piscicidal

IMO, Rolo has the definitive post on soft paddletails. For my money it's probably 1) Gambler BigEz 1a) RI Skinny Dipper The big ez is so versatile and the tail action is unmatched. You can work it on the top of the slop like a weedless spook. If you have a fish following, you can kill the retrieve and the tail will keep shaking on the way to the bottom. You can keel-weight it and swim it thru grass. C-rig. T-rig, etc.... It casts a mile and is more durable than most swimbaits that I use. I have three +26lb bags this year and the Ez was primarily responsible for two of those.

Merry Christmas to you too Glenn and all the BR staff. You guys and all the members here have made this website my "personal best".

If he has an ebay watch list, check that...probably the best way to covertly see what your bf is interested in at a given time. Heck my wish list changes almost daily...

This is a fun thread. I think it comes down to Lake Okeechobee or Falcon. On the TV show "Scott Martin Challenge", Scott fished Okeechobee while another pro fished Falcon. Scott caught a 34lb bag that day ...and LOST! The Texas pro caught a 37lb bag. Okeechobee cranks out bag limits like no other. Half the field will have +20lb bags in the elite series event there this year. Big O doesn't have the density of double digit fish that those Texas lakes have though. As much as it pains me to say it, to answer the topic of this thread (top trophy LMB destination), I would probably say 1.) Falcon 2.) Okeechobee.

Vinny, I'm with you, in that I love the skinny dipper. We are lucky to have Jim Bitter's baits located down here and they have a very good knockoff the of the skinny dipper (naked swimmer...lol) in just a ridiculous amount of colors. The naked swimmer is not exactly the same mold as the dipper. It looks identical but it's scaled down slightly....about 1/2" shorter in length. I would think if you took a "spanish fly" colored dipper and put a blotch of orange dye under the gills, you'd have a fair bluegill replica. Actually, I think I'm going to try that. Spanish Fly has been one of my most successful colors in clear water.

Not necessarily "old school" but the RI Swamp Donkey is a favorite of mine that is no longer in production. Not sure why RI stopped making them...there's a huge demand for them. I've bid some up on ebay but they always end up beyond my max bid.

Like JF said, I always think in terms of "best five". IMO, it is the best measure of what kind of day you had, in that it factors in both quantity and quality (quantity of quality? ) It also gives you a frame of reference against what the tournament/trail guys are doing. If I catch a 20lb bag on Okeechobee and I see that the tournament guys are winning with 25lb bags and 20lb is placing top 5, I know I'm generally doing the right thing. If I catch 14lbs and the tournament guys are coming in with 30, I need to change it up! I had a 150fish day this July at Loxahatchee that my best five didn't weigh 15lbs. I had a six fish day there in August with my best five going 26, including an 8.5lb. I'll take the 6fish/26lb bag over the 150 fish/13lb bag, everyday!

I've got a 766 and don't feel overpowered at all. There's a saying when flipping the slop on Okeechobee. Every fish is a ten pounder. Sometimes you pull in 2lbs of fish and 8lbs of weeds. Sometimes its 8lbs of fish and 2lbs weeds.

As good as Okeechobee/Lox are, Bassn Blvd got it right. The most productive spots probably aren't going to be posted on an internet board. I've caught ~50 bass over 5lbs this year and ~30 of them came from a golf course pond that 99.9% of the population has no chance to fish. That's why it's so productive....

I keep a fishing journal. In the upper left hand corner, I note the "best five" weight. +15lb gets one star. +20gets two stars. +25gets three stars. This helps me quantify the success (or lack thereof) of each trip and gives me a quick reference that I can consult later. I can quickly scan last years journal looking for stars, look for similar conditions, and this gives me a starting point for the trip. Its been a useful tool for me.

Snell knot for flipping/pitching rigs. Alberto knot for joining thick leader material to braid. Blood knot for joining braid to flouro/mono of similiar diameter. Palomar for most everything else.

I've got a dobyns 805 and 766 FLIP and love both rods. I have quantum accurist reels on both. Those are very solid reels, the flippin switch is nice for flipping/pitching and they are very reasonable in price.

