Randall

In relation to the post by George I may find a better topwater or very shallow bite on the full moon but usually the fish I am after are deeper and the moon has very little influence on them when compared to other important factors. Moon phase is way overrated but it does help me see at night. ;D

I used to have a tall skinny fishing partner that had a beagle he brought fishing with us on the boat. It was a good dog and it stayed right behind me or under the seat all day out of the way. I thought the dog really liked me since it never went on the deck where his master was but instead stayed on the deck with me. I told the dogs owner that his dog must like me better since it stayed with me all day. He pointed out the fact that the dog just knew I was fatter than he was and I made a larger spot of shade for the dog to stay in on sunny days. ;D Sure enough once I started looking the dog stayed in my shadow all day but never caused a problem.

One of my first hard swimbaits I used was an ABT Titan which is the same bait as the King Kong. I caught a bunch of big fish on it while learning more about hard baits and throwing them. I have been using big soft baits for around fifteen years but only used the big hardbaits for the last three or four years. In the past couple of years there have been a lot of hard baits out there that are easier to get since so many stores have swimbaits now. So, I have been trying a bunch more of them. After trying many of the others I don't even use my ABT/Strike King baits much at all any more. There are just better choices out there now for the same price or a little more. I am not saying it not a good bait but there are plenty of much better baits that are great baits. For the same type of hard bait at near the same price the Mattlures Woody and Spro BBZ are much better baits. A Triple Trout, Rago baits or 3:16 baits are all much better baits for a little more money. One of my favorite photos of a fish though was caught on a King Kong. As you can see it almost swallowed the whole bait. For the Mattlures Bluegills I use a 7' 6" heavy action flipping stick with braid and prefer it over most swimbait rods since I get the extra power from the braid. If I was going to use mono or fluro I would use something like the Okuma that Matt recomends on his site. I am sure if you do a search on here you can find a lot of info on rods for the bluegills.

Agree with Matt %100. Nothing to add really but another thing I see happening is that with the popularity and money to be made off swimbaits you will see a lot of people that will try to become overnight experts on swimbaits. Either an expert in fishing them or making them. There is a lot of misinformation and myths being created by many people trying to promote themselves or their new bait companies. Not so much on this site since we have real experts like Matt and Fish Chris here but they are out there. This can cause you to waste a lot of money on baits that aren't up to par or get confused by people that think they know swimbaits and how to fish them. Be careful who you listen to and what you buy and you can save a lot of money, headache and frustration. It's not like a crankbait or worm where you waste a few dollars trying something and forget about it since most good swimbaits cost a little more. I admit to wasting some money myself on bad baits but have learned to buy more quality proven swimbaits and take advice from only those who can prove to me they know what they are talking about.

My two cents is that the biggest swimbaits are way overrated. Big baits are not always more preferable to big fish. By biggest I am saying over eight inches. Size to me doesn't always get you a bigger fish. The key is to match the bait that most of the larger fish are eating at the time and this changes and is not constant. Most times big fish are usually going to get the biggest meal that is easiest to catch and swallow. Now in some cases if there is a bunch of large easy to catch and swallow bait and the big ten to twelve inch baits will be the ticket but not every time. Personally I do better for big fish over ten pounds with five to eight inch swimbaits. If the big fish can get a better easy meal by eating crawfish than it can trying to catch and eat a bait fish then the jig will outfish a swimbait. My advice if you want to catch bigger fish is to understand your forage and it's relationship to the bigger bass then choose your swimbait. Now after I have said all of that I still wouldn't suggest any of those baits. You can go over a rods rating a little since you can lob cast a swimbait and don't have to sling it the way you would another bait. The rating is a guideline that's all. Go to www.Mattlures.com and look at all of his baits. He has a bunch of different species of medium size baits and chances are he has a bait that matches a big bass forage where you live. Figure out what the big bass are eating and pick a bait that matches it. If the big bass are eating bigger baits then I would get a bigger bait. If you figure out they are eating smaller baits then get a smaller bait. If you want to stick to the list then I would say the Hudd Shad would be my choice.

Handy, I also just noticed you are in Iowa and your summer temps may be less than mine here in GA which could also make a difference in your ponds and lakes from the ones I fish.

