Bluebasser86

I remember watching them fish together on his show a few times and it was always enjoyable. They seem to have so much fun together. Hopefully everything turns out okay for them.

Get on Instagram and follow all the lure and tackle companies. Some do giveaways pretty often. Some pro anglers will do them also. Tackle stores do them pretty often like Tacklewarehouse does I know for sure. My oldest son has won 2 photo contest, one from Randy Howell for some Livingston baits and one from Booyah for a big tackle pack. He'll never run out of Toadrunners I can tell you that for sure. I have horrible luck so I have to resort to the old fashion way of buying them or making them myself.

Congrats! I love taking my boys fishing and they seem to enjoy it.

That's funny because I just built something very similar about a month ago.

For one, this rod does not fish anything like what you would imagine a rod that length and power does. It has an excellent tip that transmits the vibrations very clearly. The top 1/3 loads and flexes well into the fish once they're on, and the rest of the rod has the power to drive the big hook and control a big fish. I've tried a lot of rods for them since they're one of my favorite baits and I catch countless fish on them every year, this one is the best I've used by a long shot.

Everyone gets an identifier (the number/letter combo you see in all my pictures), the night before the tournament and it must be in all the pictures and readable or the fish is DQ'd. Minimum length is 8". We use the Fishing Chaos app and your score for each fish is submitted and scored by a judge. Lengths go by the 1/4" and you round down if it doesn't cross the next mark up. Weight is irrelevant, it's all based off the 5 longest fish. It's really well run and thought out and puts the care of the fish at the top of the list instead of hauling them around all day.

The Ozark streams look similar during the summer months. People look at me like I'm the one doing something wrong catching smallmouth out from under them ?‍♂️ Go to a waterpark if you want a lazy river, I'm trying to fish.

I can't find morels to save my life and I don't eat them even if I could. I sure would love to sell them for the $20 a pound that people pay for them though. No desire to deal with the ticks either though. I grew up picking wild strawberries, grapes, plums, blackberries, and crabapples. Most of them were just turned into jelly but some of them were cooked into recipes.

Grass carp will reach 4' pretty often in golf course ponds. They put them in to control the weed populations to keep them more aesthetically pleasing. Your picture captures a clear sign it's not a gator gar. Gator gar have big, round tails with no fork in them, something that fish clearly has. Grass carp have big, forked tails.

I use the same on my UL combo.

If I was fishing places predominately with lots of stumps and logs, I'd go paddle instead of peddle. A new drive for my kayak is $1,000. I'm not sure how hard I'd have to hit a stump to break it, not wanting to find out either. It is very possible to get stuck to the point you can't get unstuck. I had a decent sized limb pop up through a scupper hole in my last kayak and had a heck of a time getting loose from it. That one was not nearly as stable and I had to climb out on the end of it to finally float free, it wasn't fun. A lot of guys seem to carry small saw blades or limb saws for just such an emergency. I really have been enjoying my kayak. All the reasons listed. I've been a boat owner for over 20 years. Not having to worry about gas, trolling motors, batteries, trailer bearings or tires, registering the kayak, oil, all that mess it's just so much more simple. I toss my kayak in the back of my truck and all my gear in the cab and go. I'm loaded up and gone in the same amount of time it takes to hook up the boat and unloaded in the same time. It's quiet in the kayak. I've already had so many fish eat the bait right under or next to me, it's crazy. It presents it's own set of unique challenges and I enjoy figuring those out right along with figuring the fish out. It really just takes me back to my days fishing out of my 2 man when I was a kid, only a much nicer boat and no trolling motor or battery to mess with.

The wind always blows more than they say it will it seems like. I installed an anchor trolley on mine a few weeks ago and that helps a lot in the wind, either with an anchor or drift sock. I think rigging a kayak is a never ending process. I fished out of mine for a few months and that anchor trolley is the first thing I've mounted on it that is actually attached to the kayak. Wanted to really get a feel for where I like things and how I want it laid out before I poked any holes in it.

This has been my go-to spinnerbait in dirty water here lately, the white/chartreuse with red/gold blades in a 1/2oz specifically. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Nichols_Pulsator_Hoosier_Series_Spinnerbait/descpage-NHSP.html

So it's the same, only different, got it.

I use a Falcon Bucoo 7' 4" H/F, it's a great rod for frogging.

