Bluebasser86

Ned Tube Keitech

The cold water months seem to be best but they work year round for me.

Yep, those are pure stripers for sure. On some light tackle fish that size are a blast.

Welcome!

I was tied up at a marina once hiding from a storm and decided to clear out a windknot from my spinning reel. I dropped my bait in the water to peel off the line and a huge spotted bass shot out from under the dock and grabbed my bait, of course I'm going to set the hook. The marina owner came out screaming at me for hooking his pet bass. I guess he fed it the dead minnows every day. It got me in the zebra mussel covered crossbars and broke me off but that fish would probably have given our state record a run for it's money.

YUM craw papi and Christie Craw are pretty much the only 2 I use. The Christie Craw is available in bulk packs, which is a bonus in something I go through a lot of like jig trailers.

Probably, but that's some of my favorite water to fish my blue bladed jig in so I don't use a spinnerbait in that color water often. Yes, when they're targeting those full grown gizzard shad and I want a big profile, I'll put a whole 4.8" Fat Impact style trailer on my spinnerbaits.

Seem to be in a pretty serious big fish slump, like can't even break 3lbs lately. I guess the plus side is when most the fish I'm catching look like this; It makes the keeper sized fish look huge. I probably caught 30 fish Sunday, these 2 could have ate most of the rest.

They seem to work best in clear to stained water also. Not very effective in dirty water when a bass couldn't see all that mess coming through the water.

I heard some gobbling Sunday while I was fishing. Hopefully they'll lure some people off the water next weekend so it won't be as crowded.

I have T-Mobile. Coverage is good for me for the most part and they offer special discounts for me because of my work.

I don't personally, but a buddy from work had one. It was very heavy, not real stable, and paddled poorly. He sold it after only owning it for one summer.

It didn't float very well, but my buddy and I use to fish his uncles ponds all the time and he had this run down dock that just floated around the pond. One day, I jumped on and just floated around fishing from it. Next time, we brought a drill, some screws, scrap 2x4 pieces, a battery, and trolling motor. We used it as our redneck 2 man for a couple years until his uncle moved.

Bladed jigs always get a trailer. Spinnerbaits are more situational but chocolate milk water is one of those situations that calls for a trailer.

We need to make baits look as natural as possible, but an A-rig is so effective it's banned from professional tournaments. Math checks out.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Fished a little tournament today, a tiny boat tournament open to any kind of boat up to a 16' johnboat with a 15hp motor but only 1 person per vessel. I was in my kayak. Not much experience on the lake and none of what I had was good but I wanted to knock some of the rust off before tournament season starts next weekend. I ran to the shallow end of the lake hoping there would be warmer water and fish feeding up getting ready to spawn. The lake that is normally very clear had less than 6" of visibility. Still, the water was 51* and big shad were flipping, I was hopeful. Almost 2 hours later with no bites, I was no longer hopeful. I didn't know much about the lake, but I know dams of small impoundments hold bass, especially early in the year, so I peddled back to the other end. Working a Biospawn ExoNed, I snagged on the water willows and attempted to work it loose when it suddenly took off. Not sure if it popped loose and the fish ate it or if it ate it off the weeds but I finally had a 15" fish on the board. Maybe 10 minutes later, I got a little tick, set the hook and started fighting the fish, just for it to come off. Major heartbreak on a day that I knew was going to be so difficult. I fished the rest of the dam and was just about to the end and was finishing a long cast when I felt a light bump right under the boat. I pretty much set and swung in a 13.5" fish, #2 but really wishing I had the fish I lost at that point. I fished back across the dam, alternating baits, with nothing to show for it. I'd seen 1 fish get caught on a trap and then saw another on a crank. They were obviously eating moving baits too, I just needed to commit. Started flinging around a SPRO Essential Series Hunter 65 squarebill in the Fire Craw color. Really loud and hard wobbling bait, had my new St. Croix LTB glass rod just a dancing. Cranked it down the side of a rock fishing jetty lined with wood and got whacked. Fish was hooked funny and dove into a new cedar tree, had me in trouble for a second but swung another 15" fish into the boat. Things were getting interesting but I only had about 1.5 hours left since we were only fishing until noon. I popped into the back of the cut that pier was in and fan cast a bladed jig. Had one knock about a foot of slack in my line and not even touch the hook, how do they do that? Went back down the fishing piers where I'd caught my last one and as I was rounding out the last one, another fish just kind of mushed onto my bait. A brief fight and I had the net under a 16.25" fish, again on the SPRO squarebill. 45 minutes left, I needed another bite. Kicked over to the dam again and switched to a Junebug TRD. I'd fished almost the whole dam, made a long cast and had given up on it, but as soon as I went to reel in a fish grabbed it. #5 was only 14.5" but it was a big fish on a day this tough, it was 11:30 when I looked at my phone after the pictures. I tried for a cull the last 30 minutes but no more bites were to be found. At the ramp, I found out that I had the only 5 fish limit on the day. Only 1 other person had 4, 1 had 3, a couple had 2, a few had 1, and several blanked. Just a brutally tough day, but those are usually the days that I shine on. My buddy Neil had big bass on the day. Since we got done early than normal, I stopped by another lake on the way home and caught a nice spotted bass just for good measure ?

Lure manufacturers add split rings, I remove them and use a small snap instead. Never put them on a scale but I'll bet the weight in almost identical. They still allow the freedom of movement that the split rings do, plus I don't have to worry about tying in the wrong spot of the split ring. They allow me to rotate through baits on productive spots and I can say with 100% certainty I catch more fish because I use them. It's not about being lazy, it's about being efficient. If I fish a spot I feel has fish and it doesn't produce, I can quickly switch to a different bait to make a few more cast to see if they'll react to something different. I know without a doubt that I wouldn't have caught one of my 3 biggest fish last year if I hadn't been using a snap because I swapped to a deeper runner in a different color in a few colors and caught her. Never would have made that change for just a few cast if I was retying with cold hands.

Welcome!

I can also confirm as I've spent a day in the boat with him, even have video proof of it.

This is what I was thinking, it would be a pretty awesome frogging/flipping reel if nothing else.

I got the same thing from them a while back for a cooler, not interested.