airborne_angler

Im not trying to make light of any situation. Im not a tourney fisherman and caught a fish that got hooked deep. I messed around with removing the hook but decided it was taking to long and didnt want to stress the fish out anymore,so I just snipped the line and let the fish go. At that time for some reason,I got to thinking about what if I was in a tourney and brought that fish in,would it be considered illegal because of the "foreign object" I was just pondering the "what if",not trying to stir up trouble.

Got my first true taste of a crankbait bite yeterday. Caught a few dinks,but the largest of those fish just crushed the bait. Its great,your just reeling your bait in and perhaps daydreaming and WHAM!!! Fish on!!! That'll wake you right up!!! The crankbait bite wasnt "on" but it is what I caught 7 of my 8 fish on yesterday. The bites were few and far between.

Wondering about how Gut hooked fish affect the a tournament. Say your throwing a Senko and the fish gets hooked deep(Gullet). Does the tournament competitor take the time to remove the hook and potentially kill the fish by doing so. Or does he/she just snip the line,leaving the hook in and go to weigh in? Is leaving the hook in the fish even a legal option in tourneys or will you get penalized for a foreign object in the fish?

When you say shallow,does that mean they come straight up from the depths and hover suspended under the surface,or are you refering to the fish moving towards the bank?

Dedicated most of my trip today throwing a small crankbait . I havent ever really focused on throwing one before,but decided to give it a try since I hooked up with a dink on the first cast of the day. Ive heard different superstitions about hooking up on the first cast of the day. Is it a good thing or a bad thing for everyone to catch a fish on the first cast you throw on an outing?

I have 2 Bomber Fat Free Series crankbaits. Crank#1: Bill Dance signature series Bomber Fat Free Guppy(Medium Runner) Crank#2: Bomber Fat Free Fry The Fat Free Fry is a smaller bait than the Guppy,but has a longer lip The Bill Dance Crank says right on the side of it that its a "medium runner" Can someone define the depth a medium runner will dive to? Because the Fat Free Fry has a longer Lip,is it safe to assume that the Fry one will run deeper than the medium runner(Guppy),even though the Fry is a lighter,somewhat smaller crankbait than the Guppy?

Ya know your right. I called the number on the invoice for Strike King to see if I could speak to Chris Brown Personally. The operator said he wasnt in and suggested I try back next week. So I emailed him and let him know that I received a duplicate package in the mail. I also posed the question of what he would like me to do with it. If he is generous and suggests keeping it,Ill have no trouble with that,but should he say he needs to have the items back to keep his records/inventory straight then by all means ill do the the stand up thing and send them back. Chris Brown did a stand up thing by making things right,who am I not to do the same thing for him?

With the Milfoil Mats that were right up against the bank, extending out about 8-10 feet being totally submerged, could the fish be suspending above the submerged milfoil and the surface. This water is probably gonna be between 4-6 feet deep. What would be a good bait to throw in this area? Shallow Crankbait?

So today the doorbell rings and its the Fed Ex guy AGAIN!!! Dropped off the same style box as earlier in the week. I open it up and its like groundhog day. Got another shipment of the same baits that Strike King sent me earlier this week. Now I have 2 catalogs,but this time they didnt include a hat... No No No im not complaining,just really surprised. My wife could help but shake her head and exclaim "MORE!!!???" So now what,do I contact Chris Brown and tell him he sent me a duplicate package? What would you all do? Oh and scratch what I mentioned earlier about Cotton Cordell. The guy had me all pumped cause they were gonna replace my cranks(Take care of me) He called back and said he spoke to a supervisor and the replacement is a no-go. Its not a flaw in their product,and that I should keep my cranks in a cooler. Never heard of such a thing,who keeps their cranks in a cooler?? So I paid for the Cordell cranks,never used em,they got screwed up by the sun,the company requests I return them (on my dime) and then they get me all satisfied with their replacement policy.THEN they shoot it down and tell me their not gonna replace em. In my mind thats not good business ethic. If you tell someone your gonna do it,you should follow through,not renege on your word. I know he has a supervisor to answer to,but he really should have passed th issue in front of his supervisor prior to making what I thought was the final call on replacement of these baits. What an emotional roller coaster. Based on the way certain lures respond when left in the sun,I do know which ones will hold up and which ones wont. No more Cotton Cordell for me. Im in Arizona and Sun is just not something you can get away from here. I have a Jon Boat and the boat doesnt have storage compartments I can use to shade the baits from the sun. Heres the scenario played out with Cotton Cordell: I buy the 5 Cotton Cordell baits for lets say $2.50 each = $12.50 I never use them and they warp in the sun. I send an email to the company mentioning the issue I am having,they ask me to send the baits back to them on my dime= $5.30 Cotton Cordell calls me says they will replace the baits "no problem". Figure all is well I get another call saying after further discussion with a supervisor,the baits wont be replaced,but offers to send the baits back to me,because the hooks might be of value to me. I agree to have the baits returned. Cotton Cordell calls back a few seconds later and asks if I would be interested in a decal. So for all this I get a stinking decal?? So im out almost $20 and all I have to show for it is gonna be a decal?? Strike King has made up where Cotton Cordell failed!!

Im pretty impressed,just got a call from the guy over at Cotton Cordell. Says hes gonna honor the fact that I paid the money for the baits and they didnt hold up. Hes putting replacements in the mail as we speak.Gave me heads up on some sales over at thier website,and just had an overall nice conversation with a very pleasant individual. His name is Stephen Biggerstaff for those of you with issues with the Pradco/Lurenet line of baits.

