Hyrule Bass

find bass close to the shoreline, around docks are great places for using live gills

i use a slip rig and leave my line slack and use octopus hooks. this year ive had some good bites on raw shrimp, the frozen ones in a bag work and not as messy or nasty as handling chicken livers. bass or bass gives some great advice for targetting large catfish. blues will also love the cut bait

you should hold the catfish by the belly, its easier and you dont have to worry about that back fin stabbing you in the wrist

the minute the frog goes under and i dont see it im setting the hook. i dont count to 3 or 5 or none of that. and also as others have said, cross the eyes of the fish with a hard hookset

i just use bass casting sinkers with a split ring attached to that, then add on a swivel which helps prevent line twist...

do dryer sheets really work? i read that here in a similar thread a couple years ago...someone said rub the dryer sheet on you and then put it under your hat or stick it in a shirt pocket...

kinda like what i went through at work when excel stopped allowing you to Save As: .dbf(dbase4) format. i have two computers at work, one with excel 2003 and one with 2010. the 2003 will allow me to save as .dbf if i need to. i work in printing and mailing and handle mailing lists. i find that microsoft office 2010 is kinda unstable at times. if i save huge files with like 200,000 addresses excel will start the save, then say not responding, then if you dont start clicking all over it will complete the save(successfully). the major advantage of the excel 2010 is it holds more than 65,500 something rows of data. But most all of the postage software and database management software i use wants files in a .dbf format

wow, thats one hell of a fish. i been trying to get out to kerr to catfish the last 2 years and it just hasnt happened. in fact i had planned to go this weekend that just finished but things came up and i had to move instead. figures someone catches a new world record blue cat, coulda been me lol

i agree that you should NOT be bowing to the fish when it jumps. i dont know why everyones so afraid of a fish jumping, i bet many of us have lost just as many fish underwater as we have when they jumped out of water. keep the pressure on the fish the whole time, even when it jumps. i dont even adhere to the lower your rod tip philosophy either, i love to see fish jump during the fight myself. just keep the pressure on the fish constantly. when you say you bow to the fish i picture you just standing there not reeling or not working the rod to keep pressure on the fish with a bunch of slack line

crappie will take over a small pond quick, theyre definately competing for food with the bass

i think mono will be just fine to get someone started, as mentioned above, just leave the drag a little loser than normal. you may love braid, but mono isnt really that bad as some make it out to be...

Ive used an old zebco 33 to fish spinnerbaits and buzzbaits effectively, but youre right in most wont hold up against bass overtime and when theyre striking violently. hooked a no more than 1lb bass on the buzzbait one day and completely stripped the gear in the 33. broke the drag on an 808 while catfishing when i set the hook in a stump presumably, now a 1lb fish can pull out drag when its maxed out. on the same token, some spincasters are pretty decent. i have a shakespeare tiger spincast combo that has held up for years, pulled in numerous bass on numerous lures, has caught hundreds of catfish and panfish, and even been to war with a striper and won. still works great to this day. also my bro in law has a zebco 888 that has lasted him for years and he uses it religiously when he goes fishing. while the gear ratios may be in the 3-4 range, i have effectively fished spinners and cranks with them, though its not my first choice now that i have better gear. but you are right that an 8 year old should be able to learn a reel beyond a spincaster, i was using spinning reels before 8 years old. but spincasters can be just as fun if you do a lot of fishing like me, just post up on the bank and throw out a nightcrawler or minnow or other live bait and chill which i find so relaxing to constantly chucking artificials all day...

i think about 7:30pm is a good time to start, i usually get a good bite starting around that time. plus you can set up everything you want in the daylight. chairs, rod holders, cooler, radio, bait, whatever. ill usually fish from then until the bite slows down. i do a lot of night fishing off a dock at smith mountain lake, if youre using nightcrawlers you can get some bonus fish too, especially just before sunset. you can get bonus fish on them bucket of livers too, i caught a striper on them before. minnows work good too. but i prefer from like 730 till the bite slows down and early morning before sunrise can be good also.

yeah, its a common thing on worms with the twisty tails, not so much shakey style worms. bluegill are voracious fish and ive seen them attack things they know they cant fit in their mouth. a bluegill can fit a plastic worm in his mouth, just not the typical worm hooks people use. bluegill bite and pull the tail off the worm or you think its a bass and go to set the hook and rip off the tail in the bluegills mouth. bass like to pick up a worm and sit there with it or swim off with it in whatever direction, with a bluegill youre likely to feel more of a "yank yank yank" on the bait. not saying a bass wont bite the tail off a worm or plastic, but the usual culprit are bluegill

i got one i been meaning to try out, also a couple other small cranks too i want to try. i dont use too many smaller lures for no particular reason. i did buy a rebel tad fry not long ago and tried it out, what a blast it was. i didnt hook any bass on it, but i did have a field day with the panfish, theyll hit it on the retrieve and theyll also come take it off the top. i actually did hook a small bluegill with it and out from under the dock came a nice fat bass that then hit my bluegill and started to swim off with it, i shouldve opened the bail and let him swim off with it but i figured i had slim chances of hooking him when the bluegill had two of the hooks from the treble buried in him...

never caught a carp on artificial, but agree that they are excellent fighters. i caught one at night two years or so ago on a nightcrawler while catfishing, it was in the 10lb range if i had to guess. i was using a berkley glowstik rod with a cheap berkley 2 bearing reel or something like that with 25lb big game. when i set the hook in the carp the reel made an awful popping sound i assume from the drag being too tight, it was like setting the hook in stone. it was a good fight. now i can swing for a hookset with that reel and hear it pop even when nothings on the other end lol. i really need to replace that reel

if you do end up thinking its a problem you could always add a clear leader

if you insist on carolina rigging, try a plastic that is buoyant and floats. or you could possibly try a drop shot to keep the bait above the grass

i believe the line has to be parallel to the hook shank. i seen Iaconelli do this once on City Limits when he hooked a cameraman in the back of the head i believe...

ive been trying the stren fluorocast lately in 17lb, first time trying fluoro too, i havent had any breakage issues with it. its definately not invisible under water to fish like i thought fluoro was supposed to be, i have had bluegills nipping at the line while im fishing. seems like i get more backlashes with it than the 14lb trilene xl i was using, but im new to baitcasters this year as well...

in my experiences, bluegills are to blame when you only pull half a worm back...

flukes and lipless cranks

Trilene XL and XT are good lines in my opinion

i would go without the leader. then again i would use mono instead of braid as well, but thats my preference, youll be fine with straight braid. its of my belief fish arent so line weary on moving baits as well. i was at a pond earlier today fishing open water and had my light weight rod and reel with 8lb trilene xt and decided to try a rage toad for the first time(i normally wouldnt throw topwater on that setup). was 4 for 4 on hookups before the toad was destroyed, even used it upside down for a bass. excellent bait by the way, im sold on them, the fish in this pond wont even hit my spro frog. but either way, you wont be the first to throw a frog with fluoro if you did use it, sometimes going out of the element of whats perceived to be the proper way to do things works well...

ive caught on the "last cast" a couple times. at a pond once and hadnt caught nothing all evening, said ok last cast, threw out was working my red shad worm and was like aahhh hell, let me just reel it in real fast and go home. so i start reeling in real fast and see a boil and something streaking through the water from a short distance, i literally stop my worm right at the bank as this bass flys in and crushes my worm, i set the hook and reel like 3 cranks and land the fish. with that i called it a day. it was cool watching how violent this bass was when it hit my worm though, tore it up.