Osprey39

Nope, you didn't get lucky. I own several of them and I like them. The first one I bought was the jig/worm model and I liked it so much that I've bought several others since. I have no complaints with them and I love the split bottom grips.

What I do, at least for the trap, is raise the rod tip to 12 o'clock as soon as the bait hits the water. That gives it some slack to start falling and usually that's enough to make the spool spin when it gets to the end of the slack. If not, I back off the tension a tad.

Sorry for bumping my own thread but just wondering if anyone has feedback on these rods.

I tend to work unproductive areas too long because they 'look' good. On a related note, I tend to work all of an area instead of hitting the high percentage spots. In other words, if there are trees everywhere on shoreline between two points, I fish it all instead of just working the two points.

That's what I was going to mention but I guess that wasn't the issue.

Hey all, I have a similar thread in the My Trip forum: http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1272230398 Check it out if don't mind. I'm lookin' for some feedback.

If I could catch fish on it, I'd use a stick with twine tied to the end.

I like it too but I don't think it's really fluorocarbon. It works great for visibility issues but I don't think it sinks like true fluoro so if that's why you're using fluoro, it won't make you happy.

Surely that's not a male bass but I'm curious because I see the bottom of it's tail is worn away and bloody. I've always read that males get that from building a bed. edit: male or female, it's friggin' huge!

Well actually the action wasn't that bad. I just like seeing the blow up on the surface

My tournament partner is in need of a couple of new rods. He's in the process of buying a house and money is tight so he was trying to find something decent that won't break the bank. Does anybody have experience with the Pinnacle rods advertised here? At $45, they are priced well but I'm curious how durable they are before I recommend them to him.

That makes sense Bassinator, thanks. I really didn't go much deeper than 10 to 11 feet. Do you agree with the general area I chose or is there someplace that looks better to you? I chose that area because it had that nice flat in between the two little canyons. Figured it would be a place that bass would spawn in. After getting there and putting eyes on it though, I'm curious whether they would or not because that water is full of crap. The flotsam coming in from upriver has managed to find it's way in there via the prevailing wind and it's accumulated so much it looks like the slop you'd see in a lake with grass in it. There's also various and sundry trash from the people that I guess had no better place to put their tires, shoes and 5 gallon buckets :

I just started to get back into fishing last year after a long layoff. Back when I last fished regularly, everyone used mono and copolymer lines. Spiderwire was just coming on the scene with their braid. I never heard of flourocarbon back then. I've since informed myself about flourocarbon and I am aware that it sinks. Well, last time out I swapped out the reel on my topwater rod because it was missing the spool tension knob. I put on another reel I had that was already spooled with 12lb flourocarbon. I was fishing a spook puppy and I kept wondering why it wouldn't stay on the surface. It would start out fine but about halfway through the retrieve it would start to go underwater and I couldn't figure out why. Then the lightbulb went on. It was the sinking line causing it. Lesson learned, no flourocarbon on topwater setups. Just thought I'd pass that along for those that don't know to save them some headaches.

I prefer the Pure Poisons too but they are difficult to find. BPS and Cabelas don't sell them and there's only one local place that does (Sportsman's Warehouse.)

Man, those are some impressive specimens my friend!

Ok, I went out for a few hours this morning to Cochiti Lake which is the closest lake to me here in Albuquerque. I have never really fished here before. Taken the boat out there a couple times in early season just to make sure everything was working but that's it. It's a no-wake lake so you have to idle everywhere. I fished in a tournament at another lake last weekend and we caught all of our fish in 3 to 5 feet of water at water temps averaging about 57 degrees. This lake is at roughly the same latitude so that was my plan here too. I went directly to the spots marked with red X's on the map: I fished those areas for 2-3 hours (water temps from 53.5 to 55 degrees) and I had 1 bite on a suspending jerkbait that got off. That was in about 9 feet of water. Now the water everywhere in the lake was extremely murky and full of floating debris (river is running hard right now from run off) and we just had a front come through here Friday. I factored that in and spent a lot of time fishing the brush with a black/blue jig with a power frog trailer but didn't get bit on that. I'm looking for some critiques on my approach to this new lake. Finding fish on new water is something I feel I need to get better at. What, if anything, would you have done differently with regards to locations, presentation, etc. I appreciate any and all feedback. I've only been a member here for a couple of weeks and I've already learned quite a bit. I'm hoping I can learn more with regards to fishing new waters as well.

x2 on them being leaky. I found that out the hard way when one of them rolled over on its side in the back seat of my truck driving home. Truck smelled like that juice for 2 weeks.

Not in my experience. Topwaters work best in early morning, late afternoon and cloudy skies. In other words, low light. I've never had much luck fishing top waters in bright sunshine. As far as open water goes, I assume you mean no emergent cover. I've caught bass on topwaters in water that was 15-20 feet deep. Fish will come up a good distance to get one but there has to be some sort of structure holding them in the area to begin with. Obviously, if they are feeding at or near the surface, that's ideal.

I like them but I just started using them last year. I use them pretty much wherever I would use a spinnerbait and then some other places as well. Personally, I think they are more versatile than a spinnerbait. You can fish them extremely slowly and they still put off great vibration. When you fish them fast, they put off a ridiculous amount of vibration. Fish really nail them when you are fishing them fast too. Another nice thing about chatters is that you don't have to worry about them getting bent and not running true like can happen to spinnerbaits after a few fish.

Right,but your rod type,reel,line,and reel settings can play a big part in it too. That's true. I have a St. Croix Mojo pitching rod that I use for pitching and flipping. It's 7'6" long. It's great for flipping but I don't like it all that much for pitching. I'm only about 5'10" so when I dip the rod down on my backswing, I can't go as far as I'd like to be able to. I have a medium heavy 6 footer that I can pitch easily twice as far with but it sits in my garage. I may end up putting it back in the boat just for pitching, lol.

I had the older analog model back in the day and I did like it. I bought it along with a Rat-L-Trap kit designed to be used with it and I found that using the suggested color usually resulted in more bites. I think that's also why I became an avid Trap fan, lol. That said, I am not going to cough up $100+ for the digital one.

Thanks for the heads up Glenn! Didn't really need the stuff I just ordered but hard to pass up the price. I love this site!

Well I came home from work yesterday and the lights from BPS were on my front porch so, deciding I'd rather save my money for tackle, I put them on today. I'm going to go with unplugging them for now and see how that works but I will definitely be getting the LEDs on the next set.

Black is for night time!

This is my first boat of my very own and not surprisingly, I already want a bigger one. It's a pretty nice boat but it's kind of cramped with 2 hardcore anglers and their gear. I hate the rod boxes too. Very hard to get longer rods in and out of them. Other than that, it's a nice boat for your first. PS: Boat is a 2006 PT190TX with a 75 merc optimax on it.