SoFlaBassAddict

Thats why some crazy person invented fluorocarbon leaders.

Those little rubber stops are fantastic. Extremely inexpensive also.

Good god, thats a lot of gators. Thats a solid 8 on the pucker factor.

It would have been more comfortable with a little wind. It was dead flat everywhere. At least with a little bit of a breeze it wouldn't have felt quite so hot.

You were robbed.

The problem is that some idiot somewhere determined that all the old cool cartoons where "violent" and kids shouldn't watch them. I miss old weekend morning cartoons

It really was scary how clear that water was in some of those areas. I couldn't believe how many small fish were in that area. Not to mention those gigantic shiners that we saw. I could have rigged some of those with a circle hook on a bridle for trolling.

Alberto (Modified Albright) for line to line connections.

Sorry to hear that. Engine problems are never a fun thing to deal with. Glad you guys got back safely. Could have been much worse if you really would have been stuck out in the middle of nowhere.

The biggest lakes in the world are spit in a bucket when you compare it to the ocean. If you think it's not difficult to find what you're looking for in saltwater, you're grossly mistaken. If you think the oceans are full of fish, unfortunately you'd be wrong. In my relatively short life, I've seen saltwater fisheries get totally decimated by overfishing. The Bahamas recently RADICALLY changed the fishing laws as far as tourists are concerned in an effort to try and save whats left of the fishery.

See my avatar. Thats the hardest fighting pound for pound fish swimming. I've caught a ridiculous amount of different species of fish. There is nothing that fights as hard as a Peacock does for it's size. I've heard Smallies are close. I intend to find out about that one of these days.

Dude, they love that goofy looking little stinker. Theres times when I have them in the car with me and I'll start mocking that song he has Babybabybabybyber or whatever it's called. I'll just belt it out and horribly mangle it. The results are not pleasant.

Leave the braid on. Just tie on a fluoro leader if you're worried about line visibility.

Millions of people across the world have a transducer on a trolling motor. ;D I think that speaks for itself. I've got a transducer on mine and have no issues at all. The only thing you may have to worry about is electrical interference messing up the signal. I doubt you'll have that problem though. Most of the newer shielded cables do a good job at getting rid of it.

Today I had the pleasure of heading out to Okeechobee with Robert (South FLA here on BR). We ended up choosing the Big O instead of Lox just for the chance to find some better quality fish. The lake level was just shy of 14'. Looks like at the end of the day water was being pulled out, looked to be roughly half a foot lower when we got back to the ramp at 11. We left the ramp around 6:15 this morning. Ended up at our first spot about fifteen minutes later. Although it was a few minutes later than we were hoping for, we were there just as the sun was peaking over the horizon. Okeechobee, lilly pads, sounds like froggin time to me. We ended up with close to 25 fish in the first hour and a half or so before the bite slowed a bunch. Picked up a few others in the next half hour, but nowhere near the numbers before the sun really came up. Wish we could have stayed out longer, but that South Florida sun came out. Sweating like pigs at 10 in the morning just killed it. We caught a few more in another spot. I got a couple flipping a Sweet Beaver. Robert picked up a few more on the popper and a couple on a Skinny Dipper. All in all not a bad day. Even had one nice double header with a couple of two and a half pounders that thought they were much bigger the way the slammed the frogs. We probably could have had a 50 fish morning. The area is so thick with weeds that getting a real solid hookset was difficult a few times. Robert missed one that could have easily been seven pounds or more. It had a head the size of a small dump truck. Looking forward to doing that again, Robert. That spot is just ridiculously fun to fish in. Talk about a loaded area. Mike, you need to take his advice about that spot. Just make sure you go in there on a plane or you'll pick up a lot of weeds. It gets really thick back in there. Thinking about it now, after that frog bite slowed up, I probably should have flipped through some of that thicker stuff to pick up a few more fish. The bites in that area were super aggressive. Sunrise at the honey hole: First decent fish of the day, unfortunatley the top guide on my Pinnacle rod got blasted. Looks like a defect from Fuji. Came on a Tru Tungsten Mad Maxx. On the next cast Robert sets into a good one: A few casts later this comes to the boat: They were definitely loving the Spro Bronzeye Popper: Random pictures from Okeechobee:

There is absolutely nothing cooler than the look on a kids face when they catch a fish. Way to go.

Molded grip? Are you talking about the reel seat? Or the foam portion of the handle?

I usually use a 1/4 or a 3/16 weight. I'll use a 3/8 if I'm fishing much deeper or if I'm casting it out instead of fishing it mostly vertical. I'm not sure the real reason why the hooks are so small, but they do work. I've heard it's because most of the strikes tend to come at the "head" of the bait. Which would make sense. It's a lot easier to swallow a small fish head first, the dorsal spines won't go down easily if the fish is going in reverse. Most of my hookups with the drop shot are usually right in the lip or upper portion of the mouth. Once in a while I'll get one thats hooked deep, but thats fairly rare.

For 200 bucks, you cannot beat that reel. I've messed around with one a few times. It's almost gross how lightweight it is. Once the larger sizes get released, I fully plan on buying a couple of them for some of my saltwater fishing.

Great post. That should be added to the Best of thread. Adding it to my favorites.

It happens to everybody, Bassclary. You develop a comfort level with a certain rod, or series of rods. Changing to something drastically different can really mess you up. Sometimes it takes a while to really develop a good feel for the rod.

Went out earlier this morning and had two dinks on a new frog. That was it.

That's pretty hard to beat. I'd buy it if I had the need for another reel right now.

x2 I've had strikes on the fall, but it seems that most of mine come while dragging or hopping it back to the boat.

If you ever wanted to make your seven year old daughters really mad at you, all you need to do is talk smack about Hannah Montana or iCarly. The looks I got from them were just spine chilling.