sodaksker

I have the hornet that dives about 7 ft, It was a fish catching machine for me last year. I have not fished it this year yet. I will be in couple of weeks though.

ARe you talking about the gy kreature? I have thought of hooking it backwards but, I like the way the front tentacles vibrate when hooked forward. I t-rig it with an 8th oz bullet weight. I usually work it slow hops off the bottom but if that does not work I will try slow retrieve with little twitches, that is when the tentacles vibrate nicely. I also reel a little faster and it will work just like a buzzbait.

I have been real lucky. I have a friend that has an old newspaper building that lets me keep it there. It is climate controlled and one block from my office for quick get aways. When I lose that spot, I don't know what I will do.

Muddy, A couple of weeks ago I had a similar experience. Sometimes I head down to the local marina for quick little outings when the wife has me running honey do's. A couple of weeks ago was one of those times. I walk down to a spot about 100 yards away from 4 people slinging nightcrawlers with about a 5 oz weight. Within 2 minutes fishing a 4 inch senko,I catch a little smallie, next cast I catch about a 3lb largemouth right off this log. As I throw the fish back, I hear the sighs disbelief that I did not keep the fish. Then here come the lines splashing over in my direction. No problem, that spot was done, I was moving on down to another little brush pile. I catch a nice smallie on the first cast. I play it out for their entertainment and mine ;D. I get the fish in, and immediately they ask, " can we have it?" I immediatley respond "no". I catch one more little smallie about 10 minutes later and then leave, as they keep creeping closer to my direction. Nothing better than catching 4 fish in about 20 minutes and leaving. Oh, I forgot to mention some of the highlights. One of the 4 people was a woman that was about 8 months 3 weeks pregnant that was dressed in a bikini. and her 3 brother dads kept snagging their lines on the bottom and would just strip down, wade in, dive down and pull it loose. It was annoying but somewhat amusing. Muddy, you should have stuck around for a little bit. There could have been some free entertainment.

Yeah, They aren't making anymore lakefront property. They do the same thing on lakes around here, tear em down, build a huge home. I wish I would have bought a couple of properties about 15 years ago.

I have bought many NIB "new in box" reels and never had a problem. Used on the othe hand, I have bought one, and it was junk. No more used reels for me.

I have family that lives on Lake freeman and used to go there every summer for vacation. I used to fish that place for 18 hours/day when I was a kid. We used to come down for the 500 every year and float down the tippacanoe the day before the race. Great memories and great smallies. My aunt still lives out on Breezy point. They use to have another place a couple miles south of brezzy point. They sold it in 92' for $52K. I wish I would have bought it. :'(

early morning Iowa farm pond

Heck, I just aim for the branches and then slowly try to jiggle it out. It always makes a soft entry and the fish just think something fell out of the tree.

I think my strength is being able to kiss up to my wife enough so she will let me go fishing. My fault is trying to continue that when I get home from a full day on the lake. ;D

so are you using it on Lake Freeman or Schaefer, or may the tippacanoe?

I have always thought that "johnson" made the best spincast reels. If you can find an old green one at a rummage sale somewhere. I have seen some "johnson centurys" at walmart and have thought about buying them for my kids.

Thye are hard to beat.

I will use a t-rigged craw in shallower weedier areas or brush piles. A jig in deeper waters with rock.

Great Fish. Those smallies sure have a broad array of coloring. We have been doing pretty well on the Missouri river as of late. In the same day we'll catch 25 different fish and one will be light in color with no marks and then 5 minutes later out of the same hole we'll catch dark and striped like the one in your pic. Fun none the less.

first day...Kvd second day.....Ike Third day.....Who ever has the lead.

I have 2 of them. One of them works well and I like to use it for jigs and soft plastics. The more I use it the more I find myself not using the "twitching bar". Don't get me wrong, the twitching bar is great for a slow presentation, I just find myself being too impatient to use it for great lenghts of time. The other reel has developed a problem with the cast control knob. It works, it just seems to be a lot more finicky when trying to adjust it. I do the like the reel. I'm glad I have one...I really don't need two of them. I do like to use them on a Fluke. I just retreive with the twitching bar, it gives great action in little short lenghts.

Fished my first and possibly only tournament of the year this weekend On the Missouri River In north central Nebraska. This is mainly smallmouth water. Out of the 70 bass weighed only one was a largemouth. I went as a non boater since I do not know the river in that area and the channel winds back and forth between the sandbars. I think there was 11 boaters and 4 non boaters. I got real lucky and drew a local guy that knew the river well. What a great day. He put me on fish right away, I felt bad that I had 2 keepers before he had any but he passed me up pretty quickly. He was culling by 8 am and I was culling by 9am. We boated close to 30 smallies for the day and a half dozen pike and a nice sauger. Out of the 15 anglers my boater took 1st with 11.61 lbs and I was 6th with 10.95 lbs. Talk about a close race. I was about 2 ounces out of the money. He was trying to take me to one of his big fish spots late in the day. It was a back water pool area and we got stuck trying to get in there. It cost about an hour of fishing messsing around. I wish we could have made it into the area. All we needed was 1 good fish each to distance us from the pack. It was a great day, it felt good to weigh a limit and actually get to cull fish. Big Fish for the tourney was 3.35 lbs mine was 2.8. I wish I had the time to do that every weekend. :'( Oh well. Sorry no pics, bringing the camera to tourneys is bad luck for me.

Great story you two. I love the banter Keep catching them.

I agree with RW 's statement about overestimating fish weights but, That fish looks to be a solid 5-6lb fish to me.

It's one of those almost "too much of a good thing" situations. This place is covered about 80% by standing trees and 90 % by vegetation. I usually fish where there is a mix of the two, but that leaves a lot of options! Thanks for the suggestions.

I too have lost at least 15 fish on the 1/4 SR. I thought it was just me or the way I was rigging my bait. Maybe there is something else to it :-/ I have also tried the screwed up jig, and had a nice size drum straighten out my hook. That nuckelball looks interesting....Here we go again :

Great fish craw! I'm hoping to get up north and get into a few of those before too long.

Great fish!!! Don't you know the best way to catch a big fish is by leaving your scale at home. I caught my pb this year and had no scale. :'( The good thing is I can change the weight of it to match the fabrications of present company.

congrats on the new pb! nice fish!!