Dwight Hottle

Yes he was special & he served his country in his own special way.

My favorite foreign lake is Lake Baccarac caught my PB @ 11-8 there. Favorite domestic lake is Stickmarsh caught a 11-2 there. Favorite smallmouth lake is Erie where I caught my PB @ 7-6.

At the time it was accepted by Field & Stream the premier sporting magazine as the new record. There was no governing body to establish weight records until IGFA came along a few years later. It is what it is. I have always accepted it based on history & the credibility of both Field & Stream & IGFA. Postal scales have always been the US standard for accuracy.

Try some over the counter hydrocortisone cream.

Sweet, Congrats

If you have any problems with your knots failing substitute a good copoly leader for the flouro. It does the same job without the knot burning problems flouro presents.

My immediate guess was 4.75lbs.

If your fishing around heavy weeds you need braid because it cuts through the weeds while mono does not. Like mentioned you need to upgrade your tackle to meet the conditions your are fishing. You have only two choices when hooking a good fish in heavy vegetation. 1 horse her out & keep the pressure on the whole way back to the net. 2 give her slack & hope she swims out. I always chose number 1.

Took the words right outta my mouth.

Well put.

It would help if you told us what kind of boat & what motor you have.

Congrats. PB's are always sweet.

And if you do want to get rid of her don’t tell her.

All connection knots weaken with friction from hitting guides or level wind. So just eliminate the problem by using straight braid or straight mono. Give each a try & chose the one you like best.

Welcome to BR.

I understand your frustrations but welcome to boat ownership 101. Recalls happen so do little problems that creep up on a regular basis. For example seat bolts falling out happen on all brands that I have owned or been in. Very common.

I think you can call it a DD and not get much resistance from anyone seeing the picture. Like Shimmy said the pictures support the perceived weight. Congrats on your trophy.

Talk about a blast from the past. Welcome back man.

That’s where the name twitch baits came from. I learned about jerk baits from a really good fisherman who always called what we call jerk baits twitch baits because that’s how they were fished. It all started with the original floating rapala.

Congrats. That is the kind of lake you should keep to yourself.

I like your thinking about 3 over 2. We used to run both the two hook model & the three hook model at the same time to decide which got bit the most & the 3 hook model always won that contest.

Looks like a channel cat to me with the forked tail. Pictures of black bullheads display a rounded tail. I have only caught brown bullheads and channel cats.

I used a lot of Husky Jerks in the DD version for smallies on Lake Erie. The best size was the HJ14 followed by the HJ12. The HJ14 in glass perch probably put about 20-25 smallies in the net over 6lbs. It was our favorite bait for several years before we branched out to something different. It's a natural born killer for waldo's as well.

I think your post has gotten out of hand. ?

Congrats