Hawgin

We need to figure out some way to get you a BassResource.com patch on that shirt.

The two biggest benefits to a baitcaster IMO is power and accuracy. You can stop the bait and place it anywhere you want on a cast without running the risk of line twist. And with a baitcaster you can usually power a fish out of heavy cover quickly, where you can't really do that with a spinning reel. With a baitcaster if you hook into a fish in the grass, or you get one trying to make a run to the stumps you can get him turned and into your boat (or on the bank) better than you can with spinning gear.

Amen to that. Just went to a concert this weekend, it was George Strait, and Ronnie Milsap opened for him. The first half of the show was better than they second half in my opinion.

You're not going to scare fish listening to music. That old tale your dad told you about noise scaring fish is not exactly true. Any noise above the water does not penetrate the water surface. Music, talking, etc does not effect fish. What does effect them is noise/vibrations in the water. Your boat motor, trolling motor, stuff being dropped on the bottom of your boat, a lure splashing in the water can at times scare off fish. So if you want to sing along at the top of your lungs to Bad Moon Rising or Proud Mary, have at it (but be considerate of other boaters around you.) As far as types of music, I like rock and classic country(like Cash, Willie, Ronnie Milsap, etc.) but I usually don't listen to any while fishing. I like the quietness and the nature sounds when I am out.

The biggest problem I have fishing from the back of the boat is that often times the buddy I fish with tends to go into KVD mode, making 1-2 quick casts to target and then moving on. There are times I feel confident that a piece of cover is holding fish if it was just worked over a little more thoroughly, but I don't get that chance in the 30 seconds we breeze past it.

4lb 8oz 2lb 4oz

For me it's not a question of where I use them, but more when to use them. I will try a shaky head anytime the bite gets tough. During a cold front in the spring and fall, during the hottest times of the summer when fish are in slightly deeper water, basically anytime they will not bite anything else. For me they are a sort of a "last resort" bait that I use all the time. I hope that makes sense to everyone else like it does to me.

Yeah, I'm afraid you are right that after that loss last night I expect the Aggies to be looking to prove a point on Sat. However I hope to catch them down after such an emotional and draining game. After a double OT battle maybe our pressing and up tempo style can wear them down late, we just have to stay in the game long enough for that to be the case. Law has a ton of heart, and is definitely a great player. He's the type of guy that will be overlooked in the draft because he doesn't have all of the intangibles, but after a 10 year career as a winner in the pros everyone will be trying to figure out how he lasted so long on draft night. As for Durant, if refining his D is the biggest knock on him that just shows how good he is. He was just as clutch in that game as Law was in my opinion.

As a member of the Shimano posse I am required to say the Cruxis. I actually owned 3 Pflugers and I have replaced all of them with Shimano's. Now...off the record...for $99 bucks I would take a long hard look at the Abu Garcia Revo S. It's the best under 100 dollar reel available.

FOM- If you're bummed after last night, how bad are you going to feel Saturday after the Tigers steal one from you on your home court? BTW Kevin Durant is probably the best college basketball player I've ever watched, and Law might be one of the most clutch.

Also rattle traps or spinnerbaits fished over flats and points near spawing areas. If you find flats with fish using these, then slow down in that area and work it over top to bottom with a combo of search baits, and then fish plastics/jigs and pay real close attention on the drop.

I guess it just depends on what you like in your tubes. I like the SK flipping tubes and pro model tubes. The bitsy tubes probably have their purpose for smallies, but I have not found what they are good for. As for the wild thing, craw tubes, and lizards, I don't see the point. If I want a craw or a lizard I will fish those. My experience has been that I have a better hook up ratio with t rigged plastics than tubes, so I would rather fish those if I'm going for a craw or lizard imitation. I say you should by them, and push the lizards, craw, and bitsy tubes off on your buddies and keep the flipping tubes for yourself.

