Valascus

I prefer Bassin'. I think Bassmaster is starting to go a little overboard with their advertisments. When I start seeing "news stories" about the "banned" baits, I start getting a little annoyed. I don't think I have ever seen that in Bassin', but I could be wrong.

:-? My thoughts exactly. I think Matt pretty much summed it up.

Instead of just saying that the thread exists...how bout we do this. http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1156096317/17#17

I fish these a lot like a spinnerbait with a varied retrieve. Sometimes I'll yo-yo 'em, sometimes I'll burn 'em in something fierce, sometimes I'll use a slow retrieve with intermittent quick jerks. I like to use Zoom Swimmin' Chunks with my swimming jigs. I use Booyah 3/8 oz. swim jigs.

You forgot about the ever so rare, yet possible bull shark Avid.

To anyone just learning fishing to the person who is a diehard fisherman, this site is absolutely invaluable. I have learned more here about bass fishing since becoming a member than all the time I have spent on it before that on my own. The people here are very knowledgable, generous, and try their best to boost confidence. My confidence soared just reading all the articles available in the BassResource.com library and sitting there thinking, "Gee..why didn't I think of that? That's a good idea!" It has helped fuel the change from a "hoo-hum I'll fish when I get the chance on my limited tackle and cheezy Zebco 33" to an angler that has no end for my thirst for knowledge and wants nothing more than to go fishing as often as other obligations permit. It has made me want to spread the joy, tranquility (fishing is my Moment of Zen ;D), and enjoyment of fishing to as many people as I can. Ya just can't beat this site!

When I am making long casts I could care less about how much of a splash I make. It's those short itty bitty flips or pitches that I make that are in some weeds or vegetation no more than 10-15 ft of me that I try (and fail most of the time) to plop it in the water as quietly as I can. The splash may or may not spook the fish, but I have no way of telling that until I make the splash. So I will just try my best to err on the cautious side and not make the splash.

Yep. I agree with everyone else here. It's the law my friend. Gotta put 'em back...dying or not. Like Bigtex said, the only way I ever keep 'em is if I am fishing family owned waters.

Actually, Bull sharks are known to travel into freshwater when hunting for food. Not a good thing either as the Bull shark is known for more shark attacks around the world than any other species. Bull sharks don't necessarily travel upstream for food. They only do that if the food source in their home habitat is compromised. 9 times out of 10 a bull shark swims into freshwater to give birth. A baby bull sharks worst predator are other sharks. No other sharks have the nifty anatomy and biology to survive in the freshwater like the bull shark. If I am not mistaken, bull sharks have an organ that senses changes in salt content in water. When it senses this it kicks the sharks kidneys into overdrive so it can constantly be pumping (essentially peeing ) out the freshwater. This means that their are no predators for their young in freshwater. In fact, a baby bull sharks have ben known to stay in freshwater for some time in order to grow to sizes that make other sharks not a threat. That's normally why bull sharks come upstream. And yes, they rank in the top three at #3 in shark "attacks" against humans. #1 is the tiger shark I believe and #2 is the great white. How do I know all this? I watched Shark Week and stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night!!!

So how do you rig the flukes? C rig, T rig, or do you let them fall under their own weight? I haven't used them at all. Seems to me like if you wanted them to fall slowly they should fall under their own weight. Something most people don't have the patience for! Me included LOL Thanks Jon A weightless super fluke is killer. I don't mind waiting for a super fluke to fall to the bottom. A regular fluke on the other hand just doesn't fall fast enough for my taste. Weightless on a 4/0 or 5/0 EWG hook is the way to go. If I can find a school of shad I will cast it into the shad or a little bit behind them and work it back into the school. Then as it is right in the middle of 'em all I'll kill it and just let it sink (although I will say this didn't work for me some reason last Saturday :-/). Bass like to hold underneath the schools and pick of stunned or dying shad as they sink. I am not an expert on the C-rig or anything, but if the schools of baitfish are holding close to or right on the bottom, then I could see how the C-rig would be an effective presentation for the super fluke.

