Goose52

15 St. Croix rods for me - great rods, great company...

Isn't this a winter/hard water kinda thread...? It's not winter here yet...

Weightless and weedless on a 1/0 EWG. Mostly steady retrieve with occasional twitches.

Google "Ninja Grass Blade"

Checklist complete: Rod Reel Line Bass...

Now THAT'S how to "show off your stuff"...

Are you using size 1, 2 or 4 (not aught) ewg hooks for this? I use a 1/0 EWG. AND, I SHOULD MENTION, that I use a swivel with about a 24-30" leader above the hook - a single-tail grub will spin like crazy if you let it...

It's the standard Antares - 5.6:1 ratio (26IPT). I have it on a St. Croix MH-Mod cranking rod and mostly use it for shallow to mid-depth cranks from 3/8 to 3/4 ounce. It's good for lipless cranks as well. Smooooooth...!

You collected an outstanding trio !

Yes - weightless and rigged weedless. I fish, depending on what I want to do, Zoom Fat Alberts, Kalins (in the photo), and Gander Mountain 5" grubs - they all sink. Zoom is sorta the standard. I fish Kalins when I want a bit more weight than a Fat Albert (usually when tossing it with a BC rod/reel) and the Kalins is still fairly soft to enable a light-power BC rod to pull through the plastic on the hookset. The Gander Mountain grubs are just about identical in size/form to the Kalins but are harder and as such they skip very well. How do I fish them? Every way I can. I usually cast, let them sink for a second, then start a twitching retrieve. The retrieve can be either underwater, or on top, depending on what I think will get bit. Since they're rigged weedless, you can toss them into slop, grass, etc. and retrieve them on top, letting them sink into holes in the vegetation. The bass in the photo was 7.4lb, and is my largest grub fish. I targeted some mid-lake emergent grass with the grub and she must have been holding on, or patrolling along, that weedline. She nailed the grub on splashdown - just inhaled it. In the photo below, you can see the grub all the way at the back of her throat...

Bait rigged: Catch:

No - it's the "Goose look" ! I was wearing that reservation hat in 1967...Billy Jack was 1971...

Member A-Jay is fishing this evening...but he should be along at some point to give you a report on the 300-size Calcutta D. He fishes several of them and has lots of experience with them.

Ah - to be young again... :lol: The reason we were fishing with Zebcos in the 1960s is that there weren't any Daiwas, Shimanos, or other Japanese reels back then. After all, at that time EVERYONE knew that everything from Japan was "pot-metal" junk..................................

Catch BIG bass... (the fighting butt should have been a clue that it was a heavy line wt. rod... )

...and just perfect for catching some green bass...

That would be me - "Reservation Hat" and all... Man - I didn't start with a Zebco 202...it was a step UP from the Lido...

Sure - it was a "Lido" (what the heck is a Lido!) spincast reel I got for one book of S&H trading stamps around 1966. For a rod, I had found a 5.5' plastic handle pistol-grip casting rod laying on the bank on Tamiami Trail in South Florida - the plastic handle was cracked nearly all the way through at the reel seat. I cut off the plastic handle, bought a metal ferrule for a couple bits (I already had some ferrule cement), and then bought a new chucked handle for a buck or two. So, the whole rig cost me a book of trading stamps and about $2.50 cash. In the summer of 1967 I was trolling a Rapala (or maybe a Rebel) with the Lido rig down a canal off the Trail and caught a 4 3/4 lb largemouth...I remember it well. The Lido is now mounted on a cheap BPS rod for use by my wife (but she’s never used it!). The Lido probably hasn't reeled in a fish since 1967 - I'll have to take it out sometime. Here's the Lido: And here's the 4 3/4 pound bass from '67: Nearly 50 years ago - where does the time go....

Here you go...

Great fish! AND, I'm always amazed at how stable your boat is!!

Wow - you were a prodigy - memories back to 2 years old ! I have a hard time remembering anything much before age 5 or so... Anyway, millions of bass have been caught with live bait...after all, it's their regular dinner - huh... Fish Chris caught "teeners" on nightcrawlers. Lots of double-digit bass caught on "indigenous swimbaits" (aka shiners - thank's Dwight for that term). For me, I caught bass on worms and small brim when I was young...but don't have any recent experience at it since I fish artificials exclusively nowadays. However, my first bass fishing lesson involved live bait. I would have been about 7 years old or so and was fishing with my Dad - me with a cane pole - him with a casting rod. He told me: "catch me a brim." So I caught a little brim and handed it to him. He took his casting rod, which he had rigged with a float and a big hook, and put that big hook through the back of the brim, just behind the dorsal fin. "Now" he said "I'll show you how to catch a bass." ...

I also fish a rod that lost about 2" after a break. I was even able to use the original tip-top to repair it. Not much difference in action between a 7'6" MH-Mod and a 7'4". I also still have a BPS Extreme BC rod that was originally 7'. It broke about 6" down from the tip...and just above the first guide. There wasn't enough rod blank past the guide to install another tip-top. The first guide was a single-foot guide so I trimmed the blank back to that guide. Fished it for a couple months while I was waiting to decide on it's replacement. I caught 49 fish with the rod in that configuration, including a 35-pound class grass carp. BUT, in this case, 6" was too much. The rod went from being a fast action...to an extra, extra-fast action. I keep it around for those times when I need an extra rod, but it's not much fun to fish in this configuration...

I've only used the BPS flouro once about 5 years ago so I can't rate it. However, I've used BPS Excel nylon mono a bunch (in 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 17lb) and have had no problems with it. A good line, and a good value, especially in the bulk spools. 10lb Excel was enough for this guy:

I have 14lb Sniper on my 2013 Metanium and have enough capacity (it's probably about 95-100 yards depending on line diameter). Due to trim-backs, I'm probably about 15-20 yards short of full and can still bomb out a long cast and still have enough line left on the spool to handle any drag that would be pulled by any fish in my lakes short of a grass carp.

That is my current PFD. As you say, I got it on sale. A good unit, has a zippered pocket that I put a whistle in, and is advertised as having 35 pound buoyancy - a bit more than many of the other inflatables.