ian515

I want to jump in on this and add, yes, toyotas are awesome. in fact most trucks I drive are awesome. trucks in general are awesome. but I would wait for toyota to release their diesel line. have you seen the videos of the toyota hilux series?! they are AMAZING!!!! I bought a ram 2500 cummins, but if they had a toyota diesel in america, I would have bought that in a heartbeat. in my opinion though, diesel is the way to go, HIIIIIIIGH mileage engines, and more fuel efficient, more towing capacity, and if the engine is built right, more economicaly friendly too! granted they are a little more spendy up front, but you are getting a bomb proof engine for your money.

keep in mind, that was about 6 years ago, so it was an old school bullit. they are much better now. that devinci was an AWESOME rig though, I wish I had mountains, I was looking at pickin up the new wilson.

thats EXACTLY what I was going to say. I was killin the bluegills last year on the fly. I actually didnt use a nymph of any kind, just the popper, seemed to work great.

this one is from like 6 years ago, on my old santa cruz bullit this one is from 2 years ago on my devinci 8 flat 8...a more artsy photo, but you get the idea... now I live in the midwest, and dont get to use my DH rigs anymore :-[

I have always had good sunglasses, I used to race downhill mountain bikes and had a couple sponsors give me a good deal. so I have always been a big believer in high quality glasses, I just never understood the polarized glasses craze. its funny that I think this way though, because I didnt think twice when buying my overpriced polarized lens for my camera..but thats a diferent story. stephen, I know which brand you are talking about, you like those a lot? I guess the point of this thread was to help me understand what type I should look for, seeing as I am plannin really buckling down and getin some good fish.

ok guys. I understand the idea behind polarized glasses. but I dont understand why everyone thinks they are so important for fishing lakes (unless you are sight fishing I guess). it seems to me half the time people are wearing them, they are casting 50-60 feet away from them and feelin around, which you can do without the glasses, so why does everyone think they are so important? am I missing something?

i'll take iowa...

we just bought a new 14ft lund for my father in law, it had the fish finder already mounted to it. the guys who did it just ran the cable down the outside of the transom and screwed the transducer to the outside of the boat. it was a really clean assembly. Not sure how great that is, as I am new to fish finders, but it seems to work just fine.

how do you rig a live bluegill for fishing? anyone know if you can use them in Minnesota? oh, and awesome fish man, that thing is huge.

we dont have the greatest lakes around here, but when I do get out on sundays I will post as well.

I dont like gettin beat by fish...its a fault of mine. ;D

allright, so I went back, spent an hour twitching a T-rigged senko in front of her face......right as I was about to call it, she looked at it, swam to it, then chomped it. she was big too, about 18 inches and fought hard, she was taking line off the reel (granted it is a lighter setup)....but it was all worth the time!!

I saw your post a little bit ago, and laughed, kinda glad its not just me who went through that today. I am goin back tomorrow when I am done with work. I am gonna get that thing.

thanks for the insight guys, that was killing me. last year was my first year of actual bass fishing, and I think I hit it at just the right time cause we were killin it. up until then it has been fly fishing for trout and salmon back home in alaska, so I am totally lost when it comes to all this.

so I went to fish a man made lake near des moines today. I picked up a 2lb bass when I was there last, on a T-rigged 7 inch worm last time, so I tried that again today, nothin. I ended up spotting what looked like an easy 6 pound bass just hangin out near a stump in really shallow water (about 8 inches deep) so I tried runnin the worm in front of it, then tried a spinner bait, then a rapala, then a weed weasel with a GULP minnow on it, and then a couple more random types of jigs and baits....NOTHING. he didnt even flinch. what was going on? he was chasing other bass away, and it looked like there was a female maybe that he was hangin out with and they kept pokin at the stump together, were they just busy makin a bed, and not really looking to feed? it was driving me crazy that I couldnt get this thing to react!

what you guys think of the spirex reels by shimano?

great, thanks!

those were some big fish....I dont understand tournaments at all though, so can someone explain the 129-00 "scoreboard" thing? and also, why was he putting his rod IN the water on his retrieves (not when he was hooked into a fish)? can you tell I am new to this?! ;D

man, I walk away for five seconds and I miss out on so much! thanks for all the responses. I am pretty new to bass fishing, most my fishing was for salmon and trout, so this stuff is confusing. when I rig up the worm, I put the hook point through the top of the worm, and slide the worm up to the eye of the hook, then put the point of the hook back through the worm. is this the right order? and the worm was slipping when I got over anxious on a strike and missed, and once when I tapped a log, and thought it was a strike and pulled hard.

I cant post a link yet, but I was using the hooks that have the 90 degree bend at the top. thanks for the link, I will check those out, they will come in real handy next time.

so I was trying the texas rig for the first time. and was having issues keeping the worm up on the hook. I recall seeing a show a while ago, and there was some sort of clip you could buy that keeps the bait up on the hook, anyone know what its called, and where I can find it? on a side note, really liked the T rig, got a bass on the 3rd cast....but didnt get anything after that. ;D

I just made it to melrose today, put the new boat motor on the lund, and am going out to break in the engine right now. no ice on the lake, no snow on the ground. but we will see if I can get a crappie to hit. I am gonna try it them with a fly rig. kinda windy though, should be for an interesting boat ride.

typically, when fishing back home, I would tie my own tippets, starting with a 25lb test leader, and tie on descending lb test. but for bass, I was constantly changing my poppers, and found that you can by those tapered leaders from most fishing shops, and I was using between 8 and 10lb test. those just seemed more efficient for quick changes. some might disagree though. I think you would be fine with 8 lb though.

yeah, you can do that with some tippet material, and just tie it straight to the hook. a lot of trout rigs are like that, a dry fly on top, and nymph below. works well as both a second hook, and a strike indicator (the dry fly that is).

just out of curiosity, are you keeping the slack out of your line? or is it just a case of poor timing? cant wait to break out the fly rig and start trying for some bass, you are lucky.