7' MH/F for spinnerbaits 6' 9" H/F for bladed jigs

If you're going to ask them to upgrade a rod, you might look at the new Victory line up also. There is a 6' 10" ML/XF option that would be a nice drop shot rod, or a 7' 1" M/F if you want a more all around spinning rod option. https://stcroixrods.com/pages/victory?utm_source=BassResource&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&utm_content=banner&utm_campaign=VictoryLaunch

I've been using one of the St. Croix Victory rods for a few weeks now and really enjoying it. They have one called "The Grunt", that's kind of a do everything rod that you might want to take a look at. https://stcroixrods.com/pages/victory?utm_source=BassResource&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&utm_content=banner&utm_campaign=VictoryLaunch

This last Saturday was the day, my first kayak tournament. I've been preparing for it since I got my new kayak late last fall and the nerves were there just like every tournament I've ever fished. It's a lot different not launching in a big group at the same area. We could launch at 5:30, lines in was 6:30. I had a pretty good ways to go where I wanted to fish so I launched about 5:45. After the 15-20 minutes of peddling to my spot, I got to sit and enjoy the sunrise and mentally prepare myself for the morning. The lake we were fishing was the power plant lake I've spent countless hours on. I knew how, where, and with what, I just needed to execute. I've heard the lake had been fishing brutally tough. The last tournament I'd heard of out there took less than 10lbs to win on a lake that usually takes high teens to mid 20's to win on. I started the morning with a Ned rig, homemade 1/16oz chartreuse head with a green pumpkin/orange 10,000 Fish Sukoshi bug, 6' 10" ML/XF St. Croix LTB, 2500 Daiwa Tatula LT, 20lb Flash Green Smackdown with a leader of 8lb Seagur Gold Label. The water was up a few feet from recent heavy rains. It took me a little bit to locate exactly where the old waterline was. It took me almost a hour to get my first bite, and it was a long ways from what I was hoping for but I was on the board and I was really just hoping to get 5 fish. With the fear of getting skunked on my home lake out of my mind, I relaxed a bit and I had an idea of where the fish were sitting. 20 minutes later, I got my second bite, and this time it was what I was looking for. 10 minutes later, I caught another 14" fish. 45 minutes went by with nothing so I switched to the 1/8oz Slider with a green pumpkin/orange flake Croc-O-Gator Ring Craw. I was fishing it on a 6' 10" M/F LTB, 3000 Daiwa Tatula LT, and 8lb Tatsu. After 45 minutes, I struck again with the slider head. I was not 2 hours into it and nearly had a limit. I wasn't sure how everyone normally uploaded their fish but at that point, there was 1 person with a 14.5" fish on the board of the other 21 anglers. Another 20 minutes with the slider and I stuck a super fat fish that gave me an early limit. 20 minutes after that one, I culled out my morning dink with a 15" fish. I had a long lull so I went back to the Ned and got another one that culled out the 14 incher that was 18.75". Then I went on a hot streak of catching drum and sunfish. I finished out the long riprap bank I was on and although I had another spot I wanted to fish, the quickly rising wind changed my mind. I turned and went back down the riprap hoping to pick up one I missed or had moved up. It was about 11am at this point, I had until 2:30 for lines out, a limit over 80", and there was only one person with 2 fish on the board. I fished maybe 100 yards when I hooked my hardest pulling fish of the day. It was a good kayak bass, not overly fat but plenty long. My biggest of the day and culled out the 15" fish. After that, working to cull out a 17.75" fish was a struggle. I caught a couple dinks, and a super fat 17" fish that I thought was going to do it. There's a shallow, spawning pocket with a feeder creek near where I launched so I kicked over there for the last hour when the wind really got strong. I picked up one more dink and while flipping laydowns with a beaver, stuck a good one that went nuts. It looked long and lean, I thought I'd culled up, but it ended up being just short of 18". I got tired of fighting the wind and pulled the plug on the day about 30 minutes early with a limit of 94" (and 21.18lbs by my digital scale). The leaderboard had second place at 80" but there was still 30 minutes of fishing and a hour left to upload pictures. There would be no last minute heroics by anyone on this day though. I was very pleased with how I fished. I did not miss a single bite all day and did not lose a single fish while fighting it. Not a bad way to start my kayak tournament season. The win automatically qualifies me for the clubs end of the year championship and the national championship also.

We had 15-20mph wind Saturday while I was out fishing a kayak tournament. Planned my attack by when/where the wind was going to blow from. Fished with the wind in the morning while it wasn't as strong and against it later when it was blowing harder. I also anchored several times in likely spots and caught some fish while I was anchored.

I prefer to catch bigger fish. Like others have said, you have to fish where they live to up your chances. Don't get too set in on "big fish baits", either. I fished a tournament Saturday and my big fish bait of choice? A Ned rig ? I drug a jig, fished a jerkbait, crankbait, trap, spinnerbait, bladed jig, and flipped a beaver. All 94" of my limit was on a Ned or slider head with a 4" craw. Elephants eat peanuts sometimes and those fish were keyed on eating the small craws that were all over the rocks.

There's lots of residential lakes, but no private membership lakes that I'm aware of. I grew up fishing one but it got bought out and because a residential lake. Loved fishing that place and it wasn't expensive at all, $200 for our family of 4 for the year. Pretty much taught myself to fish on that lake.

Gardner

New lake and kayak PB this morning.

Neither. Head and chest mount video are both hard to watch. Get some kind of pole mount system and go with that.