Bluebasser86

I just upgraded my kayak and if wasn't for needing my johnboat to take my boys out with me to the places they like to go, I'd sell the johnboat. Not having to deal with a trailer, batteries, gas, motors and motor repairs/maintenance, it's so much nicer to use the kayak. My range is a little less with the kayak, but the trade off is worth it. If you're wanting to do tournaments the livewell is a non-factor since kayak tournaments are measure, photo, release tournaments where there are no fish brought to the scales like a 5 fish boat tournament.

A 2/0 EWG should get the job done.

I filled a Walmart sack with good bobbers (reasonably sized foam or wood ones that potentially actually use), one winter. I've still got at least half that sack left in my garage. I do like to pick up the comically large bobbers and add them to my livewell for the boys to play with. I've got a few the size of a softball in there. I pick up the big catfish pole floats too because they're the Megabass of the bobber world around here, like 5-9 bucks a piece. I really expected to find around 75-100 baits though. The first time I went out looking at this lake I covered the bottom of my 2 man with over 200 baits. I got checked by the park ranger and his eyes about popped out when I told him I'd found all of them. The 2 chrome baits are a Strike King 2tap and a Berkley Flicker Shad. They were quite a ways away from each other. I rarely am able to successful remove a sinking lure from a tree but I was actually batting 1.000 on this day. I caught the spinnerbait and 2 of the traps as they were falling towards the water and the buzzbait landed in shallow enough water I was able to see it and recover it. The fishing pressure on this lake is unreal but it's surrounded by lots of overhanging trees also that are great at collecting people's errant cast. Unfortunately, the 1 whopper plopper I found was 3' too high for me to reach despite my 18' lure retriever and me stretching as far as I could. If my son was a little older I might have put him on my shoulders to try and reach it but I don't think his little 6 year old arms could have controlled that fully extended 18' aluminum pole in the breeze.

I've caught good fish on squarebills in 38* water and big spinnerbait fish in 40* water. I slow down when the fish tell me to.

I like EWG hooks on traps and cranks, round bends on topwaters and jerkbaits. If you do the short shank KVD trebles you can upsize, otherwise stick to the stock size. I mainly use ST-36s, Gamakatsu round bend and EWGs, or Mustad KVDs. On the big baits, assuming you're talking about swimbaits, I use ST-36s, or Decoy Quattros. I've never used that site before but Captainhookswarehouse has good prices on Mustad EWG trebles and I've bought from them lots of times.

That's probably going to depend a lot on the person an the type of fishing you're doing. Me personally, I wouldn't really care because my spots aren't secret spots that I take people to. They're paying me for the up to date knowledge of which spots to be fishing, how and with what to be fishing them with. It's quite possible you'd come back to the same spot a week later and have minimal success at best with the same techniques or baits. Now an offshore guide that is fishing deep brush piles that he's dropped or specific spots that he's found, no way I'd be trying to snap pictures of his coordinates or anything. Now I'm sure there's people that do, but to me it's not really an ethical thing to do. Not many, if any, offshore guides are going to sell you their good waypoints, which is basically what that would equate to. Learn from him, how he finds his spots and what he looks for on his electronics, to find your own hot spots. To me, part of the fun of fishing is figuring out the puzzle myself.

I had 2 of them fighting in the middle of the road on my way home about a month ago, one dragging the other by the neck. I thought it was a fox dragging a cat out of the neighborhood because I'd seen a coyote carrying a cat out of the same neighborhood not a week before. It was early morning before the sun came up so I stopped and backed up and when my lights hit them again, the aggressor let go and they went opposite directions. I don't know if they'll kill each other or not but it sure looked like that's what was happening.

I got hit with the "Respect your Elders", line for the first time in my life at the boat ramp Friday. Long story short, being older than someone earns you no respect when you want to treat someone poorly and that guy found it out the hard way.

I think Alex Smith is pretty clearly the comeback player of the year? Feels good as a Chiefs fan (and a fan of good human beings like Alex is), to see him out there succeeding after such a horrible ordeal.