I've been using the weights for a while now, and I am impressed with them. I think you can tell the difference in sensitivity, and I like the smaller size of them. I still think they are expensive, but when you can catch them on sale they are worth picking up. As far as jigs, I just picked up some of the tru tungsten ikey heads. I have fished them a few times, but not enough to give you a definite opinion on them. I like them so far, but again I bought them on clearance so they were the same price as other shakey head jigs.

I recently bought some at Cabelas in the bargain cave, but I've only had them out a few times. I really like the ball buster jig heads, but I was not overly impressed with the weed wackers. The tungsten heads give you the same advantage with these that they do on the weights. More sensitive and smaller. The hooks seem pretty good. No complaints yet, but I haven't given them a full workout yet either.

One thing that might help you guys is a little trick I did with my hollow bodied frogs. Bend the hooks up on your frog so they stick up a little above the body. Occassionally you will pick up a leaf or some junk on the hooks, but it helped with my hook up ratio.

I wasn't suggesting that you wait long term to lock in on a closing, but if you are someone looking to refi, you may want to take a week or two. Obviously if this is something that you are not trained to watch for, then give a call to your lender or your planner for their thoughts. I work in the market every day and although no one can predict this thing 100%, it just seems that the natural trend is going to be for the market to continue to move in a downward direction for a while in sort of a "correction" pattern. A one day, or a short term drop in the market will have a minimal effect on things such as long term prime rates, but an extended downward trend could have an effect on rates, etc. WPD I fully trust you know what you are talking about, and I wasn't questioning your recommendations. Just offering some further food for thought.

I doubt that the reels they get come moded directly from the manufacturer, but I'm sure each of the pros can service/upgrade their own reels, or they all have their own personal "ReelMech" on speed dial. I'm sure if you deconstructed their reels you would see improved gears, upgraded drag systems, etc.

For me personally I don't mind watching tournament shows, but if I'm going to be out of the house I don't bother taping them or keeping up with them. However, when it comes to shows like The Bass Pros, Bass Edge, and Classic Patterns I have every one of them on tape. I like when I have an opportunity to see the bait, situation, presentation, etc. because it gives me a chance to improve myself as an angler. I've been disappointed with the fact that ESPN has eliminated shows like Schooled by Denny Brauer and Loudmouth Bass, and have instead focussed their coverage solely on tournaments.

LBH- At least by taking it in the dome you didn't have to worry about risking permanent damage. :

I have been using some 3/4oz ones lately and I can't imagine using anything bigger than that. They will get the big fish to bite, and they cast about as far as any lure I've ever thrown. 1 oz would be pretty big, and would possible scare off a lot of small to medium sized fish.

I would recommend to anyone, at anytime to suck it up and spend the money on a Falcon tackle system. Then again, I'm an organization freak so they are perfect for me. Everything in it's place....everything in it's place.....no that doesn't go there!

WPD- I will defer to your expertise on the mortgage end of this, but I think the market is going to continue to trend down for an extended period of time. Definitely not to the extent that it declined today, but I think we are heading into a market correction period. There are going to be a day, or stretch of days where the market trends back up, but over the next 2-3 months I think you will continue to see the market move itself back down, and with this prime rate should continue to trend down as well. If you are riding a floating rate, looking to lock in why wouldn't you be willing to give it a few days or weeks to see what the future holds? By the way, the smart money right now is on short term bonds.

The first Fenwick I bought was an Eagle GT. I thought it was a very light and sensitive rod. The only thing I didn't like about it was the guides felt kinda cheap. I have since upgraded to Techna AV's, but I didn't get rid of my GT until just last week when I sold it to a friend. It is the best $50 rod you will ever buy, and it will make you want more of their rods.

I feel comfortable that we were fishing the right areas and patterns, because our first morning out we had a guide boat that basically followed us around the whole time, and we never saw them catching much either. I'm not disappointed that I went, and I have every intention of going back next year (only a few weeks later if the schedule allows), I guess I just went with my hopes to high of catching at least one fish that was 7-8 lbs or bigger. I did learn a valuable lesson that somedays you can be on the correct pattern in the right area, and things just don't work out your way.

