Bluebasser86

A heavy enough rod to cast the TOTAL weight (heads, baits, rig), long butt to put under your armpit for leverage and to reduce fatigue. A reel with a good amount of line capacity to hold some good 20lb copolymer line. I use a Dobyns Fury 795 with a Curado 300E spooled with 20lb Big Game.

Going to try it on a shakyhead a bit after work this morning and see how it does.

Depends on your local regs. 5 if it's allowed for sure. They're not the easiest thing in the world to cast, but with the right equipment, they're not as difficult as they look.

When the bite is on, yes, you are 100% missing out on one of the best bites of the year, especially for big fish. The cold water period when the baitfish are schooled up tightly and bass are gorging on them is the best time to fish them.

Wyco has MONSTER wipers.

Didn't realize that was you fishing with Reggie. I saw his pictures and one said Osage River and I thought LOZ. Looks like you just needed a good kicker. Any time you can get 5 at Truman in the summer is a good day though.

You can, but it won't be ideal. Setting the hook and getting the barb set will be the biggest issue.

I put them on the passenger side in the cab. Rarely have anyone riding with me in my truck so I don't have to worry about having someone in the passenger seat.

I landed a 4lb catfish on it without any problems. It's handled me hauling as hard as the 4lb test will let me with our 75lb dog on the other end. I wouldn't want to use it as a regular use rod because it's awkward with it being so short, but it would work in a pinch.

The Booyah Flex II sounds like the exact bait you described.

Regular one stays up on the surface better and moves more water, I seem to get more bites on it than the Jr. The Mega is 4 3/4" and 2oz. I fished an Imakatsu Aventa Crawler that a local shop owner loaned me for awhile because he wanted to see if I could actually catch a fish on it. I caught several on it. Made me want either the Mega Pomp or a Deps NZ Crawler, the Deps is just considerably more expensive. They really do seem to hate the slow moving, noisy things. The bites usually seem to be really vicious.

Late summer, most ponds are low on oxygen, high temps, low water levels, higher risk for infections. Always seem to see some dead bass of all sizes this time of year.

Catching fish behind a good flipper is rough. They'll be hitting all the good, obvious spots, catching all the aggressive and easily caught fish, leaving you with little to work with. Never, unless you're in an extremely target rich environment like standing timber, fish the exact same bait with the exact same size weight. At the very least, use a different size weight to get a different fall weight, but I'd suggest a completely different bait so you have a chance to catch the fish that might have ignored his bait. Compact baits that don't have lots of legs and flappers are best for grass because they slide through easier. A longer rod to help lift them as straight up out of the grass as possible, as well as braided line, will really help make your life easier. I love flipping grass, but it isn't the easiest technique to master.

I bought one for my son for his first rod and reel, the spinning version. The rod is dang near unbreakable, which is exactly what I was looking for when buying a rod for a 2 year old, (that and cheap). The reel was pretty decent really. I used it for playing with our Golden Retriever during the winter too much and wore it out and now it has a 20 size President on it instead.

YUM Flash mob with 1/8 or 1/4 oz heads that I pour.

Welcome!

Those baits will work in those temps, especially for targeting big fish. My 2 biggest swimbait fish were on those 2 baits in water below 60.

Looks like a pickeral to me also.

Full size for sure, they get crushed. I'd like to try the Mega version.

7 or 9 inch Slammer or 185 Shine Glide are my picks for big baits this time of year. The Hudds and big soft baits will come in play more when temps drop into the mid 50s.

92,92,93 the next 3 days. Weatherman doesn't agree with you ?

Had all 4 of mine pulled at the same time and went to work the next day. You know your buddies your work with are a bunch of jerks when all they can do is try to make you laugh or smile all day because they know it hurts when you do.

First eye I've caught in quite a while this year, on a Duo Rozante 77 jerkbait in 5' of water mixed in with a bunch of smallies.

They had an issue for awhile with the drag washers not being placed in the reel correctly. They were in the reel like this when I took them apart. When they needed to look like this. That helped my drags out a lot on both of mine.