HoggBoss

I landed a NE Ohio 21" female the first week of april (full of eggs) and she went 7. But, if times are tight for them, they can really slim down and lose a lot of weight. Just like the mangy old cat that runs away for 3 weeks and comes back at half his original body weight. ;D

Put me down for the topwater strike. Especially froggin'. The anticipation when the frog is just about to come into an opening in the pads, then it gets there and the water blows up! Awesome!

IMHO even if you were to buy a very economical starter rig only to find that you quickly "grew out of it", having two rigs never hurts. It's not like you have a lot invested in the first one. Then you have a back-up in case something happens to your "upgraded" rig, you have a spare rig in case one of your fishin' buddies wants to give it a shot, or you just have a different rig that even though it may be "entry level", you may end up preferring it over the other for certain situations. I'm no "master fly angler by any stretch, but personally, I love it and I've never had any formal instruction and I use cheapie rods and reels It doesn't take long to be proficient enough to have a blast. Choose your rod length to where you'll be fishing. If you like to fish rivers and streams, you may want a shorter rig. They not only cast more accurately, but will allow greater access in places with heavy shoreline bushes, trees, etc.. I also understand they're easier to learn to cast with, but like I said before, I didn't find it all that difficult. I think my 1st was 8'6". Oh, and be sure to wait on the line. A little anecdote and one of my favorite fishing stories.. I'll probably never forget it... I lived near the upper part of a Lake Erie tribuatary (Grand River) and I would access the river where a delapidated bridge had closed the (dirt) road it was on. I guess because of such low thru-traffic, they never bothered to fix it.. Anyway, I would park there and hike upstream about a half mile and fly fish for native smallies. I thought it was my secret hole. Well, I showed up one day, and there's this guy there with a little spinning rig chucking in MY hole! I say "Oh well", and begin getting settled and my gear together and rigged and I ask him if he's had any luck.. "Nah, been here for a while and not a hit. I don't think there's anything in here". I noticed he was throwing the tiny gold floating Rapala minnow; which is typically a killer bait in my experience. So I cast to the top of the pool and it doesn't drift more than 2 ft and WHAM! Nice 15 in smallie. The guys' like :-[ I shrug and figured it was luck.. Nope.. Next cast WHAM! And so it went for at least 10 fish over the next 30 to 45 mins. I looked up after unhooking a fish and the guy had packed his stuff and was walking back to wherever he came from. Never said a word. He was undoubtedly feelin' a little bummed. He had tied on in-line spinners, the floating minnows, little spoons, etc, and not a hit. All the while I stood there and slayed them. I'd be willing to bet that guy now owns a fly rod. Moral of the story: Fly fishing for bass can and will produce when nothing else will! You'll likely also catch some monster gills in the process which are a lot of fun too.

Picture a stack of pipes laying on the ground. When stacked, each pipe wants to sit in-between the two pipes directly below it. Now smash them together. They won't twist or go flat.. it'd be more like a triangular cross-section. Scale it down real small, and run your fingers along it and it might feel twisted, but the line is just no longer round. = IMHO. Ok, noob question, and I don't mean to hijack, but I just have to ask.. How often do you guys swap-out your lines? I have to assume you're running leaders otherwise your spool would eventually run low from retying, and you'd have to re-spool. This upcoming season will be my first in about 15 years, (Bassin's changed a LOT in that time! lol.. I'm playin' catch-up) but before I gave up bassin' for the game of golf, I used to swap-out my entire spool about once every two weeks! :-/ Also, how long will line last on a spool. I have always been under the impression that there is a shelf life on mono. I just not long ago threw away a bunch of old spools that had lots of line on them. ugh.. Assuming you are tying on leaders, how long do you make them? Lol.. maybe it'd be best if someone just wrote a line management primer? sorry. :-[

Thanks a lot for the input guys! I wish the Loomis was in the budget, but I'm in the middle of a conversion project on my boat right now. Right now, I'm leaning toward the Powell. I don't think I've ever read a negative review of any of their rods. I'm sure it wouldn't disappoint.

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice. I'm planning on picking up a half-way decent spinning rig that will be effective for fishing shaky's, drop-shots, T-rigged Senko's, etc.. I was wondering what you guys might recommend for a rig that would be effective for these applications. Is 7' too long to be practical? I thought it might be better for more line take-up on hook-set though opposed to 6" or even 6'6". F or XF tip? I'm not sure what size reel, I guess that comes down to balance and line capacity. The lakes up here in NE Ohio I fish the most are generally very shallow (relatively). I wouldn't expect to be fishing these applications any deeper than about 20ft at the most. More often than not it'd probably be more like 15ft give or take. I'm not sure exactly how that translates into weight, but I'm guessing 3/8oz would be fine. And I'm thinking 8lb test for open water. Thanks in advance and let me know if I'm missing something or if I'm way off-base!

I was going to post almost the exact same question till I saw this thread and thought I'd just post here. I don't mean to hi-jack. I was just looking for confirmation on the rig I just picked up yesterday with this application in mind. BPS Pro Qualifier combo, 7'6" H, X-Fast. I hope this works out ok.. If it doesn't, what other app's might this rig be good for? Flippin maybe, but would the tip be too fast for effective pitching?Also, I got the 5.2:1 PQ reel to go with it but plan on swapping it out with my existing 6.3:1 Rick Clunn. I planned on using the 5.2:1 for deep cranking. Thanks!

Just poppin' in to say "Hey" and introduce myself. Been a lurker for a while now, thought I might as well make it official.

Hey guys, I have lived in NE Ohio all my life and used to bass fish a lot but traded it in for golf about 15 years ago. Well, me and my 10 handicap are back! lol.. There's nothing peaceful or relaxing about the game of golf.. not for me anyway. Not any more. Anyway, I've been out of "the hunt" for a long time and am also looking for a good "home" lake in the area. Before I went on hiatus, I used to fish East Branch almost exclusively, but I have heard next to nothing about it during my lurking over the last couple of months. I'm assuming it's dead now. I do know the City of Akron used to fluctuate the level a LOT at times and I heard someone state not long ago that it was down 14 feet last year! I have been doing a lot of web research over the last few months and have been hearing great things about Mosquito's apparent turn-around over the last few years. I read a report that said there are multitudes of 3-4 pounders being taken and some lucky guy even got a 8 pound pig last year! The only problem is that that is one big lake.. and it's unrestricted. I wonder how well my 16ft aluminum mod-V jon would handle it. I have a 9.9 for it but haven't tested it yet to see how it runs. I'm in the process of doing a conversion on it, so I don't yet know how high it will ride. I also tend to prefer the serentiy and quiet of an electric-only lake. In that regard, I've been hearing good things about LaDue, Mogadore, and Nimisilla. I visited LaDue a couple times back in the day, but have never been to either of the other two. If my boat conversion is done in time, I am considering joining a LaDue-only tournament series that consists of 8 total tournaments over the course of the season, so that would provide a good deal of exposure to that lake.. plus it's the closest one to where I live. I can't remember which, but I keep hearing that either Moggy or Nimi has LOTS of weed growth and that has me strongly considering picking up a decent frog rod here real soon! Anyway, I too am always keeping my eyes peeled for any input anyone might have and I hope some of what I've read and relayed here might be of help to someone. Tight Lines!