Simp

Great work!!

Well it got more and less frustrating today. I found a great point by the boat ramp that has a great drop with a good amount of cover for the fish. From just 10ft off the bank I was in 30ft of water and as I run up toward the point it went up about a foot or two of depth for every foot or so I went forward. I marked some brush and threw out a deep diving Fat Free shad. It took a few casts but I hooked up with a nice 6-7 pound bass. I was alone and didn't have a net man so when I was trying to get it close to lip the girl it dove under the boat and pulled off. I'm devastated I lost it (I've lost to many big fish this year), but glad I've found a good deep spot that is holding some bass. I went to worm and had three more bights one broke off on the hook set :'( and the other two weren't huge. The plus side is I have no doubt I've finally found a good summer spot holding tons of fish. That was my goal and hopefully I can go back and confirm this wasn't a one day thing.

Hey now lets get something straight HANK GET TO FISH WITH PAUL!!! I'd choose to fish with Paul over Hank any day of the week and twice on Sunday! Congrats Paul you the man!

Well I've been trying to get out of my mold by fishing some "summer patterns" I don't normally. Things haven't been going that well for the most part and I'm frustrated about it and the fact summer is almost over. I want to figure out where the big summer fish are hanging out on my main two lakes. I've read every article you can imagine. I've went out and experimented with new things and except for maybe cranking some points it's been VERY slow. My main lake is a clear lake with about 6-7ft of visibility most of the time on most parts of it. I can go out and hit my normal spots with my small jigs and catch fish every day but 99% are dinks. I often use a bigger jig and my pops is always right beside me using a bigger one. Still fish over 2lbs have for the most part disappeared. We are usually fishing in water from 0 to 15ft at the boat when throwing jigs and soft plastics. The one place that does produce big fish for us still is Lilly pads, thank god! With that said I've made it a point to try and not fish them so I can locate them at other areas. Our main lake doesn't have huge creek channels running threw them either. When I graph them they are showing about a three foot foot drop but are in 30ft or more of water. That's suppose to be way to deep for our thermocline that should be about 13ft (I think I've graphed it at places at about 20ft though). I've tried a hump I found that should be close to a creek channel several times now and nothing. I've thrown Spoons, Cranks, Worms and jigs NOTHING!. I'm also trying some small rock ledges and nothing super yet. I guess my expectations for finding some super great summer pattern there is about to fail unless I can find something in the next few weeks. Anybody else frustrated???

Hmm I play but generally play on the NFL.com leagues. I do play a pickem league on yahoo for cash though. I think we should do that for here not maybe for free.

I have no idea what your talking about. I have a 6'6 fiberglass PM and LOVE IT! I've hauled in fish over 13lbs on a rattletrap with it. The rod didn't break and the hooks never come out!

Folks were going to have this discussion over and over again aren't we? IMHO Vanish is a good low cost line for baitcasting set ups that need 14# and over. When you get below that test pound it's usually a better idea to spend more to get a good limp fluro like Invisx or "place you favorite line here". We should all take special care in tying our knots with Fluro and checking your line often for bad spots. I use Fluro for my flipping needs and Vanish has proven itself to be very strong. Like any fluro you just have to check for bad spots often and retie. Seriously RETIE OFTEN! Don't think your ok KNOW YOUR OK! Don't blame the line because it snapped 12inches above the knot either. That just means you nicked it on a log or rock ect and you didn't check it in time before you broke it off. Again this is refering to line above the 14lb test. IMHO it becomes very easy to break line beneath that with a good flipping rod. Trilene 100% broke off on me at the 12# level over and over again and that stuff is 20$ a box and suppose to be some of the best stuff out there. So again when it comes to fluro retie often and carefully.When it comes to vanish I'd only use it for flipping with test pound over 14# and you should be fine. Vanish isn't my favorite Fluro by any means but I go threw a crap load of line and 10$ a box for a 250yd spool is nice. For spinning I like Invisx and Cableas fluro as well, both are made by Seagur and are great! Also make sure you pay close attention to line diameter. It's possible one line may be breaking less at a certain test pound because it's thicker. So the other line may not be as bad as you think it is but rather it should be compared against the other line at the same diameter.

Either the above St. Croix or a St. Croix Premier Series crankbait rod. I have the premier and it works great for crankin I can't agree more about the St. Croix Premier Series crankbait rod. I have a 6'6 and love it! I also have a St Croix Mojo 7ft crankbait rod and it's fantastic as well.

