Rob G.

Happened to me once. Fishing the Mississippi River in Pool 14, several years ago. I got a spinnerbait hung up on of all things a Wonderbread bag. Hook buried through several layers of the bag. Pulled and pulled and could not get it out. Finally got the layers of bag to rip and pop goes my spinnerbait. Well and nice fat female must have been attracted by all this commotion and she nailed my bait just as soon as It pulled free. Quirkie eh?

There are a lot of really great cranking rods out there. The BassPro Crankin Stick is a great value and would serve you well. I have one and use it as much as I use a Falcon Cara cranking rod that I have. I suggest a medium action for most applications and I prefer 6'6" to 7' personally.

When they are moving water through the dam, the Spotted Bass turn on the feed bag in that end of the reservoir. Cannot recall where exactly but we called and got the schedule for the power generation at the dam.

Silverthread Excaliber. Cabelas sells it in filler spools and bulk spools. The bulk spools are 3000 yards for approx. $45. It is a copolymer. My go to for most casting techniques. I have never had more confidence in a line with the exception of Yo Zuri Hydrid Ultra Soft, which I only use for spinning reels. BTW, Roadwarrior turned me on to the Yo Zuri stuff. No suprise there though. LOL. Thanks to all for their honest assessments and advise. Good site her. Rant over. LOL. For some reason I cannot stop singing Kum By Ya.

Gotta remember buzzbaits.

Those fuel pumps are a cinch to rebuild. I would also check your fuel lines to the motor and then to each carb. It sounds like you might be sucking some air.

I live in Eastern Illinois. I can tell you that some of the fish are still going to spawn regardless of this cruddy weather. Past experience tells me this. Muddy water will make things a bit more challenging, but there will still be some big girls caught. Have been doing pretty well around here for a couple/few weeks. Maybe going to go tomorrow if I can beat the rain. Good luck.

I throw spinner baits and like lures on them sometimes. You got them at a great price! You should be very happy with their performance.

Lake Fork or Falcon. Google Tom Reddington, he guides down there. Good chance at 10+ lbers.

I have had the TechH2O from Gander Mountain for 7 or 8 years now and have no problems with it at all. Maybe they changed it, but mine keeps me dry running full bore down the Mississippi in a downpour. Believe it or not it rains hard here in Illinois and Iowa too.

I use them once in a while skipping too, but mostly on Fat Ikas/Palm Trees. They are good for those applications in my opinion. All Gammys are good hooks, but not all are good for every app. Same with every brand.

That is how they hibernate, either that or it was afraid. Bass are distantly related to Ostrich. I thought everyone knew that.

Absorbine Jr. Can be had pretty cheap at Walgreens etc... Just have to reapply every couple hours. It is a God Send.

Yellow, I will be up the River starting tomorrow. I have a little place in DeSoto, WI which is pool 9. How is the fly hatch effecting the smallie fishing? When the flies really hatch big time, you can and should fish topwater all day long. Catch some pigs too! What pool are you on?

One thing we do in tourneys is call the Lock Master on the telephone and find out what time we will be able to lock. Be polite and they will take care of you. This enables us to get to the lock and not have to wait too long. Sometimes you can call them the day before and they can tell you an approx. lock schedule for the day. The numbers for the locks can be found in the Corps of Engineers Navigational River Charts. As far as fishing while in the locks, probably a waste of time. In there you are better off paying attention to what is going on also. Locks can be dangerous places. Good luck!

I do not know for sure, but why not search Youtube and see if someone has posted a video clip of the process. It is difficult to explain, you really need to see it done. Good luck! You can always cut the head, tail, and fins off. Gut the fish, clean the scales off and cook them that way. Still tastes good, you just have to scrape the cooked meat off the bones to eat it. Just like you would a catfish at a restaurant. That is much easier to explain than filleting.

It is not uncommon to catch bass, especially smallies here in the Miss. River that are blind in one eye due to injury. We have caught them blind in both eyes before also. Pretty amazing.

Just a month of so ago I sent them back a Revo STX that I had a problem with. It was way out of the one year warranty. Anyways, four day turn around to new Revo STX on my door step. No complaints here. I even included a note explaining how hard I had used the reel.

Sorry to deviate a bit, I do not know about Edwin Evers but Rick Clunn really does use his line of stuff. Sounds like he uses basically the same reel and rod for most every technique too. I am sure there are exceptions.

I have seen and caught males on beds in the Mississippi River in March more than once. That is with water temp 41 degrees. The females are not ready at that time, but the males, especially the young bucks are going through the motions. Otherwise, it could be that something, a rock, stick, etc. was holding the fish there. Did you see a bed? If you could see the fish, you should have been able to see the bed.

The Illinois House of Reps. passed a new bill that is actually good for outdoorsmen. We have had a "Hunter Harrassment" law in effect for some time, now our Legislators are attempting to extend it to prohibit harrassing fishermen. I am not claiming to have people intentionally attempting to prohibit me from catching fish (except my wife) but this is good news!

Good plan starting them young on good gear. I know or a few 6 and 7 y/o kids that are proficient w/ baitcasters.

Does it really matter? Really.

I sometimes get really good rods and reels for up to 50% off and they are not stolen.

I just wanted to praise Pure Fishing for their customer service. Last year I bought a couple of ABU Revo STX HS reels and thought they were the best reels that I had ever handled. One of them I used for pitching and flipping, the other with braid and swim jigs. Well, the swim jig reel went kapoot after about three months. I caught a ton of fish on this rig. Anyways, I procrastinated sending it back to Pure Fishing until last week. I enclosed a note explaining the problem and asked Pure Fishing to assess the problem, fix, and bill me. Well, four business days after I sent it, I received a brand new reel from them. No explanation included, which is ok except for my curiousity not being satisfied. Great customer service though!