Yes. Thermocline by definition is a temp change. Nothing else is involved other than temp change as decribed by Bait MS above. Small lakes and ponds can also stratify forming distinct layers and a hypolimnion which can have reduced oxygen or no oxygen. There are a number of factors which can influence this process and the amount of DO in the hypolimnion like current, temp, wind, fertility, water clarity etc. This does not mean that all ponds and small lakes stratify because some don't. This process does not require deep water either and I have found thermoclines as well as reduced DO in deeper depths of ponds no greater than eight feet max depth. Another thing that makes small ponds different than larger bodies of water is the fact that the lake may develop a thermocline during the day in some cases that may disappear at night with cooler temps and reform during the day. A thermocline in a small lake or pond may also be totaly eliminated by a heavy rainstorm and then reform quickly the next day with hot temps. Thermoclines and stratification are more unstable in smaller bodies of water. Handy, there is no simple answer to your question with out knowing the ponds exact makeup and current conditions at the time you are fishing. But, from looking at a few clues you have given in your last post Algae blooms and low visibility would tell me your lakes are probably very fertile and have a better chance of having low DO in deeper water which would have me fishing shallow first. Most of the lakes and ponds I fish in summer are much like this and most of my fish come from shallow water.

Here is a good article on gizzard shad. http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/gizzard_shad.html

If I see that in an area that I know has big bass my heart just about jumps out of my chest. ;DI would throw a swimbait until my arms fall off. I disagree with roadwarrior and most of our govt. employed fisheries managers and biologist. Their info is based on old flawed theorys that have been proven wrong in many cases. I have found that many fisheries guys who own thier own pond management companies agree with me since they get paid for performance and to grow giant bass. Big gizzard shad in that situation become the prefered food of big largemouth and if a lake is full of gizzard shad it will usually have larger bass that look like footballs. There will be fewer of them but they will be big. I don't think it's much different than a trout plant in California when big gizzards move into an area. A 24 inch largemouth can eat a 12 inch gizzard with no problem. Gizzard shad are a soft rayed fish and are easy for largemouth to swallow. I have pulled a 15 inch gizzard shad out of a ten pounder. This gizzard shad is one that a twelve pounder spit out on the way to the boat. I had five fish that went 47.4 pounds that day and every fish had a gizzard shad tail sticking out of its throat.

They have a website at www.usreel.com. There is a dealer locator at the bottom of the first page where you can put in your state and it lists the dealers in your area.

I have a US Reel. First they are not made in the US just designed here. I have owned mine since June and have been happy with it with one exception. There is a spot where the bail wire meets the part that holds the line roller that will catch your line at times and your line will stick in it after you cast maybe one out of twenty or thirty casts. To fix the problem I put a drop of epoxy in that spot so the line couldn't slide in it. It fixed the problem but hopefully on the newer models they have found a fix for this. I can cast farther with it, have less line tangle problems and I have a huge line capacity with the larger spool. I have landed ten, eleven and twelve pound bass with it on six and eight pound line and have a lot of confidence in the drag system. Here is the video of the 11 lber being caught on the reel so you can get an idea of how it works on larger fish. http://media.putfile.com/119-lb-Varner-Bass-

This one was deformed but still over ten pounds.

No, I haven't. Might have to give it a try.

Since I got brought into this : I do use a Storm swimbait at times and I have caught fish on it. I have caught some huge fish on it. But, If you would have asked me last year about Storm Swimbaits I would have given you an answer something like Fourbizz. ;D The reality of it is that most of them don't compare them to the better baits out there. I just happened to find one particular bait completely by accident that worked in one particular situation that is very common where I fish. Don't ask which situation cause I am not telling. :-X It is in no way a great swimbait when compared to other baits out there like the ones made by Mattlures, 3:16, Huddleston, etc. but it does work and it will work if used in the right way in the right situation. I used to use the regular wildeye shads also that are head heavy. I knew when and where to use them and many of the Lake Fork guides do to. But, if you campare it to Mattlures new shad bait the Storm bait isn't even close which is why I don't use that particular bait any longer. The reason for all the negativity is simply that there is no comparison between a high quality made swimbait made by someone who understands what makes a great big fish swimbait and a Storm swimbait. The Storm is just not going to produce the same as the better designed baits. It's not just the Storm baits but many of the copy cats and brands that don't have designs that were made to catch big fish. The best example of this is the Basstrix bait. I have yet to see any company make a copy that is as good as the Basstrix bait. All of them I have seen or tried have come up short in one way or another even though in appearance they may look the same. That doesn't mean they won't catch fish. It means that they are not as good as the Basstrix or will not replace the Basstrix so I don't really have a use for them.

