Goose52

RW - good advice indeed - I'm certainly not known for my "patience with plastics" (or jigs)! I like to keep moving. The "power finesse" technique described in a recent Bassmasters magazine article certainly hit home for me! I know if I want to go after quality fish, I will have to change tactics eventually, both fishing from the bank and from my canoe - just gotta make an attitude adjustment first. : Having said the above, I still think that, based on the results of the bass club and other local anglers, there may not be as many 5lb fish to be had as on other Tennessee lakes... :-/

You bet! $2.36 at Walmart, and about 15 seconds of labor, and you have a pretty good bait.

Give it a go - I think you'll be surprised at the difference that little bend at the end of the blade will make

I fish 11 small lakes - 4 to 201 acres, and a 5 lb fish is probably a once-a-season kind of thing at best - at least at my skill level (and I fish every day). A better angler than myself could probably do better. My PB (7-12) came from these lakes and I don't expect to break that for quite a while. There are some DD bass in these lakes, but only one or two are reported caught each YEAR. The local bass club tourneys are often won with 5lb bags and the big fish all last season (during a tourney) was about 7-3 so even the bass club guys don't score big fish too often in these lakes. (And the bass club counts 10" fish as keepers - an example of the relative size of the fish in these waters). My big fish this season (out of 518 bass caught so far) is only 19" (about 3 1/2 lbs). I would be DELIGHTED to catch a 5lber before this season is out

I think the Mepps is probably the better bait...but I use mostly Roostertails due to a significant price advantage over the Mepps at Wallyworld. I make two mods to the Roostertail - I bend over the line tie (similar to a Shyster) to reduce line twist, and I bend the tip of the blade outward - this gets better action on the blade. See the photo...

Pontoon boats are my nemesis. It happened again just today - a pontoon boat at idle speed sees me fishing on the dam and firewalls the throttle and runs by me at full speed. I pull out my ancient 1mp digital camera and get a shot of him as he goes by. As soon as he thinks he's being filmed/photographed (as well as my shouting), he slows down. It happens all the time - quite a few of the pontoon boat operators on the private lakes that I fish are obviously anti-angler - or just immature jerks that think it's funny to spoil your fishing. Some are residents - some are visitors that are renting the boats at the marinas. When I'm in my canoe, I have the pontoon boats go by at a good clip and don't understand why I don't wave when I'm wondering what their wake is going to do to me. Or, another time, I'm anchored about 75-100 ft off the bank when a pontoon boat goes between me and the bank....leaving a good wake - I'm anchored so I can't turn into the wake. These are all private, no-wake lakes that I fish, and unfortunately, there is no enforcement agency to contact on these issues. I am planning on getting a better (higher mega-pixel) camera to take with me so I can at least get their lake "sticker" numbers and report them to the office that issues the lake stickers - not sure what that will do however. Good thing I have outriggers on my canoe or I may have been capsized by now :-/

Wow - that's clean! Got any photos looking aft ?

I like topwater baits in the rain...

LoL ;D Why is that funny? It is a fine reel in the price range asked about. If you have a suggestion, make it; if not... x2 ! I looked at the Patriarch XT and it has great specs. I ended up with a BPS Carbonlite instead but that's a story for another thread... ;D

Pre-frontal fishing, and fishing in the rain have been good to me. Fishing after the rain can be iffy though. We didn't have rain here for 3 weeks and had a front start to come through Saturday night. On Saturday - I caught 39 bass (a PB [by FAR] for me in these lakes). Fishing in off-and-on rain on Sunday, I caught 21 bass. After the rain stopped, yesterday (Monday) I caught ONE bass. Same lakes, same places, same presentations...

October 18, 2009 7lb 12oz LMB caught on a 3/8oz firetiger Roostertail !

