Dwight Hottle

Digital scales are affected by moisture. Spring scales are affected by extreme cold, below 32 degrees based on personal experience. But any scale weight is better than no scale at all & guessing it is bigger than what it actually is.

Here is a good one for comparison. Weighed 5lb-1oz.

That's what they call us when we are are north of sixty.

Way to get the job done in the rain.

Thank you sir. It really is the fishery that makes those numbers possible.

Ken I didn't know you were such a researcher.

What do think WRB stands for?

I like that. Besides it's a lot cheaper to change tackle looking for that perfect pair than to change wives

X2 plus the declining US dollar versus the yen exchange rate.

Here are some missing one. Best five I ever have caught.

Ken after seeing those pics I can well understand your frustration. Hope you get that guy one way or the other.

You are right Chris that one got my attention big time. Beautiful frame on that momma

Not necessarily true. Maximum fish size can be influenced by habitat size. Take a typical pet store gold fish out of its typical gold fish bowl & place it in pond or lake & it will grow to much larger size than it could achieve in the original gold fish bowl.

Shhhhhhh! I want to fish it before it get to crowded.

My favorite rod is a St Croix legend extreme XC72MHM. I like this blank so much I had a custom rod built so I would have two. It's 7'2" medium heavy moderate action. Handles 3/8 to 1 ounce baits. I pair it up with a high speed reel of your choice loaded with 10lb braid suffix 832 and a maxima super green mono leader of 12lb or 15lb test. I work my jerk baits with the rod parallel to the water thus a longer rod doesn't hinder the action. I'm fishing from a moving boat not stationary.

You did fine. 25% off is a good deal. Just go out & enjoy fishing with your new gear.

Not as many as you would think. We get a lot of 3-4lbers but not twice as many as 5+ Maybe A-Jay, Speedbead or CWB will chime in with their own observations.

Honestly all on jerk baits. I love using jigs but the last few years I have targeted suspending fish using jerks.

This spring I thought it would be interesting to keep a log of all smallies caught out of my boat between 5 & 6lbs and between 6 & 7lbs. I hopefully wanted to record a third category of 7 to 8lbs but that didn't happen. The log data only included three months, April, May & October, prime months for me. The total of five to six lbers was 60 smallies. The total of six to seven lbers was 8 smallies. Biggest fish went 6-15. That makes for roughly a one out of eight ratio or put another way you have to catch eight 5lbers before you are going to catch one over six pounds. And unless your lucky you won't break seven. Since I started fishing lake erie for smallies about 2005 I have noticed a yearly change regarding the numbers of quality fish. Some years the number of six to seven lbers sky rocketed while others years we barely saw a true six. The numbers of legit five pounders bodes well for the future. Total time spent fishing out of those three months was about 7 weeks. All 68 smallies were caught on jerk baits. Now if we just get Steve Parks to spill the beans about his numbers.

Hey J how about early spring lake shore? Have you ever got on that bite?

Great Lakes. Period. End of story!

I just bought one but have not used it yet. It is a classic.

Salute & show respect for those you have given their all so others could be safe.

I would take the 12lb largemouth.

I'll just be glad to have the phone stop ringing.