IMHO the memory issue is why I won't be buying more. Invizx is great on the memory issue and is a great line IMHO but a little costly. I know to some what I'm about to say will discredit me to many, but I've went back to Vanish for my everyday high test flipping needs. It's cheap and frankly in my experience not bad. I don't have break offs and with KVD treating the line it's not that bad on the memory issue. Next on my list to try is Cabela's fluro that is made by Seaguar. It's pretty cheap and I love the 6lb test of it I put on my spinning set up. I figure if the 17# is just as good I've got a new everyday line.

Yes, I was looking at my house on there a few weeks ago, and the houses that were built nearly three years ago, aren't even there. It's best to use a combination but there are a great deal of area's Msoft earth viewer has much better shots with one of it's settings. The best example I can give is to look at the Tenn portion of KY Lake. It looks awesome with the Msoft version but the KY side of the lake looks so so. That's when I bust out google earth.

X2. I'm on the black market for everything else, why not lures? Kidding. 100% No need for black market. They will be hitting the stores this coming Sept. Those of us that were fortunate enough to get a few samples from Big-O at this years road trip are guarding them with our lives though. I'm almost out and only use the in my proven honey holes now. Be the first to get them when they hit the shelves and beat your buddies! Can't say it enough. Big-O is the man! Now if I could only figure out a way to spend some time in the boat with him. ;D I personally use a soldering iron to melt legs and such together. It sure makes my baits go allot longer. I've also got a Space monkey that lost it's front legs that now has rage frog legs that I can't wait to try out.

Dude that's freaking awesome! Congrats man and BTW I need a new boat. ;D

I had this game when it originally came out on the Sega Dreamcast.

I just saw that myself and it made me wonder if Glenn didn't know something about that. Maybe we're going to have allot of surprise guests this time!!! On the other hand that's a ton of fishing pressure! >

I go threw allot of Rage products from Shad's to Craws. What I've found that works great is a soldering iron. I take two one legged craws and make a complete craw. I fix ripped heads on my shads and frogs. It can even be used to mend the holes a hook makes when you set the hook on a Rage Shad.

Can we get a reference of where this came from please? Edit- found the article at http://basszone.com/2009quickflips/duckett7.htm It doesn't seem like BS but that website doesn't shout "breaking news" type of website. To me it seems the rod breakage is bothering him and that he's not sure about the "financial security" his words of the company. That brings up a whole other can of worms for why he might of left them. Possibly a money grab before ICAST. Possibly the company is in trouble like many other companies right now. Who knows but I'm enjoying my 7'8 heavy and this certainly won't stop that!

Well if your going to throwing something like the Spro frogs you want braid! It doesn't sink like fluro and has no strech where fluro is low stretch. The result is allot better hook ups. I tend to jig with fluro on a separate rod. So if you need to do double duty you could use a fluro leader in clear water. Otherwise just use braid in stained to dirty water.

I have a suggestion I think you probably know this but fish that bridge don't stand on it. Seriously hit every post with a jig and senko over and over again. Only after that stand on it to fish.

It took me all of a week on this forum to see a thousand "what does this fish weigh?" posts including my own to convince me to go get a scale! I bought a cheap 20$ digital scale that fits in my tackle box. This way you don't have somebody saying your big bass isn't really that big yada,yada,yada. Instead you say look at this big _._ BASS!! Congrats on the fish and I'd say that thing is in the 8-10lb range.

I like it this way and wished my club did it this way!

RW what I don't understand is you have some great GLoomis rods but you use a line IMHO is high in stretch. I gave the 12lb test a try and found it had to much stretch for my jig applications. Do you use a different line for your baitcasting rod that you use to jig with?

Nope!

I totally lost a tourney last month because my partner wouldn't give the fish a second on the Rage Toad. He wouldn't even reel down and set the hook. He would just lean back trying to set the hook right away. I saw two 3 pound plus fish come off due to a poor hook set. I tried to let him know in a respectful manner he needed to give those fish some time and then give a big hook set. His response was "I can't it will take me in the grass". I asked "Well don't you have braid on?" he confirmed he did so I told him don't worry about the grass then. We ended up one fish short of a limit with over 16lbs and lost by less then two. So if he had landed just one of those fish we would have won. :'(

Well if he wanted to know how to catch Salmon on tubes he would have asked you!!!!

I use several jigs but I do prefer the "finesse style" skirt. Right now the War eagle 3/8 heavy finesse in phantom brown craw is tearing them up. I also like the Eakins Jewel Jig in 7/16. For the non finesse jigs I often use Revenge jigs. There well made at a decent price, comes with rattles, and has a good hook. On trailers right now I totally in love with the Rage tail chunks and craws. Alabama and Okeechobee colors are the ones I mainly use right now. I also use the GY Flapping hog but it doesn't get much use right now.