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@gastonguy52, Up in IL here I primarily fish a lot of smaller ponds (less than 5 acres) Some of them are neighborhood ponds which have almost no structure/cover at all. You just have to look at see what areas are different and walking an entire pond will give you the best insight as to what is under the water and where the fish are holding. I do a lot of fan casting as well. I'm still figuring this out as well, but I look for things that make a specific area different. For example, I look to see if there is an inlet that feeds the pond, or if one area has a rocky bottom or mud/sand or if the edge of the pond is straight or has a jagged edge. Sometimes trees nearby cast a shadow onto the pond and I have found fish holding in that area. The other part of the equation is finding what the fish want. I've had a lot of success with zoom super flukes and senkos. With that said, I typically catch 3-4 fish every outing (3-4 hrs). Maybe someone with more experience can chime in.

Hmm, I haven't had the braid break off like that, might want to check your guides. Take q tip and run it on the inside of the guides to see if you have any knicks or burrs.

Just some helpful advice on the adware. The correct name of the program is Malware Bytes Anti-Malware. As for snap.do, if it's not in the add/remove programs area, it could be located in the extensions area of the browser. For google chrome, go to -> settings, then choose extensions. good luck.

I am a big fan of the PQ's as well. I have a 5.3 to 1 and a 6.4 to 1, both have set the centrifical brakes to 2, magenetic to 1 or 0. I just use the abu garcia reel oil and some ptfe hobby grease. I'd just go fishing with them and clean them if needed.

They weren't out last saturday. They probably didnt think anyone was foolish enough to go. Im glad I can squeeze out a couple more outings before last year's license expires.

Flipnlimits, Sat was kind of brutal for my first time there. We fished the south shore from the boat dock to pretty far east. I managed a bite off a shakey head but I lost it. Others in my group were throwing spinners and cranks, no bites for them. They did manage to snag a few shad. Lots of birds hunting shad as well. The wind was coming from the north and had a pretty good clip. Which made for a pretty cool photo with the fog coming off the lake. There were more boats than I expected and there were other shore fishermen there, one getting small channel cats, others going for carp. Pretty cool place, I would be interested in a second trip there.

I'm not really a river guy, but I got my fix yesterday at braidwood. The water was 62degrees!

If I remember what my zman chatterbait looks like, I think you use a split ring to connect the blade to the head, then some sort of snap for the line tie. I'm not experienced in lure making at all, but I think if you just got a few different size blades and see what works best for the presentation you're after.

papajoe, there are some folks I know fishing Newton Lake in IL for some tournament, so I'm living vicariously through them. I agree with the sentiment, I'm done with this crap weather too.

One thing to note is that the PQ has a dual braking system and the speed spool (if I remember correctly) only has the magnetic braking. And as DVT said, lighten up the brakes and you'll be able to cast further, but you'll need to train your thumb to slow down the spool.

I work in Information Technology, Systems Engineer. Going to try fishing more this spring/summer at my lunch hour, we'll see how that goes, one hour seems to little for me...

Is anyone going to attend the Tinley Park show?

Hey frank If you find tackle junky81 on you tube he has a couple of videos on tying braid to mono, I think the video is called balancing the spool. He presses the knot down into the mono as much as he can. In my experience I don't notice the lump after 75yards of braid on top of the mono. I hope that helped.

Welcome to the site. I'm in IL too, oak park.

Tyler, I mainly fish a lot of ponds/forest preserves so every outing I have I don't get a huge number of fish so I just take pictures with my phone. My buddies and I have a saying "pics or it didn't happen". Plus I like to see all of the fish at years end. I've seen guys use a counter, but i'll worry about that once I get past 250.

I'm looking to catch 250 fish this year. Last year I got to 136 and learned a lot of things. Hopefully I'll remember most of it and learn some new things this year.

I made a trip to bps this weekend and came back with some cranks, braid and a few other things. I also have a falcon bucoo rod I can't wait to try out. Spring can't come fast enough.

The site logs me off after a period of time. So thats probably it. But most of it are a result of searches and or google's crawler's going through all the dataz.

This year was IL - annual resident WI - annual family non-resident (thank god for this) OK - 6 day non-resident

My personal best, just over 6lbs, 21in. long. Caught in Chicago suburbs.

The important thing is to make sure you rig the super fluke straight, I like to use a 4/0 offset round bend hook. I first thread the hook through the nose all the way down to where the flaps are, rotate the hook and just push the hook not all the way through the back of the fluke. I like to cast it out there weightless, let it sink and then reel it back in fast enough to make a bunch of noise on the surface then let it sit. Next I do the twitch, pause, reel method back to shore. Favorite color so far has been watermelson seed.

I have been using 40lb phantom red power pro this year and the color does come off and has dulled. I will probably clean my reel at the end of the year anyway, but the dye has come off onto my reel near the line guide and on the reel seat. As for line visibility in the water, I don't think it matters too much but most of the water I fish has lots of weeds and is pretty murky. The line does get difficult to see as the sun starts to set. I also use moss green pp super slick 15lb and I haven't noticed any of the dye coming off that line.

I have a generation 1 Vendetta, it's a 7ft M rod fast tip, and is pretty stiff, feels like a MH. I use it as my all around rod (I do more bank fishing) and it's done pretty well. I like the sensitivity and the weight of the M rod. The handle feels good and I like how its balanced. I have not had the chance to play with a veritas rod yet, but I have heard good things. I found the gen 1 vendetta at walmart for marked down to 30$.

Thats pretty cool that your SS class has arranged this. I would keep the fishing friendly and make sure you have your bases covered. If you're starting from nothing, I would pick up some items: spinnerbaits (probably 1/4oz) in white, chartreuse, black. zoom flukes senkos beaver/craw type baits (watermelon, green pumpkin and black) Jigs from Seibert outdoors (ask him for his top sellers) squarebills. I would think about the lake and how deep/clear/weedy/cold/hot the water is and what kind of structure is there (sandy/mud/rock bottom). Those kind of things will dictate what kind of baits to throw. Reading up on how to fish all of those techniques, would be very helpful. Fishermen tend to get caught up on all the different lures, and you can't force feed the fish. Good luck!

I'm curious about this alkaseltzer trick as well, please elaborate. Been fishing a jig a lot lately, getting hooked.