Bluebasser86

You don't need anything that heavy with the 90. I have M/F spinning rods with 10-20lb braid for guys to use on guide trips and it works just fine.

I've seen them swimming and resting in large concentrations as well. Times when I can mark a large group of fish that are all holding in the same area and not feeding on anything (no bites and no marks on the depthfinder of feeding fish). Come back hours later and they're still there and actively biting and feeding. I guess you could say they're there because it's a prime feeding area, but since that's one of the main concerns in a bass' life, a majority of the time they're where they are because there is food somewhere nearby. Seems like it's really difficult to decide if the group is there to school or for feeding.

Cabela's In KC had a bunch of Crazy Flappers for $2 a pack awhile back. Never fished them before but I bought about 20 packs for that price. Caught my biggest fish of the weekend on one this past week.

I traded a lot of store bought jigs, bladed jigs, and jigheads for my own homemade ones. Senko- BPS stick O Zoom Trick worm-Netbait T-Mac Expensive Gammies and Owner hooks-Eagle Claw Black Platinum hooks. Sufix 832-KastKing super braid

Again, you'll be hard pressed to find a better combination of head/skirt/hook options and prices than you will with Siebert.

He does. He comments occasionally, and I know he's used things I've said a time or two.

I wasn't quite a year old yet the first time my parents took me fishing, so I don't exactly remember it. Some of my first memories are fishing my grandparents pond and catching what I thought were huge catfish at the time, but were probably only 4-8 pounds in reality. My first experience with a bass was also in their pond catching bass on my trusty 1/8oz rootbeer colored roadrunner.

Bass are for sure schooling fish. They tend to school by size, not just while they are feeding, but also while resting and for safety in numbers. I have no studies to quote, all I have is my on the water experience.

Looks like it might be a Culprit Fat Max worm in Grape Shad with the tail dyed chartreuse. It looks a bit like a Powerbait in one picture, but never seen a color at all like that from Berkley. http://img.tacklewarehouse.com/watermark/rs.php?path=CULPFMW-GRS-1.jpg

Yeah, that Wacky Style is what I use for tubes and it works perfectly.

I had a Caenan and Casitas and didn't like either of them. Both felt very cheap and strained under load of fighting a fish. One thing that has to be taken into consideration with the "cheap" KastKing reels is they only sell online, so there is no middle man markup like there is with Shimano and all the other major brands (and I used to work retail, it's a pretty significant markup). So if you put the KastKing reels on the shelf of a BPS, they'd likely be priced the same as those 2 Shimanos, and maybe if they were priced higher they'd have more people believing in them because they weren't priced so cheap. I have 5 or 6 KastKing reels now, they all get serious use right along side my more expensive reels, and they've all performed beyond my expectations. Not just saying it because they're a sponsor, I've only been given 2 reels by them to try initially, they've just impressed me enough to pay for the rest out of pocket.

I have the dropshot LTB that I use almost exclusively for Ned rigs. It will fish a light tube or shakyhead but you'll be pushing it with a 3/8oz head and a tube.

Welcome!

I had a loon come out from under the boat chasing my jerkbait at Table Rock, a big male. You're right, they're a large bird when you see one up close, especially when they surprise you like that. That little Grebe was easy to deal with, would not want to have to try to unhook a loon.

100 fish days are not uncommon here, especially during the winter when fish group up. I've had 3 that I can think of this year and will surely have more late this year. I've caught many snappers, they're never fun to deal with.

I have bad luck with birds. I've caught a couple seagulls, a Grebe, an owl, and a blue heron. The owl slammed into a muskie jitterbug while I was night fishing, thought I had a state record. My jerkbait Grebe.

It's so similar, but so different somehow to a T rig. I had to force myself to fish a jig and nothing else before I finally got the hang of it. Now it's one of my favorite baits to fish. There's nothing like a good jig bite, not even topwater IMO.

I swim the TRD and ZinkerZ for the subtle action. The tail end wobbles very slightly during a straight retrieve. As subtle as we see a small swimbait or grub being, it's a very exaggerated action compared to the swimming motion of a small baitfish.

I fish a Ned Rig on the bottom no problems where there aren't any Zebra Mussels. Drop a Ned or shakyhead to the bottom in Zebra territory and you might as well have just thtown it into the lake instead of tying the bait on. Plus I can use a much lighter rod with the little open hook on a Ned and get the most out of that subtle action with the light and short hook.

It's rigged and ready to rock for the weekly tournament tonight. Hopefully it gets a good workout.

Along with other things mentioned, when I'm fishing a shakyhead, it's almost always on the bottom. When I'm fishing a Ned rig, it's rarely on the bottom and sometimes just a few inches below the surface. A Ned rig is a much more versatile rig IMO.

Any time I'm on one of the clearer Ozark lakes, I'll have a grub on a jighead rigged up. Cast it out, reel it in slow. It's a boring way to fish, but it's very effective too.

No plastic worm and no skirted bass jig, nuff said.

Trokar hooks have never impressed me. That point tends to slice a hole in the fish that is easier for the hook to back out of. I've heard lots of guys cutting the weedguard fin off those LiveTarget swimbaits to get better hookups. I was really disappointed in the ones I bought and sold them before I did any modifications. I had a tournament like that day a couple months ago where every good fish my partner or I hooked somehow managed to come off no matter what we did. I didn't end up mattering, the guys that won it would have still won if we'd caught every fish we hooked, but it still sucked.

We've been really fortunate the last couple weeks. Normally would be very similar weather to the OP this time of year, but we've had lots of days in the 80's and even 70's with very mild humidity, it's been great. Looks like that's changing now, and the T-storms today are a pretty sure sign of that, but it was nice while it lasted.