huskertko

I think that one of the best crankbait rods for the money is the BPS Crankin Stick. It comes in serveral power ratings and lengths and is a very good rod. They are usually $50 regular price but BPS always seems to put them on sale for $30ish. Don't quote me on this but I think KVD as well as lot of other pros use fiberglass rods for cranking, they seem to be "softer" in the tip, but my experience is they are heavier in weight. If you want fiberglass, David Fritts has an rod made by American Rodsmiths that is under $100 as well at BPS.

I have a newer Curado 100 and love it, I also have a few of the old green curados and love them as well. My only complaint, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the reel is this. My new curado is smaller being a 100 series, so when I go and use the older ones, they seem huge. Again this is not the reels fault, they are great reels and properly maintained will last you a really long time. As far as the St. Croix rods, it depends on which ones you are looking at. I have 2 Premiers, one baitcast and one spinning, and I think they are great rods for the money. I stepped up to St. Croix from so lower end Quantums and I could definitely tell the difference in feel and weight. I have also used the Triumph rods by St Croix, and personally, I didn't like them at all. To me they felt cheap, heavier, and less sensitive than the higher end rods, which is to be expected. I have tried All Star rods and personally it wasn't that impressed, they just seemed heavy. I haven't used the high end Avids or Tourneys, as my high end rod is a Loomis IMX.

You mentioned my biggest problem with braid, confidence. I usually don't fish cyrstal clear water, but it is by no means chocolate milk color either, and whether the fish can see the line or not, or even if it matters if they can, my problem is the confidence. If I think the fish can see it, I have a problem concentrating on fishing spending too much time worrying if they can see the line. I am giving braid one more chance for a couple months and see how it goes. The other reason I really want braid to work out for me is, the rod that it is one, my jig rod, is also going to double as my frog rod this summer, so I hope it works out. bit concerned about your jig rod is also your frog rod as jig rods are mostly 6'-6.5' and frog rod is much longer so what length power action??? is your rod :-? 7foot heavy, fast action

You mentioned my biggest problem with braid, confidence. I usually don't fish cyrstal clear water, but it is by no means chocolate milk color either, and whether the fish can see the line or not, or even if it matters if they can, my problem is the confidence. If I think the fish can see it, I have a problem concentrating on fishing spending too much time worrying if they can see the line. I am giving braid one more chance for a couple months and see how it goes. The other reason I really want braid to work out for me is, the rod that it is one, my jig rod, is also going to double as my frog rod this summer, so I hope it works out.

Something tells me that Tiger Woods could still kick my butt even if he only used a putter too, but I think like it has been mentioned. This set up works for RC but may not work for KVD or Ike, or anyone else for that matter, to each his own. I think one of the downsides would be that every rod looks the same so if you are fishing and want to change rods or baits quickly, you would have to really make sure that you grabbed the right one. Or maybe that would just be my problem, sometimes not the most detail oriented person. :-[

Cool, I will try that. I just wasn't sure if a big jig could fit in that small jar if it already had trailers in it, but if it does, great.

That is a good idea, but i would need a larger jar I think.

I tend to lean towards plastic, mainly because I have a lot of plastic trailers. The other reason is I seem to waste a lot of pork trailers because I can never get them back off the jig when I am done, so the end up drying out and and being ruined.

I did make sure that the weedguard was "locked" into place but still had several loose jigs just from the walk to the water. Also, it won't hold football jigs bigger than 1/2 oz, they are too big for the openings.

That is a good idea too, but I really like the concept of the flip sider, each jig in compartment and each row flips up to get easy access. Not to mention i won't have mulitple jigs getting tangeld up in a compartment.

Anyone have these and like them? I bought one today and I have to say I am not that impressed with it. I love my other Falcon boxes but this one, not so much. I filled it with the jigs that would fit, because football head ones didn't, put it in my truck and off I went. I arrived at the lake and grabbed the box, when I opened it, half the jigs were "roaming" free and in a tangled mess. > I think I am going to take it back and get a flip-sider to hold my jigs, unless someone can open my eyes and tell me what I am doing wrong.

Another vote for the 844 IMX, it is my prefered jig rod at the recommendation of RW and others on this board. It is very sensitive, so don't say anything bad about it or it will cry, no just kidding.

