Bluebasser86

Maybe instead of trying to set this whole deal up on here we should pick a central place and all meet up one night and try to hammer out the details that why? Could just have anyone that wants to meet up and have a part in setting everything in stone? Just a thought, makes it a little easier and I don't have 15 pages of posts to try to sort through to make sure I'm being as fair as possible.

For anyone interested in this video. Obviously very tough conditions and guys were still getting them pretty good. I found another clip of a guy complaining because he was catching so many 3 pounders and it was a lot of work to sort through all those for the 5's and 6's, poor guy

I've only been out once this year, tough with the new baby at home. We did really well though, lots of largemouth, a few smallies, tons of white bass, and some monster crappie.

Our golden, Cassidee, has been fishing with me every since she was a pup. She's a pain sometimes to have in the boat and my wife worries about her like I have our baby in the boat, but she's a great dog and makes life much more enjoyable. She does pretty well in the boat actually. Other than the fact she loves to be right under your feet and doesn't know to avoid treble hooks (hasn't been hooked yet but it's coming) she's only fallen out of the boat once and doesn't whine like my old dog does. Trying to point the next fish out for me

Not that I get to fish for them often but I've caught a ton of pike on a Terminator inline spinner, 5/8 silver/black I believe. It's nice because it doesn't bend up after every fish like most inlines do since it's titanium. They seem to love spinnerbaits and chatterbaits as well.

Just about, she's bigger than she looks too though, about 55 pounds when this picture was taken

Yep. They get bigger in the ocean but they're fun no matter where you catch them

There's several more LTB's and curado's in the lineup, but there's other rod and reels brands also. They're my favorite rod/reel combos overall that I've owned but if someone else offers something that I feel will do a specific job better then I'm not so brand loyal that I can't go with the better tool for the job

I had the wacky style rod and really liked it. I mainly fished wacky rigs and shakyheads with it but it also fished small cranks very well and was probably one of the best all around spinning rods I've owned.

I use wheel weights occasionally and they work alright. They're always really dirty tough so you have to make sure to flux the lead really well and get all the junk out. I usually just use wire cutters and cut the metal pieces out by cutting right along the edges on both sides of the mounting bracket. You miss a little bit of lead that is stuck to the bracket but for me it's too much of a hassle to deal with melting the lead off the brackets.

I change the hooks on almost all of mine. I don't normally do it for tinkering, but I've chipped or broken bills and filed them down so they're no longer effected by it, end up with a pretty different action sometimes.

I haven't had any problems with the sure-sets snagging up, but they sure do tangle bad in the tackle box and foul worse when fishing with them.

I like tubes in rocky areas a bit more because they seem to come through the rocks better than a jig.

Really wish I could get out, but everything close by is frozen solid. Glad someone is getting out after them.

I just wish my cast would stop bouncing off the surface of the water! Nice fish!

There's always fish like that in the Lunker Club of Bassmaster. If someone wants to lie about the size of their fish (not saying this guy did, I've seen some nice fish look like they'd barely keep and dinks that looked 10lbs in the picture) to get in a magazine, then have at it.

I grew up very poor and we ate anything we caught, bass including and bigger ones just meant we had more to eat. That said, they always tasted terrible to me, very much like I imagine dirty algae would taste. I probably haven't ate a bass in almost 20 years now. Honestly I wish I liked the taste though. We have a lake with a 13-15 inch slot limit right by our house that has very clean water and is loaded with 12 inch bass. If I liked to eat them at all I'd have no problem getting a fresh fish dinner once in awhile.

Grand is only 3 hours and it's a pretty straight shot. If we had only gone to the lake and then back home I would have only needed a tank down and one back. Shawnee is right in Topeka so it's not bad either.

That's why I like the team formats so you get to pick your own partner. I've only done it once with a buddy I worked with at Cabela's. We fished Jackpot Buddy Bass together and didn't win a dime all year, it was as much fun as I've had tournament fishing though.

So you've never had a cast sail on you and possibly cross that magic line in the middle of the boat? I agree that you shouldn't cast past the center of the boat unless you ask your boater if it's alright but sometimes a cast gets away from you for whatever reason. He said his boater asked him not do do it again after the first time and he agreed not to. He said he didn't do it again until after it sounds like his boater basically parked the boat on the bank so there was no way for him to fish. I'd certainly take that as a bit of a passive aggressive message that if it was up to his boater he wouldn't get a chance to catch another fish. Sure his boater pays lots of money and certainly gets first shot at the fish, I agree with that. However, the nonboater also pays his dues and fees and shouldn't be at the mercy of some guy that wants to be a jerk and work almost as hard to prevent his nonboater from catching fish as he's working to catch his own. It was an ABA tournament also, not the Bassmaster Classic. The guys living wasn't at stake if his nonboater happened to catch his potential winning fish. I do agree that maybe Chris could have kept his cool a little better and just waited to take up the issue with the tournament director after the tournament, but if I'd spent my hard earned money and actually had a shot to do something in the tournament I can't say that I wouldn't have reacted the same way. It also makes no sense for someone to ask his nonboater to not make a cast past the centerline of the boat, and then start paralleling the bank? If you can't cast at the bank and the boat is moving too fast to even attempt a cast to deeper water, then you should just sit down, shut up, and be quiet while the grown up in the front of the boat catches his fish? I agree that there were mistakes made on both sides, but in my eyes, the boater was the cause of a majority of the heartache in this instance.

It's a Lowe Roughneck 1652VPT. Basically it's like a now frills Lowe aluminum bass boat. They don't make the Roughneck anymore but now they have the Frontier which is very similar, I actually like it better really.

It was about 3 years ago now on Stockton.

Man I was slaying the trout today! As a side note, the trout pond at the Sportshow was free today Went to see Chapman and Scanlon do their Q&A seminar and it was right by the pond, had to get in on some of that since it was free. Can't lie, felt pretty good to catch some fish, even if they were penned up trout. The best part of the whole show happened right before I left the trout pond. An older lady came into the trout pond area right next to me with her adult special needs son who was in a wheelchair. She was trying to hook a fish so he could pull it in and was having no luck so next one I hooked I handed the rod over to him and left the trout pond. Both their smiles and his obvious excitement made the trip up there worthwhile

I'd trade a few good bites for a bunch of dinks any day of the week.

I'll tell you if he doesn't. I've had it happen but never as bad as he got it.