jivey

Agreed, I have the color version. My only complaint is that it seems to wear the batteries down relatively quickly. I read somewhere that the B&W version is a lot better on battery life. That is a non issue on an awesome product as far as I am concerend though.

Hey everyone, looking for some advice. The past few days we have been fishing a larger body of water. We have been fishing this lake for a few years with some regularity. We're fishing in some full day tournaments as well as some weekday evening tourneys on this lake. The first few tourney's we did alright catching decent limits in shallow water. However, as the fish finished spawning and moved to deeper water we are having trouble finding bigger kicker fish. We can get a limit fishing docks/weedlines and flats, but we need to locate some bigger bass on deeper structure. Here are the conditions currently on the lake: Water temp: around 75-78 (Big body of water so it varies) Water clarity: relatively clear, (maybe 8-10 feet of visibility) It is a highly recreational lake, making much of the main water structure high traffic areas. (Tough to stay standing when you have 40 foot yachts making 4 foot rollers ;D) Anyways, we have been fishing the past few days looking for fish in deeper water with no luck. We have tried some points, humps, ledges etc. with minimal success. Here is a map of the lake: http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/news/story?page=oims Please, any help/advice regarding locations/presentations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I have trailer hooks on most of my buzzbaits. You'd be amazed at the amount of fish I catch with just the trailer hook in the top lip. For some reason I get a lot of short strikes with buzzbaits and a trailer hook can really increase your odds of hooking up. As far as weeds go, the hook should run directly behind the other hook so it shouldn't cause any extra weed issues.

The good shore fishing lakes I am familiar with are south west of the cities. I don't know that area quite as well.

Where exactly are you at in MN? If you are around the metro area I can probably give you some advice. Let me know...

Which Aitkin county lakes will you be fishing? I've got a cabin on Wilkins. I'll actually be up on Mille Lacs this weekend doing some walleye fishing. (Hopefully some smallies too if time permits) Good luck!

I usually just ring mine out every cast. I am usually cleaning weeds/slop off of it anyway, so it isn't really that big of a deal.

This depends on if you have a boat. There are a ton of good bass lakes in the west metro area in the Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, Minnetonka area. The problem with a lot of these lakes is that they are in suburban neighborhoods and they are surrounded by houses which makes bank fishing rather difficult unless you ask permission to fish from peoples yards/docks. I am very familiar with the south west side of the metro area, if you want some specific tips for that area of the Twin Cities, PM me. But like I said, I am not as sure about bank fishing. There you would probably be better off in the city lakes like Calhoun etc.

Our average day on the water is usually ~5:30pm-9:00 or 10:00pm. We will usually catch about 10-20 between 2 or 3 of us. Depends heavily on if we are fishing comfort baits or trying new techniques/pre-fishing.

I have the spinnerbait/buzzbait box and love it. My next purchase is going to be a speedbag or something similar to hold my boxes. I'm leaning towards another falcon product just because I know they will fit well. I have an old bag that I'm using now that's falling apart. Anyone have any reccomendations?

Couldn't agree more... here in MN at least, most of the lakes around the central part of the state have very dirty water and these color patterns seem to be the only ones that work. When I go up north, some of the more natural colors get used, but not very frequently.

MN Basser, I was out there last weekend fishing for walleyes. We caught a lot of smallies trolling med. diving shad raps and walleye cranks in about 10-15 feet of water on some of the flats. We also pitched tubes and fished shallow cranks in and around marinas and rock piles/breaks. I can't remember the name of the marina where we had the most luck, but it was about a 10 minute boat ride south of the hudson marina on the minnesota side. Unfortunately we were dead set on catching dinner so we didn't work real hard for smallies, but for the hour that we tried, we probably boated about 10 of them, two of which were probably in the 3-4lb. range. Good luck to you.

Here is what I currently own... St. Croix PC70MHF St. Croix PC66MHF St. Croix PS70MF I need a new trigger rod and a new spinning reel for the PS70MF. I Will probably stick with a st. croix premier rod because of familiarity and comfort level. 2 questions... What kind of rod would you buy to round out the arsenal? (I am thinking a good rod for spinnerbaits/shallow-med cranks) What is a good quality spinning reel for use in skipping docks/fishing weightless worms. I have a good idea of what I want to buy, just curious as to what other think. Thanks.

Not sure about right around the twin cities area, but up north has some guides that I know about. A friend of mine hired a guide for a full day for relatively cheap on Lake Mille Lacs which is a growing Muskie fishery. It is about a 1.5-2 hour drive north of the cities. Lake Minnetonka also has a good Muskie population. I'm not sure if there are any guides that go out on that lake, but it is worth looking into. Let me know if you have any other questions.

My buddies and I usually got out about 5 or 6 days a week. In the summer I work 9-5, home about 5:30, on the water by 6:00, home around dark, dinner, sleep, repeat.

A few of those plastic frogs will retain water. After a few casts, squeeze the water out. A few that i've seen actually have a hole where you can easily get the water out.

One of the very reasons that I fish is the idea of it being a challenge. To me the most exciting part is going out in tough conditions and trying to find a few fish. As far as "getting pumped up" for a trip. I get pumped out to go to a local lake for 3 hours let alone a big trip. If you can't get pumped up just to be on the water, maybe you need to look into a different sport.

Try using a heavy jig to punch through the pockets. We had lots of success with that this summer, you have to be patient and hit all of the areas though.

One word of advice regarding treble hooks... When landing a fish be careful if you hold onto the rod and let it load up with tension when trying to lip the fish. If that fish shakes the hooks somehow, those hooks will be stuck in your hand before you know it.

Well to start, do you have access to a boat, or just bank fishing? I'm not as familiar with that area, but I might be able to dig up some information.

Blaine eh... What Lakes do you fish?

My favorite search lures are Cranks, C-rigs, and spinnerbaits. If i'm working real shallow water i'll see if I can get something to boil on a buzzbait worked real fast.

I think the Texas Rig can be used more efficently in a wider variety of situations, but each rig has equal importance in bass fishing.

It is Beaver Dam Lake in Cumberland. Thank you all for the replies, this should prove to be very helpful.

I am going on my annual trip to my grandparents place in WI for Labor Day and am looking to do some smallmouth fishing on their lake. My problem is that I have no clue where to begin. The only smallmouth I've caught on the lake have been caught on live bait while trolling at night for walleyes on a ledge that runs in front of our cabin. I have no problem catching largemouth, and I know there is good sized smallies in the lake, but I just don't know where to start. Any advice towards a late-summer/early-fall pattern as well as lure selection would be very much appreciated. The few main features i know of the lake offhand are that it is a very deep lake, and the banks drop rather quickly. An abundance of submerged/emerged weeds have taken over about 1/5th of the lake in the last 5-10 years. I'm just not sure what kind of structure/cover these fish should be relating too. Thanks again.