I have a bag of 7.5 inch Culprit worms where the body is solid black and the tail is white. Looks pretty interesting to me,anyone fish these colors with success?

Its all about the psychcology(sp?) of trying to play"catch up" when were not in the lead. For some reason I think our brain is trained that when you are trying to catch up,as in running,you must speed up to be even.

I think that maybe I got worn out because I was trying to "Burn" the bait up near the surface like I was fishing a Spinnerbait,but that technique really doesnt apply to Chatterbaits...or does it?

I threw small spinnerbaits last year and did pretty good,so I was used to cranking then. I havent done much cranking this year,all Ive really done is Sling Plastics

Seller finally got back to me about what these baits look like.I know what I think they look like...Whats everyone else think it resembles?

How many of you put together a gameplan at home on what bait your gonna throw in order to have a successful day the next time you go out? How many of you have that gameplan all set up (tied on) but when you get to the lake ,your whole game plan goes to H*LL and you end up spending a greater part of the day retying different lures and such. I think that maybe my whole problem. I map out scenarios in my head and then they just dont go how I had them played out in my head which frustrates me. I think im setting myself up for failure with this attitude,cause the fish arent always gonna bite on what you want to try and they might not always be where you think they are Would it be better to go to the lake and THEN figure out what may work,instead of playing fantasy fishing in my head?

A few things have happened since the last time I went to the lake last week. The rain has brought the water up about 4 feet. Now all the milfoil that was up against the bank is submerged. The weedcutter has been out and has randomly(willy nilly style) cut paths through the weed mats of milfoil,now it looks like there roads through this heavy vegitation. The water was 82* yesterday according to my fish finder. Put all this together and please help me put together some sort of puzzle to where the fish have gone. I know when the water rises,the fish have to adjust.Well I have to adjust as well cause its almost like I no longer have any idea of what im doing,just like a new body of water. Not that I knew what I was doing before,but now its even worse. With the water temps being in the 80's would it be safe to say the fish are way deep? I only baoted about 6 Dinks yesterday and couldnt even gett he Bluegill interested in my offerings. I threw Chatterbaits,Tiny Brushhogs,3" Power Hawgs,Mepps Spinners,Dropshot with a 4" paddletail minnow,Soft Plastic 5" stick baits when the wind cooperated.I caught most of my few fish on the Tiny Brushhog.I used Megastrike on everything hoping it would give me an edge. should I key in on trying a Crawfish imitator next time,since I caught at least a few fish on one this last time out??

Not sure of the gear ratio of my reel. It is an older Mitchell Spidercast ST400 Baitcasting reel. Its beat up and seems to perform well. Anyone know the specs (gear ratio) of this Mitchell reel?

Threw a Chatterbait style lure for the first time yesterday. One model was a 1/4 oz and the other was a 3/16 oz. Regardless,both had crazy water resistance when I reeled em in. My wrist/arm is worn out from cranking. Is there a gear ratio in a reel thats preferred to use with these types of baits so I dont have to work so hard on the retrieve? Or is this just something that happens regardless of the gear ratio of the reel and something that im just gonna have to live with if I want to throw these baits?

After not going to the lake for a week,I decided I would give it a whirl yesterday. On my computer desk in front of me I had a 1/4 oz Berkley Jointed Blade Dancer that I was thinking about trying for the first time. I got to the lake and decided to give that bait a try. Wasnt really targeting anything and just kind of casted randomly. Hooked up on only the 2nd cast of the day. Good way to start a day,and gave me some confidence in this style bait,even though the fish was short. Switched to a 3/16 oz Pure Poison and after a few casts hooked up with another short fish,but it came off at the boat. Didnt get anymore strikes from these style baits for the rest of the day.The fish just werent there. I tossed Tiny Brush Hogs and boated 4 short fish,and boated 1 Green Sunfish on a Mepps ThunderBug Spinner. So even though I didnt catch a bunch,I am now a firm believer in the Chatterbait style lures.They have their time and place. They have alot of resistance when reeling them in,I was throwing some light ones. Cant imagine throwing a larger size. My arm is wormn out from cranking.Think I need a different gear ratio reel!

I have older original Berkley Power baits from when they first started marketing it in thier soft plastics(in the late 80's) and I have some that I have recently purchased new. They both have a distinct smell(scent) of thier own. In my opinion the old stuff is sorta a sweet smell and the new stuff is more offending,like catfish bait. Anyone notice this between the old and new varieties? Or do I just have to much time on my hands? For those that have used the older scented baits, how does the older original stuff compare to the newer stuff as far as fish attracting abilities? For those of you that dont believe that the older stuff smells different,do a comparison. Get some of the early baits and compare the scents with the new stuff. Theres a distinct difference in the way they smell.

Anyone use these? How do you like them? Whats the best way to present these? I am thinking of throwing them T rigged. Can anyone give details on another successful method of presenting these baits?

Im not sure if the Elaztech stuff is the same as the the older Cyberflex that the Zeros used to be made out of. The Older Cyberflex stuff was great,but I noticed that after you threw the zeros awhile,they started losing thier salt content,stretched out and started to float which just killed the action that bait was supposed to have. I havent fished any Elaztech baits yet so I wonder if they do the same?

When we all fish,we all have different ideas of what a "short" fish is . They have different names,one of them being a "Dink" Whats everyones criteria about LMB. How big does a fish have to be before it can stop being considered a "Dink" In my mind id say 1-1.5# and at least 13 inches its no longer a "Dink"

Like the title says,which one is worth more on both a financial level and a personal level?