Bluebasser86

2 pounds is a good crappie anywhere and the fish of a lifetime a lot of places.

I guess I wouldn't really consider that flipping and pitching, just making short cast. I do catch smallies pitching at docks a lot while fishing one lake that has good populations of both smallies and largemouth. Other than that I don't remember catching more than a handful of smallies pitching, mainly while fishing standing timber for largemouth on lakes that have both.

Are you fishing for blues or flats? You can accidentally catch one while fishing for the other, but you'll be much better off targeting one or the other.

Jig

Yes, walleye, yellow perch, and several species of saltwater fish.

Bill Dance is probably one of the absolute worse displays of how to hold a fish properly.

I have a hard time believing that a significant number of bass with die following tournaments. Without a doubt, some will, but I'd bet a good number of those probably would have died if caught and released immediately also. Lets take the last Elite Series tournament at Guntersville as an example. 1,441 bass were caught, weighed, and released during this event. So if just 10% of those bass died, that means there should be 144 dead bass floating along the shoreline. If they lost the maximum amount of 52%, that would be 749 dead bass somewhere in the lake! Now, take into account that there isn't a weekend that goes by that Guntersville doesn't have at least one, and usually several tournaments on it at the same time. I'm sure there's plenty of weeknight tournaments on it as well. So if we say that on an average weekend, 50 bass die from the stresses of tournament handling, we're talking 2,600 fish a year, and those would mostly be your larger, mature fish that the lake is so famous for. Guntersville is of course in the south though, so the temperatures are going to be high a good portion of the year and the warmer temps allow fishing year round and more tournaments during more months than most states. So bump it up to 150 dead bass a weekend from tournaments, 7,800 adult bass are now dead, just from tournaments. It just seems to me that these really popular lakes would decline very rapidly if fish populations were being that adversely effected by tournaments. Not saying I approve of everything I see at tournaments. I've been to ramps the next day after a poorly ran tournament and seen the dead bass laying everywhere so I know it can happen, but I think the vast majority of these guys are doing the best they can to take care of the fish and make sure they survive to be caught again.

I do indeed like squirrel, as do lots of people, but I've never had possum and have no plans to. I fail to see where that has anything to do with ones credibility in discerning what taste good and what doesn't Yes, saying that someone else doesn't know how to properly prepare something that you enjoy eating being the only way for them to not like it, is ridiculous. Everyone has different taste. To me, and lots of people I know, bass taste awful regardless of size, where it's caught, or how it's prepared. I know people who think it taste good too though. They also get very wormy once the water temperature gets up a little, which bothers me a bit. You're correct that I would have trouble telling the difference between your crappie or bass because I wouldn't eat either. Walleye are the only fish that I would even consider keeping for myself to eat, but even those are typically given to whoever I'm fishing with or released. I ate a ton of fish growing up, like I said out of necessity, and basically just got burnt out of eating fish in general and never have regained a taste for it. The nights when bass was on the menu, I usually just ate some of the potatoes or whatever was on the side. I've heard the "You've just never had them cooked right/the way I make them", line so many times, but that's not the case. It's great that you enjoy eating bass. I wish I did because there's several slot limit lakes I could catch myself 5 12" bass from for dinner and help thin out the overpopulated bass. Unfortunately, the flavor that registers all the time I've eaten bass is not something worth eating.

Check out the River2Sea Bubble Popper. Very similar to the Megabass and it's $10 without having to search for a deal.

Yeah I love the Goldens because of their love for the water and they're a little more calm, so she's a little easier to deal with in the boat.

My wife wants a border collie for our next dog. They're very energetic and intelligent dogs, should make a good fishing buddy.

Turtles aren't the only thing you have to worry about either. This guy got my jerkbait this spring.

I'd buy the H2O brand CRS and you could probably afford to buy some more that way since they're $3.99 apiece. You really can't go wrong with any of their colors but chartreuse black back, threadfin shad, bluegill, red craw are all good colors.

I use a 7' 3" H/F H2O Ethos rod for a dual purpose frog/flipping rod.

They're a tiny bit more work, but the durability and action is worth it to me. I have one Diesel MinnowZ I've been using as a bladed jig trailer since the end of March. It's caught over 100 fish without a doubt and is still going strong other than the color is fading a little.

Yep, flathead is a mudcat or yellow cat here. So many slang terms cause so much confusion. Someone says "speck" and I don't know if they're talking about crappie or speckled trout. To people around here, any kind of sunfish is a "perch", which drives me crazy since we have almost no perch in Kansas. Some call a crappie a "white perch", which are invasive and we do have in a couple of our lakes unfortunately. Another one that is like nails on a chalkboard is "white cat", which is a popular slang term for a blue cat. I hear someone say they caught a 40lb "white cat" out of the river and I want to ask if they turned in their new state/world record since that doubled the world record for white catfish and was also the first documented white catfish in Kansas. It bugs me more than it probably should I guess.

My email is listed under my profile (click on my screen name). I sent you a PM and an email though.

Welcome!

Around here, it's frogs chasing (and eating), frogs. Big bullfrogs love eating topwater frogs and they'll come from a long ways to get one and are extremely aggressive.

A lot of personal preference will go into the answer on that one but for me I like something around 15lb fluorocarbon like Seaguar Red Label or InvisX. Another good option in stained water would be to spool up with 50lb braid and put about 5-7' of the same size fluoro on a leader and fish it that way. Honestly most lines will fish a senko fairly well though as long as you choose the right size (12-17lb is the range I'd try to keep it in with the exception of braid).

Snappers will eat just about anything, and senkos are certainly on that list.

How about a little more info like any cover, water clarity, techniques, bait sizes, spinning or casting gear.

A channel cat of similar length will typically weigh around 2 1/4 or 2.5 pounds. Regardless of what it weighs it's an above average bullhead for sure.