I'm with you. I want the other guy to do well also. As far as I'm concerned it's a collaborative effort. When I'm not fishing alone it is always one other guy, usually a good friend and we are continually collaborating trying to figure out where the fish are/what they're biting on, etc... If he is throwing topwaters and I'm pitching plastics and he starts slaying them...GREAT! We figured something out. I just wouldn't fish with someone who made a point to start bragging about how he is schooling me in this situation... IMO, it's about how many pounds of fish the boat caught not the individual.

No,it's not just you. Robert (South Fla) and I had a 27lb bag by noon a couple weeks ago in a spot on the south end. My next trip there I blanked at that spot. The great thing about Okeechobee, though, is if you apply some common sense reasoning and a little bit of lake knowledge (which is all I have) you can almost always get something going. The smallest bag I've caught there since ~mid August is ~14lb. And I'm a rank amateur on the big O. I absolutely love Okeechobee...the lake is so big and so complex with the changing water levels, clarity, temperature, etc... Like gar tracker mentioned before...the lake comes up two feet and it's a completely different lake. Like it wasn't hard enough to figure out one 440,000 acre lake...now I gotta learn two?? I could spend the rest of my life fishing it and still not know all the nuances. it's my goal to give it a try though...

Thats an awesome trip Bruce. I went today out of Clewiston with my Dad. We didn't get into them like you did, but we had a nice day. About 40 fish... five best ~17lbs. I lost one about 6 lbs just outside my reach. We got started about an hour after sunrise, and finished up about 2:00. Had pretty steady action once we found them.

My son hooking senko fish...

The Spro Little John is awesome. It has a small, dense profile that you can cast a mile. It has a great action and I catch a lot of fish on them. They have essentially pushed my Norman/Rapala/Strike King crankbaits into backup duty. One issue I have had with them is that the stock hooks can sometimes get tangled. I fix this by putting a shorter (#6, 2X) Mustad treble on the back.

My son just turned six years old and he has probably over 100 senko bass in the past twelve months fishing our golf course pond with me. He basically has no hook set. He usually doesn't realize a fish is on there until the rod is bent over with a fish tugging at the other end. The fish swimming off with the senko essentially hooks itself. Usually with a senko setup you are talking about a M action rod, a thin mono/flouro line and fairly long casts....i.e. fineese. How much force can you expect to generate swinging with some massive hookset, anyway? I think the best way to fish these baits is with very thin wire hooks (you want this anyway so as not to affect the fall rate of the bait) and a light reel set. I would put my sons catch rate percentage with a senko up against most fishermen I know. A six year old has the inherent advantage of not having that Alpha Male tendancy of needing to actively work the bait, imposing his will on that stupid fish. My son will work that bait as slowly as he needs to. He'll sit on that bank for 2-3 minutes sometimes not moving the bait at all before I see the line moving off.

Robert, no need to do the flea market thing. I can pretty much guarantee that if you don't like that reel you can sell it to "your buddy" for the (ridiculously low) price you paid for it....

13.5ft and still rising....FAST. Is this a case of "be careful what you wish for"?

Holy cow...look at the shoulders on that beast. That would eat the little peas I caught last week. Very nice!

Hoss bass... Today was ridiculous out there. Not only did we catch 80+ but the size was outstanding. By my count about a dozen over 4lb and six over 5lb. 26-27lb bag? Robert was "the Man" today, whipping me pretty good on size and numbers.

Yeah, Eric. I'm on some nice fish right now. Robert and I went back to that spot today and absolutely crushed em. 80+ fish by noon, six over five pounds. 26-27lb sack. Today was ridiculous. Robert will be posting some pics soon.

Yep. I've caught three peacocks in the past two weeks after catching none in over a year and a half.

We caught three good ones...one 4.5, one 5, and one 5.6. All were staged up near the beds and fat. Here is a picture of the 5.6. This fish was only about 20-21" but just fat and full of eggs. That cold front last Wednesday definitely pushed some fish up toward the beds.