Hyrule Bass

versatility is my style

mono for everything, cant go wrong

for spinning reels, i have a Penn Captiva 2 6000 and a Penn Fierce 4000 that i use for catfishing. both are great durable reels. The previously mentioned okuma baitfeeder 65 is also something ive heard highly recommended for catfishing...

never seen a publix. but there used to be a shop-rite grocery store at smith mtn lake that made a hell of a sub, the woman hooked me up too. sad to see that place closed.

apparently some of you have been following the story for awhile. this is all new to me. youre telling me people approved of someone poaching over 200,000 lbs of fish? i mean thats a lot of fish too...i wonder if they were the ones buying the fish...

me and bigfoot would be cool with each other, id just toss him a catfish or something lol

i personally dont feel the need to keep a fishing log. when i fish i want to relax, recording data seems too much like work, and work is exactly what i get away from when fishing. i may keep fish count for a day in my head, but no need to for a year. just because something works in certain conditions one day, dont mean it will work in similar or identical conditions on the future. while some may think its useful, i find it a complete waste of time. time i could be using to fish or do other more useful things...

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Fisherman-Gets-Prison-for-Illegal-Striped-Bass-Harvest-294572871.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_DCBrand How does it even go on for that long? almost 200,000 pounds of illegally harvested stripers from the Chesapeake Bay. In nearly 4-5 years time, apparently he had some help too...and people wonder why the regulations for keeping them are so strict and vary throughout the year I have a chartered trip for stripers planned on the Chesapeake Bay, via my boss at work and im invited, in mid-May...hope there is some fish left. last time i went in May i caught my personal best 42 inch striper....

i drive with the window cracked all year long, while im running heat or a/c. i just like that fresh air coming in and it keeps things circulating... a couple weeks ago, i was on the way to work and was going through the mountains at the WV/VA border over the Shenandoah River and my car said it was -4 degrees out, the river was also frozen...

harvesting a few fish isnt going to hurt your fishery, especially in these large lakes, as long as its legal no one should have a problem with the people who keep fish in my opinion. even harvesting fish in smaller ponds isnt a bad thing to do from time to time. you may not prefer to keep any fish yourself and you dont have to like it, but you shouldnt criticize the people who do so either, it is within their rights to do so. sometimes harvesting of fish can improve a fishery and i dont get why some people just cant seem to understand that. and im talking about people fishing legally, im not going into a bunch of caveats about people fishing illegally, because then you'd have every right to complain about said people doing the illegal fishing...

do you reel it in as your lure drifts downstream? or do you let the bait drift all the way downstream before reeling back in? or both depending on the situation?

honestly, you can use any size reel you want. a common misconception is that the drop shot has to be a light line and light tackle finesse technique. but that couldnt be more false. it can be done effectively with any size tackle. but if you want a light weight reel to pair with that specific rod, the pflueger supreme mgx is very light and comes in several sizes.

I love Smith Mountain Lake, its one of my favorite places on Earth. My aunt and uncle own a vacation house on the lake and i got down several times a year. The lake is beautiful with the mountains right there. I can sleep there like i can at no other place, like an instant nap even if im not tired, just a chill atmosphere to me. i will fish in the morning and sometimes take a nap outside on the boat swinging on the lift in the afternoon. There are a couple small towns nearby with grocery stores, movie theater, shops, hardware and other businesses. and then there are bigger cities like lynchburg and roanoke nearby a little over an hour. Bedford is about 30-40 minutes away if you need to hit up a walmart, tractor supply, abc store, or eat at one of the restaurant chains. and there is also rocky mount. depends what direction you want to go and where on the lake you are. otherwise there are stores around the lake and a few seasonal businesses and restaurants. Its a large lake coming in at 20,600 acres with over 500 miles of shoreline. There are two river arms(blackwater and roanoke) that run into the main lake merge and run over to the dam and numerous creeks. on the other side of the dam is leesville lake. Fish species include Stripers, Largemouth, Smallmouth, Crappie, Catfish(White, Bullheads, Channels and Flatheads), Carp, White Perch, Yellow Perch, a small natural breeding population of Walleye, and even the rare Muskie. Also there is a very small population of White Bass. And of course a variety of panfish/bream. The lake also contains Shad and Alewive for baitfish. Theres great fishing opportunities there but it can be a challenge trying to figure out the fish sometimes. Last Labor Day weekend i went down and lots of bass were shallow around the dock i fish from when not on the boat. and the "pattern" i found was any solo bass would bite, any group of bass swimming together would not. and the groups were all groups of 3 and much bigger bass than the solo cruisers. talk about frustrating. and the thrill of a big smith mountain lake striper or flathead is great. SML had a striper kill do to copepods like 10 years ago or something like that, but the striper fishing is bouncing back great with the implementation of the slot limit in winter/spring months. The last few years the slot was anything between 26 -36 inches had to be released, this year it was bumped up to 30-40 inch had to be released. the lake biologist, dan wilson, would not recommend raising the slot if there wasnt a good class of 30-40 inch sized fish. This will allow SML to return to the once trophy striper fishery it was before the fish kill. and the striper fishing is great in the winter from my understanding. the lake wont completely freeze over that i know of, though i cant say there wont be ice in the back of coves and such... Have to admit, its a high traffic lake, especially on holiday weekends. jet skis everywhere...

