Bluebasser86

Each fish fights differently. I've caught 4 pounders that didn't fight any harder than a 15 inch fish and I've had 4 pounds I thought were going to be 7 or 8 before I saw them. Usually they just feel a lot harder and stronger than a small fish. When you set the hook they normally don't immediately start coming towards the boat and you can't just crank them in like a smaller fish. It's possible that if you had a small nick in your line it may have held up to the steady pressure of you pulling on a snag but a quick, sharp pull from the fish may have caused it to break.

Either one of those suggestions will work fine. I like to put some mono backing on but electric tape on the spool works fine too. The coating on braid makes it too slick and it won't grip the spool, I'm guessing that's the problem you're having.

When did it break? On the hookset, while you were reeling, or did the fish bulldog off. A fish, especially towards the top end of the size spectrum you gave, can certainly bulldog off and pop 10lb mono or fluoro if your drag is clamped. It would be kind of like tying a 2lb dumbell to 10lb test and dropping it. Sure you can pick a 2lb weight up with that 10lb test but the force it would put on that line if it suddenly speeds up and hits the end of the line is a lot more than 2lbs. The fact that it broke just above your reel sounds a lot like you had a nick or some abrasion on your line though.

I haven't noticed a big difference in my bite to hookup ratio with either hook but I seem to go through a lot more baits on the straight shank. I just stick to the EWG hooks anymore, I have more confidence in them anyways.

Got to love those fat, healthy 'Tonka bass! Friend of mine lives right on the lake and was nice enough to let me come up and use his boat for a few days and I was very impressed with the quality and quanity of fish in that lake along with the endless options of where and how you can catch fish. Wish I'd been able to fish a great lake like that when I was a little guy! Nice job!

I have helped several friends with ponds that never produced big fish or just very few. We usually just took lots of small, sickly looking bass out and put back healthy looking fish. We also fished for and netting for small baitfish like bluegills and sunfish. Most of them had very few baitfish for the bass to eat so we put in adult bluegills or golden shiners to start producing small baitfish for the bass to eat. Now all of them produce bigger fish, even caught a new pond record at one of them this spring. It would be much more effective to read up on managing ponds and you have to be careful moving fish to other ponds because of invasive species/dieseases. Big fish still reproduce and are extremly valuable to a pond. Every offspring they produce may not grow to be big but they at least have it in their genes to have the potential to grow large.

If you haven't tried a Mepp's spinner in a #2 or #3 size I would give that a shot. One of the first baits I fished for bass but you catch all different kinds of fish. The grub on a jighead is a great idea too, one of my favorite baits to give to beginnners. You also might try taking that YUM Dinger and hook it right in the middle. Cast it out and let it sink slowly with a few twitches mixed in. That's called wacky rigging, very simple but very effective. It isn't very weedless or snagless unless you get special hooks though so you may have to be careful where you casts it.

I honestly believe that boat traffic affects the bass fisherman a lot more than the bass. It irritates us so bad and really gets in our head that we stop fishing like we can and start worrying about who's going too fast or who isn't going what we think is slow enough in the no wake zone. I fished one of the busiest lakes about an hour from my house on the 4th of July this year. My wife and I got back in "Party Cove" and threw cranks into the mudlines from all the boat wakes hitting the banks and we just killed them. We were less than a half mile from the mayhem and the bass had their feed bags on. Even catching fish I got tired of fighting the waves and we went to the backs of a couple protected coves and creeks and scratched a couple more out but worked alot harder for them. If I wouldn't have let the waves bother me I probably could have kept catching fish!

Everytime my wife starts to talk about having a baby all I have to do is mention the fact that she won't get to sleep nearly as much as she does now. I work nights and she works days so there wouldn't be any taking turns with the baby. She likes her sleep and so far it's working for me

I used to eat everything when I was in highschool. Graduated highschool at 160. Started lifting weights and bulked up when I got into law enforcement and got up to 180. Now that I'm married I'm a soft 210 and get worn out way too fast. I get heartburn, gas for days,and stomach aches for no apparent reason, didn't have any of that in highschool. Enjoy it while you can, I'm only 25, things go downhill fast after highschool.

Your guess would be very wrong. I was down there because it was my highschool graduation present, my mom even went with me because she wanted to go on vacation and likes taking pictures of scenery and it is a very pretty lake. We were fishing with Ron Speed's Adventures and it was a great trip, but I'm sure the armed guards and lodge being fenced in aren't there for the fun of it. You very well may have never had a problem there but we had a crazy gun carrying guy come running down the hill yelling for beer. The first trip we had no problems at all but imho there are lots of places in the US to catch DD bass so I won't be risking my neck down there.

Nice fish Chris! What are you getting those walleye on? Skunked-you must have been a little too far north. We got to Cedar at about 8:15 and fished until 10 when the next wave of storms blew through and barely got sprinkled on, sun even came out for awhile. It was pretty tough but I think I caught 8, all about 15-17 inches. Fished Wyandotte Tuesday, lots of fish but all dinks. Got one nice smallmouth on a popper, 16 3/4 inches. The schoolies started busting shad all over on the north end of the lake and it was pretty fast and furious for awhile, even got a double on a super spook jr. Fished the Wednesday nighter out there tonight and it was really tough, probably caught 10 fish all night between the two of us, no keepers. 12 boats, 24 fishermen, 5 keepers. First place was 1 fish and 2.08lbs, doesn't get much tougher than that, maybe next week.

