Valascus

I assuming since there wasn't a number set on the amount of guesses one could take that you get one shot, right? :

That sounds like a good idea.

I think the chances of someone getting everything correct are slim. The idea of just taking the person that got the most answers right and giving them the prize seems like the best idea to me. The thread has been there for a while and anyone interested in making taking a guess at it probably has, but I would run this little contest until...say...tomorrow or thursday 12 noon, take your pick on which day, and then announce the winner. That way if there are any folks that haven't gotten a chance to take there guess they can. Oh, and I am in central time...so I would just make it end at 12 noon in whatever timezone you happen to be in.

If you got it right it does.

I take it from the lack of any post saying "DING DING DING DING DING...WE HAVE A WINNER!! JOHNNY TELL THEM WHAT THEY'VE WON!!", that nobody has gotten this one right yet. I can't wait to see the answer just so I can see how wrong I was. ;D

Man...the more I hear about these the more I wanna try 'em out. I have the Gammie hooks already and the pics of how they are rigged. Does anyone happen to know where there may be an animated or step by step pics of how to rig them both ways? Also, what situation would you use the forwards rig in and what situations for the backwards rig? I know the colors recommended were 194J, 208, 297, but is therea website that shows what colors these are?

My little fishin' buddy only 11 months old and already take her with me to some of the more tame places I fish. She likes to help me serenade fish out of smaller ponds by being loud enough to make her voice echo (then she gets confused by the echo.). One day I wasn't catching anything at all. The air temps were in the upper 30's, no clue what the water temps were...I just know cold. The wife came down with her to see how I was doing and the little one started serenading them and lo and behold...caught three within 10 mins. ;D Can't wait to start teaching her when she gets enough coordination to do it. It's gonna be great. If I can find a pic that is smaller than the 150 kb limit, I'll post it.

When are you going to reveal the answers to this gameshow?

1. 5" Senko...and I'll say a darker colored one 2. Weightless 3. 10ft 4. Secondary Points 5. Chunk Rock with some sort of woody cover nearby. And I'll say instinct.

I am in Overland, MO in Saint Louis County. Someone to fish with always a plus.

Thanks a lot. Don't know if I wanna join any, but just wanna look out of curiousity. Fishing with other folks is probably a good way to gain some knowledge.

I'll probably give the hay thing a shot. There is one more species of fish in these ponds I forgot to mention (mainly because I never see 'em, never catch 'em, heck, never even fish for 'em). She has a grass carp or two in these ponds. One died recently and he was an absolute mammoth. I know they are good for controlling vegetation overgrowth. But I am not sure that they are necessary to have in ponds that are so small. Does anyone know if grass carp would eat hay? I know nothing about the species other than the fact that they eat vegetation.

Neither pond has been used for cattle for years now. In fact I cannot remember the last time they even owned any cattle. I don't think anyone is stealing the fish either for two reasons: 1) She lives in a pretty remote area with no one around her for a pretty fair diatance, and 2) if anyone had the cahones to give it a shot, Ozzy (her outdoor all the time borderline wild 100lbs beast of a dog) would come back with someones limb. He's nice to folks he knows, but is a fierce property defender. The bigger pond is about an acre and the smaller one is about a 1/3 to a 1/2 acre. The bigger one is the one that is 15-20 ft. deep and the smaller one is the one that is about 10-15 ft. deep. I am a little hesitant to line the banks with bales of hay since I don't want to restrict any forage that they normally feed upon from being washed into the ponds.

I have family that owns a little plot of land out in New Haven, Missouri. There are ponds on this land that they used to use for their cattle. They were both originally stocked with largemouth bass, channel cats, and bluegill. The fishing on these ponds has never been bad per se...but the quality of fish has never been great. The best quality fish you could catch as far as size were the catfish. But the last few years I have fished it I haven't caught a single cat, which I found rather alarming. The bass have never been real big out of this pond...if there are any lunkers in there I have never caught them. Most of the bass you get out of these ponds are skinny and not very long...every once in a while you get one that is fairly long...but still skinny. My grandmother (the owner) told me she believed there was a problem with the amount of bluegill in the ponds. The ponds themselves are not very big. Forage mainly consists of small frogs, lizards, baby bass, baby bluegill, tadpoles, kitaulfa (I think I spelled that right) worms in July-ish, grasshoppers, and anything else small enough to eat that is flushed into the water by run-off. One of the ponds is a kind of triangular shape with a two of the banks running pretty shallow, one of those two banks with small gravel and the other with some grass and weeds down the bank with a large tree overhanging the water in one of the corners. The third bank is heavily covered by pretty thick bushes that grwo into the water. It is pretty shallow to begin but sharply drops to about 15 feet. I have never been able to really effectively fish that particular bank due to tackle restrictions in the past and lack of good angles to cast towards it. The lakes max depth is maybe 15-20 ft. It is low at the moment. The other two banks pretty gradually drop to the 15-20 drop located off the third bank. The second pond has a more circular shape to it. It has a bush or two growing into the water, a downed tree jutting out into the water, and some sort of vegetation (I am not very good at identifying water vegetation) growing from the bank to out to about 2 ft. from the bank. The dept of this pond is probably about 10-15 ft deep and is pretty uniform at to the speed it reaches that depth from anywhere on the banks (a little slower from the side that has the vegetation). Both ponds waters are usually fairly stained to downright murky depending on how recently it has rained. They have owned these ponds for a long time so I figure there should be some decent size fish in them...but I have yet to find 'em. I am concerned that the ecosystems of these ponds are in trouble. My grandparents are probably getting a little old to be trying to manage these ponds properly (and probably have been for a few years now). I don't have any records of when the ponds were stocked, how many of each species it was stocked with, or any other official info of that kind. Does anyone have any suggestions of some things I could do to try to restore these ponds ecosystems?

Beats me...I stink at cold weather bassin'. That and I DESPISE cold weather. > If the weather is unseasonably mild...deeper running crankbaits that stir up the bottom (in winter craw colors) and slow rolled baitfish colored spinnerbaits (usually 3/8 to 3/4 oz. , whatever in that range is working) with some beastly Colorado blades on 'em.

I think I agree with Rolo here. I have fished quite a few smaller ponds this winter on days that were unseasonably warm. Started in the morning, the water temp still cool and was catching them deeper as a result. But as the day marched on started catching them in more and more shallow water that only differed by a couple degrees. It seems to me that they just follow the warmth. Towards the end of the day as the sun started dipping they dropped back a little deeper and by close to sunset were back down in their deeper haunts again. Two of the ponds I fished were two that my grandparents own in New Haven, MO. Some of the other ones were on the Busch Wildlife Conservation Area in Saint Charles County in Missouri. Most of the spots I was catching fish on had shallow water close to a steep drop.

Just wondering if there are any good Bass Clubs in the St. Louis area. I have never been in a Bass Club...so I don't know what being in one entails. But...I like fishing quite a bit and try to get out to do so in as many places as I can possibly try when I get the chance, which isn't much unfortunately...but hopefully that'll change when it heats up a bit.