Bluebasser86

Ripping a bladed jig. It's kind of like fishing a jerkbait fast but it's still moving a bladed jig pretty slow. Since they aren't a bait that deflects well off a lot of cover without hanging up it helps to impart your own "deflection". The bait will dart erratically as the blade stops working for a split second and dart back the other way as the blade begins working again.

I fish them a ton. The rod I'm using now is awesome for them. It's a 6' 9" H/F Hammer Rods Micro.

YUM Bad Jamma is similar. https://www.lurenet.com/yum-bad-jamma

I love big crawlers and that's one of the best ones out there, no way it would be sitting on a shelf if it was mine. Congrats on the purchase! It's a huge crawler like a Heddon Crazy Crawler.

That's what I've been looking for all winter and can't find, school of wipers.

None yet. I keep a close eye on him and don't let him keep a fish in there long.

They usually just jump on me instead. 2 60-70lb dogs play fighting on top of you is pretty hard to sleep through.

Loved Harry N Charlie. That and "Day on the Water" were my favorite things to read in Bassmaster.

I'll tell my 5 year old it's Santa and give him the phone, I bet they don't stay on the line long.

My boy always wants to put them in the livewell and try to net them back out with his little dip net. I'll usually try to catch a couple green sunfish and let him have at it. I just tell him that if he kills them, he has to eat them because we aren't out there to kill fish just to kill them. Want him to enjoy himself but understand that it's still a living creature he needs to respect no matter how small.

What knot are you tying? Thin braid to a thin leader line with a well tied knot shouldn't be catching on the guides.

I can break it down a bit more I think. Smaller, finesse baits are going to lean more towards the watermelon and green pumpkin spectrum. Bulkier baits are going to be more green pumpkin, black/blue, junebug/redbug, flukes and grubs are white, baitfish, chartreuse.

I'm all over the place. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, both work. When I do, I'll use something as small as the split tail spinnerbait trailer, up to a 5" swimbait, and several others in between. I like trailers when I want bulk or contrast.

I work hard to put people on fish when they book me for the day and get paid well to do it. It's a little different than a restaurant because I'm providing all the very expensive equipment that cost a lot to run and maintain. Tips are pretty common but not required, I feel like I need to earn them, but that doesn't necessarily mean catching fish because that's out of my control sometimes. A pretty typical tip is 40-50 a person. If a guide doesn't earn it, don't feel obligated, but by that I mean showing up late, unprepared, bad/broken/poorly kept equipment, not knowledgeable, ect. Sometimes the fish don't bite even for the most knowledgeable fishermen, so if they're obviously working hard and have everything else in order but the fish just don't cooperate, I wouldn't hold that against them.

Wyco has kicked out 6+lb smallies? I know the lake record use to be 5.60 something but didn't know it bumped up over 6. I've heard it's been good since the weeds got in there. I'd like to fish it again but it's an hour drive to Wyco or half that to La Cygne for me, not a hard decision. Melvern is about the same drive as Wyco if I want smallmouth. Fished it a ton when I lived in Piper though.

Sometimes they want it just stopped so it can float out of the grass, but a lot of the time I do better if I snap the bait out of the grass.

15 is what I use for most of my T rig rods, anywhere between a 7.1 to a 9.1, whatever you like to use. A MH/F in whatever length you like, mine are mostly 7- 7.5'.

I fish big baits along with conventional stuff in tournaments. Problem with your situation is you're going to be limited with how much stuff you can bring as a Co. I'd bring one rod to fling big baits and a handful of your favorite baits. You're going to donate a lot of money in tournaments if you only throw big baits, but you might win the big bass pot occasionally. It's a solid idea if it's a team tournament because you can try to pick up the kicker. You could save up those entry fees and buy a decent kayak pretty quickly if getting off the bank is the main thing you're trying to do.

I use a 1/4oz for the jelly worm with fluoro. Baitcaster for sure.

This the little oxbow lake up the Lewis and Clark village? Hard to imagine that thing having smallies in it but I've seen them turn up in stranger places.

This is the first normal winter we've had in several years it seems like where we had snow and cold instead of extended periods of warm weather. I really think the lakes benefit from the cold and being frozen over to allow the sediment to settle and the fish to catch a break from the angling pressure. I've noticed a couple normally fairly clear lakes have been much dirtier than normal with the last few warm winters when they didn't freeze over at all. We'll see if this helps. I did see that the extreme cold has supposedly killed off a large number of bad bugs, so here's hoping that's true.

Spend as much as you want. I had good luck with an Ethos cranking rod that I found on clearance for $38 and currently use a Quantum KVD cranking rod I found on clearance for $24. Lots of guys like the BPS cranking stick. If you really like cranking and do it a lot, then maybe you'll get the extra value out of a higher end rod though.

I was a pretty decent skipper before, but once I bought my Zillion TWS SV, wow. I can't believe how well that reel skips. I like a 1/4-1/2oz to skip with. Got to be pretty parallel to the water with the cast and lift the rod tip up towards the end of the cast to help keep the bait from wanting to dive down. I'm no Andy Montgomery, but I can get a bait back there pretty good.

The larger size BatwingZ is a great jig trailer. I really like it in cold water when I don't want a lot of action. Big bonus that it comes in sapphire blue, one of my favorite jig trailer colors.