Five-Alive

now you wrap it in clear plastic just like when it was new!! just kidding.

I am wanting to try the Rage Craw on the new Yum Pumpkin Ed jighead.

one of my favorite baits and it can be fished alot of ways but my favorite is to Texas rig it. Ths is a fantastic bait to pitch to a bed too!!

my son has 4 of them so far, loveas them and plans to continue buying them.

I pitch with Curado's and I turn all of my magnetic brakes on and then back off on my spool tension to adjust to whatever weight I am pitching. This helped me alot!!

I am on the same page as Big'un, I have way too much tackle in the boat but I do fix a box for each tournament that I call a go-to box and it will have what I think I will be throwing during the day so along with my hook & sinker box and a go-to soft sided bag for plastics hopefully I will be set for the day!!

Great news, what an awesome guy with good Christian family values as well!!

my son and I had heard the problem was in fishing in the rain that the line tended to "stick" to the blank and not cast as well however he has several of them and said that they all seem to cast just fine.

Thanks for the post, I have started drop shotting with nanofil and was afraid the white may be too visivle under the water. Where me being able to see the line better, line visibility means that I may detect some visual strikes that I may not otherwise know about. On the other side and this is probably just in my head but if I throw a setup with flourescent line in the day time I always feel like the fish see it better too and it reduces my confidence.

With the cost of soft plastics I hate to discard the ones that I consider reusable so we keep an old plano box on the boat and add any plastics that are ripped or used and removed from the hook, etc to this box. I use this box for fun fishing or pond fishing and use the new stuff for tournaments.

I have used the gamagatsu's with good success however about a year ago a friend (Hook Set on this forum) introduced me to the Mustad KVD Triple Grip hooks and I love them. They are a shorter shanked hook so you can most of the time bump to a larger size without the hook hanging down any further. I have yet to have a fish come unhooked since switching and for comparison my son and I were recently fishing a tournament and we were both throwing Bill Norman Deep little N crankbaits, he had 3 to come off on the factory hook. We were using identical rods reels and line and I would consider him as good a fisherman as myself.

dang what a fantastic deal!!

I have to agree with A-Jay, that fish looks so perfect it could pass for a replica not a single blemish. I might have to check out that Big-O Brush jig!!

caught about a 10 pound cat fish on a senko and another on a shad rap last year and would have gladly traded either one for a bass half their size!!

my son and I fished a club tournament on Kerr Reservoir (Buggs Island)and had a blast. We caught about 20 keepers, just couldn't get a good bite and only had 8.9 lbs. in 5 fish. I guess you would call it junk fishing, we caught fish on top water, crankbaits, spinnerbait, senkos, dropshot, texas rig, carolina rig and shakey head!!

As Raul says there isn't much plastic left with a 2/0 EWG but that is what I use with good success on the smallie beavers.

I have used the carolina keepers for several years and one keeper will normally work fine with a 3/4 ounce weight without sliding. However if I get the weight hung up and pull it and it forces the keeper to slide I can use pliers and reposition the keeper but it will normally start sliding on the cast after that. Using 2 of them does help in both cases.

My last trip won't be much help, I didn't get on the water until 1:30pm and fished until about 6:00. I caught 2 fish on a Bomber Fat Free Shad in the foxy shad pattern on a rocky bank and a few on a 4 inch robo worm on a drop shot off of docks, no real pattern. I did have a buddy that had some great luck Friday night in the Penhook area fishing around docks on shallow rocky banks. They didn't do much from 7:30pm until 10:30pm but from 10:30pm until 12:30am they were on fire and caught about 15 keepers including a 6.2 large mouth. Half of them were caught on a Bill Norman crankbait and half were caught on a 10" texas rigged worm with a rattle and a force bead between the sinker and worm. Best 5 were estimated to be 17 - 18 pounds. To beat it all they were fishing from a pontoon boat!!

Right now Smith Mountain is about 3 feet below full pond but it looks lower. http://www.smithmountainlakelevel.com/SMLLevelWeb.exe I mostly bass fish but the striper bite has been off for me and my buddies as well although I know some folks that did very good on them earlier in the year. I am attaching a link to a local fishing report which reports on Bass, Stripers and sometimes catfish. http://www.virginiaoutdoorsman.com/content/report.html I was on the lake after church on Sunday, the boat traffic was terrible due to the holiday weekend but I did catch a few bass. The water temp was 82 degrees. Good luck on your trip!!

I have never had that happen however when I go to look at rods, more times than not it will display rod pictures and the will be frozen in place and I won't be able to read the description behind the pictures.

it doesn't seem to matter if I am texas rigging with an EWG hook or using a finesse hook and an o-ring, I have never really had a problem hooking up or landing fish with a senko or senko style bait.

I fish them on the Carolina Rig, shakey head and texas rigged with a 1/16 or 1/8 ounce bullet weight.

I have been fishing the 6lb. test on my drop shot rod for a few weeks now. Crestliner2008's review was very much like my experience but I will add along with there being no stretch came very extreme sensitivity. I could feel my weight coming over the bottom much better than I can with flouro. I have caught about 20 bass so far the biggest around 3 pounds but the line handeled them with ease. I tie a knot on my drop shot sinkers and several times when my sinker got hung the knot would pull through versus breaking the line. The 6 lb. is as thin as thread and casts with ease. I also ordered a 12 lb. spool since it is so thin but haven't thrown it yet.

@Bass_Fanatic - you beat me to that comment!!

Check out the Shimano Crucial's, they have just introduced some new models at icast that will be available soon. Selece the length and action that best fits your needs. I have been very pleased with my Crucials, casting and spinning and they are available in the $150 range.