PABASS

First never put your safety at risk if you cant find another partner don't go, especially on a new large lake. Second in our club we do a random drawling for boaters and riders now granted we are not competing in high level tournys but it works. Third go with your gut, in NJ I would imagine there are other clubs never hurts to take another look at one.

I like the drawling, this is what I love about fishing it can be as simple as a worm on a hook or a strange as stitching a 15inch black worm. I have thought about all kinds of trailer hooks but rarely do I use them, I have thought about what you are doing for spinners and buzzbaits, its awesome that its producing for you as well, I just cant buy a bite on spinnerbaits thus far this year. Look up stinger hooks on you-tube, really depending on the water you can put trailer hooks on almost everything, but you might remove or change the action in a way, which may be a good thing.

Hello all I am looking for an broad technique reel for cranking and jerkbaits, I might also use it for a swimbait and spinner bait here and there. Most lures used will be in the 3/8 ounce range or less. I am not a proficient bait-caster, especially with light lures or windy days, so this model will need to account for that as I use allot of light lures. I am looking at the 130-200$ range preferably closer to the 150 range. It needs to be easy to maintain and work when I need it, I am not a fan of lews so lets keep these off the table for now.

What blows my mind is that I have been fishing for many years and in the roughly 2 years I been visiting this site I have more than tripled my knowledge about bass fishing. I have just about read every article under fishing articles lol.. Sadly I didn't grow up with anyone putting a pole in my hand, I grew up loving to fish and learning fishing on my own, wish I had this resource back then. My first year doing a tournament and I am 4rth overall in my club, never really been in a bass boat before this year and never in a tournament setting, caught the biggest lunker this year and continue to catch 17+ inch bass every outing I have this site to thank for that. In the past I used to think a 13inch bass was nice, now a 17inch bass is nice and anything under 19 doesn't even get a photo lol..

Each line has its strengths and weaknesses, I can tell you finding FC vendor that I like is hard and will advise you to stay away from the cheap FC from stren or berkley they do not perform.

Cool we are going to Hammond next month, spend any time on the waters there?

I have read this as well, Aaron Marten recommends a uni knot when using FC and for dropshoting. Last week I used a dropshot exclusively with FC and while the Palomar knot didn't fail at the wrong time it did break a few times. Been using the Berkeley braid knot for FC and Braid and its worked great thus far.

Line to Line = Modified Albright any line Mono = Improve Clinch best knot for mono for me Braid = Double Palomar FC = Palamor/Improve Clinch I am having problems finding an easy knot for FC, Aron recommends a uni knot even for drop shoting and I might give this a try. Rapala Knot for mono and Pop-Rs and walk the dog style baits.

Check you tube for pet bass, there is a ton of them..

I tried a Veritas and I like the rod, very light, sensitive but quality control isn't comparable to a st. croix and I find that is the case with other oem, I am looking at the Crucial but I keep looking back at the Avids.

What did you get her on?

SPEED you are on them!! Pleas share lol..

One of my oldest rods is a St.Croix still use it today and I remember the day I got it back in 1997, still paired with my Calcutta and just used it this weekend!! I own a bunch and enjoy them all..

Why not try a jig in the laydowns and pick those tree apart? Depending on the day/cloud cover I would use a pop-r and or buzzbait to get the active fish in the morning.

I would love to caught those all day long, nice fish. Did you get her on the pop-r?

Largest LMB was in FL on few day old shrimp under a float went around 8#s. Second LMB was in PA on a hula grub on a shaky head, 5# 1 ounce, about 10 feet of water letting the wind drift the bait.

I cant recall his name atm but a local texan is doing very well on the Bassmasters I think this year or last year was his first ever and he already won an elite, I bet he beat local and non locals alike and why he decided to go pro. I am not saying that somewhere a local cant compete I am saying in my experience I haven't meet one yet. Also keep in mind PA isn't known for Pro Bass fisherman, we have them but its hard to compete against a person that can fish all year round. I only know a few joes and they are local to me and I don't see them being able to compete against a KVD, I hope I am wrong. It sounds like you know a few that believe they can compete against a pro, why do they believe that?

