Hyrule Bass

go there at night or set up when the a little before sunset. use night crawlers or chicken livers, youll find if the cats are in there or not. this time of year up here, seems cutbait works best in colder water though, dont know about in florida. if those baits wont catch you some channel cats or bullhead then its time to try catfishing in other waters...

if youre using that much line changing it out frequently then youre probably wasting more line than you actually use. ive had the same mono in some of my reels for 2-3 years now. i only respool when a reel gets low or i want to change the size of line on a certain reel...and i dont have problems with breakoffs. last fish i broke off was a 40+lb flathead on 10lb line several years ago...

i use trilene XL, big game or stren for mono, never had a problem with either...

i prefer a real skin mount regardless. size of the bass or a discount wont matter either.

the fish dont know the difference

sometimes cattails can be too thick to fish in, if thats the case, i would fish the edges of them

when i would fish my uncles pond in the winter i never had any success with soft plastics no matter how slow i fished them, so i avoided even using those all together. what worked for me is a rapala husky jerk fished really slow like bluebasser86 described above. also i found that shallow diving cranks like a Manns -1 slow rolled also worked well for me. that husky jerk had been virtually useless to me until i tried it in cold water. the colors that worked best for me were silver with an orange breast on the jerk bait and silver with a red breast on the shallow diving cranks. of course my uncles pond wasnt 15ft deep either it was more shallow, like 7-8ft deep...

Ive been to the BPS in Richmond, VA a few times and the one in Hanover, MD a few times. I'm probably going to the Hanover store soon to look at spinning reels and maybe rods. The first time i went was the Richmond store though, drove 2.5 hours to get there and spent several hours there. I came away with almost $300 worth of stuff. At the Hanover, MD store which is about 1.5 hours from me i met and got an autograph from Roland Martin last year.

Cleo's has kinda gone down hill since he lost his abc license at his warren county store, he dont even sell gas no more and half the shelves were empty last time i was there. i would recommend Lynchs right down the road for a good burger or some great BBQ though. but here i am getting off topic again lol sorry

for Flukes i would definately get some pearl/white colored flukes, they seem to work very well for me on Smith Mtn Lake which isnt extremely far from Claytor...

ive been doing this for like 2-3 years now, except i just use a regular swivel and dont worry about getting hung, but where i usually dropshot there isnt a lot of bottom snags and i dont typically lose any tackle. its a great idea, i think i got the idea from fishing rhino if i remember correctly...

the bait is part of the pattern, as even you relate in your scenario that the fish want a large profile craw.

its ok, i went off topic myself and i can see how that might bother some people. but there seriously are other threads with similar topics that have some great stories in them. try searching for things like weirdest things or funniest things youve seen on the water or dumbest thing youve done or seen someone else do while fishing, etc and youre bound to find them. there are some good stories relatable to this topic by people who may not have posted in this thread...

I realize many wont agree with me, but I actually use and prefer mono for frog fishing. Im just not a braid guy though, but i have a good hookup ratio with frogs/toads using mono so i have seen no need to change line types. i just love the rage tail toads, they cause a ruckus coming across the water. i fish them on 12lb mono with a 4/0 gamakatsu EWG on a 7ft Medium powered rod as for waiting to feel the weight of the fish to set the hook, i dont do that either. soon as the frog dissappears under water im swinging. i dont count to 3 or any of that, seems like when ive waited to feel the weight of the fish or tried counting to 3 as some recommend the fish has already spit the lure. of course i also think its different for everyone. not everyone has the same reaction time on a hook set or the same swing speed or use the same amount of power. but i have found out over the years unless im using a thick hook i dont need to set the hook in a bass with the force of a jackhammer.

theres no need to get smart about my post. was just trying to "break the ice" with someone who is in an area im very familiar with. but whatever, ill just keep it moving, at this point there is no need to PM anything. as for wildest things seen while hunting or fishing, its basically a repeat thread that pops up now and again, many peoples stories have been told in other threads, go find them if thats what floats your boat...

I cant begin to imagine if youre refering to those Halifax County cops down there. I grew up in Hollister, which youve probably heard of being from Roanoke Rapids. I grew up and went to school with some of them. If they know anything about you they will pull you over just to see if they can catch you doing wrong, even though you did nothing that warranted being pulled over at that time. I had a friend without a license and sometimes we would take his car out, but i would drive, that car was a cop magnet because of his past history. Luckily we were never(we never got caught) doing anything wrong at those times lol. I will say some of the cops in Weldon were pretty dumb though and leave it at that...

i met Roland Martin and got him to autograph a cheap BPS hat for me last year at the Bass Pro Shops in Hanover, MD...

yeah i saw that. if i saw a bigfoot i would totally be telling everyone. i think some who may have had encounters are too ashamed for admit for fear of being labeled crazy. i did read a genuine story here a while back, forget who posted it, but as best as i remember it, him and a friend were fishing a pond at night and he heard growls or something from a patch of trees that scared the hell out of them, said him and his friend ended up standing in the middle of the pond trying to escape what it was, and said they thought it was a squatch... i think its a shame people made a mockery of that thread...

looks like a channel catfish to me. i catch them out of smith mountain lake often and sometimes theyre missing a whisker or two...

dang, was hoping someone would have a real sasquatch story...

the red text is the best advice in the whole thread

haha wouldnt be the first time

snag em with a big treble hook

like others said i wouldnt do it. id also be worried about swimming in a pond in florida with the chance of gators trying to take up residence there...

personally, im not a believer in high dollar rods. i use Shakespeare rods because they have served me well for all my fishing over the years. i have a 7ft Medium Ugly Stik and a 7ft Medium Shakespeare Tiger rod(both spinning) that have worked great for me as drop shot rods. Plus they also work well for many other techniques i fish.