FishnBen

Was just about to post the exact same thing.

Thanks a ton for all the valuable information guys, I never thought I'd get this much! It's a small lake with a maximum depth of only around 25-30 feet. Also, it has been mid 90's the last few weeks here, and the day before I prefished, there was a cold front and rain all day cooled the water from about 90 down to 78-80. It was cloudy with a slight wind, and saturday is supposed to be sunny with no wind. I'm assuming that even though it's going to be warm tomorrow and Saturday, the temps will be running around 80 first thing in the morning. Also, what a smoked them on was a 10 inch Blue Fleck power worm in the late morning. I plan on starting shallow with a buzzbait, swimbait, spinnerbait, and crankbait, then working my way out the pier to see exactly where they are. As someone stated, yes it is a relatively small area, so yes I will fish the whole area to try and figure out what they're doing. I was just curious as to what you guys thought they might be doing a little earlier in the day. One obvious thing I'll have to keep in mind, is that they will be wherever the bait will be. Thanks so much guys!

So, I have a tournament that I pre-fished for yesterday, and absolutely smoked them. The spot they're on is a long random underwater pier that comes out into the lake about 100 yards, and is about 6 feet deep on top, and drops into about 16 feet on all sides. The fish were stacked up right on the drop. I didn't find the area until about 10 am, and my question is; I know the fish will use this point to move up and down to feed, but should I try to fish the shoreline it connects to first thing in the morning, or should I expect them to still be out on the drop? Any advice is welcome!

There's so many baits that could go on this list for me...but I'll add one no one has said yet: any sort of topwater Popper. It might seem dumb and many people wouldn't think of a topwater on this list because everyone knows about them and loves using them...but I have probably caught more bass in my lifetime on poppers than anything else. I feel like they're almost a "finesse" topwater presentation. I don't like the small ones, and don't like the huge one's. Just a popper from about 2-3 inches with a nice thick profile and some flash and I'm set. There's just so many ways you can retrieve them and so many places you can catch fish with them. I couldn't even tell you my favorite conditions for them because as long as the water isn't absolutely frigid, I catch fish on them in warm weather, cool weather, cloudy days, sunny days, night, middle of the day, morning, spring, summer, fall, in the rain, in 20 FOW, in 6 inches of water, around weeds, around trees, around riprap, over points....I legitimately catch fish in all of these conditions, and have caught fish that were smaller than the lure, all the way up to 6 pounds (which is big around here)...yet I even forget sometimes how versitale they are and get caught up fishing a T-rig or jig or something else that they "should" be biting on.

I saw Ish give a seminar on these frogs. And all he does anymore is Walk frogs. And he designed it, so....there's your answer! haha

They aren't very popular because they don't have all the flapping appendages that other creature baits have that everyone thinks are "the more, the better". Same as everything else, if a bass sees 15 brush hogs or BH knockoffs everyday, they will get accustomed to it, and inhale that superhog! Great bait when fish aren't extremely active and I bet they would also make a great cold-water jig trailer! I just pull apart the back appendages, and then the most important part....dip the tails of a green pumpkin superhog in chartruese JJ's or Spike it Don't complain that these aren't popular...More fish for me and you!

Well you will obviously be cranking less if you are using a new lure more, because you can obviously only use one lure on one rod at a time (something I tend to forget while shopping ;D ). But both are very different baits that offer very different presentations. Soft plastic swimbaits are much more weedless, but you have a worse hookup ratio with them. Also, cranks are much better in stained water, you can match the hatch because of more different color patterns available, you can pick what kind of vibration, noise, and wobble you want to put out, and probably most importantly-you can deflect them off cover much better than a soft-plastic swimbait. At the same time, at a lot of smaller, less pressured lakes around the country, many bass haven't seen a lot of swimbaits, and if you fish heavy weeds and timber in stained to clear water, they are a great choice!

I was going to say the exact same thing as RyneB. He is THEE fastest fisherman on this planet. And no he is not human. No one can keep up with him. Something I find very interesting, is that personally....I consider the best 3 fisherman in the world KVD, Skeet Reese, and Mike Iaconelli. (JUST MY OPINION, PLEASE DON'T SCALD ME ) I would probably say KVD is on the top of that list and the other two are interchangable. I know lots of people might hate one or more of those guys, but in my opinion, on a tournament on any random lake in the country, I would PERSONALLY say those 3 would most consistently be on top. ANYWAY, what I find interesting, is that those three guys are very HIGH key, and Ike even talked about how bad his ADHD has been his entire life. I have also heard KVD talk about how he's the same way, and how it's the reason he's always been running n' gunning because he hasn't been able to sit still his entire life. Skeet is the same way. And while all 3 of these guys are also great because they have unmatched instinctiveness, persistence and versitility, I find it interesting that it seems like this "ADD or ADHD" that has been encoded in their gentics helps them out tremendously in a sport that you always hear people say that you have to be "patient" to be successful at.

