moguy1973

A handful if nice sized cats would thin that bluegill population out.

Keeper and Keep Her!

I have 4 rods, but usually only use 2 unless I'm out on big water in a boat and in that case I take all 4. The other day on my kayak I took 2. One for top water and one for jigging.

Big-O, they definitely put fish on the end of the line, and they are probably one of the most realistic looking craw baits I've ever used, especially on the Rage Rig. They really seemed to like the PB&J on this particular river. Just wish they kept the claws a little better.

Sure you can. I have had the same chigger craw as a trailer on one of my jigs since at least last fall and it has caught a lot of fish. It slides up the hook some when I get a fish but is just slide it back down to the jig head and it stays there until the next fish. I would have thought with the high praise that the rage products get that they would hold up to a little more abuse than what I experienced.

Abu Veritas. You can get them on sale every now and then for $75 shipped from Walmarts website.

My only problem is I was losing both claws on most of them. I think of the 10 baits I had in the back of my kayak only 2 had one claw left. The streams we fish hold a lot of smallmouth. If the bite is on, especially on the smaller streams, it's not uncommon to catch 30-40 fish or more in a day. That means 5-6 bags of craws, and at $5 a bag that's an expensive day of fishing to me when I've caught upwards of 10-12 fish on other kinds of plastics.

Yesterday we took our kayaks out to a local stream for some smallmouth fishing. I've been reading on here about the Rage Rig so I picked up some PB&J and Bama Craw Rage Craws before heading out and some 4/0 weighted swimbait hooks with the spring keepers to try out. Seemed the smallies really liked them and I did catch quite a few on this rig. The problem lies with the claws on the baits. Just about every fish I caught would shake it's head when it got up out of the water and the claws would break off and go flying leaving me with only a craw body which obviously became a useless bait and I'd have to throw it in the back of the kayak in my trash bag. Out of the 14 Rage Craws I bought, I went through 10 of them where I lost either one or both of the claws on a head shake. Even though these baits worked very well, they are quite expensive and only getting one or two fish per craw isn't real efficient. Is there any thing I'm doing wrong in rigging them or is this the norm with the soft plastic that baits are composed of? Are the Rage Lobsters more resilient to losing their claws or do they have the same problem?

^-----This!

For $99, this is a great deal, even if the rod is mediocre (which from the reviews it's not a bad rod) it's basically a free rod because the Pro Qualifier goes for $99 normal price by itself.

Usually braid is much easier to get a backlash out. Mono and fluourocarbon are almost impossible sometimes...With braid you just keep tugging on the line as you free some of the tangle and it'll start slipping on itself and work its way out.

I have a Lowrance Elite 4x-DSI on my kayak. Has the down scan imaging which produces really accurate images of what is below the kayak such as brush and structure. Works fine for what I use it for.

You might be able to catch some snake heads with that rod, but I don't think you'll be catching many flies...

A #4 hook seems kind of small to me for a 4-5" senko. Did you mean 4/0?

I watched all the iCast videos Glenn put up on here and I agree. Okuma partnered with Scott Martin and is coming out with a pitching/flipping rod called the Mat Daddy that has an extra eye just above the rod handle to keep your line from getting tangled in your reel handle when you are flipping. Pretty cool idea if you ask me because my line is always getting wrapped around the handle when I'm flipping. From what Scott said in the video it's going to be priced around $130-140 too...

http://www.bassmaster.com/sites/default/files/imce/2013EliteRules.pdf They don't drug test per the rules, but it states clearly in section C6 (iv) in the official BASSmaster rules and regulations: (iv) Chemical substance addict ion or abuse, conviction of a felony or crimes involving moral turpitude, or other conduct reflecting unfavorably upon efforts to promote safety, sports manship, fair competition and compliance with tournament rules shall be grounds for rejecting any application for partici pation and/or for disqualificat ion after circumstances are reviewed by the Tournament Director. Any disqualification suspension from, or other disci plinary action regarding any tournament or fishing organization shall be grounds for reject ing any application for participation in a BASS tournament and/or disqualification from a BASS tournament after ci rcumstances are reviewed by the Tournament Director. Also in section C6 (i): (i) Use of alcohol or drugs (other than those purchased over-the- counter or prescribed by a licensed physician) by any competitor during the official practice or during the tournament will not be tolerated and shall be cause for automatic disqualification from this and all future B.A.S.S. tournaments. No alcoholic beverages, other non prescription stimulants or depressants, shall be allowed in the boats during the official practice or competition days, or when in the weigh-in area.

http://www.bassmaster.com/news/100-best-bass-lakes-2013

According to Bassmaster's top 100 bass lakes (2013), Texas has the most lakes on the list at 11. Florida is next with 8.

In Missouri, the water patrol is also state highway patrol who are cops, and yeah, they ask for your fishing license. And not that it's happened to me, but they will ticket you for not having one.

The new BPS Bionic Plus is on sale until Aug 1st for $60. Super smooth, aluminum frame, lots of gear ratios to choose from, left hand reel available, it's white, large spool capacity(not braid ready though), mag and centri brakes. It's like the pro qualifier's baby brother. Can't go wrong with the Pro Qualifier either.

I always say, A bad day fishing is way better than a good day at work!

The guy has been given a ticket for the violation. Pretty much a slap on the wrist and a fine. Good thing is, the canoe outfitters/campground owners that are on the two streams he posted pictures on have been notified and are keeping an eye out for this guy and won't allow him to use their facilities anymore

Reason why I ask if bass feed on baby catfish is that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law have 2 ponds behind their house. One is a nice 2-3 acre pond that is chocked full of small LM bass (with some 4lb+ mixed in), large 5lb+ catfish, and large bluegill. The other pond is about 1/2-3/4 of an acre and has big carp and is probably overloaded with catfish. We see schools of probably 100 or so fingerling catfish swimming on the surface throughout the day. They had both lakes shocked by the conservation department a couple years ago during a stocking, and they said the larger pond has an overpopulation of bass and the smaller one has way too many catfish. We've slowly been transferring small bass (less than 10") up to the smaller pond from the bigger one since then. We don't think there are too many bluegill for forage in the smaller pond or at least we haven't caught many out of there. Usually when fishing with worms we catch a catfish every cast or so. Anyways, this year while fishing the smaller pond they've been catching quite a few larger bass in the 16-18" range. So they are feeding on something in there and I was just wondering if they are in fact eating the small catfish. They all have been really skinny bass though. My wife caught one this past weekend that was 18.5" but it was only 1lb 11oz. That should be at least a 3lb fish if it was nourished well. We would start transferring some bluegill up to the smaller pond too but we are worried that they would get annihilated by the bigger catfish that are in the small pond and wouldn't have a chance to reproduce enough to feed the bass and the catfish both.

Where is "Hilltop Pond"? Glad you've caught something out of that part of the Meramec, because that's not the easiest stretch to get things to bite like it used to be.

There are a lot of ponds here that are fishless lakes. The Conservation Dept even lists smaller ponds on some of their Conservation areas as being "fishless" ponds.