Gangley

I agree to an extent. If you fish, you need to be responsible for the fish that get mortally injured. I hate gut hooking them, and I dislike seeing them bleeding profusely, but it happens, its inevitable, and most people have empathy for them when it happens, I know I do. When I do injure them beyond recovery though, I take them home to make sure they dont go to waste. With my 5 year old son, I tell him that since we injured the fish, its our fault that he is going to die, and so its our responsibility to make sure that he doesnt go to waste. We take him home and eat him. We dont throw him back and "hope for the best". However, I also have a daughter, and I won't be able to be as blunt with her when she comes of age because she wouldnt understand the "matter of fact" simplicity of the situation and just accept it like my boy does. The circle of life topic would definately be broached, but it would be with us taking the fish home to eat because we are the ones responsible for it's death. ps, I would never recommend staying home and playing video games with kids instead of fishing with them.

With the Horny Toad I prefer a "pull, pull, pause" retrieve with the pause lasting maybe 2 seconds while i reel up the slack in the line.

Ive read the info from the Rage site previously, and it was helpful, but I was really hoping to get actual experiance from various anglers to see what worked best for them. Thank you all for the great information. I use Owner and Gamakatsu hooks almost exclusively for frogs, swimbaits, and creatures.

I just purchased a bag of these in Junebug, and man are they HUGE. The fish lately have wanted something moving pretty fast, and so I wanted to try and swim these to see how they do. Has anybody else tried to swim them, and if so did you use a keel weighted hook, slip sinker, or were you able to go weightless? If you used a weight, what size weight did you use and how did it affect the drop rate and stability of the lure? Thanks for any and all information.

no you dont it generally helps out a lot if you do.

4/0 Owner EWG

Large Mouth Bass: Generally a single dotted line going down his "lateral line". Green to bronze on top with a pale/white belly that can go up to the lateral line. Small Mouth Bass: Generally solid bronze or copper with multiple verticle stripes along the length of the body and has a noticably smaller mouth. Can have a white belly, but the white portions will generally be much smaller than that of the Large Mouth. hope that helped

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it

thats great Glenn! nice to see him take the time to answer a few questions, and nice to see Bass Resource be the one to ask him. Its great when the pros simply talk and not promote product after product.

if muddy wate then fish with something that produces a lot of vibration or flash. A chatterbait would be good, but try a KaRu Vibrashock if you can, its a great lure that is superior to your traditional chatterbait. Try a large colorado bladed spinnerbait as well to put out a large thump in the water. High vibration high visibility lures have worked great for me in muddy waters.

I just recently started fishing spinnerbaits with any regularity, and I have quickly noticed that spinnerbaits rarely run true after a couple good hard hits. I dont mind reshaping them, but I have read that you never have to reshapen a titanium spinnerbait. Has anybody had any experiances with titanium spinnerbaits to reinforce this assumption? If so, what brands do you suggest using?

1. Improper tackle matchups.....(Frog fishing with 6lb mono and a Medium Light rod.) 2. People thinking they need 30 different rods and reels to fish 30 different lures. 3. Improper Knots (see this one a lot), tend to break a lot or simply come undone. A lot of newbies tie fishing knots like they tie their shoe laces, with a couple overhand knots. 4. Patience...they see pro's slamming them hard on TV, and they want to give up after 10 minutes if they are not catching anything. 5. Being too scared to ask for help. I have found that if I offer to help they usually graciously accept it, but that if I didn't offer it, they will never ask. Don't know if it is embarrassment or what, but they rarely ask, and asking for help is the quickest way to learn. 5. Lure selection. Many newbies don't even know what they have, much less how to fish them sometimes. Its like they just went down the isle and picked up a few lures that they thought looked "fishy". Not that I havent done that before :-D

you know, i didnt want to like them, i avoided them like the plague for the last year or so because I thought they were just a gimmick with a fancy package. A few months ago I found a package of the rage craws in watermelon red for $2 on the clearance rack at Wal-Mart so against my judgment, I picked some up. I have had them in my "to try" bin for 3 months and finally decided to try one on a purple flash Omega Jig last friday. I clipped a portion of the tail off and rigged it on the jig. I couldnt believe the action those claws had, it was fantastic, second cast out landed a 1.5 lbs bass. I was honestly surprised. Granted, the craw tore up quick and didnt last through too many fish, but since it catches fish I am a repeat customer now.

Those are very impressive Dave, how'd they work out for you?

69.75 lb solid chrome King Salmon in Alaska. Fought it for 45 minutes, most of which was the fish actually pulling our boat upstream. Finally landed him and as they are lifting him out of the water with the net, the line snaps. Luckily the fish was still in the net, but that entire line looked like a frayed rope, it was crazy fun.