No one really told me that I won't need a M powered rod, I just know I need a MH or H because I flip into everything I can. But I also like to cast plastics off the first break and fish brushpiles in 8-14 FOW.

So, after doing a ton of research, it seems like most everyong prefers a rod for throwing plastics is 6'6"-7', and either MH or H. Personally, I have been using a cheap All Star rod that's 6'6" MH for all of my t-rigged plastics, for the last 2 years. It was pretty obvious that I could upgrade to a rod with better sensitivity, and while my hook-up ratio was pretty good, I felt that if I got a bit longer rod (which is no problem for me, I'm 6'2") it would help me pick up more line on my hook-sets, thus obviously catching more fish. So this winter I found a very good deal at my local Cabelas on their XMLti rods with Recoil guides, and picked up the 7'6" MH model for my plastics. Feels great in my hands and balances well with my Revo S. My question is this....why do so many people opt for 6'6" to 7' rods when there is such a craze in the "longer is better" for rods? I'm not mocking that saying, because I actually agree with it and prefer longer rods. I'm just curious why when I look up preferences on plastic rods, most people are saying 7' and less, and when we talk about flipping rods and their benefits, most prefer a 7'4" to 8' rod. Please notice i said MOST. I know some guys flip with 6'6" H rods....I just don't happen to be one of them.

These are great baits. I had a lot of success with them last summer, and I'm sure they would be great early spring baits since they have a nice profile and very subtle movement. The only way I've rigged them so far is T-rigged with a bullet weight matching the depth I'm fishing. Best retrieve has been just a drag....pause....drag.....pause. And oh yeah...HANG ON!

Now that I get the Versus channel I can finally watch fishing every day! Here's my top 3: 1)City Limits, hands down 2)The Bass Pros 3)Can't beat good ol' Bill Dance! (my new number 1 will be the show Ike is trying to put together for the upcoming year )

When you are flipping/pitching it is usually to cover AND with a jig or texas rigged plastic. The longer rod helps you with 2 things: 1) it picks up more line on your hookset so even if you get caught with the rod at the ten o' clock position, for instance, you can still drive a hook home easier than with a shorter rod, and 2) once you hook that fish in the cover, you will have more leverage over the fish to get it out.

Well no other plastic companies make a color like it....so it obviously doesn't ;D

I can honestly say Crazy leg chigger craws are my favorite plastics. And I have a hundreds of bags of plastics; craws, creatures, worms, senkos, flukes, frogs, you name it. Those are my favorite. Yes they work well as a jig trailer also. My favorite way is texas rigged on a 4/0 Gammy EWG with a 3/8 oz. tungsten weight. I carry 3 colors; Black/red flake for dirty water, Breen (SHHHHH) for stained water, and green pumpkin for clear water. Give me that rig right there and I am confident I can catch a Bass of any size anywhere. I've also caught catfish, bluegill, crappie, bullhead, green sunfish and even a musky with it....all last year. I carry a rubbermaid container in my boat for craw plastics that probably holds 25 bags. I'd say maybe 15 are crazyleg chiggercraws, chigger craws, or chigger chunks.

Byron Velvick was one of the very first, if not the first person to use a swimbait....and he got that idea from his days as a saltwater guide. Now look at how far the swimbait craze has come...

Received my order a few days ago, and like others have said, it was a great business experience and even better prices. Also, the inserts are not sloppy at all and even the weights that are discounted because of a poor paint job look like they do after you make about 5 casts with them...very sharp-looking paint on all weights. If you're looking for quality tungsten weights at a great price, look no further. I will absolutely be doing business in the future.

I have this box as well and yes 3700. Excellent box, as it has as much room as some of the $80 plus boxes, for a small fraction of the price. I beilieve I got mine on sale a few years back for $15.

You are definately headed in the right direction. For the clearer water, I would get a version of sexy shad, and also a chrome color whether it be silver or gold. And for the muddier water, definately focus on a chartruese color like chart/blue back, chart/purple back, or chart/brown back, even black back works great as well. You can also use the chrome color for the stained water as well. And a color I've had a ton of luck on in moderately stained water, like 2-4 feet visibility; Sexy Chartruese Shad. Norman and Strike King are both great brands. I have had a ton of luck with the SK series 3,4,5 & 6 personally. And I think it's a pretty common belief that the best DEEP divers are Norman's DD22's and DD14's. Anyway....can't go wrong with those brands. I'm not sure what price range you're looking at but you might also want to throw in a few higher end cranks like a couple Lucky Craft Rick Clunn's, Spro Little Johns and I haven't had a chance to use them but the new Koppers cranks look sweet and I'm sure they will work too.

