Lil'skeeter

My mom and dad separated when I was two but i got to spend the summers with my dad. My granddad owned a small bait shop in a small town in Louisiana and my dad would take me bream fishing as far back as I can remember. I started bass fishing seriously at 18 when my wife bought me my first "bait caster" (yeah I was actually married at 17)! Been hooked ever since. All my kids have grown up fishing and still love it...I built my granddaughter a custom rod and she can't wait until Pawpaw takes her fishing. What a life! Gotta love it...... and yeah, still married to my high school sweetheart.

Thanks for your input. I read the article and didn't see anything conclusive. Roadwarrior, I hear what you're saying but that's not a good comparison (not that you had info to compare). The lake I'm talking about is 2,000 surface acres, Fork is over 27,000. Fork has had over 11,000,000 fingerlings stocked in it since '95 (around 600,000) a year, my lake has had 230,000 in two stockings (none since 2002) in the same time period. I know I'm hard-headed...I just can't see that this won't hurt it. Anyway...I hope to see more responses......for my side...LOL!

I think fishing for bedding fish is detrimental to the spawn. What is your opinion? Does it harm the spawn? Do you think it has no effect on the fish? The parks department at our local lake is planning an open tournament next weekend on our local lake. Some of the water was 58 degrees this past Tuesday, the temps are supposed to be in the mid to upper 70's all next week. I feel this will move the fish onto the beds. This lake (as small as it is) is one of the most popular lakes in our area and could draw 100 boats or better for this tournament. I'm afraid most will be targeting the fish that are on beds and feel this will really hurt this years spawn. Am I overly concerned?

If this link works you may want to read this. It sounds like an awesome trip! http://www.fishgame.com/article.php?ArticleID=5259&MainCategoryID=6 If not here's the page...go down to Texas Kayaking: A Devil of a Time... http://www.fishgame.com/CategoryList.php?values=6,Boat%20and%20Kayak May have to copy and paste....not sure how to make it a live link........hope it's ok to link to this.... Tested it and the links work.

I've had that happen a few times. Nice chunk and sounds like a great day. Congrats!

00 mod...that would be sweet! There have been 7's and 8's caught at the last three weekend tournaments. A-Jay....I've had a few of those....I could never quite remember the spot to go and actually try to catch one there. Dwight...you smallie looks bigger than my largemouth... Yeah AK-NJ1986 and don't have to pee as much. Thanks Guys!

Air temp was in the upper 30's starting off, and the water temp was in the lower 50's on most of the lake. I found some warmer water and caught 12. This one was my third fish that morning about 30 minutes into fishing. Warmed me up pretty good. 8.6 lbs. LOL....I had to blur out the background 'cause our club is having a tournament there next weekend.

I've always used a snap ring instead of the o-ring. I had some large ones laying around (fits senko type baits perfectly) and thought it might work and now that's all I use.

Here are the flick-shakes I use. 1/16, 3/32, 1/8, 3/16 & 1/4 oz.

Replace it with a Silicone Carbide (SiC) tip and you shouldn't have any more problems. They're a little more expensive but it's about the hardest guide material out there. Never had any problems with std. guides yet.

My Pfluegers came with extras, surprised your reel didn't. Southwest parts here in the Dallas area probably has some.

No Pfluegers? 3 Presidents, 3 Trions, 1 Supreme, 1 Trion spinning. Never had any problems with them. Also 3 BPS Extremes.

I have two Kistlers that had guides come loose so I re-wrapped them with spiral wrapped micros. I love 'em. I've built three rods with spiral micros for club members and they like them as well. You can definitely tell the difference when you replace regular guides with micros, in weight and sensitivity.

I have a swimming fluke I can put in place of the watermelon curly tail......thanks, I think I will do that.

x2 ...NOW THAT RIGHT DARES FUNNY!

My local lake is 5 min. away and is 2000 acres and even with the droughts we have I can usually still get my boat on it. It has good LM bass, crappie, catfish and white/sand bass populations. Unlike natural lakes, in drought conditions our lakes can drop 3 to 100 ft. Granted the greatest drops are in larger/deeper reservoirs. Lake Arlington (my local) is down a little over 5' but we had some good rainfall yesterday so hopefully it came up a little. Still a great lake with some big Florida's in it. I think the lake record is just over 14 lbs.

X2

I have three jig molds and am seriously looking at 4 more.....and i have been contemplating on a hand injector and a few molds of baits that I use a lot. I have plenty of time to do it (unemployed)....but not the funds (unemployed)...lol. Actually, I just sold some Wacky jig heads and chatterbaits I made and did some rod repairs for a few friends so I do have some funds to put towards it. Just really hesitant right now. I've made a couple of hand pour molds but you have to be really steady to pour good baits or you'll have to do a lot of trimming. Check out you tube under making worm molds.

Wow...that would look really nice on the rod in my profile pic......nice work. Did it go back together ok? Did you have to trim any epoxy off where the parts meet?

I've never spent much time swimming jigs and have only caught one fish that I can truly say was caught while purposefully swimming a jig. I saw a couple on this forum that had blades attached to the hook and I made a couple of those to try. I posted this pic somewhere yesterday but can't remember what topic it was in....(it's tuff getting old) but here are some I'm trying this weekend. I may replace one of the watermelon grubs with a swimming fluke just to see if the trailer makes any difference. The two white ones are some snootie jigs I made, the two bottom left are Mann's Stone jigs, the bottom right is a *** jig. Have any of you used a long trailer like a 5 or 7 inch worm? It seems like I saw somewhere where a pro won a tournament using one. Any tips on swimming these through hydrylla?

Not much here either....not enough of a discount to entice me into buying. Geeze.........gotta love Texas!

Hopefully I will find out which ones to use. I have a tournament this Sat. on a lake with a lot of Hydrylla and put some skirts and trailers together. I got the idea of the blades from this forum......hope they work.

Wait until the ice is gone? You poor souls......nothin' like rippin' a red rattletrap through the hydrylla in Jan. and Feb. on Lake Fork! WHAM! That'll warm you up.

This is the only book I've read.....tells you everything you need to know...lol. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/largemouth-bass-in-fisherman-staff-and-staff-researchers/1113595488 I think they have a newer version, this one was printed in 1990. Google Largemouth bass handbook and you see the newer ones.

I keep a 20 ga. available......never in a safe. The last thing I want to do in the middle of the night is try to open a safe when an intruder is in the house. Granted, I don't have young kids in the house and can appreciate your concern. Glad I live in Texas.....