Shad_Master

The fish weight calculator on this site is accurate for my 6.11#er that I caught year before last and for the 5.976 #er that I caught last year -- that's my story and I'm stickin to it?

The next time you are "forced" to go with the wife to the local craft store, check out the bead selections. There are some pretty cool ones all made of different kinds of materials with different shapes and sizes. I picked up a selection over the winter and plan to try them out when the weather settles down.

Punisher, as soon as you can get to liquid water is the best time to start. I have fished in a pond when the ice was still out on the edges and thrown a spinner bait up on the ice and let it slide down the edge and gotten bites. Fish gotta eat, it might as well be your bait

All I know for sure is that they can swim faster than I can reel most times when they are charging the boat after being hooked. That's where that 7:1 ratio can really come in handy.

It's hard for me to pick one, but there are several that I would really like to fish with: Gerald Swindle would be a hoot to spend time on the water with -- I remember watching him in an FLW tournament years ago when he took out a chain saw to cut through a fallen tree to get into the back of a cove -- he won the tournament. Woo Daves -- if you haven't seent the story about him and the kid with cancer, you should But my absolute favorite is Rick Clunn -- he has been my idol for longer than any. Not only a superb fisherman, but a real person.

I fish a pond about 8 nights per week and use it as a place to test out the baits that I will use on the bigger bodies of water. The fish are all in the same mode and this helps me to pattern them as well.

I found this show a few weeks ago and it is pretty good. My biggest critique is that they only fish for about 3 hours and you don't get to see much of how they adapt as the day goes on -- I think it is cool that Scott gets smoked most of the time and he lets the show go on anyway. Worth a look-see if you haven't.

For my club the annual dues are $20 and we have an optional calcutta series that has an additional $20 fee. We collect optional $5 dock pools for big stringer (1st, 2nd & 3rd) and for Big Bass for each tournament and calcutta. These are paid back at the end of the tournament. The calcutta dues are paid back at the end of the year for the place leaders based on the number of entrants.

Two comments about this: 1) It does take a little practice to get it right and you have to be concerned abut the amount of time the fish is out of water while you're trying to get the hook lined up to be removed (once you do it is surprising how easy it comes out). 2) Leaving the hook in makes it easier to come out later and doesn't necessarily hurt the fish. Last year, I caught a fish that was gut hooked one night and because I couldn't see well enough to use the method, I cut the line. Two days later, I caught the same fish (I could tell by the line - Power-Pro - still attached to the hook) and was able to take the hook out without any damage to the fish. Obviously the fish was still feeding and the hook was easier to take out because the hole in the gullet had been enlarged. Fish are tougher than we give them credit for -- they lead a tough life.

I grew up on a farm - it wasn't our farm but we lived there because my Dad worked for the man who owned it. There was a creek that ran through the farm and I spent most of my time on the creek while growing up. Ther was a low-water dam just down the hill that created a pond for the cattle to be able to drink and the spill way beyond the dam created a pool that was always full of sunfish. I can remember Sunday afternoons when my parents, grandparents and I would spend our time catching these little critters one right after another. I also had uncles who liked to fish on the river and would take me with them sometimes. We moved to town when I was 14 and there was a pond behind our house that was off limits to me for fishing, but I managed to slip in there quite often and caught my biggest catfish ever from there. I was 16 the first time I fished from a boat that a friend of mine had -- probably a 10 footer/no motor (outboard or trolling)-- we had to row out on the lake. I can't remember a time when I didn't fish, but I guess my Dad loved it as much as I do, he just had to work so much that he didn't get the time to very often. I'm sure I got my start because of him.

There are a couple of lakes near here that have permanent duck/goose blinds set up on some pretty productive coves. A couple of years ago, we were having a tournament on one of the lakes and goose season had already started. Not being hunters, one of our boats drifted into the cove and found himself being confronted by a local game warden who proceeded to check his boat (life jackets, fire extinguisher, bilge pump, etc.) and then proceeded to announce that he could write him a ticket for invading the hunting area. The boater, agreed that he could write him a ticket but please be sure to note his name and badge number on the ticket so before going to court to argue that he had as much right to the water as the hunter, he could alert the State DNR that this guy was hunting while on duty. The warden didn't write the ticket and went back to his blind without any further comment ;D

My first experience with a guide was about 8 years ago when my son was 6. We were on Table Rock and I wanted him to experience catching bass. I also had my 70+ year old Father-in-law on the trip. When we arrived at the lake, I didn't have a boat at the time, I was told that the bass were suspended at 30' over 70' of water. I thought, how in the world would you catch fish under these conditions. The guide picked us up at the marina and proceeded to take us out in the middle where he stopped the boat and handed each of us a spinning outfit that had been tied with a drop shot. He had marked the line so that we could tell when we were at 30 feet and we started to jig the finesse worm. Needless to say we filled the live well that day with 3-5#ers. The guide spent most of his time helping my son and my Father-in-law and just let me fish. It was a memory that none of us will forget. A couple of years later, we went back to the T-rock and I hired him again. This time I had a boat and he spent the morning showing me areas where fish were holding and giving me tips on how to catch 'em. We didn't catch as many this time, but we spent the rest of the week working off what he had shown us. All in all well worth the money.

