Bluebasser86

Yep, you can't throw a frog on a spinning rod, it just won't work.

Pads have extremely tough stems. If the line caught a groove in one and started to bite into it, the friction and pressure combined might have caused it. Why a fluoro leader in heavy pads though? Sounds like the perfect situation for straight braid.

What are you planning on using it for?

Don't go crazy with colors. Pick a couple of the gold standards for your other soft plastics and go fish them. I like the Zoom Ol' Monster and Berkley 10" power worm. YUM had a really nice 10" worm but for some reason they seem to have discontinued it.

20" smallie that wasn't even 3lbs?? Either they're super skinny (doesn't look like it in your picture), or your scale is off. When I get a 20" smallie here, they're usually over 4 and even had one go 5 at that length.

Appears to have the 3 anal spines like a warmouth and mouth is too big to be a coppernose. It has the faint "war paint", on the gill plates like a warmouth also. Maybe just an odd shaped one? The sunfishes are one of the few that can naturally hybridize, so there's always that potential.

It's been about the same for me. Probably fewer fish but better quality really. My frog and buzzbait bites haven't been good, but the WTD and popper bites have been good.

Twilight, Coppertrueuse, GP Goby, Mood Ring, and GP Orange are standard colors for me. Bubble Gum and White Lightning are great in the right conditions. I wish they'd make the TRD in Purple Death but I settle for the Ticklerz for now. I don't carry black and blue or California Craw in the TRD.

Bluegill swimbaits. I like baits like a FishLab wake or a Savage Gear Pulse tail bluegill.

Just FYI, this would be considered Wanton Waste and a ticketable offense in a lot of places. You maybe could have been alright with claiming attempting to protect the body of water from potential diseases, but by throwing it in the trash can and leaving it without notifying someone about a potential issue so they could at least examine the fish, that argument loses all it's merit.

It happens all the time. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don't. It's not always right when I listen, seems like it always is when I don't.

Trying not to pass out. The neck on my dress blues about cuts off the blood flow to my brain. Takes a thick neck to hold up this giant head apparently.

Somewhere around 11 years ago since this picture was taken, right before I graduated the Academy.

Daiwa Arid X. Could buy 2 for that price.

Smallmouth are expert lure tossers, you're going to lose some no matter how perfect your technique may be. Those tiny lures don't work well even on 8lb test. 6 would be the heaviest I'd go, they work even better on 4. You could try swapping the stock hooks for a more premium hook, but you're still going to lose some.

1/8oz is a massive Ned head in my box. 1/16oz and don't let it hit bottom. They work great in ponds provided there isn't tons of moss or thick vegetation. I fish mine around wood all the time with no weedguard and few hangups.

One of my biggest jerkbait smallies last year was the end of June in 80 something degree water. I like them small and fast for warm water smallies.

We brought home a bottle of muscadine wine from one of our stops on the way home through Georgia last week. It outlast the peaches we brought back but not by much.

It's a type of grape.

Plum Apple, Red Bug, Black Blue Flake, and Scuppernog.

Crocs, best water shoes ever made.

The smallest size micro chatterbait is a trout killer here. I take the stiff plastic minnow off and tie a piece of yarn on the hook shank in whatever color I want, usually white or pink though.

I use an Eagle Claw Neko hook from WalMart, only place I've been able to find them. Very similar to the Trokar weedless Neko hook, without the awful Trokar point. Very rarely do I miss a fish with one of those hooks. I use 1/0 or 2/0. They're sold out pretty often so I have to grab whatever they have when I find them.

Zoom mag finesse in red bug or a Berkley Flute Worm 5.7" in shady watermelon candy

Had a pretty tough weekend around here. Stopped by after work Thursday morning last week to test my new Bass X spinning rod. Got 8 without hardly moving my feet in 30 minutes. Fished an MLF tournament on the same lake later that night, managed 9 in 3.5 hours and missed 1st place by 2 fish. Saturday I had one of the hardest tournaments I've ever fished. On the power plant lake I spend so much time on throughout the year, but we got a ton of rain Friday and it came way up overnight, plus there's a billion young of the year shad in the lake right now, so they're even more fat and lazy than usual. 11 of us on the water, I think there was 9 or 10 bass entered with an 8" minimum. I worked hard all day to squeak out 3 bass that went 40.5". Almost half of that being a 19" fish that inhaled a swimbait in some flooded water willows and was the big bass of the day. Had another big one roll on the same swimbait and miss, a huge blowup on a buzzbait that missed, and a fish break me off on a Ned on a log. Missed first place by 4" ?. I did find out that all I have to do is basically show up to the next tournament and I'll win AOY, so that's pretty cool to accomplish in my first year.