Dwight Hottle

You are a bad man redlinerobert.

No. I felt sorry for him & let him go. I don't like trout much except the pan sized ones for eating. The thought crossed my mind to try smoking him.

I was out yesterday for 5 hours. Got a late start because I forgot to plug in the battery on-board charger. Went out of Walnut to fish for steelies. Ran rapala max rap & floating rapalas long line up high. Tried 8-10 fow. Nothing. Tried deeper because I saw some surface activity in the 12-15 foot range. Got a hit on one rod, didn't jump just pulled short drag runs & stayed down. Thought I had a steelie that was playing me for a sucker. Imagine my surprise when I saw brown in the water. Nice 5.5 smallie. Put a third rod out right in the prop wash with a staysee. I knew if I got bit it might make for a mess with three lines out. But I wanted to know if it would work. Heard my spinning reel drag go off & the watched the rod go thumping. Light action rod moderate power figured it would absorb the short line trauma. I was shocked again when I saw brown in the water. It was a 5+ lb brown trout. My first brownie from lake erie. Never caught a steelie. Two bites two fish.

Great outing for you both. He is so amazed by the fishes size in pic two like did I really catch that!

Good report Mitch. Nice pickerel.

Nice smallies Jeff.

Don't let your wife find out you have been fishing a drop-shot for strippers instead of stripers.

All I can say is I'm camping out on your side yard & fishing your POND all winter.

Try a spool of maxima ultragreen. I use it for leader material with braid. You do have to check your line & retie when it gets nicked.

Keep after them.

Beautiful color & bass. Stay loose A-Jay.

Best for me is 40 to upper 50's.

What A-Jay said. I had to use mine this spring when a buddy had a smallie hook him up past the barb in a finger while the smallie was still hooked up.

I'm not sure why you want a non rattle jerk bait but I have a few suggestions. Try pointer 127 or pointer 128 ( fatter profile than the 127) I think the 127's are 3/4 oz & the 128's are 1 oz. They both have rattles just hold your nose. If your not satisfied with that choice think musky jerk baits. Like Tom mentioned mention above there are glidders that would work but there are lots of suspending wood & plastic jerk baits without rattles. They start at around one oz & go up to 3-5 oz. Google Rollie & Helens Musky Shop & look under twitch baits, jerkbaits & pull baits. The selection will blow your mind. Specifically look for phantom lures "phantom". I have used the 6" 2.9 oz & the 7.5" at 4.3oz. Very effective slow sink rates bait. They make a 4" 1.3 oz.which should fit what your looking for. Hope this helps.

I'll bet everthing was on hawgtech handles. Quality fish for sure!

22lb pike out of new England is a very fine PB.

dyn a mite.

Nice crappie! Congrats on the PB.

I had a buddy show up for two days of smallie fishing with a shimano stella spinning reel mounted on a bass pro 6 foot red rod with four guides on it. He purchased the rod with another reel on it as a combo for $40.00. I laughed my arse off. I like to match up 50/50 or 2/3 to 1/3. on most of my rigs.

Nicely marked pair from this spring.

Glad to see you back Eric.

Super nice wiper.

Simple answer fc sucks. Fc causes more heartache & upset with average anglers that have bought into fc's supremacy over regular mono. I personally have quit using it. Maybe I'm old school but from my experience I can substitute braid & regular mono without all the hassles & still catch quality fish. The reward does not equal the hassle.

Another way to set your drag on the fly is feel or look for some slippage of the spool on a hard hook set. When using braid that always works for me. If you are using a spinning reel just listen for the drag.

Like others have said it really depends on what waters you fish. I used to think a 5lb smallie was a big deal but now I consider a 7-8lb smallie to be my trophy fishing the great lakes. Northern strain largemouth anything over 5lbs is a good fish & 7lb up is a trophy in my book. Florida strain largemouth 7-9 lbs is a good fish and over 10lbs is a real trophy.