It's defenitely a different fight between LM's and SM's. As you said LM's pull you down and this makes the tug seem harder, but SM's tend to stay up (causing them to jump more) and it is more of a finesse fight. Pound for pound, though I go think SM's fight longer, maybe because it is more of a finesse fight. Both get my heart pumping though.

Thanks Raul, I knew if anyone would know it would be you.

This came up in a discussion I was having last evening -- somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my memory, I recall being told that a bass (maybe other fish as well) have to close their mouth in order to flare their gills and get oxygen. So if a bass gets pinned up on a crank bait or tries to eat a bait fish or crawdad that is too big, it can cause them to "drown". Was this just something my Granpa told me to pull my leg or is this for real? Not really important, but was just wondering.

This is a topic that has been discussed locally here. There is a particular lake that has been "hot" for local tournaments and the DNR even built a weigh-in pier near the lauch ramp. Some of the "money" tournaments have made fishing within so many feet of the release area off-limits because the thought was that all the fish would be stacked up there. However, the "club" tournaments do not have this rule and so a lot of the guys I have fished with have concentrated on this area. The result has been that while there are few fish in that general area, most tournaments are won in the same areas year after year well away from the release area. Now were are not talking about 30 miles here, but these are fairly big lakes. Not scientific by any means but a practical observation that seems to suggest that they head home after being released.

I have a question about float tubes that kinda goes with this thread -- I was fishing from shore last year in an area were there were lots of 2-3&4 #'ers when a guy came along and started fishing from a float tube. He "launched" himself and began paddling backwards while casting over the area where he had just paddled (also where I was fishing >). Does all this activity with flippers under the water spook the fish, if so it would seem counter productive.

I have a pet bass in a pond near my home -- it is a private pond and I don't have "official" permission to fish there, so I used to sneak out every evening around dark-thirty. I would walk out to the same spot turn to my right and cast a crank bait and he would bite. Now lots of people have told me it isn't the same fish, but I believe it is because I know I am the only one fishing there and after several weeks, this little guy had several holes around his mouth where he had been hooked. After the Sherrif finally told me that would haul me in if they caught me there again, I moved on. But I still wonder if that little guy is still there.

I once caught a rock on Table Rock -- it was about 2" square and had a hole in one side where water had eroded it at some point and I picked it up on a crank bait. also, a buddy of mine once caught a musk rat -- sort of on an accident, but he kept swimming around where we were fishing and buddy threw his crank bait at him to try to scare him away and he got snagged in the foot. Another guy, member of my Bass Club, caught a goose when he dove after his Senko and took off in the air with it, very funny to watch -- wish I had a video camera.

There is a website called MidAmericaOutdoors (sorry I don't know the specific address) that gives fishing reports for various lakes, including Table Rock. They are not always uptodate, but you can get a general idea to get you started by reading what the guides are putting out there.

Another one that I learn a lot from that hasn't been mentioned is Hank Parker -- Outdoor Magazine. I also like People Who Fish (my wife thinks Billy and Bobby Murray are cute :). But just to try to take this string in a little different direction -- is it really important if the guy on the show is actually catching the fish or not? I have always heard stories about these guys not actually catching the fish and wonder, so what?? I watch the shows for what I can learn about what they are doing, I will often channel surf while Bill Dance, Roland, etc. are reeling in the fish, cause I don't care. I come back to see what they are saying about what caused 'em to bite or how they are working the bait. Most of these shows are commercials for the sponsors, but again, who cares? I watch all the guys I fish with to learn what I can about what they are doing, doesn't mean I go running out to BPS or Wally World to buy what they were using, but I might. My vote would be 24 hour/day bass fishing on TV, but then I would have to quit my job and get a divorce >

A color that Raul left out when listing colors for soft plastic -- although it may be included under the category of "purple" is June Bug -- have found this to be an awsome color and probably caught more bass on this single color than any other last year. I also notice the absence of red in the list of colors for any of the baits -- ??

Aren't you glad those people don't get it -- otherwise they would be out there cluttering up the lakes and streams --

The first time I ever saw drop-shotting was while fishing with a guide on Table Rock -- the fish were suspended at 30' over 70' of water. He had us mark the line so that we could keep it at 30' and we caught a boat load of fish. Last year, on Memorial Day weekend, I was fishing a public pond that was shoulder to shoulder with bank fishers. I rigged a drop-shot and was casting it out to weed beds in probably 5-7 feet of water and catching one right after another while the others stood and watched. Also last year, one of our club tournaments was won by a guy fishing a drop shot on windy rock points -- he had the hook up about 10" and that was enough to get bites when nobody else could. There are lots of ways to fish a drop shot, you just have to experiment.

There used to be a lady that worked in our office you informed me that "fishing is an excuse for doing nothing". I advised her, not if you do it the way I do and offered to pick her up at 3:30 that next Saturday to accompany me on a 2.5 hour drive to an 8 hour tournament. She didn't take me up on it