Bluebasser86

Welcome!

I have some of almost all their hard baits and they're all great value baits. The squarebills, jerkbaits, traps, walking toowater, and propbaits are my favorites.

The smaller bluegill works way better then the small shad one, as in it swims much better.

My dad uses a telescoping golf ball retriever. Works about as good as anything.

That's funny because one of our neighbors always calls Lake "River". Don't know if I can get my wife to go for me choosing the name twice though. She suggested "Aspen". I suggested we don't go out of our way to try to get our son beat up

From the forum rules; I have a question about the Kicktail, Banjo Minnow, Doug Hannon Snake, Walking Worm lures, or the North American Fishing clubDo a search on the name. There's plenty of posts about it, which will answer your question. LOCKDOWN!!

Beavers get me every time. Tons of them on the Kansas River. They always seem to do it right as I'm dozing off when the bite is slow and I almost fall out of my chair because of it.

The Ethos from Academy is a great rod. You can get standard guide models for $60, or the micro guides for $80, and both go on sale for less pretty often.

Welcome!

Welcome from the next state to the west!

Welcome!

4 should be fine then.

Where are you fishing at? I've been places where 2lb was the heaviest they'd bite on, then I've been places where 10lb was fine.

Nothing reel great from this past week.

It's a bit like a jerkbait retrieve, only more with the reel than the rod. Which color did you end up going with? If you look up how to modify the bait by sanding the joints down, you'll get a lot better action out of it as well. I did it to mine and they are way more productive now.

Catching one of these guys is a pretty rare deal for me. Catching 3 in one day, and one while I was burning a Bull Shad, is unreal.

What do you want to use the reel for? Every company out there makes a good reel in your price range, so it's really going to be subjective as to "which is best". So if we know what you're wanting to use it for, at least you'll get suggestions that make sense for the applications you're wanting to do. As for the rod; And bass fishing tips you could start here; http://www.bassresource.com/how-to-fish/ or you can get more specific on where you're fishing and someone from your area will probably chime in, maybe someone fishing the same lake you are.

tail up, just feel like it swims better that way.

@MFBAB you're findings are pretty dead on with what I experience, except I use different baits. Scaleface had an interesting observation about the stained water being better on a bright night. I have access to both, so maybe next time it's going to be a bright moon, I'll opt for a more stained body of water and see if that changes my luck. On bright nights, I've been having my best success on a white spinnerbait or white bladed jig. I too am seeing the moon as being almost the same as the sun on bright nights, which is why the lighter or more natural colors are producing better for me in those situations I believe. A solid blue or sapphire blue jig or bladed jig is one of my best all around producers at night.

Pfluegar Supreme XT or an Okuma RTX

When my wife asked me what I wanted for Father's Day, I was serious when I told her I wanted nothing. I really have nothing to want, but I knew that answer wouldn't work. A few people on here know that my wife is pregnant with our second child. Well when our son, Lake, climbed into my lap with a bag I wasn't really sure what to expect. He insisted on helping me, and proceeded in pulling out of the bag; a blue wiggle wart, a pack of blue bug Rage craws, some blue raspberry saltwater taffy, some blue raspberry Mike & Ike's, a cool blue Gatorade. I'm sure most of you probably get why everything was blue, I sometimes need a little more than just hints. Luckily, my wife had also found a poem and, with a little tweaking, wrote it out just right to let me know that sometime around December 26th, I'm going to be the daddy to another little boy! We were both kind of hoping for a girl, but girls are very few and far between in my family for whatever reason, so we knew the odds weren't good there. Now we have to start thinking up another name for Lake's new baby brother. On the plus side, Lake was born December 16th, so a lot of cloths and toys can get reused this time around

Must be a newer model, the one I had it didn't matter type or brand, it was always a tangled mess no matter what I did. A 50lb catfish on 15lb test would be a little more than a good fight for me. You must be getting them in open water. I mostly run into flatheads that you wouldn't stand a chance with against them here. You can get a pretty inexpensive but functional combo for big catfish.

I use 20lb Big Game on a couple swimbait setups. I like it for moving baits, not so much for bottom contact baits.

I like the 4" SI for lake smallies, but those stream smallmouth are probably focused more on smaller baitfish. I couldn't be surprised if you might even be better going to the 3".