SirSnookalot

They are staring to click in my area now, caught some yesterday. I've been trying to avoid that long ride to Miami. The most prolific peacock lure I have ever used (all the peacock guys use them here) is plain old crappie jig. What makes the crappie jig so good is the number of ways it can be fished. The small profile allows it to come thru weeds, it can be swimmed, hard or soft jigged and with the rod held high it can fished similar to a fly on top of the water. You will catch not only peacocks but bass, mayans, oscars and bluegill. the real beauty is they cost only .20 a piece. Once again simplicity can be a great weapon. I've caught them on about every imaginable lure, for me it's only going to be a crappie jig or an inline spinner.

May be gods perfect creation, they have been here for millions of years of, it's suggested they may survive a nuclear holocaust. You'll never kill them all.

My sentiments as well. I do believe the variables are not constant, change day to day and year to year. I choose not to keep track of what I'm doing while I'm fishing, if it's a really nice fish I'm going to remember. Any activity other than casting takes my lure out of the water. That includes learning knots on your phone, logging, weighing, measuring, photos and even posting on BR of sub 20" fish. As far as I'm concerned a dry lure catches nothing.

I don't care what kind of knots or how many one knows, just no how to tie them before you leave home. A knot is about the most basic element in fishing, if one needs an app on a phone to tie a knot, IMO that person isn't ready to fish.

I might be missing something, maybe bass are bigger, more powerful, make longer harder runs than salt water fish, hence the need for all these super dooper knots. From a guy who fishes saltwater about 340 days a year both on my own as well as with a guide and charter, just about everyone uses a loopknot for lures. Clinch or an improved clinch for terminal tackle and the bimini knot has been replaced by the alberto, which is faster and easier and just as strong. What's a saltwater fisherman really know anyway..........lol.

Have the link to their factory outlet?

Jefferson Ave between 9 & 10 mile, better known as the Nautical Mile. I grew up there, we had a boat at a marina, Gr Lakes yacht club (it's mostly for sailors now), I'm not real familiar with public ramps and I've been gone for 10 years. We probably fished the Canadian side more than the American, I just love Canada. Harsens Island a little further north is reachable by ferry and they still may have boat rentals there, it's next to Walpole Island which is sensational fishing.

Like Papajoe I use a flashlight held in my mouth, I keep it on lanyard around my neck. My favorite is a 9 LED Garrity 3 aaa's, only used to retie or unhook, don't like a steady light on. Never much cared for the headlamps or visor clip ons.

Loopknot and leader for all hard lures, no exception. I use the lure right out of the box, don't remove a split ring or add one. I may lose a lure due to a snag or cutoff, a fish just ain't gonna break that knot. I'd be checking the drag on the spinning reel.

Talking Pflueger, I did some bass fishing yesterday hadn't done it a while. I was using my supreme 35, which was used 2 years for snook fishing in salt, I forgot how smooth this reel is. I own 2 other supremes I like them equally as well. In addition to my supremes I own an arbor which I use nearly everyday and medalist, both used in saltwater, none of the 5 Floogs have ever been serviced, a claim I cannot make regarding other mfgs.

If one feels F/C means more strikes then that's what should be used. I have used it for some of the most line shy fish, I never saw a difference in my catch rate, I just don't use it any more. I cut my leaders from mono, some species I do use actual leader and there is a difference. My leaders are generally no more than about 20", not a lot of stretch being so short, I get real nice hooksets with out too much effort. The knot of my choice is the old fashioned, out dated clinch knot, just does not fail me even with larger fish. The key is the drag setting, fish pulling line out will not break line or knot.

Hot streaks end and mine has. We have had a shift in the wind and the barracuda are laying low now. Every day later in the tide cycle (45 minutes later than the day before) the bite drops off each ensuing day. As a rule the optimum window of opportunity is when low tide is an hour or so after sunrise, today it's not until 11:00, so I'm not expecting much to happen, but ya never know for sure.

All that's needed is just to bend the blade a smidgen with a pliers.

If it's tied properly it should not weaken. I've kept the same leader on for days and days if I'm not changing lures.

It's an inexpensive replacement part, real question is it needed. I have never replaced my drag in any of my reels, stock drags have been just fine. I've been pondering replacing my drag pads in 2 4000 stradics, these reels are about 5 years, they have handled a lot of fish that make long runs. But it's something easy to do.

Sure, like keeping money in offshore accounts and building plants in other countries, then rejecting an increase in minimum wage. Corporations complaining taxes are too high when in reality many of them pay very little or none at all. I'm all for eliminating loop holes, except for the ones that raise MY taxes................lol. These welfare moms could use a lesson how to really scam the system by big corporations, they are the best at it.

HaHaHa, I don't think so.

Believe me I don't take it personal at all, quite the opposite really. There are certain techniques, rods and reels, line choices and lures that are not appealing to me for bass fishing. When it comes to bass fishing that's really my relaxation time, I go out of my way to fish open water with pretty light gear, that gives me the most enjoyment. Don't think that I don't use heavier gear, I have thrown many 4 oz lures on surf equipment and do speed jigging in deep water.

A foul hooked fish is always more difficult to bring in.

I understand your feeling, you are using a huge rod to catch maybe an 8# bass with a 60 second battle, and I'm using a med/hvy fairy wand to catch a 70# tarpon (which I did 2 days ago) that takes about 30+ minutes to land..........yeh those fairy wands are pretty flimsy.

On my mind is catching a fish so I'll be heading out in a little bit for my afternoon session. I don't normally get skunked but I did this morning, no snook or barracuda and the peacocks weren't even eyeing my lures this morning, not 1 strike. That crap don't fly with me...........lol.

I'll just throw this out. I have a good bud fishes nothing but Van Staal, one of them is mounted on a $29 Soujourn, he loves it and I own one as well I like mine a lot. My priority depends on what I'm fishing for, for smaller fish I'm not overly critical, just a good all around package works for me. I don't do much bottom fishing so sensitivity is not extremely important to me and I don't have much problem landing the fish. The majority of my fishing is targeting medium sized fish 10-50#, the reel gets my nod. I can't move most of these fish, they're moving me and all I can do is tire them out. That's where a good drag on a reel comes into play. I only use "fairy wands"..........just read that on another post and I'm still wiping the coffee off my monitor.

I live in the area and familiar where you will be. Unless you plan on leaving equipment here for a winter trip I would not buy any thing special for bass. Bass fishing is not very hot right now in this area, the focus is elsewhere. As they say here in Florida, there is always a good bite going on someplace. If I were to go back to Michigan, I'd never bass fish because I got them here, I'd be fishing for something I don't normally catch like pike, muskie, trout, etc. I'm always going to try and steer a vacationer to saltwater, not only is the the time of year for it, but you may catch something you never caught before.

I've used them mostly for snook at night. They do not work any worse or better than any other dark or light bait. Conventional wisdom, dark lure dark water, light lure light water and all the colors in between mean nothing.

Michigan has a lot of golf courses and their environment appears to be very healthy. New golf courses are regulated as to how much of the "natural areas" must be left. My area of Florida is a one time farming community, now it's urban sprawl and growing every day. We have a lot of residential communities and lots of golf courses, we also have lots of gators, all kinds of wild life and the fishing ain't too shabby here. What we do have that has disappointed me are public areas such as canals fenced off limiting fishing access. On the other side of the equation the population growth creates jobs. Building is booming and I hear tradesmen have more work than they can handle.