I've done really well with everything from the 1/8 tiny trap to 1oz magnum trap and spots, and we don't have giant bass around here but 1 pounds will still crush a big rattlebait. They are worth a try for sure.

^Ouch! Sorry about your lost on that one! I have been working hard to save money and have honestly not bought many new toys. I'd say the only ones I can think of are the Havoc Pit Boss and soft plastic swimbaits.

I'd feel naked if I had to go to a lake withouth any plastics Now you just have to learn how to fish a worm, and craw, and a creature, and tube, and grub, and toad, and soft jerkbait, and, well, there's lots of other soft plastics to learn so you better get fishing!

Depends a lot on the pond, they vary so much from pond to pond. I'd say for a majority of the ponds I fish it would be a spinnerbait, buzzbait, T-rigged plastic worm.

I fish the trick worm a ton, along with baby brush hogs. I like the meathead on a dropshot, speed craw as a jig trailer, mag 2 worms, and the fluke. I guess I've never noticed the large amounts of defects in the baits, but then again the fish must not notice either

It's hard to tell without seeing or having more info on the lake you were fishing but it sounds like you did some things that should have caught some fish. Some lakes are just tough though and it doesn't matter what you do they don't bite. I'd suggest looking at some of the articles on here and maybe look at some summertime fishing articles and see if you might be able to find something that will help in there.

Carolina rigs are good for covering lots of water fast. With the heavy weight you can make long casts and drag it back. Like others said it's good to feel what is down there and the heavy weight helps keep your bait in contact with the bottom but since it isn't attached to the nose of your bait it doesn't kill the natural look of it. The noise that the sinker makes can actually help attract fish to your bait because the clicking noise sounds very similar to a crawdad digging around and turning small rocks.

Just because you catch a few bass doesn't mean they are all bass . It might be a school of cats or gar that are following bait and bass following those fish looking for an easy meal of injured shad. I've caught bass mixed in with all different kinds of fish that were chasing shad and the bass were just trying to get an easy meal.

I haven't been to Mexico in several years but I've been to Lake Commendero twice. Both times they sent armed guards with us to the lake to patrol while we were on the water. The second time we were on the water we had a guy with an AK 47 swinging in front of him come running down towards where we were fishing yelling for beer. In my best Spanglish I told him we didn't have any beer, just pop and water. I guess at that time they hadn't gotten to the point of kidnapping people to hold for ransom or maybe my holey cloths made me look like I wouldn't know anyone with money but he turned around and walked back up the hill without causing any more alarm. Another group of guys fished through the same place and their coolers got raided because they did have beer. It is a really fun trip and a great experience but knowing what I know now I'd be a lot more nervous about doing it again.

Looks like you're right, can't find anything about a Winchester model 100 shotgun. After looking I'm pretty sure it was a Model 12 because it had the same ugly fore grip like this gun. http://www.google.com/imgres?q=winchester+model+12+20+gauge+pictures&hl=en&safe=active&sa=X&rlz=1R2ADFA_enUS427&biw=1280&bih=792&tbm=isch&prmd=ivns&tbnid=OjlfrRRW9KeEZM:&imgrefurl=http://www.auctionarms.com/Search/DisplayItem.cfm%253FItemNum%253D9529005&docid=4C2Vj06zrjOUIM&w=700&h=525&ei=pos_TvmnKemysALdptEQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=187&page=1&tbnh=149&tbnw=199&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=101&ty=42 Mine was in no where near as good of condition as that one though

I love pheasant and quail hunting but unless I want to drive 6 hours out to the western part of the state they just aren't around here. I used to dove hunt when I could walk out into the back yard and shoot them, but since we moved the school behind the house gets mad if you shoot a shotgun over the school

I love it when someone backs their boat down the ramp before they take the straps and everything off, so they block the ramp for 5-10 minutes before they are actually ready to use it. One of the funniest things I've seen at the boatramp was actually done by my dad. He brought his junky old fish and ski boat out to run the motor a little and I was already out there. He calls and says he's at the ramp so I run back to talk to him. I was fishing the marina while he was launching his boat and I didn't see him tie a roap to the front of the trailer so he could launch the boat without it floating off. Well he backed it down and it floated off fine but I guess he forgot that it was tied to the trailer because he started to drive up the ramp! I started yelling "Stop dad! Stop!" His boat was almost completely out of the water by the time he heard me or felt the weight of the boat. Thankfully with the help of a couple other guys pushing and me pulling with my boat we were able to get it off the ramp without any major damage. I told my dad that if he'd have been trying to do that the rope would have never held up . This spring I was helping my buddy load his 15' johnboat onto his trailer that has no siderails. It was dark and he has no outboard so I backed way into the water and he just tried to line it up best he could before I started to pull it up the ramp. Thankfully he managed to jump out of the boat right before it feel off the trailer! No major damage to the boat but I think I about threw my back out trying to lift it back onto the trailer!

I might be out there. I was going to go to Cedar but with this rain I might change my mind. I was going to go with a guy from work but if he backs out I might be out there and maybe I can jump on with you. It would be a lot better than fishing out of my 12' johnboat . Don't get off work until 8am though so it would be around 8:30 before I could make it out there if that's where I end up at.