lmoore

Pretty nice reel for the price. Haven't had the chance to use it for a full season, so I can't comment on the durability, but it seems to be a pretty smooth reel and is well constructed (once again, for the price).

I like to find a smaller tournament on the same or similiar body of water within a couple of weeks of the bigger tournaments. Gets me into the tournament "mindset" and is a good way of prefishing, without having as much on the line as the larger tournaments.

That's pretty awesome. I had a similiar thing happen at the Owatonna, MN Cabelas this spring. One of the Pike had a decent sized Sauger in it's mouth, and the tail was still kicking.

Power Pro makes a high vis yellow braid. I remember seeing a flourescent orange line somewhere too, but I can't seem to find it. EDIT: Looks like Berkley has Orange line for their Sensation mono.

LOL, while you didn't "directly" answer me initially, that was a significantly better answer than I could have suspected. I'm personally a Trilene 100% guy, but I had always heard good things about Sunline. Thanks for the info

Have you used it, or is that just an initial reaction based on your love of InvizX? Sunline flourocarbons are pretty well respected.

They already have a club there. It doesn't look like they're competing in the FLW tournaments this season, so I would guess they are fairly new. http://umdfishingclub.wordpress.com/contact-us/

Hawgs!

I've always wondered about that. From a totally scientific perspective (read: nerdy), a longer rod would result in more torque needing to be generated to get the same amount of force. I do, however, like a little bit longer rod when flipping, as it allows me to reach out a little farther and get more of a straight up and down action. It's obviously not significant when comparing a 7' vs. 7'6", but it's what I'm comfortable with.

My mistake on Cabela's, didn't realize that was collge-only. Haven't read all of the requirements, but here are a couple more: Boat US Weigh-to-Win http://www.boatusfishing.com/overview Bass Pro Tournament Rewards https://www.tournament-rewards.com/ Power-Pole Captain's Cash (if using a power-pole): http://www.power-pole.com/jlmarine/prostaff/captainscash.aspx

Your larger bass are more likely keying on Sunfish as the major forage. By sunfish do you mean bluegill/pumpkinseed or Green Sunfish? BG are fine as a main forage, but GS aren't as good. You really have 2 options to increase the size of predators in any given ecosystem. Raise the forage or remove the competition. Since your pond has beenestablished for 20 years, it is probably at or very near the maximum biomass levels already, meaning it can't support added forage long-term. Bass are generally tough to get to feed on artificial food if they weren't raised on it. That leaves you with really 2 "good" options: 1) Supplemental stocking of forage fish once or twice per year (since they likely won't take hold). Golden Shiners would potentially be a good supplemental forage. 2) Removing of competition (Remove every bas under x inches). Since I see that selective harvest isn't an option, number one is the obvious choice. Personally, selective harvest is the way to go, both for "fast" results and for expense, but work with what yu can do. www.pondboss.com is a good site to check out for things like this too. I believe Bob Lusk advertises here and even rights articles from time to time. Hop on over there and ask for some help.

Cabelas does (maybe did, IDK if they still do it) a good incentive program. Should have information on their site.

Have to have facebook

The Orra's are a surprisingly good reel. I've used them in the past and was really pretty impressed. Okuma has made good improvements recently and I actually like using a couple of their models. That being said, it's tough to beat a Curado.

It appears we're doing this thing again.... 1) Finish with your rod high, drop the tip and peel line. Very easy let a lure free fall with a baitcaster. 2) Your last one makes sense to me for southern anglers. I have ice right now, so I practice techniques for the spring. It takes very little on-the-water time for me to get comfortable with the techniques I've been practicing all winter. Different strokes for different folks.

No need to turn this into a spinning reel vs baitcaster discussion again OP, look up skipping docks with the g-man on youtube. 2 part video that's pretty good. Biggest key to it is practice.

Not necessarily going to fall under your scenario, but this is a little trick a guy taught me in a tournament one time. If you hook a fish bad where it's bleeding a lot and probably not going to make it (usually a tongue/throat type), take some of your livewell additive and put it on your fingers, then use those fingers to apply pressure to the wound. I don't know it it's just the pressure or if the additive actually helps, but I've never lost a fish since I started doing that.

Satellite availability varies by day also. I went to school as a Civil Engineer, and during one of my internships we only surveyed on Wednesdays. There was a small group of satellites that were only available for our use on Wednesday of every week, so we'd get much better accuracy on that day. There might be similiar things going on with boat GPS units.

Not a Mint-Sodan, but do any of you fish tournaments in the southern portion of the state?

When I made that initial post, I didn't realize they were lowering the price on them. Wit the price down to a little bit more reasonable, I might have to try them out again.

Suspending models of deep cranks can work well right now too. Crank it down to the level the bass are holding at, then vary the retrieve with darts, pauses, and short retrieves. as with any cranking, it's best if you can contact some structure. Run it into a log or rock, then give it a little jerk and pause it. It's a little bit different presentation that not very many people use. EDIT: Not sure why I said "right now." I've got a foot of ice around here. LOL That's a tactic I like when the water is around 45-50, if I get tired of jerkbaits and jigs.

Count me in

I've used the flippin hooks. I like them, but I don't see any noticably better hook-up ratios than with other style hooks. If I find some on sale I use them, but I don't htink it's necessary to pay twice as much for them.

So...we're just gonna leave that one alone?

I think it probably has a lot to do with the quality of line. I always noticed it when I used Berkley Vanish line in 8lb test. Last year, I finally made the switch to Trilene 100% and never had those problems. Like I said, I don't know for sure if exsposure is what caused it, but the line would definitely lose strength throughout the course of the year.