Xcalibur tungsten weights have inserts and have never been hard on my line. I thought inserts were supposed to keep the tungsten from damaging your line anyway...?

No experience with this company but WOW those are great prices! The website looks legit.....and shipping is only $2. Definately going to make an order after I hear a response to this.

For frogs..... I own 5 different colors of both the Spro bronzeye regular size and jr. size, 4 colors of snagproof's bobbys perfect frog, 2 colors of Ish's phat frog, 2 colors of the Tru Tungsten Mad Max frog, stanley ribbits and tons of horny toads. And i would trade in all of those and only own about 15 of the same color/model now. That lure is the Spro Bronzeye JR. in the albino color. All white. No other colors. That is my GO TO lure from May-September.

I appreciate your research very much Mike, as I am also very interested in this topic (it helps that I'm a fisheries biology student). What I think we all need to do, is take out of the argument both sides of the companys' ideas-we need to stop reading Tightlines' website about how it's proven in THEIR tests that bass can see UV light, AND, we need to not automatically take someone's opinion that works for Berkley, because what are they going to say, "Yes UV products work excellent but we haven't come out with a strictly UV line....so go and buy Tightlines' product!"??? I don't think so. We need to look past the marketting propaganda and see if there are some valid scientific tests that say: 1) Black Bass have the capability to see UV light, and 2) Forage such as crawfish and baitfish give off UV light. As your picture of the fish illustrates, this fish definately does give of UV light. I'd like to see that crawfish and other insects do as well, but that answers part of number 2. And even though there hasn't been specific tests for the black bass family, it looks as if they would have that extra cone in their eye to be able to see UV light because so many similar fish families in similar waters have that ability; so that is a good hypothesis for number 1. Now, you can say that if this works so well then how come it hasn't caught on and all major plastic brands don't offer UV lines of plastics? Well, Tightlines is the first company to use this "Nano Infused Polymerization" technology, and I know for a fact that this is very expensive. Tightlines is also a somewhat small company, even though it is expanding rapidly. Many of you also don't know that the last few years when these plastics were brand new, they were $9.99 for 2 baits, until late last summer. I would be skeptical of these baits....but I have seen them work with my own eyes, and I was significantly outfished by someone using the same technique as me.

So....there's been a ton of controversy about this company and its products. They claim to produce lures that give off ultraviolet rays that bass can see but humans can't. Being a somewhat local brand, I noticed they are definately starting to get much more national attention. Byron Velvick and Brent Chapman are now sponsored by them, and Velvick even has a Tightlines wrap. Last spring I fished a tournament with a guy from Maryville, MO, where they're made, and he started off the day struggling. As soon as he put one of Tightline's beavers on a shakey head, he started killing them! He caught a nice 16 pound sack and won that tournament by 7 pounds. He then called his co-angler for the tournament the next day and told him to stock up on them, and they proceeded to win the tournament the next day with a field of about 30 boats. He told me he didn't believe in them either until someone he fished with tied them on and started outfishing him significantly. In the classic, I read on the live classic blog that Chapman started off day 2 or 3 I don't remember, with a quick limit, while his good friend Todd Faircloth, who was in the hunt to win, was struggling to get a bite on the same stretch of shoreline. Chapman idled up to his boat, and gave him the exact bait he was using, and Faircloth tied it on immediately. Now, what do you think he gave Faircloth that Faircloth didn't already have in his box? I'm not saying those instances prove that these lures are legit fish catchers, but they are definately enough to make me think about it. There has been a ton of controversy about whether or not bass can see UV rays and if these are actually worth buying ($5.99 for 2 baits, I know, very pricey, but if they put fish in the boat I can justify that as much as buying a $15 crankbait). Just wondered what everyones thoughts are on these. Please don't grill me for bringing them up. I know many think they're a gimmick, I thought they were at first too, but I think my opinion is changing after these recent events....

Right no one using his rods at the classic did well.....but the fact that the the top anglers in the world were using them definately says something. I got to take a look at some of Velvick's Duckett rods and they are extremely sharp looking rods and the action on them seemed very high-tech. The microguides are obviously another great feature about them. I just got to tinker with them a little bit, not actually use them, so take that FWIW.