you can get a Pflueger Supreme MGX for $79 on sale at Cabelas website. just a couple of days ago the were $59 there. normally its a $100 reel. I got one a couple years ago and love it. I'd even say save a pretty chunk of change and get a Pflueger Trion or Abu Garcia Cardinal. Yeah theyre not expensive high end reels, but i have both(in the old models) and they have been great to me. In the 5 years or so ive owned them ive never once even cleaned, oiled, or lubed them. honestly though, any reel will work for a drop shot, one of few applications where i think the rod might be a bit more important. if i were you id grab that Supreme while its on sale... and if you insist on spending a little more, the Pflueger Supreme XT is also on sale at cabelas website for $119, usually $149

indeed a great win for the wolfpack. it wasnt on tv where i live but i was able to stream it live on espn3. i love that we(nc state) were finally able to get a win in the dean smith center for the first time since roy williams became the tarholes coach. also, we held the tarholes to their lowest scoring output in the history of the dean smith center. should help our efforts to make the tournament. we got 2 big road wins vs ranked opponents, plus a win vs duke at our place when they were undefeated and #2 in the country...honestly i cant wait for the ACC Tournament, i really want to see NC State win that sometime soon... go wolfpack!!!

oh man, this reminds me of one time on a trip back home from smith mtn lake a few summers ago. i was in the back of my aunts mini-van sleeping. apparently i was dreaming because i woke up to myself going through the motions of a hookset and even started reeling LOL

i got some "psuedo-hooksets" in this past saturday night and sunday. i have a round abu baitcaster that wasnt casting very good, saturday evening i took it apart and cleaned, greased and oiled it for the first time since the 3 or so years i had it. first time doing that with a baitcaster, so naturally i was eager to test it out. tied on a 1 ounce sinker and went outside and made a few casts off the deck that night. reeling back in the sinker would get stuck in the snow and the rod would start to load like getting a bite and i would yank back like setting a hook in my attempt to free the sinker. sunday i went out when i could see and let some harder casts out and got good distance and fought the snow again lol

Seriously ? ok, but no, seriously? you cant be serious...right? you must just be highly misinformed...

if its legal, and everyone had the opportunity to do it, then in no ways should anyone feel off about it. not Ashleys fault if no one else did something thats well within their rights to do. its like complaining he caught his fish on a senko and won when you chose to throw a power worm all day and ended up losing. plus if others found one of his structures, it was within their rights to fish it as well...fair game for everyone.

my first baitcaster was a round Abu Garcia 5601 Ambassadeur BCX. I love it, I use it on a 6'6 MH Shakespeare Tiger Rod for bass and catfish. great for carolina rigging, heavy t-rigs, weightless senkos and shallow cranks. some point last year after 3.5 years of use and no maintenance it decided it didnt want to cast further than like 15 feet or so. Just yesterday, I went and bought a reel cleaning/oil/grease kit at Dicks. having never "worked on" a baitcaster, i sat down and took apart the reel. cleaned it, oiled it and greased it. put it back together and now it cast maybe better than new, i am thoroughly pleased with the job i did, it was simple to work on so long as you dont get too far ahead of yourself. I also put fresh line on it...

i dont eat any fish at all. but i did eat fish when i was a young kid, then one day just decided i didnt like it anymore. we ate the bass we caught. mostly from a stocked pond down a mile long or so trail in the woods at river bend/great falls nature conservency. we caught bluegill and bass out of the pond. from the pond there is a trail to the right that leads you to the potomac river, we also caught and ate bass from there, all from the bank and using only nightcrawlers. lots of current there and the water level fluctuated greatly. if you hit it right, you just toss your nightcrawler with a small 1/8oz weight, let it flow down current and then start reeling back in and a lot of the times you had a bass on the hook...

i dont trust the basstrakk, i feel someone always comes out of nowhere with something not even close to what the basstrakk says

yeah seriously, i wouldnt wish it on anyone. speeding or not, drunk or sober, etc etc etc. i lost my sister last may to a single car accident in which they determined she wasnt speeding nor was she impaired in anyway. hydroplaned and the car went off the road, broke her neck and caused head trauma, car threw her out of the closed sunroof and rolled on top of her. im still mourning over this to a degree, i miss my sister like crazy, and our mother is now constantly depressed for the most part. my sister was roughly a mile from being home to her husband and 2 little girls. so heartbreaking. when i ride by an accident scene, i dont worry about what happened or who was at fault, i just pray that everyone involved is ok...

nope, even though it got down to single digits, the heat pump is kicking butt. set it to 69-70 and its all good in here. power bill isn't outrageous either. i guess it helps this house had a fairly new roof on it when we bought it. the old house had wood only heat and a couple small electric heaters the power bill was about the same as what it is here with the heat pump. i'll tell you one thing im loving, not exactly about heating your home, but heating your water. we recently added a water softener/filter and a tankless water heater. the tankless water heater is great. never run out of hot water...

never fell in the water while fishing but i did throw myself off a wave runner one evening at smith mountain lake. it happened so fast all i remember is the life jacket shooting me back up to the surface, i have no idea how deep the water was or how deep i went down. i do remember putting my hands above my head so i wouldnt float up and hit my head on the bottom of the wave runner. climbed back on and took off riding again. luckily i was in a quiet cove that doesnt get a lot of boat action. smith mountain lake gets a ton of traffic that really stirs the water up at times. honestly after that, i would drive the wave runner out to that cove, shut it off, and jump in for a swim at times....