PABASS

I am trying the Snell knot as well this year, hopefully I can try it out haven't been to many places that I couldn't get away with a jig instead.

please share how it performs, I would be interested to know how it does in the dark as well..

I will advise that you downsize, smaller hooks and lures. If the river is like mine and its rocky prepare to loose lots of lures, buy cheap hooks when used with bottom contact fishing. I like using spider jigs, tubes, hula grubs, grubs, senkos and d shads. Depending on the mood of the fish you can drift the bait or make ground contact, which you can still drift depending on the water flow. Fish will typically face the current or it will be to there side, they are sitting in ambush areas so break the river down that way. You don't always need to cast up into current especially if you find a deep hole, since the fish might be positioned as such not facing into current and you might not be able to get any better of an angle. In my area that I fish it has a few holes and I can wade in most of them but I am very tall some of these holes are 5ft-6ft deep, try to find holes like this, try to break down the river and find slow moving current, but smallies can be in the fast water as well. I will never forget an encounter with a huge smallmouth, to my right was the smallie in slack water, to my left and the smallies left was fast current he was sitting in this spot ready to ambush, I tossed my spider jig way up and simply let it drift to him and he missed it(how in the world he missed it I will never know), he came down further to me and I could almost touch him when he spooked from seeing me, that smallie would have went 5#s easy and those are not a typical target fish in my little area. I just got into river fishing few years ago and learned allot from trout fisherman so watch videos on both and it will help.

Just leave them alone, as one already said they will be gone soon enough, they are not doing something for fun, they are there with reason, life and spreading there genetics.. Just be lucky its not a bear..

I have set the hook on many of trees, rocks and a few window panes lol, but yet to fall, with my balance I just move and sometimes fall off the boat...

I can tell you the #1 thing I hate in videos is when people put in music, all you need is natural sounds and your voice, nothing more. I want to hear the fish slam that topwater, or you slam that fish with your jig, brings me in closer to your moment which is what your trying to capture I would imagine.

I don't have allot of faith in packaging, with labels such as "All Natural" which means nothing, I would double check some info according to wiki antibiotics are used, hormones however are not..

You may be right about the Antibiotics that is why the chicken nugget gets loaded with ammonia, however with that said I have been told not to eat certain places on a chicken due the injection areas for the hormones. I do know they are larger and selective breeding wasn't the only reason. Also look at cancer rise and heart disease, you cant tell me our super food doesn't play some role in this. FishChris, there are factual evidence as to whats polluting our fisheries, its run off from these super farms plain and simple, I encourage you to read a study done on the Chesapeake water shed.

Growth hormones, the scientific name I would have to look that up, chickens from 30 years ago were smaller, we now grow them quicker and larger then the same animal from the short past, its not what we feed them which I am sure super farms want you to believe. We buy our eggs local and mostly cage free, the eggs are as yellow as the sun and taste like an egg, we try to buy our chicken cage free and again its tastes like chicken and will blow you away, the eggs are much cheaper the chickens are higher so we cant always get them, however when we can we do. I cant stress how much better the eggs and chickens tasted, it blew me away. Another something to add, cage free chickens actually produce omega3 packed eggs much higher then some of the fruits and vegies labeled as such, store eggs do not truly contain much omega3s.. One of my local farmers got out of farming because of a divorce but going to his farm was an eye opening experience, in PA we have large chicken farms and milk farms and they stink. In the dead of summer while visiting his farm I was surprised to smell nothing but what you expect, freshly cut grass, honey dew but not farm smell, he had over a hundred chickens, 6 pigs, ducks, geese, dozens of turkeys and lots of dogs and it didn't smell. I noticed something else I wasn't getting eaten alive by insects, due to the chickens and turkeys taking care of them its all a circle, its all connected. The pigs are setup in a cage that can be move easily and they are like a tractor, they dig up the dirt, they lay down fertilizer. Chickens are the pesticide and fertilizer, they ate the bugs trying to eat the crops, the crops feed the animals and clean the air, he rotated this system his crops and had tons of food, I just wish he still did it, now I buy from another larger supplier whom isn't as cheap.

