Bluebasser86

I've bought them from the bait store and used them, bass will eat them. Invasive species of crawdads have become a pretty big issue so buying them from bait stores is probably a thing of the past.

I had a Lew's Speed Spool for a few years and liked it. It was a noisy reel after the first year but still worked fine. Apparently it didn't make it home from one of my last kayak trips though. Loaded it into the back of the truck, wasn't there when I got home. Hopefully it wasn't too damaged to use whenever it's new owner finds it along the highway.

Yep, she's one of the good ones. I think she likes being in the boat almost as much as I do.

Nothing makes a chore more urgent than my head hitting the pillow.

Brent Chapman did at Dale Hollow, but he's admittedly not a strong finesse fisherman and has no confidence in the rig. I've thrown it at LOZ every time I've fished the main lake and it always produces tons of fish, just not a good option for a normal 5 bass tournament, but I think it would be hard to keep up with someone fishing it in the MLF format. It catches a lot of spots and largemouth about like this one whenever I've fished it there. This was in the Glaize arm not far from the Highway 54 bridge.

They were in very shallow water and both visible almost immediately after the hookset. It really looked like they both hit the bait instantaneously but if one did try to take it from the other, I'd assume the same scenario you did.

Welcome!

I wish I liked to eat fish. I have a few lakes that are very overpopulated with stunted bass that could use a bunch of fish removed from them.

I grew up doing it as a source of food. Now it's become my form of stress relief and my release from everyday life. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what I need to do each and every day to outsmart the fish. I really enjoy spending time on the water with family and friends and getting to know new people through our similar interest in the sport as well.

I always use a leader. It does not have good abrasion resistance, which is why I use it in open water. I used the 10lb test with best results. I mainly used it for smallmouth fishing where there are no weeds to speak off, just rock/mud/clay/sand bottoms. The leader helps with the clear water visibility but even with a very short leader when I'd get lazy, the fish still bit just fine. You can see in this picture that my leader was probably less than 2' long and I was catching fish just fine.

Where it really shines is open water water, finesse presentations, especially if you need to make long cast. I used it for grubs, small paddletail swimbaits, Ned rigs, and wacky rigs. It performed very well for me but Gliss is cheaper and holds up a little better. A couple extra wraps when tying the leader knot, (Alberto, not the one they recommend), and you're good to go.

FWIW, Nanofil isn't a braided line. I think that's where a lot of the disappointment comes from with this line. If you're using Nanofil like most use braided lines,

Nice smallie! They pull really hard when they're that size.

You might try contacting Zebco and see if they have any way to determine the age of a reel. There's probably a serial number stamped on the reel somewhere that reveals the date it was made.

Big thing with a frog rod is having enough tip to load properly during the cast, and enough backbone to drive the hooks home and wrestle a big bass out of heavy cover. I use a 7' 3" H/F but it's not rated anywhere near 2oz.

The Okuma TCS rods are very nice. I have one and would like to buy more when I have a need.

I save mine and give them to guys that melt them down to reuse.

Bladed jig

I rarely fish out of other people's boats, but when I do, I bring the bare minimum. It's almost always a good friends boat, so borrowing tackle isn't a big deal. I usually bring my terminal tackle box, a few bags of my favorite plastics, couple of jigs, couple spinnerbaits, a few topwaters, and a few cranks.

I only have 2 females in the house with me, but one of them makes enough hair for 10.

No, but it gets crazy out there.

Not at all. It's a huge lake that I've fished several times. There's a good portion of the lake they haven't even fished. Very interesting how certain portions of the lake have produced large fish and others haven't.

Depends a lot on how far into spring we're talking. It might be a suspending jerkbait early on, might be a buzzbait by the end of spring. I'm a sucker for a jerkbait bite though and I'll spend more time chasing it than I should some days.

Power plant lakes are a lifesaver for those of us living above the ice belt.