I will add my 2 cents for the bass Hunter, i just bought a 9 foot pond prowler from BPS, same boat style as your looking at, and I have to say it is a very stable platform to fish from. I am not exactly what you would call a svelt person :-[, 6' and about 235, and I can stand up move around and feel very safe. I have no fear of the boat capsizing or anything like that, although a PFD IS STILL REQUIRED. I have fished from a pontoon kickboat which was OK but it is very low to the water and if you are in places where gators live, there is another name you would go by, DINNER. I would stay away from any inflatable for that reason alone.

Not from Nebraska, but a Cornhusker at heart. I actually grew up jusst South of Beatrice in Marysville, KS.

I have the same situation, i am afraid of drilling holes in the boat so mine is like KU's, just sitting loose on the edge, but I just about kicked it in the water twice last night so I need to come up with something else. I am going to try to put some industrial strength velcro on the boat and the bottom of the DF screen just to see if it works. If it does, I will let you know.

Just an update on water temp more than anything. I went to Kill Creek tonight for a while and tried to fish, I say tried because I am still learning to handle a boat and fish at the same time. :-[ Anyway Kill Creek was extremely muddy but the temps were starting to come up. Water down by the boat ramp was 50.3 but the water at the dam and the northwest corner were up to 53 and that was at 6:30 at night. I didn't catch any fish but thought I would give an update on the water temps, I can feel the spawn getting closer.

I have a 9 foot pond prowler boat and I need to get an anchor to help control the boat in wind, but I don't know how big of anchor I need. Will a 15lb anchor be heavy enough? Most places that I fish are silt or soft bottom lakes, with some rocky bottoms, so will a mushroom anchor work ok for those conditions? Thanks.

I as going to suggest a golf couse as well, however I was going to say that if you don't mind getting up early, you could check out the maintenance dept. Mowing greens, fairways, etc, maintaining the bunkers and such. It is really quite a simple job if you can follow directions and be on time. They usually pay as well as McD's and such, but the benefits are being outside getting some sun, usually getting off work by 3 PM (more time for fishing) and if you are a good employee, you may get permission to fish the golf couse ponds in the evening. the cart attendants and caddies are a good way to go as well, but usually the hours are later in the day, cutting down on fishing. I used to be an assistant golf course superintendent in KC, so if you have any questions about the job requirements or anything, feel free to shoot me a PM.

We use to use cable and it was a necessary evil. We were told that the trees in our yard eliminated the possiblity of Dish or Direct TV, so we dealt with the expensive cable. We eventually cut down a few trees, due to damage and disease, so we got Dish network, and I have to say I can't wait until it is gone (tomorrow). Everyone says that they rarely lose signal, but we lose signal when the weather person just mentions a chance of rain. We have had Dish now for about 6 months and have lost signal for several hours too many times to count and for more than a day at least 3 times, and Dish's tech supports only answer is that "well clouds and rain can affect the signal strength and we can't control the weather." Long story short we are ditching Dish and going to ATT Uverse tomorrow. We are going to get 300 channels, compared to 250, 4 tuners, one with DVR capable of recording 4 different shows at the same time, HD and local channels for less that we are paying for Dish. BTW, 250 channels is way more than we ever watch, but I have to get the 300 channel package just to get the 10 or so channels that I actually watch and the movie channels my wife watches.

Picassa is pretty decent for a free download, I use it as well as Roxio which is not free but I really can't say it is better than Picassa.

My opinion, STAY AWAY from the microfuse. I tried it a couple weeks ago and it has to be the worst line I have ever used. It was very stiff and hard to handle. I have a review I posted about it in this section detailing why I think it is a horrible line. That is just my $.02

With gas prices, I don't think I would tow it up there even if the weather was perfect. >

That is exactly the type of info in was looking for, Thanks.

I have a cover on my bed so unfortunately, opening the tailgate doesn't help much, however i have found that leaving the seat on the boat makes it much more visible, so we will see if that helps with backing it up.

Yeah, that is one place I plan to fish more this year, especially that south side and in the south coves, places I couldn't really get to before. BTW, we are heading to Iowa this weekend so the kiddos can see great grandma some other aunts and uncles. I have an Explorer Sport Trac, so it has a very short bed on it, not to mention that the bed of the truck is my mobile tackle box, so I would have to figure out where to keep all my tackle bags and such, and the wife has said definitely not in the garage.