Peter E.

As to your question on which type of crank bait you should use, well it depends on what part of the water collumn you want to work and where the weeds will let you. I would work both types of crank baits to find the part of the water column the fish are actively feeding in. I would also like to suggest a straight back Rapala floater on the edges of the weeds. Peter

I would work the outside edges tith a spinner bait or a buzz bait. Then work in a little further with a deep dive then attack the main body with a fluke and a t-rigged lizard and or craw worm like a zoom speed craw. Peter

Yeah I think that anyone who tries fishig that way will fall head over heels for it. If you ask me it is also the most scenic way to fish. Peter

Troutfisher91, it is great to hear that someone else like to fish creeks and streams by wading them. It is my favorite way to fish. The fish fight harder that way than any other! Peter

I have to admit that a bass boat or especailly a bay boat has its appeal but I would love to have a kayak so as I go from here to there all I have to do is just strap it to the top of my SUV. I never have to worry about a gas bill or paying a mechanic with my jon boat and I can take a couple freinds (i prefer 1 and that they be left handed ). But I really just love to get at them anyway possible. Does anybody use a salt water Kayak? Trying to see what kind I should look at. Anyway thanks for the replies ya'll. Peter

Now by this question I do not mean what technique do you enjoy using, but I would like to know how our members pursue their dream bass. Do you like a Bass boat with all the tricks or are you happy with an inner tube floating down a small river. Do you take your fishing to the max with all the toys and fandangles or are you the kind of angler that takes only what they need and says Keep It Simple Stupid. Personally I want to always find that new place to fish where I feel like i am the first person to ever touch the place. I Prefer to wade or take a jon boat. It is quiter and for me more enjoyable. So how about ya'll? Peter

we use a 75 pound thrust minna kota and it works great on our boat. A 24 foot ponoon with a hard top. Peter

Hey man welcome to the Forum and you came to the right place the folks on this forum are always willing to give advice and to talk great fishing. As far as rather you need a fiberglass or aluminum boat then that depends on your fishing aplication. Check out Alumacraft or Lowe for aluminum and I would suggest Stratus or Ranger for fiberglass. The Alumacrafts seem to be a good boat by all reports and a Ranger is the most tricked out IMO. Like I said just browes the websites and tale the time to go to the next local boat show and really browse the boats, get on them and get a feel for them. A boat is like a woman choose well and carefully because the can get under your skin. Peter

I am in total agreement with LBH on being careful on who you let weld your boat. And thatnks LBH I would never have thought to mention the difference with the rivits. Peter

They should if they don't reach nuetral bouyancy before they hit the bottom. The best thing to use is an old window weight. Those are the shizzle. That is all I use in fresh water. As long as the current isn't just super strong it works great and you can get them for a couple bucks. Peter

go for it I would love to have it myself of course I am a tinkerer. You can make it work and look great if you want. Peter

Hey Bud nice to see another member to the forum. Judgeing from the problems you mentioned I would recomend the following: To the Seats: Take the seats and try to place them back into theiroriginal positions and bore out the old rivites and rerivite the seats back into position. As to the Transom: That is rather easy to fix, if you will look check the underside of the transome board and there should be a L shaped peice of metal holding the transom board in position along the bottom of the transom. If not simply replace the bolts holding in the transom boards. Onward to the dent: to be honest I would look to find a 4x4 peice of wood that will go under the place that is dented and if it goes for two or three of the bottom channels the use as many as nessescary to brace under the dents and take a 1/2 inch peice of ply wood cut to the size of the area that is covered by the dent. The take however much weight you need to press it flat you can use sand bags or if what ever will give you the weight. Let that sit for a week and check it. do it until it holds its form. The hardest thing to do to metal is to take a bend out of it. Finally the hole in the bottom: you should not I repeat not use fiber glass. though it will stick it will not work well because the aluminum will flex and it will not. Jb weld is about the same. The best thing to do is to bite the bullet and let an experienced welder take care of that. I tried the fiber glass on my boat and the jb weld and I had to keep fixing it. Now I got it welded and never have any problems. As to painting it I would sand it to kind of ruff it up the prime it and then paint it. The paint will stop the small leaks that are so easy to miss. Well good luck and happy fishing. Peter

Hey russ010 I would have paid an arm and a leg to have seen that Trooper car film! she must have looked about like this :-[ > . There is no telling what she thought to tell your dad next time she saw him.

