Bluebasser86

Those are the best days when you get them figured out good enough you can put everything else away

My biggest fish from Saturday, 18.5" and 3.15 pounds on an Xcaliber XR50. She was a tournament fish, had a cull tab hole in her bottom jaw and was a short distance from Turkey Point ramp.

Maybe that's why I never win at anything else, I use all my luck up catching doubles. I've done it at least a dozen times, as recently as last week. Oddly enough, never doubled on an A rig though. Never caught a very big double, but it's still always cool when it happens.

I've also seen the variation where they use a slip bobber so it's kind of like vertically jigging a spoon at a distance.

Only reason I run is someone is chasing me or I'm chasing someone I did a 5K as a group with my class in the academy, longest run I've made but it wasn't that bad.

I caught a monster grass carp on a 168 S Waver last year. Never seen one eat a bait before but I watched this monster shoot off the bottom and T bone my bait, it was crazy.

Bone far outproduces any other color spook for me as well.

Just thread it on so it's straight. It works well with any type of jig, I do it a lot with finesse jigs though. I don't use original senkos because they're so fragile though.

If I can reach it with my lure retriever, I can get them back nearly 100% of the time. Not only do I get my own baits back, but I get everyone's baits out of the trees too.

You can, I wouldn't, might mess up that mojo that beat up baits seem to have. Lots of guys will custom paint baits for a minimal cost. I've used a rattle can and had good results.

I've never had much luck fishing a jig across a muck bottom, I think it probably gets lost in all the junk on the bottom or maybe even sinks into the soft bottom where it's hard for the fish to find.

I'd be up for it, but that would be a haul for you to get to that lake. It's over 3 hours for me, would be in the neighborhood of 7 hours where you'd be coming from

You're right about the guides, that's one of the easiest ways to get nicks in them that will shred your line. OP, never heard of a silver sea bass but I'm sure it was a good time if they fight as hard as I've heard other sea bass do

Twitch the bobber, spoon lifts up and then swings and wobbles back down until it's under the bobber. I prefer small jigs for it but the Cleo works too. I prefer the 1/8oz Cleo for trout. Like J said, retrieve speed is vital. Get it so it's fluttering side to side during the retrieve instead of doing full revolutions and the catch rate will go up big time. I've caught lots and lots of bass on the 1/8oz Cleo too.

Going to depend what you want to do with them. Don't have the Chronarch but I have a Curado 50E and no way I'd do with it what I do with my Curado I.

One of my (and several of us from the KC area) favorite smallmouth lakes was infested with zebras not long ago. It used to produce good numbers, but the quality of the fish has skyrocketed since the mussels cleaned and cleared the water up. They're a giant pain to fish around (cost me my favorite jerkbait last weekend) but I'm not complaining when I'm catching 16" smallies that are sometimes pushing 3 pounds either. I'd love to see them controlled, just don't see any way short of draining a lake to kill all of them though.

Boat without a doubt. I do both pretty often, if I catch 10 from the bank in a few hours I did pretty good, same number from a boat and I'm disappointed.

Try to stop a big flathead catfish from getting into a logjam with braided line. Surprising I have a thumbprint left from the number of times I've done that. Big wipers will do the same thing.

I have an Academy Mettle casting reel on an H2O Ethos rod (several other Ethos rods as well). I bought both on sale and got the whole combo for $90 and it's one of my favorite combos I use right beside my curados on LTBs.

Curado I or E5 would be my choice of the more readily available reels. I have an older Curado B5 that's supertuned and will launch a deep crank almost out of sight, it's my favorite of my 3 cranking reels.

Academy Ethos cranking rods are $60 at full price, really like mine. There's a 7' 10" MH/M version just for big cranks like a 6XD too.

Never done it on purpose but I have some that spent too much time laying in the spots I toss baits in the boat that got faded, haven't noticed a difference in how they catch fish though.

I've had good success this year fishing big worms on a swinging football head and just dragging them across the bottom. I pour my own so I can mess with hook size so I make some with oversized worm hooks in 6/0 and 7/0 just for big worms and they work great.

In the 18-35 group.

I agree with the swimbaits and will add 10" worms, senkos, buzzbait, and rattle trap. All those baits have caught me some of my biggest pond bass.