The Lucky craft with the lip like in the photo above is only good as a topwater wake type bait fished really slow. It a good bait but only if you want a small wake bait that you can fish slow on the surface. The other Lucky Crafts including the new one aren't worth the money. The King Kong is a decent bait and I have caught some big fish on it but there are way better baits out there for the same price or for a little more. I have three King Kongs and none of them hit the water at all last year since I found and bought much better baits to use. If you want to use the BPS card and get some swimbaits then you might want to consider some Storm Kick'n Minnows. They are cheap baits but they work better than the other's when fished below the surface.

The larger the motor the more efficent it is at the same speed. Smaller motors will always use up more battery power. I have used every trolling motor brand, style and size and always found the larger motors to be the most efficient. A bow mount is the best way to go simply because it is much easier to control both when moving and fishing.

Here is mine while filming a Lunkerville episode. Its an 1982 Tracker that I paid $400 dollars for along with the trailer. I replaced all the decks and installed carpet after taking all the sterring wheel, seats etc. out. I had duel front motors as well as three rear motors. It's now getting another makeover with a few improvments that should be done in the next few days.

Price is the same in the store also at $49.95. These are last years models. If you want the 2008 model it is full price in the store.

I will agree. As long as its 5 inches it will catch big fish and I don't think bigger senkos means bigger fish. I actually catch more big fish on the five inch baits or six inch baits. I did have Senko77 make me some monster size senkos once that did catch some big fish but they were a much smaller diameter and much softer than the seven inch baits that BPS sells and that gave them great action.

That's because some of them did come from a yard sale or two.

RoLo, glad I could make your day. Most people who fish with me are shocked at which rods I choose to fish with. They somehow think I should have expensive high modulus graphite rods to catch fish. ;D But if given the choice and even if price was not an issue I would still take a well made IM6 rod over an expensive high modulus rod. I add weight to the butt section to balance all my rods anyway so weight is of little issue to me and I think IM6 is the perfect material to make a more versitile, durable rod. My favorite rod is an old discontinued IM6 Mitchell Balance 7' Heavy rod that I use for almost everything from jigs to cranks. When it breaks and I can't find another one I will replace it with a Light and Tough rod. I use braid and fluro and that's all the sensitivity I need. I was having a hard time finding a big swimbait rod that I liked well enough to say it was the perfect rod for me. I picked up the Light and Tough rod for the first time and knew I had the right rod right away. If its like many of my other rods I will still be fishing the same rod ten years from now.

They only work out in California. All these GA fish in this photo must have all been crazy since they hit a 10 inch swimbait that weighed 5oz. ;D Notice that these fish are big but not huge (by my standards anyway) and they were caught in just four hours of throwing a real big bait. I bet you have some fish this size that would eat a big bait. But in reality I think the real big baits over eight inches are way over rated in most cases. Start with a smaller bait like a Mattlures bluegill and maybe a six inch bait that matches the forage your big bass feed on and go from there.

Without breaking the bank you can get two rods that I like. Okuma Guide series rods are around $100. Team Diawa Light and Tough Swimbait rods are around $130. I use the Team Diawa rod to throw my BBZ on. Its a little heavier than most other swimbait rods but it suits my personal preferences and you can throw a big bait a mile on it. If you want a rod that will throw a big bait at a low, low price Tsunami makes an inshore rod in their Classic Series for under fifty bucks. I think its only rated for 2oz but it compares to freshwater rods that are rated for much bigger baits. Downside is that it is only seven feet long and limits casting distance.

I have the burner version of the Escalade. Good reel for the money. I caught it on sale for around $60.

I agree too. I have had to go back lots of times and look at the message because of my mistake short term memory.