I remember the Zebco 33, plastic bobbers, eagle claw gold hooks, BB weights, hot dogs, and TONS of sunfish. Rubber worms were thought to be exotic lures that wouldnt work on my perch/brim. My father never fished with me that often, so a child hood friend of mine and I would go fish the creek behind the neighborhood on saturdays and sundays. There was a small pooling area in the creek that was maybe 10 foot in diameter that had an old rusting washing machine located along the edge, a super small area but one of the largest parts of the creek. We would fish that same spot every weekend and catch the same group of little brim. There was one fish in particular that had no lips we caught him so many times . I stopped fishing around middle school and didnt pick it up again until I was 28, I am now 30. My formulative years are currently ongoing

If I was getting bites on EC's, but couldnt get a bite on Owners or Gammy's, I gauruntee you my tacklebox would be full of them

Probably a rod with a little more backbone and a little more strength to handle the hook set. Try a medium/heavy/fast tip rod with either 10,12, or 14# test and see if that helps. When you are fishing a frog or something like it, line diameter is not as critical. The fish are not paying attention to line size when they are staged in the slop like they would out off a clear main lake point or ridge. Good luck Something that you touched on briefly, but many people dont pay attention to, is that when top water frog fishing, line visibility isn't as important as line diameter. In top water frog fishing, bass dont focus on the line, there are too many obstructions generally for them to pick your line out from anything. When "frogging" i simply use a medium-heavy, fast action rod as well, but will generally throw 30lb (8 lb diameter) braid on the spool, occasionally using 20lb. Again, your line is generally on top of the water and not where the bass will be able to visably noctice it between the vegetation that you are fishing through. When top water frogging, base your line diameter on the vegetation you are fishing through and around, and don't worry about if the bass can see it, they won't.

I dont feel as though an expensive rod and reel are necessary. Wal-mart rods and reels will get it done, they have for me in the past and they will for my kids in the future. I only use better rods and reels now because of choice, not because i find them to be hands down better....they arent. I do not like Eagle Claw hooks. Its a personal preference. I have bent numerous hooks with moderate tackle, but more importantly, I have lost more hooks to rust than I have to fish. They were stored in the same plastic plano box as my other hooks (Owners and Gamakatsu), yet they would rust and my others wouldn't. I cannot stand to have equipment not function properly, and rusted hooks cannot function as well as intended. Maybe it was a bad batch of hooks, I dont know, but it left a sour taste in my mouth and I will not purchase any again. I was given some Lazer Sharp a while back, and they very sharp and didnt rust at all and I was pleased, but they didnt hold their point as well as my Owners and Gammy's. For the difference of a dollar or two, I chose peace of mind and go with what I percieve to bequality hooks. I have not purchased trokar hooks, and I probably never will because I dont see them as necessary (price vs gains), but there is no arguing their sharpness and quality of materials. They had issues with their first batch of flipping hooks, but that has been resolved as best as I know. Like I mentioned earlier, its just persoanl preference from my own experiances. Other variables may have come into play that I am unaware of, but I was not happy with the results of the Eagle Claw hooks that I purchased, and therefore will not be using them again. The laser sharp held up well, but in my opinion they dulled faster than my Owners or Gammy's and therefore I will spend the extra dollar to have the peace of mind that comes when I purchase those two brands.

what kind of reel are you using and do you have the drag set correctly, thats the absolute first thing you should check. If the drag is too light, you will NEVER be able to set the hook hard enough. Second is hook sharpness. Suggestion is to go to 20-30lb braid for top water, you can set the hook like a mad man then and not worry. Make sure you have good quality hooks.....Trokar, Owner, Gamakatsu, then Mustad. Eagle Claw should not be in your tacklebox.

Big worms, Big Jigs, Big Lizards, Frogs

I perfer large ponds and very small lakes (under 25 acres). Ponds would have to be my favorite though, so much more intimate as mentioned above.

the bass will congregate with the sunfish because of their similar size. I think because of "protection in numbers". In our ponds, the smaller bass will stay close to the perch at all times, and mingle/swim with them everywhere until they outgrow the perch. Once they have significantly outgrown the perch and gotten about 10-12 inches in length, they start to bunch up outside of the sunfish groups, generally with 2-3 bass swimming together in groups, but will occasionaly break off and go solitary for a while. As they get even larger, they will break off and become more solitary more regularly, eventually becoming almost entirely solitary. However, we do have a 4.5-5 lb bass that swims with a large coy in our pond. They are best buddies I guess, but you always see them together, and since the coy is solid white with a gold head, he is easy to spot and therefore we can usually find the large bass very close by. Never would have thought the bass and coy would partner up though

what about a metal bead?

thank you all for sharing your opinions, I greatly apprciate them. The responses have been very informative, thanks.