I think that all wadeing anglers have that problem with cell phones and any other type of electric device. My pastor lost a Tungsten Palm Pilot like that, and I have a trac fone I use when fishing since it only costs like $20. Read Modern Day Noah in the My Fishing Trip forums. Then You can laugh at my experinces.

Well the choice of effective flies for bass are nearly limitless! If I were you I would go with a good selection of popper and darter flies that are about say 2 to 3 inches long. Now i know that the thought of a fly that big is abit hard to handle for a pureist fly fisherman but with the new materials used to make flies nowadays these flies can be cast long distances and they hold up very well. Where once the cork bodied fly was the standard for bass bugs today with materials like flashabou and others you can have a fly with bulk but less weight and wind resistance. Most of these flies can be bought at a good tackle shop that caters to both fly fishermen and bass anglers. An 8 to 10 weight rod is ussually sufficent. As to a presentation try whatever type is productive with your ussual casting bass fishing. If a popper works tie on a popper and so on and so forth. But with the new sinking flies available it would like working a suspending jerk bait. Alot of flies are weedless and this can provide wonderful sport when you try to land bass in weeds and lillies. Like I said you are only limited by the amount of time and your imagination. Personally I love a diving fly made of deer hair and flashabou. Works like a Rapala. Oh and if your freind does any salt water fly fishing tell him to try some of those flies that might resemble a shad or bull minnow. I guess if he is a trout angler then just kind of use bigger flies. Good Luck.

Yes I would have to agree with Roger and Avid in saying that we all have our own reasons for C&R , and most of the time I am a strong supporter it. But I would say that without doubt the use of selective harvest is KEY to the success and health of the population fish in any body of water. To take only the small fish is just as destructive as removing only the large fish. When you do away with any generation of fish then the rest of the fish will suffer, these fish in any perticular size serve an important role in their biosphere, they control the population of other fish and other creatures that these fish use for sustainence. An imbalance in one genertaion of say bass, creates an imbalance in the population of bream of a certain generation and therefore size. I hope that my reasoning is clear and i didn't throw any of ya'll off. So the secret to the best harvest of fish to cull a pond is to harvest in a selective manner, towards the generation of bass that are the most numerous, and by keeping some that are larger and that are smaller. The Key is to target a specific size and therefore generation of bass. This promotes healthy competiton and forage for all the bass in the pond. And when a entire group on anglers uses selective harvest and C&R then and entire lake or river the water ways of a state as a whole can be regulated, This is why each State has their own rules and regulations as to the number and size of fish for each game fish species that can be kept. Some times these regulations can be very specific like in Florida, sot that there it seems like you need Roger and his Lawyer to keep you out of trouble. But I would have to say that the State of Florida has the best managed fisheries in the US. And When you look at the size and wide variety of fish that inhabit those beautiful and well managed Water ways then it seem to scream Selective Harvest Is The Key To Success! This way you can enjoy both the bueaty andd the bounty of the water, you can provide a meal for your family and preserve the wonder of our sport for generations to come. The true trophys are preserved to be caught again by another angler with the C&R, but not only is a meal provided, but you have also provided a healthy and productive enviroment with the Selective harvest. Good Fishing to all. Peter

I am inclined to agree with Jim. But I think that most of his remarks are based on a worst case scenario to say the least. But that being said it is a possiblitity. I wuld say that most of the uproar is created by ignorance and hysteria. I major in biology and at first glance I can't see how crawfish would have a major effect. I could be wrong though. Peter

Out of the fish metioned, the Peacock and the Guadaloupe are the only two I have not fished for. As a result I would love to chase some of those bad boys to where ever they keep their haunts and show them that when it comes to an Ambassaduer 6000 bait caster and a 7 foot flippin stick, resistance is futile!!!!!!!!!!!! Peter

I am in total agreement with Avid. Soft plastic baits can be extrmely effective and in some places that are so totally covered in weeds that may be your only option. Keep this in mind, no serious tournament angler fishes with strictly plastic baits. In general they make poor search baits, and also in areas where you are faced with a strong current or great depth weightless soft plastics are unaffective and nearly useless in many applications. Each type of lure has a place and time. Just go out and give them a whirl and I imagine this time next year you will have a message saying: I can't stop useing crank baits. Peter