Jitterbug, Tiny Torpedo, and buzzbaits. Even had a 7" bluegill hit my buzzbait tonight! ;D

Perhaps the secret is not the availability of the bait - but the effectiveness...that may have been overlooked by many anglers. Another "secret" might be that it's a bait that not many people throw in your area - thus showing the fish something that they don't get hit with all the time. In my case - I mentioned a 5" grub, mostly fished t-rigged and weightless. Some may fish a grub occasionally on a jig-head, or as a trailer on another bait, but perhaps not many anglers use it as the primary bait as I do. Mostly weedless, a grub can be fished anywhere in the water-column, including topwater; enough bulk to attract larger bass, but small enough to a get bit by crappie, warmouth, even brim. If you're a multi-species angler, this is a great bait. I caught 20 bass this morning on this bait fished as a topwater - ranging up to 17". I'll be going out this evening, tossing a grub, to see if I can add to the score ...

I'm using 3/4 oz Ledgebusters with a single willow to go deep - otherwise, I think most of the spinnerbaits I have are a colorado/willow combo...

5" soft plastic grub - Zoom Fat Alberts or a Gander Mountain house-brand grub. I just checked my log and I've caught 330 bass on these so far this season. Usually fished t-rigged and weightless on a 1/0 EWG; sometimes peg a 1/8oz weight to get it deeper, faster. Can also "swim" it on the retrieve. I've also used it as a topwater and got some nice action. Just today, I was using a Gander Mountain grub and the front end was torn up so I cut off the front of the grub and created a "popper" face - got a nice 16" / 2lb LMB to hit that. A great, versatile bait.

It sure was - the girth of the TAIL of that carp was larger than the overall girth of nearly all of the bass that I catch ;D

When I take the canoe out, I usually spend 8 hours on the water and, on the productive lakes, usually get 15 to 25 bass - so, that would average out to about 2.5 fish/hour. Now, fishing from the bank, the average goes out the window as it's incredibly variable. I might spend 3 hours fishing the bank and get 1 fish...or get 6 fish in an hour. My goal is to catch at least 1 bass a day. In June, I caught bass everyday except two - 1 day I was out of town, the other day I got skunked :-/

The same question was discussed about 10 days ago - see: http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1276972175/0

X2 big time ! As I get older, and the arthritis in the fingers gets worse, things that were relatively easy in the past, aren't anymore. Knot tying is one. For some reason, I just can't tie a blood know anymore and now use uni-to-uni.

They're not that expensive so it's not a big $$$ deal to experiment with the Kipawa prop - let us know how it works out. BTW - if you use the search engine, select "(all posts)", then search on "Kipawa", you will get nearly 70 hits !

I am considering one of these as well. I searched and found a number of older threads in this forum where folks having this prop gave their opinions...mostly good. However, some folks gave a caveat that TM makers might consider the installation of this prop a warranty voider. I'm sorta on the fence on getting it. My stock prop on my MK does all I need right now and also gives me 3.5mph top speed on my canoe. I could probably pick up some speed with the Kipawa prop...but I'm not sure I need the extra speed for anything! :

Great fish ! My PB "small fish" is the 3 inch bass in my current avatar - it hit a 3/8 oz Roostertail that was almost longer than it was ;D

And December, January, and February are months where many member's water is frozen-over and there are all the "cabin fever" threads... ;D

I don't know anything about tournaments, but my own code is that the first person there owns that piece of water. Whether fishing on the bank, or from the boat, I imagine an arc around them that represents their casting distance, and I make sure MY cast doesn't end up in their water. My lakes here aren't crowded and I have plenty of water left to fish using this policy...

I just started fishing braid on spinning gear. I bought 20lb PowerPro for use on a Loomis rod that I use for weightless soft plastics. The sensitivity of the line is incredible as compared to mono. I did have a LOT of knot problems however - perhaps because I filled the spool to the brim (like I would with mono) and I was getting knotting as the line came off the spool. I've removed some line and the knotting problem has now mostly gone away. So far, I like the performance of the line overall but I'm still not ready to switch-over all my spinning gear from mono to braid - mostly due to cost. I've got a lot of spinning rigs and lots of mono on hand to feed them. Another factor for me is that all my water is REALLY clear - that brings up the issue of whether to always use a flouro or mono leader, or if I tie the braid direct to the bait will I be missing some potential bites... I do like the idea of SirSnookalot's system however - 15lb PP should be good for everything !