Bluebasser86

For flatheads you really only have 2 options, either livebait or fresh cut bait. You're not going to catch flatheads on the chicken livers or prepared baits used for channel cats. Personally, I'd opt for fresh cutbait and give yourself a good shot at channels, blues, or flatheads.

Cheap kids safety scissors or the $.89 kitchen essential kitchen shears from WalMart. I know me, I'm going to drop stuff in the lake. Hurts a lot less when it's a $1 pair of safety scissors versus an expensive tool I bought just to cut line.

I'd take a Revros over a President or Trion any day of the week. I own all 3 and the Revros performs well above it's price tag. It's outlasted my Supreme XT I bought at the same time in fact. The new Pfluegers just aren't what they use to be.

It looks a lot like one they use to sell in WalMart that I think was sold by Renegade. I used them a ton as a kid but I don't think they were called anything other than Renegade curly tail worms. A 6" YUM or Culprit in Tequila Sunrise would be really close though.

V&M Smallie tube for smallies (duh). Green pumpkin or any variation thereof works well. Big Bite Baits Craw tube or Strike King Flip N Tube for largemouth. Black Blue tail, Black Neon, and green pumpkin for the SK. Watermelon red flake, green pumpkin, confusion, junebug, hematoma, or black neon for the BBB.

I'm a mono/copolymer guy for buzzbaits.

Anything YUM and BBB like has already been mentioned. Both offer bulk packs too so you can save even more there. Just got a 100pk of one of my favorite colors of Yomommas not long ago, around $40 shipped.

My youngest just really started going this year at 3. He didn't get started as young as his older brother since he's not the only child. My oldest is a seasoned vet now at 6, started him out when he was 2. One of his first trips, given me the play by play on fighting this monster bluegill. And a few weeks ago with one of his biggest smallmouth he's caught, and one of the biggest of the day. The youngest with his big catch a couple weeks ago, he still tells anyone who will listen. All I care is they have fun when we go out. I do my best to make sure they're having a good time whether it's catching fish, playing in the water, or going fast in the boat.

Had to bend the hooks out just a touch but hook up ratio has been really good. It does cast terrific too.

Welcome!

The summer months are just like any other time of year, the fish have to eat, you just have to figure out what and where. I personally prefer to stick to shallow areas. I'm targeting fewer fish but those fish are mainly up shallow for the main purpose of feeding. Picking apart likely areas and targets other anglers might miss is crucial. Moving baits are a big part of triggering strikes some days, there isn't a cutoff temp when I stop using them. Same goes for jerkbaits, they work year round. They've been backwards for me lately. Get a hot, sunny calm day and they want moving baits and/or topwaters. Nice cloudy, rainy days and they want all slow moving baits. I hate giving the response but it really is a case of having to let the fish tell you what they want.

Pour my own, cost somewhere around $.10-$.15 a head to make with an Eagle Claw Lil Nasty #2. If I didn't make my own, I'd be getting them from Siebert's. I've watched so many people break the hooks on the Zman heads, no way I'd trust those things.

Depends where you live I suppose. Some places you can site fish them all the time and get to see them stalk and eat the bait regularly. It's always cool to see.

I wish the virus was the worse of what we were dealing with at work.

Had a driveway fire with the wife after we put the boys to bed Wednesday night and drank a few Busch Latte apples. I'm not a beer drinker at all, but they were pretty alright.

Fish were crushing my homemade bladed jig Thursday, even a crappie got in on the action.

I have a couple and would have no problems buying more. They're excellent reels for the money.

I have several St. Croix rods and really like them. That said, was not a fan of the Avid X. Didn't like the guides at all. Didn't have any durability issues with them, they just didn't look right on the rod for some reason. I'd go with the regular Avid.

There's only a couple that are trolling motor or paddle only, but I fish a lot of lakes smaller than 200 acres and I fish by myself a lot. The only thing keeping me from fishing from the kayak I had more was fighting our constant wind was impossible a lot of days. I'm hoping with the pedal drive on this one I'll be able to use it a lot more so I can keep some of the miles off my bass boat when I'm just going to a little lake anyways. This is a pedal kayak, should be minimal paddling. I'm hoping to get into some kayak tournaments too if my schedule ever settles down.

I do but I don't go too crazy. I've done it long enough now that I've found the baits I like and tend to stick to them.

I have a spinning rod I bought specifically for fishing shad raps, so yeah they're kind of a big deal for me. Our bass eat a ton of shad, and I fish all winter long when a shad rap really shines. Makes it kind of a no brainer.

Just use a regular one. A 1lb bass can eat any size bass jig it wants without any problems.

Put a hurt on them Thursday, 38 bass and a crappie by noon. Homemade bladed jig and Big Bite Baits craw tube did most of the damage.

2 of the previous trips I've gone have been overcast with some wind and even some rain, zero moving bait bite at all. Thursday it was mid 90s, dead calm, sunny, and they ate the paint off my bladed jig. Like I've said, fish can't read the rules we try to write for them. Just because they should be doing something doesn't mean they will be, have to be willing to adapt with them.