Bluebasser86

Yes, they'll pretty much all spawn late spring but in some areas they will spawn a second time later in the summer so if you're seeing very small baitfish still that may be why. Google a spinner size chart and print it off.

I grab them by the back of the head for the most part. Bigger fish I'll lip but like others have said, do it quickly and decisively. The guys I see get hooked are the ones that are tentative about it.

That's why I hunt bigger lakes where we can drive a boat to where we're hunting now. I've never had to carry a bunch of geese but I did have to drag my biggest buck I've ever shot about a football field until I got him to where I could get the truck to him. Felt like I was about to pass out by the time I finally got him there.

Muck Rangers when it's cold, Crocs or flip flops when it's not.

Thanks! I'm a little obsessive with them so a lot of tinkering goes into getting the colors just like I want them. The end results have been great though. Funny because there's another member that uses it for snook and does really well. I'd think they'd be great for redfish. I've never fished for them but just the way they seem to like shallow, stained water and respond to baits with flash and thump seems like it would be a great option for them.

I'm going to guess that the new line will be similar to the same diameter as the 40lb Sufix I have on one of my rods (in 50lb anyways). I have no problems with digging in unless I really put heat on it. I guess you could fit more line on your reel but not something I'm really looking for in bass fishing. It should offer a little less friction on the cast as well so may cast a bit further, again not a big issue for me.

Hadn't thought about that, Sliders are probably your best option of you really want something smaller than 1/16oz.

My wife and I had to flip a canoe on a float trip because some drunk was swimming in a narrow, fast water area. We were going to slam into him if we didn't. Glad I didn't have any of my expensive gear with me or I'd have really been ticked. I've been really close to falling out of the boat more times than I can count, but I've been lucky enough to not fall out, yet.

I fish mine on a 6' 6" MH/F LTB with a 6.4:1 Lew's Speed Spool and 15lb Big Game. I don't have any problem with hooking fish and like it shows in a lot of my pictures, they have no problem almost swallowing them either.

So who do we have paired off so far? As of right now I think we have Peter/Jimmy Curt/Coty Clayton/?? Ryan/?? Chris T/?? Jared/?? Adam/?? Jon/?? ??/Sean Maybe Sam, Andy Trying to get an idea of what the teams will be so if we have more boaters than non-boaters those guys can start to figure out who's boat they're taking and so we can get a better idea how many guys we'll have there so we can figure out how big of cabins/hotel rooms we need to be looking at to fit everyone. I got my days off approved so I'm officially there I agree that Spider Creek looks like a pretty good deal as far as our needs and the location if everyone is okay with that? In case nobody has looked, a 3 day non-resident fishing permit is $11. A non-resident trout permit is $12 if anyone is thinking about testing the waters by Spider Creek if we stayed there.

I finally got to catch a fish out of my boat! Actually, we caught almost 30 of them. Sam didn't ask for his picture to be taken, and my fingers wouldn't work well enough to take pictures early in the morning. We caught largemouth and smallmouth, that's it minus a drum that I warned Sam he'd catch if he fished a jig very much. The beaver on a swinging football head, bladed jig, jerkbait, and a Senko were the main players for us. Lots of fish off the clay bank side too. Sam's fighting a fish in that last picture, just to show he did catch fish, he just doesn't get excited about the little ones like I do

Well I finally got my boat back from getting a bit of routine maintenance done and a hot foot installed and had a chance to get it out for the first real fishing trip on Friday. I think Lake was a little disappointed when he found out he couldn't go. I met Sam (G_money) on the way to the lake and we were the first boat on the water, man was it cold! I forgot my full fingered gloves and my fingertips were so cold after about 10 minutes I could barely stand it. It started out a bit slow but thankfully the fish started to play a little bit to help keep our minds off the cold. The official first fish in the new boat I was having issues hooking up with a jerkbait for some reason. Fish were getting it good it appeared like but were still pulling off. I got a couple on it though, a custom painted bait by our own Doc-Drew! I was also trying out a new color bladed jig, which the fish seemed to approve of, including the biggest smallie of the day and probably my biggest smallmouth on one of my bladed jigs. The fish seemed to be more on the shallow, clay bank side than the rocky side for some reason. I'm guessing it was the wind blowing into it though. Sam never asked me to take a picture of his fish so I got one of my fish with him fighting a fish in the background. Several other boats on the water, but other than 2 little white bass, we were the only boat either of us saw catch any fish. Felt really good to finally get some slime in the boat

I'd look up some of the Youtube videos about fishing one. I get tired just watching those guys fishing them!

I have 2 medium Ugly Stick Lite spinning rods I use for channel cats and wipers. I have used them for bass, but wouldn't want to have to do it often.

Brush jig for me as well. I like black and blue. Or this flavor Zman Batwingz and Uncle Josh pork frogs are a couple of my favorite trailers.

I used 1 mid sized Cabela's tackle bag that held 6 3700 boxes then had storage pockets on the front and side for soft plastics along with up to 6 rods. I could easily carry all that in one trip and just set my rain gear on top of the bag so the straps held it in place when I picked it up.

Long walks in waders carrying a big decoy bag full of floating decoys and then sloshing through ice and swamp all day while duck hunting is a killer too. Any day pheasant and quail hunting is a leg killer as well.

Just a matter of time before it happens to anyone who fishes big swimbaits on braid.

Oh man you're in trouble now! No feeling in the world like being a dad

Dang! All sold out of the pink Would have looked good on my wife's St. Croix Avid Pearl too.

What a monster!

X2. Get you a big 36V trolling motor and nice depthfinder for the front and get it at! Maybe keep your eyes open for someone unloading a cheap tiller drive gas motor somewhere down the road and upgrade that way. I fished out of a very similar boat for several years (Lowe Roughneck 1652 VPT), but I had a 60hp 4 stroke on it. With the 70lb Maxxum on the front I could get around really well on the trolling motor only lakes though.

I used to fish cranks on a 6' 6" M/F St. Croix Premier. The heaviest tournament weight I ever brought in was fishing a squarebill on that rod. It may not be ideal, but you can do it.

Welcome!

This is what I do as well. Your baitfish don't spawn until later in spring/early summer, so early on the fish are feeding on last years baitfish still which means the average size of the bait that fish are feeding on should be at it's largest it will be all year. Once the shad/bluegill or whatever baitfish are in your lake spawn, then you have millions of inch long baitfish in the water that the fish can feed on. Although I'll often stick with the larger baits/blades to try to target larger fish, there are times when they're really keyed on those little baitfish and smaller blades are a must.