Well fellas got back from my trip to Lake Fork and I must say that I received a big does of humble pie while there. The fishing was extremely tough the two days we were able to get on the water, and it sounds like that was the case for most everyone we talked to down there. Even the guides struggled to catch numbers of fish. However, for those of you making the trip in a few weeks, it sounds like you are going to catch everything at the perfect time to fish for both bedding fish and staging fish. We arrived Wednesday night at the Minnow Bucket Marina where we were staying, and after unpacking our gear we talked to a group of guys just coming in for the day. They told us they had 10 boats with 23 guys and they were only able to catch 40 fish between them, and it had been so tough they decided to resort to fishing live shiners that day. Most of their fish they caught were between 4.5 and 7 pounds with one going 10. They were nice enough to show us on the map where they fished since they were leaving. The next morning we launched around 7:30 and made a short run to Little Canney Creek. The water temps were in the low 50's to start the day so we fished grass flats and points looking for staging fish. We worked our way up through the creek using red rattletraps and white "bleeding" spinnerbaits with very little success only picking up a few smaller (2.5 lb) fish. Around 1:00 we decided to run up to Birch Creek for the rest of the day, and fished the same pattern. After an hour with no success my buddy switched to a white chatterbait with the tail dipped in pink spike it(we didn't have red with us.) We picked up a few more fish with that, the best of which was 5lbs. Around 5:00 we ran back to Little Canney to fish a few points and flats hoping the bite would turn on right before dark. We switched to fishing shakey heads in short grass and my buddy got one on that was pulling drag as soon as it hit, and it eventually ended up breaking his 10 lb flouro after wrapping around a stump. We guess that fish would have went 7-9 lbs, but it's hard to tell for sure. We went out Friday and water temps had moved up into the mid 50's, blue skies, and 10 mph winds. We started out again by patterning grass flats with rattletraps. Again not much luck. Around 10:00 we decided to look for smaller coves with warmer water and found one with water temps around 58 degrees. This is where we had our best success, as we found males starting to move up to make beds. My buddy was fishing jigs on the beds, and I was fishing out the opposite side of the boat, throwing a chatterbait past the drop offs hoping to catch staging females. He picked a few nice ones up in shallow water, including a chunky 5.5 lber. I caught one fish weighing just over 5 lbs on the chatterbait. Around 3:00 a storm front started to move in, bringing cloud cover finally. We ran back to Little Canney and had some success with chatterbaits, but we didn't catch anything big. Right at sunset we went in for the night, and as we arrived at the marina a boat came in behind us, and I could tell they were excited about something, then I saw it. They pulled a fish out of the livewell to have weighed on a certified scale to see if it qaulified as a sharelunker. It only weighed in at 12.83, but it is the biggest fish I've ever seen with my own eyes. Of course it came off a grass covered point in Little Canney on a red rattletrap with a chartruese belly. I'm not sure how I missed it. ;D Saturday morning we woke up to rain and 50 mph winds that were causing big white caps on the lake. We made a short run to a cove out of the wind, but quickly realized if we didn't head back in we were going to be stuck in that cove until the wind died down after sunset, so we headed back in a called off the last day of the trip. We only caught 12 fish over two days with 3 going bigger than 5 lbs. We were disappointed, but we talked to a couple of guides and several others there fishing it sounded like that was about the same luck everyone else was having, only we didn't get that one big bite that a few others enjoyed. All things considered it was still a fun trip, I was just hoping to break my PB while there, but maybe next time. For those of you heading down in a few weeks, everyone we talked to indicated that Little Canney has a ton of big fish in it, and the guides told us that it usually spawns later than many of the other areas because the bigger fish spawn later. It should be in a good prespawn pattern when you guys go. We were pretty much told to stay in the the left "arm" of the lake because that's were most of the good fishing, and the bigger fish are located. If there is any other info I can give you guys to help you out I will be more than happy to.