Bluebasser86

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

A good portion of those questions can be answered by utilizing the forum search option in the correct forum. If you don't find the answer to what you're looking for, post a question. I like helping people with their questions but quite honestly, your post is overwhelming with the amount of information you're looking for in a single post. It's much easier to digest broken down into 1 or 2 question post and doesn't feel as much like a homework assignment for anyone looking to help you out

It's always been crazy when I go down there. The fish are used to it and go about business as usual. I've caught them right around swimmers and in pools where people were jumping off high banks. The real treat is to get up really early, like 4:30 or 5, and go wading before the zombies start stumbling out of their tents. It's very peaceful and the fishing is usually even better. My biggest Elk river smallie and largemouth were both after or before the party crowd was on the river.

That is a sweet looking little bait. I bet it would catch about everything too.

When I go to the Elk, I usually have 3 things rigged up; Zara Puppy or Sammy 85 2.75" Craw Papi on a 1/16 or 1/8oz shakyhead 4" Zoom mini lizard, meathead, or finesse worm on a pro slider head I've never tried a Ned on the Elk but I have no doubt it will be a killer. Walk the topwaters fast through skinny, fast water areas and behind logjams. Fish the plastics in slow water areas and behind current breaks. If one of the plastics is doing way better than the other, I might swap it out for a fluke or small jerkbait like a 65 pointer.

St Croix Rage in their Bargain Room online for $89 with free shipping. $90 for a $170 rod.

Yeah, the 7' 8" is a cranking rod. I was leaning that way until I figured that out. The 7' 11" is heavier than what I wanted.

Best trout rod I ever had was a 6' 8" ML Shimano Crucial dropshot rod with a 1000 Symetre. It had a very soft tip but good backbone that fished small spoons and spinners better than any rod I've ever owned. For the pure fun of the fight, my 6' UL/F Avid with a 750 Symetre and 3.5lb DAM Techtan makes a 10" trout feel like a 10lb bass.

I didn't, then I broke one of my pitching rods and they had a 7' 6" MH/MF in the bargain room, problem solved

Pork absolutely catches bigger bass for me on some of our lakes. Another oddity I've noticed is on lakes with smallmouth and largemouth, the smallmouth seem to prefer the plastic while the largemouth prefer the pork. I guess I don't understand why it's difficult to maintain when it's hot? I fish in 90+ and even 100+ degree days without any issues? If I'm not using it at the moment I just make sure it's hanging over the side in the water so it doesn't dry out, pretty minimal extra work to catch bigger fish.

Epoxy for sure. Gorilla glue expands as it dries, so it's not a good option.

More man than me. I would have pushed it through and cut it if possible.

NO! The Ned rig does not catch big fish! I repeat, go back to fishing all your power fishing techniques because that's the only way to catch big fish! Seriously though, I've caught a ton of big fish on the Ned since I started fishing it several years ago. Mostly catch big smallies on it but big largemouth can't resist it at times either. One of my biggest largemouth I've caught from my favorite smallmouth lakes was on a Ned early this year.

I use the regular 4" swing impact on a 1/4oz jighead. It's a killer for smallies and spots in clear water. Catches a lot of walleyes, whites, and crappie too.

I had a Mustang auto inflatable that I won in a BASS Weekend Series tournament several years ago. Got caught in a downpour once and was sitting on the thing to keep it from getting wet (no dry storage in the boat). It didn't work and I almost got blown into the lake when the thing went off. I sold it and bought a manual inflate.

But they put the handle on the wrong side? Looks very nice.

I fished all last year out of a 15' Lowe with a 43lb motorguide, and 15hp tiller drive Johnson. Won a couple of weeknight tournaments out of it. Not really a reasonable boat to be able to take out on the bigger lakes to fish any tournaments bigger than that though.

I'd be running braid main line with a fluoro leader, like I already do for all those techniques. I like how much more solid the hooksets are with braid versus fluoro/mono/copoly with a spinning combo.

Welcome!

I bought one today. $89 plus free shipping, free Rage hat and sticker

No

I literally just responded to your post on the latest catch thread. http://www.bassresou...wallowed/page-2 Get a thin pair of forceps or needlenose pliers and leaving hooks in a fish will be a thing of the past if you follow the diagram in the above post. It's often better for them to die the relatively fast death from blood loss than to slowly starve if the hook has their throat pinned shut anyways.