Missourifishin

It's definitely worth a try. I've only fished the Salt a couple times and it was the south fork down in Audrain and Monroe counties. Didn't have much luck myself on those two trips. But I know people who have caught all kinds of fish there, including smallmouth. I've seen people pulling out stringers full of crappie. And a guy who used to live next door to me who was from the area you're talking about spoke highly of the fishing on the Salt up there. So I say go for it!

This topic brings up a couple of questions for me. There is a friend of my family who owns a small lake. I fished it quite a few times in 2012. The only one that fished it regularly was the friends young daughter, and no on besides me ever harvested a fish to my knowledge. There is still a decent population of healthy sized catfish. And he claims that someone once caught a large bass. But after fishing all day on several occasions, it seems to me that the only species that is healthy there is the catfish. I would catch TINY bass and bluegill all day, without any being "keepers". What should be done there? I guess I could help him thin the heard and have a big fish fry. But cleaning all of those tiny fish would be an absurd amount of work, relative to how much meat I'd get from each of them. Second question, which is basically a similar situation: A close family member recently bought a house where he shares an 8 acre lake with 2 neighbors. And in the 16 years that the houses have been there, no one has ever fished the lake other than a few kids that the previous owner of this house let come over and fish. We're pretty sure there are catfish, but we didn't attempt to catch cats much before summer rapidly turned into winter. All we've caught are tons of bluegill and a couple of crappie. And only a few of the bluegills have been keepers. The two situations I described are clear cases of lakes suffering from overpopulation. But what course of action would you advise my family member and friend to take?

I don't think you need to fish a squarebill or other crank extremely slow in the shallows. I like to change up my speeds frequently anyway, so I would be changing the speed at which I turned the handles no matter what ipt my reel was. Before I got into baitcasters, I had no problem fishing cranks with my 7' m/f and mh/f spinning setups. Now though, I wouldn't fish a crank on a spinning setup unless the lure was VERY light, or if I decide to fish spur of the moment and only have my 2 piece spinning rod in my truck.

Wow!

Selective harvest can be a good thing. Over-population leads to stunted growth.

Do you have plenty of lures and other tackle? That would affect what advice I would give you. For example, if you need more lures, hooks, weights and such, I would suggest spending a little less than $200 on your rod and reel so you can get some other stuff to tie onto the end of your line

I understand man. It always annoys me when sellers aren't clear about that.

Exactly. Both brands have some loyal fans. The answers you get are going to reflect that. I'm a Lews guy myself.

I do those things too. I also organize all my tackle, and then reorganize it a couple times. Usually put new line on some reels. Last year I also spent way too much money on new gear. And I'll probably do it again this year. In fact, I just found an amazing deal on a reel I've been wanting, so I pulled the trigger on it. Now I need to find a rod to go with it On the bright side, I was just looking at the forecast. Looks like there is a possibility that we might scrape the 50 degree mark next Thursday, and 46 the following day. I'm clearing my afternoon schedule for those days! I would prefer a few degrees warmer than that. But at this point, I'll take it!!

I believe the 2 in Vendetta2 implies the same thing that the 2.0 in Veritas 2.0 does, which is that it is the 2nd (new and improved) version of the rod. Edit: KritterGitter beat me to it

On most of the crankbaits I fish, I like chartreuse as well as natural looking shad colors. It seems like it's been chartreuse in spring and natural colors in fall for me the last couple of years. In texas rigged soft plastics I tend to go with something darker like green pumpkin. I'm still trying to figure out what I like in jigs and jig trailers, but dark colors like black and blue are probably my favorites. Spinnerbaits, I usually go with brighter colors.

I've never owned either of those rods, so take my comments with a grain of salt. But I have handled both recently on two different trips to Bass Pro. I really like the feel of both of them! I don't think you can go wrong with either. But I really fell in love with that Duckett Ghost. I'm very tempted to buy one, even though I don't need a new rod right now. And this is coming from a guy who is usually a dedicated St Croix fan.

It seems like people walk 20 yards out of their way when I'm bank fishing, just to come over and make me nervous that they may step on one of my rods.

A high number of catches on a lure leads to confidence for me. And it helps if some of the fish are good sized ones too. However, I think having confidence in certain lures has actually held me back a little bit when it comes to gaining skill and confidence with other techniques. I'm always trying to learn new things. But I think my tendency to revert to the techniques I'm confident in, in fear of getting skunked, has slowed down my development of skill in other areas just a bit. And I'm sure I'm not the only fisherman to ever get stuck in that rut.

I usually like to plan things, and that includes fishing trips occasionally. But more often than not, my fishing just has to be spontaneous. That's just the nature of having my free time have to line up with the weather. A lot of the time, if I do plan a trip, it doesn't work out. Last week for example, I really thought I was going to be able to get about 3 hours of fishing in on Thursday. Walked outside to discover some pretty extreme gusts of wind, so I didn't go.

The make a casting reel called the Supreme, and also a spinning one. So you might want to specify which one you're asking about. I've never handled the baitcasting one myself.

I'm a big St. Croix fan. I've never used a Mojo spinning rod. But I have a casting one that I like a lot. There are a lot of options to check out around $100 though.

M/F sounds about right to me.

I have a tournament speed spool. My next reel purchase is going to be a tournament PRO speed spool. Great reels.

I've never ice fished. But a friend of mine did last winter. And he showed off pictures of nice sized bass and catfish he caught.

Road Warrior nailed it. Those are my favorite jigs and colors.

I have cork and eva, split and full. I switch back and forth from one to the other and barely notice the difference. So I don't have much of a preference.

Thanks guys. Great info. Feel free to keep it coming I do have a follow up question though: What disadvantages other than casting distance would be involved if you used a rod shorter than 7'6" and possibly less than a heavy power?

I caught a huge carp on a tube down at LOZ when I was a kid.

I don't have experience with it. But usually the rods in those combos aren't very good. I agree with the others who suggested a BPS rod. I got a tourney special for $50 and I think it is a good rod for the price. It would match up with a President well, imo.