Red Bear

hooks are cheap enough that i just toss older ones and buy new ones

nice fish, i hooked a monster flathead on a zebco 33 a few years ago, pole and reel held up, the prespooled factory line didnt though, i changed the line the next day lol. got the thing to the top of the water near the dock to atleast see it though. but then again that same reel got a gear stripped on it when a 1lb bass slammed it in a pond haha

WOW! Excellent fish

are you implying that bass never hang out in the shallows during the day? if so then thats a false statement you made...

the orioles have an agreement with MASN that if theyre playing at the sametime as the nationals then the nats get pushed to MASN2 basically

i catch all of my buzzbait fish running it underwater like a spinnerbait, ive oddly never had a strike running it on top of the water though and i would venture to say that a fish 20 inches long is over the 1.5-2lbs yall are giving that fish

that search bait stuff kills me. sometimes you can search through half your baits or more before you find one that works and everyone names a different bait as their 'search bait'. i would just recommend you throw what youre confident in and what has worked for you well in the past under similar conditions

id love to get into some striper like that, my biggest is 25" and was caught while trolling

if its a frog you rig yourself the hook youre using might be too small

i agree 100%

you cant solve the drug problem either way you go

nice fish, i get kinda shakey after landing a nice sized fish too

im right handed and ALWAYS hold my rod in my right hand and reel with my left hand, i cast with my right hand as well. i feel i have better control holding and working the rod in my right hand especially with the weight of a fish on there. it just feels so unnatural reeling with my right hand. i imagine if i was left handed all that would be opposite of what it is now...

thats not a very good analogy. 5 lures would work better than 5 rods in that instance. and if takes more than 5 rods to catch 5 fish then something is not right there and you should revisit everything youre doing...

say youre fishing and focused on fighting a monster bass youve hooked and pirates roll up on you with guns drawn. and then what? youre going to pull out a gun right in front of them? theyd probably shoot you on the spot.

Most of them are the ba$tard children of reality tv. ;D

i think its illegal to release a snakehead in the potomac, they want you to kill them, some people say theyre good eating

aside from clothing, it doesnt hurt to keep a cool wet rag draped over your neck and shoulders either...

i liked my old 33, but a 1lb bass hit one day and stripped a gear in it. i finally replaced it this year, couldnt find the 33 platinum so got the regular one again, and its real rough. i think youre much better off getting a shakespeare tiger spincasting combo for like 17 bucks at walmart. ive brung in nice bass and catfish with it and a 24in striper. the reel has held up well over 4 years, only oil and greased it once. the rod it comes with is 6'6 MH so it may not be so fun for pan fishing though. it will hold line up to 20lb mono, i have 15lb on mine right now. i call it my good luck rod because ive caught some of my biggest fish and PBs on it and it seems to work well for almost all applications. the newer ones are different than my old one though, i dont care what more lucrative brands i have with me, if its a tough bite i will almost always go for this combo because of the luck ive had with it

for me its the fight. drag screaming if the fish runs, the bow in the rod, etc

ive had better luck fishing buzz baits underwater like a spinnerbait than on top

currently im having a lot of success on a white spinner bait with a red head when all else seems to fail though, i go to a t-rigged 7" berkley red shad shakey worm or a t-rigged 5" baby bass kinami flash

1. You never want to point a rod at a fish while fighting it. You want to keep the rod and line at a 90 degree angle so that the rod is absorbing the shock, and not the line and knot. 2. You basically want to set the hook and immediately reel fast into this right angle position, all the while keeping the line tight from the moment the hook is set until you land the fish. Francho said it well. I'll +1 that. yeah, i dont get the pointing the rod at the fish after setting the hook, that may be a bigger problem than the actual hookset for this person

the problem isnt that you revived the fish, its that you moved it BACK and forth. apparently a fish can be harmed by moving him backwards as his gills only work one way or something like that, someone else may be able to explain it better. also theres an image somewhere around here about how to remove a gullet hooked bass and it works well.

i use a net for bigger fish, no need for smaller ones though