About the only crappie plastic I buy. A 1/32 or 1/16 oz jighead shooting it under docks and let it fall and watch the line. Monkey Milk is about the only color I ever use because they always eat it when I do fish for them.

I go the opposite route. Bigger trailer allows for a slower retrieve and offers a large fish more food for it's effort. A 4.8" Fat Impact is my winter bladed jig trailer of choice.

I took my boys out for a day of lure hunting. Not as successful as I'd hoped but I have a feeling the heavy shore pressure might have caused a few of the baits I normally find floating in the weeds to be found before I got to them.

Wasn't planning on getting out this week but Friday wasn't as cold as I thought it would be so I took the boys out while the wife was shopping. This was mainly a lure hunting trip, but I was making cast with a jerkbait as we were scouring the shorelines and trees for lures. Water was gross looking, very cloudy like it had just turned over but I think it was from all the dying vegetation. Still we caught a few dinks. and we found a couple baits.

I was at 2250 a couple weeks ago and haven't fished much since then. Not sure how many times I'll get out the rest of the year but I gave it a good run.

I fish all winter and most days the bite is usually best early in the morning and late in the day just like during the summer months. Occasionally there will be a mid day bite flurry, but I'd still opt for early and later in the day. One of my favorite winter ponds is clear and about 3 acres, mostly less than 5' deep. The bass will sit surprisingly shallow around cover that holds heat and a suspending jerkbait let sit by those objects will often draw them up and out.

For channel cats in cold water, if I couldn't get natural bait, a punch bait works well. The bait dissipates slower in cold water and stays on the punch worm or sponge longer but still does plenty to attract them from a good distance. You won't catch any bigger ones, but fish under 10lbs will eat it really well at times.

I'd like to but we're having Thanksgiving at our house so I'll be cleaning and helping get ready all day and cleaning up afterwards. Nothing happening Friday either because I'll be hanging out with my boys so my wife can get her shopping fix in.

Depends on the thickness of the grass you're punching. We get mostly water willow and some kind of stringy junk that mats on the surface here and a 1/2oz gets the job done just fine for 95% of it. Heavy milfoil or hydrilla you might have to go up to 1.5-2 ounces to get through. Bait selection kind of goes against what you might think as it's usually a smaller, compact creature bait like a beaver or craw with small claws because they get through the weeds easier without hanging up. Like I said, braid and heavy rod. I like a straight shank flipping hook and peg the weight to keep it close to the bait. The best locations are spots that would hold fish if the grass wasn't there. The lake that I fish, I do best on the grass along creek channels right where it dumps in on the edges of flats, the edges of points, brush or rock piles mixed in the grass, and another to add that's completely dependent on the weeds is places where 2 types of grass come together. You'll have days where they're just all over, but usually you're going to find the most aggressive fish sitting on the edges.

Got to get heavy to punch through it. You're still going to have to clean grass almost every flip, just part of the game, but it's a good way to get bit especially from bigger than average fish. Braid and a heavy rod is a must.

That sucks. My truck cab will fit 8' rods easily, so that's where they ride. The rare occasion someone is fishing with me I tell them to watch out for hooks ?

Find the mold you like and most likely, there's a hook that will fit or is close enough you can make it fit with a little modification. I've hacked some molds up about beyond recognition (well beyond them being able to be used for their original purpose), to get a mold that I wanted.

A swinging football head with a beaver is my main winter time dragging bait the last few years. I think the fish see a lot of jigs during the winter so it gives them something similar but different. A shakyhead and Ned are top options also.

Welcome!

I fish a lake with pretty clear water and lots of grass pretty often and usually do well on a wacky rig if they won't chase something ticked above the grass or I can flip plastics into holes in the grass. You also have the option to fish the deep edge of the weed line.

It's louder and more aggressive. It cast light years better thanks to the tungsten weight transfer casting system in it also. It moves so easily in the water that it can be finessed along very gently when the water is cold though too.