Bluebasser86

Small craws and finesse worms on shakyheads catch a majority of my Ozark stream smallies. A fluke and Sammy style bait will get them really good too, as will a tube. Pretty much just target current breaks and seams and you'll find the fish.

Start a photobucket account, it's free. Upload to there and then resize it and upload to the site. That's what I do with all my pictures.

Once it gets hot out and the water gets warm, I start fishing the night shift. Much more comfortable, much less pressure, and the bass are much more willing to cooperate.

1/0 Gamakatsu wide gap finesse hook, problem solved

Toothpaste is what I use to get rid of bad smells on my hands. Might not make it go away completely but it does cover it up pretty well.

I grew up eating catfish out of cow ponds and I survived. I'm sure they ate much worse things than the bass you're thinking about eating do.

Those piebald and albino blues happen pretty frequently at the lake I was fishing. Another "accidental". Fishing the Kansas River for catfish when this dude swan into my line and got tangled. His bill was busted off, not sure what for, but that's what caused him to get tangled in my line. Grabbed a quick picture and got him right back in the water.

Not a shoelace, put pretty close. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKwaimyqRPA

Really no limit to what you can use. Believe it or not, 2/3 of a 5" stick worm is one of my favorite trailers. The Zman Turbo Crawz is one I'm really starting to like. 4 or 5 inch grubs work well, the Havoc Beat Shad is a good one, part of a trick worm works well, the end of a swimming tail worm is good, swimming and regular flukes are good, a Rage Menace or Havoc pit boss rigged on it's side is a killer when they want more action.

football jigs, big worms, shakyheads, and deep cranks.

It has too much memory for spinning reels, tends to jump off the spool.

Lots of folks around here eat it and love it. Pain to clean though. Most either cut them up in chunks with a machete or hatchet, use tin snips, or the folks that do it a lot use portable band saws. Don't eat anything near the eggs though, they're poisonous.

Our Wal Marts still have a bunch of the bone colored ones for $1.50. I have enough to last a lifetime and it's still hard not to pick a couple up every time I go.

jig

I fish mainly an 1/8oz but will go down to a 1/16 or up to a 3/8 depending on the wind. For your needs, I'd go with a 1/4oz if I was going to only buy one size.

I have to check nearly every cast with a lot of the lakes around here having zebra mussels. If you've never had the pleasure, it's like cranking through razor blades. I caught a piece of grass the other day and went to snap my bait to clear the weed and it was just gone, cut like a pair of scissors. Thankfully it was a floating bait so after a few seconds waiting I retrieved it and went back to fishing it.

Big Game is great line on a baitcaster, terrible on a spinning reel.

Don't waste your money on anything below regular Power Pro. I tried to use a couple different cheap braids and it's nothing but headaches and heartaches.

Same ones I use, they work just fine for me.

I've had them do that with cranks and bladed jigs. The bite doesn't feel hard because they overtake the bait from behind and inhale it, so you really don't feel much. A lot of those bites are the ones where your bait just doesn't feel right all the sudden.

Caught a 6.5 pounder on a 3" grub a couple years ago out of a pond. Best "big fish on a small bait" story for me was a 23lb flathead on a Yo-Zuri Killifish crankbait. I believe they're 1 3/8" long and probably 1/16oz at the heaviest. I was fishing a pond for crappie with an ultralight and 4lb test, no net, took almost an hour to finally land it.

Current is a big factor on where you will find the fish in river systems. If it's slow you'll find fish all over, but if the current is flowing they'll tend to position behind objects on the downstream side and are usually more aggressive than when the water is flowing slowly. Backwater areas are always good places to check out too. A lot of times you'll have to work a little to get into backwaters because the mud and sediment will build up at the mouth of the creek or whatever leads to the backwaters but it will drop off again after you get past that initial high spot.

I've been really happy with the Rapala scales. I check them against the weight of known objects for accuracy and they're always pretty close.

How was the water? It was pretty stained and the weeds were mostly submerged when we were out there last Thursday.

I mowed enough grass in the spring when I was 13 to pay for a trip to Canada later that year. Maybe ask your parents if any of their friends or the rest of your family needs their yards mowed, brush cleared, whatever.