Two of a bass' main predators when it comes to their eggs are lizards and bluegill. Bass will annihilate these lures if they see them on their beds. I do not pitch or flip directly onto the bed. Instead I cast well past it and work the lure back onto the bed. I have found that flipping or pitching directly onto a bed just seems to spook the fish...then again, I am not that great at either. Still practicin'. Lures I suggest are any soft plastic lizard you can get your hands on (I prefer YUM! Zellemander's and ZOOM's Magnum Lizards) and bluegill swimbaits. MattLures Swimbaits are very good bedfishing lures, they are expensive, but when you are stickin' bedding fish left and right I would imagine cost is no longer an issue. I usually T-rig my lizards with as light a weight as I can get away with. Another type of presentation that is often overlooked for bedfishing is the dropshot rig. This presentation gets your bait onto the bed for the longest amount of time, essentially being able to just be left their until the fish gets irritated enough to clobber the lure.

Fall is one of those magical times when darn near everything in your tacklebox can catch fish at any given time. I like using shallow cranks (1-6ft), shad colored swim jigs, crawfish colored jigs around rocks. Fun stuffs.

I got a couple of short strikes on a buzzbait early Saturday morning while on the river. I didn't have any trailer hooks though... :'(. May have been the difference between the skunkin' I got and catchin' a few.

A carrot wrapped in raw bacon will attract crayfish. As far as using sweet beavers and the like...bass are not generally very picky eaters. If it is big enough to fit in their mouth, then chances are they will eat it.

I have never caught a smallmouth in my life, but would love too. Largemouth bass are fun and fight better than most freshwater fish IMO, but if everything I have heard about smallies is true, then I need to find some of those somewhere around the Saint Louis area.

I am in the same boat as jomatty. I agree with every word that FlyRod posted. I like to remain blissfully ignorant (or optimistic) that some of these larger reserviors in MO could hold a MONSTER bass that no one has ever seen before. I know it is highly unlikely, but hey...a guy can dream can't he. I probably wouldn't keep a state record. I would keep it long enough to at least get it photographed, weighed, measured, and properly documented by the proper authorities, trying to keep the fish alive all the while. Then when the whole ordeal was done...back in the water with her. I could handle a good replica of that bass on my wall instead of the actual bass.

I just think I am gonna wing it. For some reason I can't find anything but a lot of yachting club websited when I type in Dardenne Slough. I'll just follow my instinct and see where it takes me. That's if we even go now...Saturday: Showers and Thunderstorms likely. We all know what lightining can do...so depending on the weather outlook we may have to scrap the boat trip and just bank fish somewhere.

Depending on how well you match you line color to the water clarity, I would imagine they could see it. They could probably still see even the best matched line to water clarity...maybe not as well, but they probably still could. I don't really ever worry about it too much. I have heard that MOST largemouths are not line shy anyway. There are exceptions of course. Clear water could possibly be one. I try to use as small diameter line as I can get away with using depending on the size of fish in the area and types of cover or structure I'll be fishing just in case though. I am not sure, but I have heard smallmouths can be a whole different animal when it comes to line shyness. I might be wrong though. Just though I remembered hearing that somewhere. RW, can you clarify please? :-?

I posted about a week ago concerning a fishing trip on 8/26 on the Cuivre River (which is one of the Mississippi Rivers many tributaries and sloughs in Missouri. The thread was "River Fishing Re-Hash I believe.). Our landing point was supposed to be a spot on the Cuivre in Old Monroe. We have been monitoring the water levels in that area and have found that the Missouri Dept. of Conservation has deemed the waters too low for boat travel. Now we have changed our landing spot to another nearby slough called the Dardenne Slough which is still very close to the Cuivre. Now for my question: How much can two tributaries that are so close to each other vary in things such as water clarity, depth, species distribution, forage types, and structure? I have been doing pretty extensive research on the Cuivre and had a pretty good plan of attack set up. I can't find any info on Dardenne Slough though and am just wondering how comparable it could be to the Cuivre. What are everyone else's experience with this matter? Have you found tributaries on rivers you fish to be pretty similar or wildly different? If so, in what ways? Thanks for any input! Appreciate it! Heck if I can't find any info I'll probably just stick to my guns...either that or I'll just wing it.

