Bluebasser86

60 at the outlet, 52 at the mouth of the river, 48 at the ramp.

Well I caught about a dozen on it today and I loved it! Had one ripping drag that just came off that I wish I could have landed or at least seen. Very smooth, light, and easy to fish. Didn't catch any monsters but I had this fatty that was probably 2.5-3lbs that gave it a good breaking in.

Jon and I got the La Cygne today and fished from dark to dark I guess that makes it pretty obvious the fishing was pretty good the entire day. It was a balmy 11 degrees when we got on the water but I still caught a fish literally on my first cast of the day on a swimbait. Jon caught his first bass of the year pretty quickly on a football jig. It looked like he hooked a monster at first because it was in the current on a long cast but was still a pretty stout fish. I lost a big fish on a shakyhead that was ripping drag and then caught a solid fish my next cast. We caught several more bass at the outlet then decided to try for some whites and wipers on the flat north of the outlet. Not much going on, we doubled up on wipers that were about a pound apiece when a bunch of gulls started diving at the mouth of the river so we ran over to them. Had a little flurry of smaller wipers and then we doubled on nice wipers, Jon's was his PB wiper. I had a baitfeeder with a freelined live shad in the rod holder that started slowly feeding out line and after a fight that wore out my forearm I netted this channel cat. The picture does it no justice but it was probably 10-12 pounds. We worked up the lake and were about to dock the boat so we could get drinks that weren't frozen at the boathouse when I got another solid one right by the ramp on a jerkbait. It was a really good day for a little bit of everything. We probably put 30-35 bass in the boat, a dozen to 15 wipers, several big whites, 2 catfish, 2 buffalo, and a carp. A shakyhead with a magnum finesse worm, a lucky craft or Excaliber jerkbait, swimbait, or rattletraps were the deal all day.

Jon and I got the La Cygne today and fished from dark to dark I guess that makes it pretty obvious the fishing was pretty good the entire day. It was a balmy 11 degrees when we got on the water but I still caught a fish literally on my first cast of the day on a swimbait. Jon caught his first bass of the year pretty quickly on a football jig. It looked like he hooked a monster at first because it was in the current on a long cast but was still a pretty stout fish. I lost a big fish on a shakyhead that was ripping drag and then caught a solid fish my next cast. We caught several more bass at the outlet then decided to try for some whites and wipers on the flat north of the outlet. Not much going on, we doubled up on wipers that were about a pound apiece when a bunch of gulls started diving at the mouth of the river so we ran over to them. Had a little flurry of smaller wipers and then we doubled on nice wipers, Jon's was his PB wiper. I had a baitfeeder with a freelined live shad in the rod holder that started slowly feeding out line and after a fight that wore out my forearm I netted this channel cat. The picture does it no justice but it was probably 10-12 pounds. We worked up the lake and were about to dock the boat so we could get drinks that weren't frozen at the boathouse when I got another solid one right by the ramp on a jerkbait. It was a really good day for a little bit of everything. We probably put 30-35 bass in the boat, a dozen to 15 wipers, several big whites, 2 catfish, 2 buffalo, and a carp. A shakyhead with a magnum finesse worm, a lucky craft or Excaliber jerkbait, swimbait, or rattletraps were the deal all day.

Well you guys talked me into the CI4. Went with the 2500 size paired up with a LTB 6' 10" M/F "shakyhead" rod. Looking forward to giving it a test run tomorrow.

The A rig is far from being like pulling a net through the water. It was great during the winter months when the shad were schooled up but then it has been completely ineffective since late spring. It's just a bait, just like other baits, you have to use them in the right place at the right time or you'll just be flinging a bait that snags on everything and weighs a ton for no reason. I've seen tv shows and youtube videos of doubles and triples but every fish I've ever caught on them were just single fish. It's crazy how hard fish hit it when they bite too.

I spend a lot of time sitting on the couch casting a small knotted piece of rope on a 5 1/2 foot pistol grip with a 6500 C3 to our dog in the living room. I don't know that it's the best practice for real life fishing but it is a good way to pass the time and good exercise for our dog.

