

What's up with the corkscrew? The Lighter... I get that, but a corkscrew.