I try something that's not a shimano and then I always come back. Although I might be giving a team diawa a try this year. I have a cheap shimano reel that I used when I was 8-9 and I just used it this weekend for my son, reel is 23yrs old, most of shimanos are 15+ years old..

GMO labeled foods will soon be here, some suppliers are already labeling products as such and Europe already has this mandated. What people fail to understand about GMOs is the nature in which they were created, Monsanto co has a patent on such a GMO, the soy bean as crazy as it sounds, food has been patented. Basically they Monsanto made a soy resident to guess what RoundUp and guess who makes/sells round up “Monsanto” so while there may not be any so called “health benefits” I can tell you growing and or eating local gets you a step closer to know what’s going in your body. Organic is another, they are removing the chemicals, the hormones and the antibiotics from our food all for good reason, I don’t need a study to tell me I don’t want that in my body, am I not a health nut, do I eat bad yes but I buy local when I can and organic when I can, it just makes sense. Put something else in perspective, people also fail to realize where ecoli outbreaks come from, basically a cow didn't evolve to eat corn as so many are feed, this leads to infection because the cows cant naturally digest corn feed, thus we humans pump them full of antibiotics soon making super virus’s and also spreading deadly viruses such as ecoli and even mad cow disease since some cows are feed meat into corn. In this age we forget how connected we really are, this all spins around and does affect you. The run off from, these super farms end up in your fishing waters which in turn will cause fish die off, allot of these issues can be resolved, using techniques that have existed. I will ask, do you know that a chicken nugget has ammonia in it, look it up and I would suggest everyone read and omnivores dilemma and or watch Food Inc// Its ironic really we are more connected then we have ever been yet even less connected than we have even been to our food. On the other side of the coin I have read that organic farms are grown right along normal farms, and there is no “guarantee” runoff doesn't occur, again buy local and know your farmers. If you look at what is happening in the Susquehanna and the bay, run-off is the reason and we can fix it and if we dont one of the top 5 smallies areas in our nation will no longer be, keep this in mind when you buy local, no GMOs or organic its not just healthy for you, but your home, and your fishes homes..

Anyone try out one of these frog lures out? They look legit and have seen a good number of you-tube videos on them.

you should send that photo into Rapala who knows maybe they will send you some free baits, congrats on the pb..

The cold was bad here as well we had frost warnings.. I am sure this shut down fishing in allot of areas, my 4yr son and I hit up a local pond and he caught three bass on a bobber and watermelon/blk flk grub..

That is an awesome photo!!

Yes I hear allot about Boga Grips as well, but they are not cheap..

Funny and a good story, I thought it was going in the direction of the frog ate my fog..

I would sell off any plastics that have not been used in a two years time. Currently I sort my plastics by type and then by color, however if I had a ton I would mirror what brick and mortar stores do brand, type, size, color.

Question about your chatter swim, do you take the skirts off or keep them on and or does some other factor dictate that choice? OP for me it would be Jerkbait, Jig and DropShot in that order.

Also salt water fish tend to have more and bigger teeth that typical freshwater so keep that in mind with some of your bass baits which were not designed with that in mind, may want to wash all lures off when done in fresh clean water.

You can try to call again and ask for a Manager, but if they say NO, I will echo whats been said here don't do it. Sadly you have incriminated yourself by taking a photo of said location, all it takes is one person to find that photo and the owners to press charges, listen to the warnings fish some where else.

Ask questions, Bill Dance always told us to ask questions and I do and it normally pays off. I am fishing allot of new waters lately and asking questions, depth, lure type or lure, color has helped me produce fish.

If its a senko it will sink they are loaded with salt, I never not had one sink for me either. You could also try a small nail weight changes the action a bit, however get a faster sink rate.

The trouble with FC for me is the light test 6#s Palomar knots break easy, improved clinch doesn't fair well either, trying the uni to see how it goes.

Yes there is, crankbaits will be the primary use, the rod I want is for bait casters only. Also my proficiency might be different then others so its easy to take out of context and what I mean by that if I birdsnest more then once during an 8 hour tourny I am a bit upset its really a confidence thing and the only way to beat that is to keep using it. Plus my current setup while it works is rather old and I need another caster in my arsenal. Thanks for all the replies, I was looking at the revos and the shimanos I need to get one in my hand to see how it feels, leaning more towards the curado.