F.L.P. that bad boy and go to town!!!! Peter

a female bass does not commit to just one bed she will scatter her eggs in a few different beds. To catch her i would go with a senko wacky rigged weightless or go for a reaction strike. If the baits you threw her way spooked her downsize your presentation and work toward softer landings on your casts. As t the rest i would say that it would be trial and error each bass is different even though we as anglers sometimes pick up on a hot pattern and think that all the fish are eating that thing. Good luck, and don't forget ultra light jigs. Peter

Well there are always some stupid fish but the best ones are the smart ones. Peter

When I first read that you were taking say an average of like 5 fish a day from these two spots I assumed like RoLo did that perhaps you had over fished your honey holes. After hearing that you where releasing the fish you had caught I took into account the number of fish and days you had fished there and I came up with this: the fish you released put the school down. In other words when ever you release fish into a school those fish that have been caught seem to tell the other fish, "Hey don't bite that or you get a free boat ride". Now how this happens is not really known although I would attribute it to pharemones or something along those lines. When you start to fish these areas again try taking the fish you have caught and placing them in a keep sack or live well or light stringer, preferably not a keep sack. Doing this can make the difference of catching say 4 fish in an area or catching 6 or 10 fish. Another thing vary your presentation, fish the edges first before casting directly into the structure, and take the utmost care of the fish that you catch because they are the ones you will catch later. Try down sizing and even super sizing your presentations, vary your weights and colors. Go from 1/4oz to an 1/8oz or go to a 3/8oz, the varying speeds of the falls will trigger strikes from different fish and penetrate the weed differently. Try craw worms as well as the sweet beavers, paca craws and so on. Your technique need not change so much as your presentaion to take the optimum number of fish out of the area. Good Luck and God Bless, Peter

Alright bud sorry, well here it goes, Single blade Colorado spinners: 1)A colorado blade (ham hock) with its large and wide tear drop shape gives off an amazingly strong vibration that makes it great for night fishing. The length of the arm of the spinnerbait tells you how that spinner bait was designed to be used. A good rule for that is the shorter the arm the deeper it is used. These spinner baits can weigh up to 1oz. or more. Personally I go like 1/2oz or so. With a short arm spinner bait it makes helicoptering the bait very easy, this technique is very effective for capturing bass along a rock wall or in creek channels, or any place that you have drop offs with fish on it. The longer arm spinners are some of the ultimate night lure because of the extreme vibrations these things send out. They are used shallower and reeled at a faster pace. Also since the arm is longer it helps keep it from getting snagged by weeds and sticks, the draw back is that you can't really helicopter this bait as well as the short arm. One thing to keep in mind is that the bigger the blade the stronger the vibration and the slower it should be fished. These spinners come in all sizes from the huge sizes mentioned above to the tiny brush hog spinners that weigh only 1/8oz that can produce numbers of fish all over. So just try some in all sizes and really get a feel for how you like to use each one. 2)Single bladed willow leaf spinners These spinners are all long arm with a that willow leaf blade being made for a fast retreive, these spinners do not helicopter, however they do flutter well when paused. These spinners where made to fish around weeds and such this is why the arm is linger and the spinner too. I like to wake this variesty over weed beds. Or to let it fall to the bottom and burn that puppy in, either way a fast retreive is the way to go. 3) tandem spinns Now these bad boys are great because if you do it right you can have the best of both worlds. Now with double colorado spins if the rear blade is large enough you can helicopter it, or if it is small you can wake it. When you wake these you do it much slower than a willow leaf. But I like to use this style to go through brush and to bounce it off of wood while fishing. It gives a good vibration and since the blades are smaller than the big single spins they can be retreived faster. This keeps it from getting snagged, while still letting it go slow enough to really get the fishes attention with its vibration. The double Willow leaf is still like I said a fast moving bait and you are still nearly weed less. THe fact that it has two blades allows you to slow it down some, and allows you to use a stop and go retreive. A colorado willow tandem spin gives what I feel is the best of both worlds although there are still limitations. Just go out and give them a whirl, practice each technique and hold on, bass love spinners. Good Luck, Peter

Another way to go is to reel the spinner bait quickly so that it runs just under the surface, this is called waking and I would suggest trying this over weed patches. While doing this you can try a yo-yo retreive or a stop and go retreive. the way tou work that spinner bait is most often dependent on the type of blade it has on it. Each different type of blade has a place to apply it and a different way to retreive it. Hopefully some one can explain this or I will in the morning, it is 12:12 am and this can wait, sorry.