bassinyea

So I am about to buy a new topwater bait to play with since our best topwater season is starting. I have narrowed it down between these two. Any opinions on which one you guys like better? I am talking about the new vixen by Reaction Innovations and Paycheck baits Repo Man.

Yea i remember catching a couple of fish on it out of a pond I think but obviously didn't think too much of it considering it made it into my "retired" lures tacklebox. You are right flyingmonkie it would have been around mid 90s or so I think.

They are good baits for sure. Def like the 130 size over the 90. It is the type of bait that you want to make a big disturbance with and it attracts the big ones. I have the loon color and have been catching some lately on it. Decent ripple on the water and overcast doesnt hurt. Bass here right now are in all phases of spawn and it seems to make them mad.

Just wondering if anyone knows what this lure was called? Found it buried deep in my old abandoned tackle box with all the other old relics. Pretty sure it was made by Berkley, but that's all I know. Battery was low on phone so no flash sorry. It is a rattle trap upper body with a plastic slide in tail.

Just received my HDS gen3 today and noticed a few features that I thought were interesting. One thing that I noticed is that under chart sources it not only has lowrance, it has navionics. Never knew it had navionics built in? Also one thing that is bugging me is that I cannot find "Speed over ground" in my overlay data under GPS which is where I thought it would be. I did upgrade to version 3.0 this afternoon. If anyone can give me some input I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

I have owned the NOCO genius and the minn kotas. Both are of very good quality.

LC Gunfish.

I used the freedom stealth jigheads with great success last year fishing deep standing timber with swimbaits. Keitech swing impact fat 4.5 with 5/0 hook was working on em good. I used the 1/2 and 3/4 oz size the most and slow rolled it through the timber and had absolutely no problem with hangups. Timber was really thick too.

I just about bought a Garmin echoMap93sv, until I played with the new one my neighbor bought. I loved the unit how easy it was and the screen display is very good. That being said, the sidevu imaging is not near as crisp as what I have seen on humminbirds and lowrance units.

According to the guy I spoke to at lowrance tech support, the Hook series has a little faster processor than the original HDI Elite series. That is the one complaint I have with my elite 7 hdi is that it is slow to respond to pressing buttons, especially when running DI, Sonar, and Mapping all at the same time. Hopefully the Hook series has that issue fixed.

Thanks for all the replies. I figured everything was working correctly. I guess I will just run the range on auto most of the time and let it figure it out for me. Gotta say that the images coming through on the LSS2 are pretty impressive. I played around some with the contrast and the 800/455 frequencies and was able to get some very good resolution of some rock piles I knew about and saw a bunch of stumps I never knew were there.

So I just installed my new HDS 9 Gen2 touch yesterday and took it out to the lake today to test it out. I installed the LSS2 transducer and the regular 83/200 transducer and installation went a lot easier than I expected. That being said I noticed something on my side imaging that I am not sure is a problem or just because I am not in deep enough water. When I set my range out past 80 or so feet, it is just dark past that range left or right. You cannot see any bottom details or anything. Is this normal? I am not sure if it is just because the lake I was testing on is pretty flat and the deepest water in the lake is 20 feet. Do you need to be in deeper water to use the longer sidescan ranges? I really appreciate any help that is provided.

Please delete.

Im pretty sure bass feed on the bottom as well as the top of the water and everywhere in between. I think what was meant is that bass are not bottom feeders....except when they feed on the bottom.

Lews BB1 Pro is a beast. Great line capacity for long distance casting and braking works like butter.

I use the BOSS football heads from the t warehouse. They make them in both a heavy wire version and regular version. I use the regular version and get rock solid hooksets even on really long casts.

I really like the lighter wire version of hooks better for football jigs. I fish them on 15 lb fluoro in about 15 foot of water this time of year. When I say light wire I dont really mean that they are very light but definitely thinner gauge than a flipping jig. It is much easier to get penetration on the hookset especially on a long cast. I switched over to all lighter wire hooks after fishing one day with some heavy gauge football jigs and they kept hitting it on the fall at the end of a long cast and I kept missing them. They were hitting it before it ever hit the bottom and I just couldnt connect. Got rid of those and switched to the lighter hook and all problems were solved.

Zoom Ol Monster, Missile Tomahawk, and Berkley Power worms for curly tails. Manns Jelly Worms for straight tail big worms. I always fish them on a swinghead.

This is the exact way i fish the tomahawks. I use the freedom tackle swingheads that allow you to change hooks. I use a 6/0 Trokar Magworm hook with the tomahawks and it is deadly this time of year.

5XD's are definitely great crankbaits. That being said, I have seen enough fish caught on my boat with an NXS that I am a believer in them as well. I will probably pick up a couple when I get around to it. There is one thing that I don't like about the 5XD that you will notice if you fish one enough. As long as the bottom is 9-12 foot deep, grinding the bottom is no problem and they kick really good grinding the bottom. Some of the places we fish drop quickly from 6 or 7 feet down to about 20 feet. If you fish a 5XD in water shallower than 9 foot or so it will lock up on the retrieve. By this I mean it will stop its side to side kicking action and just kind of pull in. When it does this you have to jerk your rod to get it kicking again. I have noticed this on every 5XD I have fished so I know it is not just a certain bait that might not be just right. I think it has to do with the upward angle on the front of the lip on the bait that creates a really steep diving angle causes it to lock up in water shallower than its designed to run.

Yea I watched on youtube how to tie an alberto knot to connect the braid to the fluoro. I was using a double uni knot at first and I believe the alberto is a little bit lower profile knot and seems to hold great.

What is your preference for spinning reels? I cannot seem to keep line twists out even with a spinshot dropshot hook and using high quality fluoro. I have just recently switched to braid with fluoro leader and I love it.

If you are using a 12 pound leader you are certainly one cast away from a disaster. I would up it to 20 or 25 to feel good about my investment.

Here lately my friend has been throwing two different colors of his NXS crankbaits and has been catching fish on them and really likes them. I have been throwing a Strike King 5xd alot. Both seem to catch fish about the same. He just started using this crankbait last year and he obviously is a fan of them because he always has one tied on this time of year. He knows a lot about crankbaits too. I dont have any NXS's and I have caught a ton of fish on 5xd's so been sticking with that. Forgot to add they both run to very similar depth it seems. Action to me seems somewhat similar as well.

I only venture out on the lake to do two different things. One is serious bass fishing and the other is to relax and chill on the lake, do some swimming and chilling in the sun. If I am bass fishing or really fishing of any sort I never drink. Slows me down and things are too serious to even think about drinking. If I am out with the family and friends on their pontoon, it is a different story. Never get carried away though.