"When yer fishing a log, yer fishing for a hawg." and the ever popular "Shut up and fish!" ;D

Yeah bassmasta...I have had on blinders concerning Izzy for a while now, but no more. I have seen the light. I keep seeing that Beltran homer in my head...and that wasn't just a homer...that was a "I know what you are gonna throw and where you're gonna throw it" type of swing. THAT'S what concerns me. That and the fact that it was THE FIRST PITCH Beltran saw. When is Izzy's contract up anyway? Izzy has the capability to be a great closer, he just needs to update his pitching arsenal a little and mix things up. But whether he does that or not is a different story. He has been doing things this way for so long he may not want to change, and just flat may not be open to new ideas. Don't get me started on Mulder...he just isn't the same pitcher that he used to be. Period. He might come back around, but the chances of that are slim. All conventional wisdom says that he should have gotten BETTER pitching in the national league. But it has been the exact opposite, he has been on a rapid decline since coming over here. Throws up red flags for me. Kinda makes me think Billy Beane knew something we didn't. Makes him look like a genius offloading Mulder and picking up two of our better pitchers outta our pen.

I was kinda lookin' the other way with Izzy in this thread, but now I think it may be starting to become a legitimate problem at the back end of the pen. Consider this...Izzy is 30-39 in save opportunities. That means he has 9 blown saves...that is the highest mark for that stat in the bigs. 30-39 means you are getting the job done %76.9 of the time. For a closer, that is awful. Think about it...if any of us only did our job %76.9 of the time...we'd be fired. A closer should not be getting beat that often...he only has three outs to get...and quite frankly I do not care if they are the "hardest outs to get" or the "most pressure filled outs". It's your job...get the outs...you are a closer for a reason...cuz you can supposedly take this "pressure". Did anyone on this thread ever play any ball? Did everyone else see that pitch Izzy threw? It was a cutter (cut fastball). It did absolutely nothing...no movement...no juice on it...nothing...just sat there and said,"Oh, Oh!! Tater me!!!" Beltran said later in a post game interview that he "knew Izzy's best pitch was his cutter, so I sat on that pitch." This is a bad sign folks. Izzy is becoming a little too predictable in his pitch selection. Beltran swung that bat with confidence...and on the FIRST PITCH HE SAW FROM IZZY. He knew exactly where that ball was gonna be and he killed it...now I remember why I hated Beltran...that '04 NLCS is all coming back to me now. The Cardinals brass needs to address this problem with Izzy is some way, shape, or form, instead of taking this "if we ignore it, it may fix itself" stance that they seem to have taken with it. Here's something else to consider. Last year Braden Looper for the Mets went 28-36 in saves (in what was a short season in the closing position for him, I believe). That means he got the job done %77.7. Just something to show how bad things have gotten. I think a lot of Mets fans would agree with me that the closing position was a problem for them last year. *sigh* Looks like yeat ANOTHER vulnerability that the Cards are starting to show. I don't even wanna get into the rest of the pitching staff squandering a 6 run lead. We all know the pitching right now is about as far from consistent as it gets. Oh well...bring on game 2.

Never give up my friend...EVER. Every time you go out and get skunked or have the best fishing day of your life, there is something to be learned from that day. Those feesh were talking to ya...whispering information in yer ear. It is true that summertime can be a difficult time of year to fish, as a fellow bank fisherman, I can attest to that. However, I have been able to catch plenty of fish in the shallows during the time I have been able to fish this summer. And not just during the morning and evenings hours. Some right arounf mid-day in some of the most un-Godly heat you can imagine. They haven't been absolute pigs, as I believe most of them are deeper than I can reach, but they have been fish ranging from 1-3 lbs. I have been targeting shade, any type of vegetation (be it on the bank or submerged), and the shady sides of laydowns and chunk rocks. A pretty wide array of plastics has been working for me. Anything from t-rigged lizards to weightless senko knockoffs to hula grubs and so on and so forth. I have just had to find the right speed and presentation for the baits. Once I have figured that out, it gets easier. Just don't give up!

That is FANTASTIC man. Who says fishin' doesn't pay? ;D Well done on earning some money for furthering that edjumacation. Which pro are you gonna get to fish with?

Good God man!! Albert Pujols flat out exploded!! 7 RBI on 2 HRs...and it's only the 6th inning!! That's frickin' nuts man. Mets are fightin' back though. 7-5, Cardinals still have the lead in the top of the 6th. Whew...they need to pull Weaver. He's gonna blow a 6 run lead. Heh...looks like Pujols and Delgado are playing a little "anything you can do I can do better". Mets answer Pujols Grand Salami with one of their own by Del-got-it.