Bluebasser86

I have a lot of the trusted brand names in my rod locker, mixed in there is 8 H2O rods and 1 H2O reel. I have zero complaints about any of them or the dozens of their baits that I own. They're the best overall house brand name that I've experienced.

Part of every good story is the details. I'd much rather be able to say I caught one that was 21 1/4" long and 5lbs 6ozs, versus I caught one about this big and probably weighed this much. I don't weigh every fish, just the ones that are better than average quality. A-Jay has a slick rig for weighing fish quickly that he's posted pictures of a couple times that I'll be using this year. Hang a pair of plastic fish grippers on a digital scale and you can grab and weigh the fish quickly and safely for both the angler and the fish.

Welcome!

In most cases you're going to get better quality components and the bait will be built with better materials, more attention to details, and more R&D will go into making them work perfectly. I see the value in both sides of the argument. I catch a lot of fish every year on H2O squarebills that I spend $2-$4 apiece on. I also catch a lot of fish on Lucky Craft squarebills and jerkbaits and swimbaits approaching $100 apiece. I enjoy fishing them all.

Maybe not exactly "tackle", but close enough

Welcome!

Correct, they are a naturally occurring hybrid. I've seen quite a few caught at Table Rock, but only fortunate enough to have caught 1 myself. They're a beautiful fish though.

Our range instructors would have a stroke over your lack of trigger control man.

I do a pretty fair amount of catfishing, mainly in the rivers but also some lakes. I target the big blues and flatheads since I don't eat them, just want to get the biggest possible and enjoy the fight. I like the Okuma Epixor or Avenger baitfeeders in the 50,65, and 90 sizes. The rod you're looking for is a difficult balance to find, something light enough to fish for 10 pounders but strong enough to potentially muscle in a 100lb class fish. If I was going to pick a setup for your situation it would be a 7' H Ugly Stick Tiger Lite rod with a 50 or 65 size Okuma Epixor baitfeeder loaded up with 65lb braid.

Welcome!

Several states couldn't have one in October. Kansas couldn't in any month because our lakes suck and the biggest one is only 16,000 acres. On top of that, October is probably the hardest month out of the warmer months to catch fish. The lakes here just get into a funk in October and the big fish all but disappear.

Generally it's defined as all variations of "black bass" since there's more than just largemouth, smallmouth, and spots out there. Nearly every tournament I've ever fished on Table Rock someone brings in a nice meanmouth to the scales.

Welcome!

Havoc beat shad or grass pig jr, 2/3 of a 5" stick worm, 1/2 of a trick worm, Rage menace or Havoc pit boss rigged sideways.

I mainly use BPS but I have some from Academy also, not sure of the brand.

I catch quite a few in the 14-14.5 inch range every year at one of the power plant lakes. They used to have to be 14" to keep out there and you could only keep 2 and keepers weren't hard to catch. Now it's 5 over 12" but the 14-14.5 inch fish are still common. I catch most of them on 3" power minnows on a 3/32oz head. I got on them about a month ago pretty good. I only fished for them for about 5 minutes because I found them stacked up on a single tree in 6' of water. We had a GoPro going and when I started I caught 8 crappie 14" or bigger in 54 seconds. Fishing straight up and down I never even reeled, just lifted them out and dropped my bait straight back down and was an almost instant bite every time. This was in 2015, but just to give an idea of the size I put one on a 3700 box, which is 14x9 inches.

Pfluegar President 6920. You could even go with the Trion in the same size if you wanted to save a little money. The Shimano Sahara 500 or 1000 would be a good option too. I guess I didn't realize they did away with the 750 size? Glad I didn't get rid of any of mine!

These were both new releases that were NIB. I did pick up one of the new releases for a buddy this week, a gently used Flash Carp for $39 . I'm still not sure that bait will ever actually get to him.

C- for me. Selling my boat and fishing out of a johnboat made it really tough. Almost no big fish, 1 smallie over 4 and 3 largemouth over 5 and nothing bigger than 6 is terrible for me. Being the first year with having to arrange someone to watch my son if I wanted to go fishing was tough too. Now that I have a boat and we have a stable daycare situation figured out, this year will hopefully be a whole lot better.

Savage Gear has several very realistic baits, from the 3D trout, Real trout, 3D craw, and a few others. I really wish I lived somewhere with big muskie, I'd love to throw their 3D Line Thru pike at them! http://www.savagegear-usa.com/

I'd be interested in pretty much any Lucky Craft at that price, except the Live Pointers.

A rig if it's allowed. If not I'd be trying baits like a jigging spoon, flutter spoon, dropshot, swimming grub, boot tail grub on jighead/scrounger/fish head spin.

Choose the full version option at the very bottom of the page and you can, at least I can on mine right now.

I have 2 175s, both way easier to fish than my 168 S Wavers. I paid $50 to my door for the one in the pictures And $70 for my Clear Smelt one.

I find being awake is usually what makes me want to buy fishing gear but I do sometimes get the urge while I'm sleeping as well.