A $15 Lucky Craft that can last your lifetime is a lot cheaper in the long run than buying bags of cheap plastics. I'm with RW on this one, I'd rather have a small selection of quality baits in proven colors than a bunch of cheap baits. Not that cheaper baits don't work, Strike King, Norman's, and Bandit's are all cheaper baits that will always have a place in my box.

So many to choose from but one is still in my head like it happened yesterday. I was fishing in February on a power plant lake and it was just perfect out, lows in the low 20's a high in the mid 40's, calm, cloudy, and hazy because of the steam rising off the lake. I hadn't done much all morning and was pulling a swimbait around a shallow pocket working towards the end of a point when a fish blasted some big shad off a point. I fired past the spot and got hammered. The big gal jumped but my bait was gone. After a brief fight I got a grip on her, 7lbs 2ozs. I was pumped and disappointed at the same time to have caught a big fish but having forgot my camera. I turned her loose and still shaking started casting across the point again. A couple casts later my bait got smoked again, this time by a 6+ pound fish. Turned her loose and a few casts later a 8+lb hybrid tried to rip my rod from my hands. Turns out the bass, wipers, and whites had millions of shad pushed onto this flat across the point and into the cove. My biggest 5 bass of the day went 30lbs 4ozs with the 7 being my big fish and a 5lb 2oz fish being my small fish. I caught several 3-4 pound fish and the thought that I would have been culling those fish in a tournament was amazing. Along with those bass I had 25 hybrids over 4lbs with most of them in the 5-6 pound range. The even crazier part was I had the spot all to myself the entire day. There were several other boats on the water and it's only a 2,600 acre lake so I know someone else had to see me. Just an incredible day and by far my best limit of fish excluding my trips to Mexico.

Pretty much only fish War Eagle and Booyah. Mouse, spot remover, chart/white, and white are my favorite War Eagle colors. Tandem 3/8oz and the bigger size of the War Eagle Finesse are my favorites. I like the Booyah tandem colorado/Indiana blades in white or chartreuse or tandem colorado blades.

St Croix rods seem to always have a little more power than what they are rated, Shimano rods are about on par with other rods power ratings. An Avid 6' 6" M/F or 6' 8" M/XF are both really good Senko/tube rods. Or for a little more you could get the LTB 6' 8" M/XF which is my personal favorite for Senkos. Both the Avids are 3.8 ounces while the LTB is 3.5 ounces so you get a little sleeker and lighter rod with a split grip instead of a full handle. And you're welcome for that highlighted part

The 7' 6" would probably work for you on all but the very biggest cranks. If you fish a lot of DD22's, DT20's, 30+, 1oz Hot lips, 6XD's or other big, really deep divers then I'd go with the 7' 10". They are a very nice rod for the money and make fishing big baits much easier.

Swim jigs are usually poured on a straight shank or hook with a very slight bend on them and the head tends to be a cone or V shaped head, sometimes with a slight keel to keep them flat during the retrieve. A casting jig is poured on a hook with a little sharper angle in the hook and normally have a little heavier weed guard than a swim jig. The head is often slightly teardrop shaped with the line tie being at the smaller end of the head. They're a good multipurpose jig and probably your best bet for learning to fish jigs. Football jigs have a football shaped head They're often used for fishing deep drops, ledges, and rockpiles because the wide head helps to keep them from falling into cracks in the rocks and snagging. They often have a fairly soft weed guard which makes them a poor choice for fishing in heavier cover. Brush jigs look kind of like a stand up head and the line tie is usually recessed inside the head to help protect the knot and prevent things from hanging on the line tie. Normally they're poured on a heavy wire hook with a stiff weed guard to be fished in very heavy cover. Ball head jigs are a simply a round head jig, similar to a round jig head used for crappie or walleye fishing only larger and not tied on a 90 degree hook. They're often poured on a lighter wire hook with a softer weed guard and used to tie finesse jigs with. These are also a pretty good multipurpose jig and would be a good jig to learn to fish jigs with. Lots of points I'm sure I've missed and there's lots of other types of jigheads but that will give you a place to start.