I have found that locals don't typically read electronics or know what there electronics are telling them, a Pro doesn't make this mistake. A pro for sure would beat out the local guru or any said body of water any day of the week, month or year. Think about this each pro has there own local body of water that they probably grew up fishing but yet the local pros don't always win them. Keep in mind Pros are not catching fish they are catching the largest stringer of 5 fish they can, locals typically wont target the 5 biggest fish in the lake, the pros do and for good reason. These guys are smart, logical thinkers that can break down a lake before getting to the lake, maybe even develop a big bite pattern before they even hit the water. Could you imagine if you were that local that destroyed everyone else in your area, competing against KVD, when Pros are scared of you then what you think a local would do?

1. do you feel tournament fishing has made you a better angler than you would have been without fishing them? Been fishing for little over 25 years and this year is the first year that I have joined a bass club, so far since I don't own a boat this has put me where the fish are. I suspect that it will make me a better angler but at this point has not. What has certainly made me a better angler is the internet, specifically you tube and this website, in the past I had no one to ask what knot to use, what lure to use, where to find fish and list goes on, I learned this on my own, read about in a magazine or tv show, now with the internet my level has gone up and I can find any information I need from my smartphone while fishing. I hope I can gain knowledge from this club and time will tell. 2. were you good before you started fishing tournaments or were you a novice hoping to get better? Since I mostly fished alone I cant say that I was good, but I typically caught fish, I mainly joined the club to find fellow anglers and be a rider on a bass boat.

I had the same problem with Stren FC, it wasn't my setup causing the issue but every time I would birds-nest it would weaken the line and my lure would go flying. I had two spools of stren FC and I used this as leader material until it did the same thing, cheap FC if it gets bent it weakens the line. Now I am trying Seaguar Blue Label Leader material ,if this fails I not sure that I will be using FC again. Now I use the stren FC to practice tying knots and some of the stuff directly off the spool breaks easily, a bit disappointing since in the past stren was the only line company used. I have read people loving Tatsu but 40$ for line that will need to wait till next year.

Personally I like mono for my treble hook applications 8-12#, I just land more fish with it. I have tried fireline and nanofill and lost more fish when using it, I use a sweep type hook set and with braid I felt I would pull the bait from the fish too fast and not get a good hook set. The mono I use is Berkley XT it seems to have less stretch then stren and defiantly has better abrasion resistance. I dont have a "true" crankbait rod so with that your mileage could be different.

Very flat where you live, I would say man made, could be spring feed do yo see any run-off to a small stream or any runoff at all? Depending on the temps not seeing any fish doesn't means its a total bust. I would be cautious however of fishing something you know very little about, I would recommend making sure that's its public land and you are able to fish it. Check on Google maps and see if you can find this pond, go back into history to see how much it changed or if it even existed, I think you can go back to 10 years or more. If the pond is older than 10 years chances are someone put something in there and might be worth more research.

We are going to take it!! Rock on!!

Try this.. Bagels yum. had started fishing a very small private pond for bass and noticed 5 or 6 large grass carp cruising. So the next day I came back and fished for 5 hours for them with no luck. I was chumming with bread and they would swim around the hooked bread ball scared by the line or hook and then would eat all the bread off the surface. The second day I rigged up just a clear controller float with a 1/0 hook and a piece of bagel. They were still hesitant of the bait but i was eventually able to rig it so that the hook would sit on top of the floating bagel and out of the water and view of the fish. Had a couple of them mouth it then spit it out then finally I hooked and landed this 54″ monster. Too bad I didn’t have a large enough scale to weight it.

Good review, I Might try this stuff next year with a new reel. Currently I use Fireline and NanoFIll with Seaguar blue label leader material and its working out well..