Bluebasser86

It's fairly stiff, but not terrible. I don't use any line condition on any line, haven't owned any in years. I use it for most moving baits where I need abrasion resistance because it's excellent in that category.

The U-tail was one of my go to baits when I was a kid. 2/0 hook with a 1/16oz bullet weigh on 8lb test and a medium spinning rod, caught a ton of bass on that setup.

Pretty much what happened with our Thursday night tournaments that I put together a few years ago. They started out really fun, had up to 12 boats showing up, usually 6-8. I won a lot of them, I don't feel bad for it, it's a competition and we all pitch our money in to compete knowing we might lose, and I lost plenty too. Teams started quitting because they didn't win often enough. I had planned to stop running them because we'd got to where it was tough to scrape together 3-4 boats each week, but the last one was the "Fish Off" for the pot from the previous year. My buddy and I barely squeaked out a win, didn't have big bass, had it all on video, and got accused of cheating?? We do catch, weigh, release (similar to MLF), but track the biggest 5. I guess the guy that fished with us all year didn't understand that the scales lock the weight in, so when we took our pictures of the fish and we had our hands on the grippers to turn the fish towards the camera, we weren't "pulling down and adding weight". It was a mess, thankfully everyone else in the group realized how stupid of a gripe it was, he left the FB group and blocked me so he must have really felt like he was wronged. The weirdest part, he didn't even weigh a fish, so it's not like it was him that got second or 3rd and would have gotten paid if we had done something to get DQ'd, he just didn't like losing or had a problem with me I guess.

A crawler on a dropshot is how a lot of guides on Table Rock survive the summers when the fishing gets really difficult and they have people with very limited skills on the boat. They have a lot of bycatch with them, big bluegills, catfish, and walleye being some of the most common.

By this time of year, that lake has been fished so hard and those fish are so stressed they can be pretty difficult to catch.

Wrong part of the state for good bass fishing. Southwest and northwest are both really good areas.

They're pretty decent but their ratings are heavier than the rods actually fish.

Spinnerbait I'll use both at times. Buzzbait I'll use a trailer hook at times but never use a trailer.

Have you checked my garage? ?

Yep, those first warm stretches early in the year around the winter dead grass, pad stems, newly emerging grass clumps, those big girls will be up super shallow and suck a frog down like a trout taking a dry fly.

Big and bulky isn't a big deal on the back of a bladed jig. I don't use the Jackhammer but some of my favorite bladed jig trailers are; Havoc Pit Boss and Devil's Spear (both 4"), rigged vertically. Rage Menace 4" rigged vertically. Keitech Fat Impact 3.8 and 4.8. Zman Razor Shad and Diesel Minnow. 2/3 of a 5" stick worm. Big Bite Baits Swimon.

I haven't tried one yet. Found some "blanks", of them and bought a couple though. They were $2.50 or $3 each I think? Way cheaper than a regular Dark Sleeper.

Looks like a hybrid gill from the aqua streaks on the gills. Their mouths are much larger than a regular gill.

Wasn't that the urge wasn't there, but with the way things are right now I'm not trying to do anything to start any conflict that could result with my face on the news. Just couldn't understand how you could sit there and ignore someone else in serious need like that. A buddy and I spent 3 hours towing a broke down boater on LOZ while fishing the Big Bass Bash a few years ago. It was about an 8 mile tow, but that's not a lake to be broke down on and the tow fee would have been insane. Not going to lie, it sucked losing all that time, but I'd want someone else to do the same for me. Even if you do have them in the kayak but not on, flip a kayak, add some wind, those PFDs float away fast and if you're injured at all from the flip or the waves are very big, swimming one down could be a pretty tall task.

Happy Father's Day everyone!