A 3" Gulp minnow on a 1/8oz ball jighead will catch anything that swims. If you buy them in the tub with the Gulp scent they're much easier to keep. It seems in the bags no matter how tight I think I have them closed they'll eventually dry out on me. For that reason I've switched to the regular Berkley power minnow and use them the same way with the same results except I don't have to worry about them drying out.

Zoom horny toad, solid white or solid black weightless Texas rig 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG superline hook, they aren't weighted

You just have to fish them, period. You'll never gain confidence in them while they're sitting in your tackle box. When I first started fishing them I was 13 or 14 and HATED them! Problem was I watched all these fishing shows and read all about guys catching fish on jigs so I just kept going and forcing myself to keep fishing them when all I wanted to do was fish a crankbait or plastic worm. I'd catch a fish once in awhile but never felt like I was doing it right. Finally one day a friend and I caught them just right and caught fish after fish all day long on solid black jigs and it suddenly clicked for me. Now after fishing them for over a decade I'm a jig junkie and even started tying my own a couple years ago. I'd suggest you get some Eakin's jig and give them a try. Those finesse style jigs get more bites and will help you gain confidence in them. The bitsy jig and bitsy flip are good jigs to start with but I like the colors options in the Eakin's jigs better.

That's a pretty smallie and man does she have a big, broad tail on her! I bet she was a handful in that current

Morning and evening-buzzbaits, poppers, walking baits, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, shallow running cranks, jigs, worms Afternoon-shakyheads, jigs, deep cranks, 10" worms, swimbaits, C-rigs A very simplified break down of what I'd normally throw during certain times of day but there are obviously exceptions to these examples like if there's clouds/wind or if the fish are really aggressively feeding. I've caught fish all day long on a buzzbait when the sun was beating down on the water because they had baitfish pushed up on shallow flats or in shallow timber. Don't get too stuck on what is supposed to work, let the fish tell you what they want.

What kind of water clarity, depth, bottom composition, and cover does the lake have? I fish some very heavily pressured small lakes that are deep, and clear. Some days it's all I can do to scratch out half a dozen bass which is very frustrating because the lakes have lots of fish in them. When it's really tough I usually pick up my shakyhead rod or a wacky worm, if I can't get bit on one of those two baits then I'm probably not going to catch them.

My problem is when I decide I need something fishing related I can't stop thinking about it. Then when I get it I can't stop thinking about getting it on the water and catching some fish on it.

Anyone ever fished the small pond at La Cygne above the outlet? I know there are fish in it because I've throw netted it when I walked in to fish the outlet before but haven't ever actually fished it. I've heard from duck hunters it's extremely shallow but that water should be warm enough that some big fish could still live in that shallow water. I may have to give it a try unless someone has some info to make me decide otherwise. I'll be down there Wednesday since it's supposed to make it all the way up to almost 40

For overall performance and value it's pretty hard to beat a Shimano Symetre imo. The Pfluegar President is a very good reel for the money but it just does not feel as smooth and solid as the Symetre. I love fishing spinning gear and spend a lot of time with one in my hand fishing finesse baits when I need my reel to perform perfectly or I may miss a light biting smallie in 40' of water or lose a monster because my drag stuck. A lot of guys I fish with use the cheapest spinning reels they can get away with because they feel spinning gear is for "beginners" and something they only use as a last resort but I've seen lots of big fish lost because their cheap gear malfunctioned on them.

You could use lighter T-rigs, buzzbaits, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, traps, senkos, it's a real multipurpose stick. I use a 7' M/F mojo for my traps and open water spinnerbaits.

Jig without a question. You can fish them at a crawl along the bottom, hop them along quickly, or swim them high in the water and catch fish. Pick your favorite green pumpkin or black and blue jig and you're good to go.

watermelon candy trick worm or spring craw pit boss depending on what I'm doing.