Bluebasser86

I've fished them really early on a shakey head to get a slower fall with a subtle and bulky bait and done really well. If it's calm you can fish them texas rigged weightless and drag them along the bottom but I don't have the patience for doing that.

I've used yellow magics and Splash its but neither one has caught fish as well as the Excalibur Zell Pop, don't know what it is about that bait but it catches a ton of fish. Sammys are really good baits but the Spro bait or Excalibur Jimmy does the same thing for less money.

5' 6" pistol grip rods are still pretty popular rods for making short, accurate casts with spinnerbaits in close quarters.

I like DAM Techtan line for trout in 3.5lb test. It's extremly small diameter and low stretch. Don't know how hard it is to find anymore, I bought a ton of it when Cabela's discontinued it a few years back.

Yea, try and avoid that. Might not be a whole lot of fun. And if you do stay away from this area, I've got enough idio..I mean inmates to deal with.

24 for a couple more months. Good to see we have a wide spectrum of ages on here, lots of different perspectives that way.

I'll give it a go!

Anyone tried one of these baits yet? I got one the other day because it's a great looking bait and some of the lakes around here don't have shad so the fish eat a lot of bluegills so thinking it's worth a shot.

I would prefer the fast action. If you fish anywhere around submerged grass with your shallow running cranks you're going to want to be able to rip grass off the hooks and that's hard to do with a moderate action rod.

I'm sure he's just lonely and wanting to make small talk :. Really though there are and have been numerous serial killers throughout our history that have large fan clubs and "groupies". Some of them even get married while they are in prison. I'm sure their new wives think they are "misunderstood" and making "cries for help".

If they are getting ready to spawn there may not be anything you can do to get them to bite, might be better off leaving them to find some more aggressive fish. Come back in a day or two and see if there's a bed there, once they're locked on a bed they're a lot easier to catch.

I also like a shorter rod to keep from slapping the water when I twitch my bait. I've got the same 6' 2" St. Croix Avid XF that Francho was suggesting and it works great for me. If you're fishing smaller baits or trying to make long casts in the wind you might consider a spinning rod. If I'm fishing jerks all day I'll switch back and forth between spinning and baitcasting so I can switch arms and not get so worn out.

I've got one of the new FJ Symetres and I have fished in heavy rain with it and never had a problem with it binding. The model before the FJ that I had did have problems with binding. It would not only bind in a heavy rain but also if I had used it all day. RW-You'll love that 500. They're smooth as the bigger sizes and a blast to catch panfish and trout on!

St. Croix's website shows a few 7 footers, a 7 1/2, and a 7' 10" but no 7' 3"s in the Avid.

Have a few of the old green Curado's that get regular use from different years in the 90's up to the end of them being made.

You can fish them right under the surface like a lot of people do the Cordell Redfin parallel to the bluff walls and get some big fish but be prepared to be frustrated by the followers some days.

They're a good bait on a scrounger head or if you take the skirt off a chatterbait and just put a fluke on.

I had one and didn't like it very much for how much I paid, could have bought a few St. Croix Mojos or a combo or two for the same price.

Depends what I'm doing. I like P-line, Vicious, Stren original, super knot, and sonic braid, Sufix braid.

Curado B,E7,E5, didn't like the D's. Revo S and SX. I've got one of the newer BPS purple Rick Clunn reels and like it really well so far.

I've gone there the last couple summers and killed them and some nice ones too. Just wasn't sure about going this early in the year but they have to eat I guess.

Anybody ever fished the Elk River or other Missouri smallmouth stream in February? I've got a free weekend to go somewhere different in late Feb. and was wondering if anyone had ever tried floating one of those Ozark streams for smallmouth early like that. After all this snow it may not even be possible though :-/.

I've got a Revo SX on it and don't really notice it being tip heavy. Mine is an older model without the split grip though so the extra cork might balance it out a little better I guess.

If you come to the Kansas side get a FISH atlas and you can find a ton of small lakes and ponds in the Johnson and Wyandotte county areas. Some of them you have to pay additional fees to fish so you have to be careful with that. For numbers and size though I don't think you could go wrong with James A. Reed. I've only been out there a couple times since I have a boat and avoid bank fishing whenever possible but the few times I've been there I haven't had any trouble catching fish and I've heard of some big ones being caught there.

We would probably be going out of PB2 the third week of Feb. so hopefully the snow will have stopped by then and we can get some warm weather. They're talking about a foot and half around here today .