No seasoned catfisherman is getting excited about a 25 pounder. The guys around here don't even want to hear about it until they're over 50. Blue cats and flatheads have both attacked swimmers when they're on their spawning beds. Pike and probably muskie have bitten their share of feet and hands also. It's not the big things in the water you have to worry about though, it's the bacteria, brain eating ameba, that kind of fun stuff. Those shows are so played up also. Hard to tell what is real and what is just sensationalized for TV. I'll take any of them over a candiru though. That thing is what nightmares are made of.

Sort of on the topic of lifejackets and how important it is to have them and wear them. Last week I took my wife and her mom fishing and wind picked up pretty quickly. Watched a group on a SUP and canoe struggling and then the canoe took a dump 75 yards from shore in white caps over deep water. The people in it had life jackets on and there was a tournament boat fishing within easy shouting distance, I saw them look and go back to fishing, assumed they were doing okay as they were trying to swim the canoe to the shore. My wife and MIL had jumped in to swim for a minute and got back in and I couldn't just take off without checking on them. Motored by and asked if they needed help but it was pretty obvious without asking that they did. The canoe was half full of water and both guys were clearly exhausted from struggling with the canoe. I tied it off to the boat and they held on while I used the TM to slowly pull it to shore. The tourny guys were nice enough to stop and tell me where it was shallow enough to beach it (huge eye roll), then got right back to fishing. I ended up falling while helping them right the canoe because neither of them had the strength to do much to help while they were still trying to catch their breath. First thing, I'm glad they were wearing their life jackets. We witnessed a pair in a tandem kayak paddling across the white caps 30 minutes later going from one bank to the other on the widest point of this 7,000 acre lake, no lifejackets. The Game Warden was driving by and saw them also from on top of the dam, he watched them for a long time probably fearing he'd see what I was also afraid was going to happen. This was warm water and they could have abandoned the canoe and probably been okay, but they weren't dragging that water filled canoe against the waves and one guy was pretty heavyset, a heart attack could have been a real concern for him if he'd continued to struggle. Secondly, if you're in tournament, I don't care how much money is on the line, someone's life is worth more. They were right there to help, but couldn't be bothered to stop for 5 minutes and risk losing out on that one bite to win the couple hundred bucks at stake.

I'd also add clear for super clear water and maybe a gill for around bluegill spawning beds, but a majority of my topwater hard baits are white/bone.

Man, my condolences on waiting this long to get on a topwater bite. I caught my first frog fish this year on April 2nd ? They'll eat that plopper all day long if you keep fishing it. Not always the best option but some of my biggest ones have been right in the middle of the day when the sun was the highest.

I use a 2/0 Gamakatsu wide gap finesse. 10lb braid to an 8lb leader with a M/F rod, reel and lift on the hookset. Those weedless hooks are terrible for hookup % IMO. Wacky rigs aren't for fishing in heavy cover and the hook point naturally rides up, so they'll come over most sparse cover as is, I have no use for them.

They're a naturally occurring hybrid. The only way to prevent them would be to completely remove all of one of the parent species. They don't occur in such large numbers to negatively effect other fish either. They occur relatively often at Table Rock for instance and in all the times I've fished it, I've caught 3 meanmouths. Whoever told you that was blowing smoke. Personally, I think they're a beautiful fish. That one I posted of Fish Chris is one of the most stunning bass pictures I've ever seen. Hybrid stripers on the other hand, they'll out-compete bass and everything else in a lake with their bottomless pit appetites if there isn't a huge biomass to support them.

18" is a keeper most lakes I fish and an 18" fish averages about 3lbs, so 18" or 3lbs is what I consider a nice fish.

There would be no encounter if I was fishing and saw a bear. I'd be out of there like the Roadrunner.

17lb Pline CXX

I bought a Revros 2000 a few years ago when Pflueger sold out and the Presidents went in the toilet. Liked it so much I've bought 2 more since and plan to keep replacing my Presidents with them as they die out. I bought one for my son for his first nice combo and paired it with an Aird X rod. Both black and gold, it's a sweet looking combo.