WookieeJedi

Rio Grande Cichlid Not my pic, but I'm taking the kids to NLOA City Park to fish in a couple of weeks, so maybe I can get a better picture. They are really electric blue.

It has been a while, but I used to really whack the smallmouth on the Buffalo River in northern AR. All I ever used was a brown/orange Hot Lips crank and grubs. You can only keep 2 per day out of there, but that was never really an issue, the fish weren't huge, but you got plenty of them. If I caught 20 or 30 in a day only a couple were going over 3 pounds anyway. Just enough for dinner at camp.

I tend to keep the tip down if I can. It keeps them from jumping as much, and limits air time when they do come out of the water. Also, if I have a big hardbait with multiple hooks, I don't want the fish to get airborne and risk hooking him in the eye or gill plate while he is thrashing around. They can get hung up like that in the water, but it seems to happen more when they do the jump and shake.

It is still legal in Louisiana, and will likely stay that way. Inshore and saltwater guys have been using umbrella rigs for a long time. I have a suspicion that all this hype may be designed to sell lures. From what I can tell, it is working. I remember when the Senko first came out. That is a very simple rig that requires little skill to fish; and it wins tournaments, but nobody said anything about that. 10 years from now, the Bama rig will be just another tool, like Carolina rigs, Senkos, swimbaits, etc... It ain't magic.

Wdycrankbait, central LA has some excellent bass fishing. Crappie fishing is really good in that area too, but no smallmouth. Your techniques will probably change from what you are doing in VA, but the fish won't let you down.

Hi, I have been reading stuff on the site for a couple of weeks now, and decided to join up. I fish for bass, trout, and stiper. I live near the Arkansas border, and fish in both states almost equally. In the old days, I fished out of a big glass rig, but now I fish from a sit-on-top kayak. As for the username and avatar, the pic isn't that far off.