flyingmonkie

Yeah, i think your setup is a little stout for 1/4oz lures. Flouro starts to get pretty stiff at 15lb, and combined with a MH rod, you're asking for heavier bait. I'd say you're doing pretty good considering the circumstances.

I can usually find a bait ball pretty quickly, kinda discouraging I'm not seeing anything. Gonna go drag a channel drop for an hour.

Sadly, no 45.degree banks I've found. Except the d**n. It's mostly gentle sloping to the channels, then big drops of 10ft+

I don't want the regionality of this question to bump it to a different forum... It's really a question of conditions.

Nope... It's a different lake. By okmulgee.

Ok guys, need some help. Currently on a three day fishing trip and getting skunked. Hoping your wealth of knowledge might glean a catch for me. If nothing else, this might be a fun challenge. To start with, I'm at Dripping Springs state park in Oklahoma... If you want to look at a map. Water temp is averaging 48 (colder than I was expecting). Lots of standing tember throughout the lake, and a well defined main lake channel with depths as deep as 45 ft. Few well defined points. Gravel/clay bottom, and a few rocky areas. Good water color with 2 ft visibility. Air temps in the 70s with a strong wind out of the south. 3 days after a mild cold front, with another enroute tonight. I've cruised around the whole lake and have yet to mark baitfish on my graph. Only place I haven't been yet is far up in the coves/creek arms...the temp leads me to believe they are still staging. Ran down the d**n an hour ago hoping they might be holding on rocks, but still nothing on graph. Ideas?

That's what I consider a good problem to have!

Hard to beat a Rat-L-Trap in chrome this time of year.

T-Rig! My #1 confidence bait. Shakey wins my favorite new tactic of 2013 award, though.

Keep up the hard work! It'll assuredly pay off in one way or another.

Growing up, our family spent every summer weekend at the lake. We fished a lot for white bass and catfish, but LMB were foreign to me. I knew what they were (thanks to all the old fishing mags my uncle would give to me), but catching them was a mystery. I remember being mind-blown the first time I saw a bass tournament boat takeoff... all these grown-ass men trying so hard to catch these silly fish with big mouths. There was an immediate aura! I was in awe the first time I ever purposely caught a bass, and felt so accomplished. To this day, I'll catch myself driving by a piece of water and thinking innocently childlike "I wonder if that has any bass in it?!", or lifting one out of the water and saying to myself "wow, that's a largemouth bass!" It's wierd. I hold these silly green fish with big mouths in such high regard. Now I'm just obsessed with trying to figure out how they think.

Tough break man... the wind is absolutely HORRIBLE today... it's gusting close to 50 as we speak. Last time I went (January), we battled wind too. Gusts were probably in the 30-35 range. Sure does make it rough. Konawa is a flatland lake too, so there is very little - almost no - protection from the wind. So no luck??? What was the water temp? Mid 50s?

I always use the south ramp.

Rooster Tail! Especially in pink.

Just read the article in the latest Bassmaster about the "Carolina Light". Really no different than the Mojo rig that Glenn shows you how to use. In the article, they were using a 1/16 oz lead bullet sinker in front of a flouro swivel 10-13 inches from the hook. Standard carolina rigging, just lighter weight and swivel, and no bead.

One of my new favorite lakes! Fished it about a half-dozen times this past year and haven't been skunked yet. You can't lose in the outtake channel - I usually start there. Square bills, lipless cranks, and spinner baits should produce in there. Second stop would be a hump at the end of a point (marked with a buoy) that's on the north-half of the lake (you'll pass it as you leave the outtake and move clockwise around the lake to the intake). Shaky head or deep crank usually works there. I'd make sure and stop by the d**n, as water will still probably be cold. I was there in January and water temp was mid-40s... power plant wasn't keeping it as warm as I thought. I've also heard the large cove nearest the south boat ramp is good. All else fails, the entire shoreline is covered in cattails. If water is warmer than expected and they are playing shallow, it's a fun lake for flippin. Have fun and lemme know how it goes.

I think the biggest driver for me is "the chase". I spend so much time trying to understand how this little green fish "thinks"... and my goal is that each day I come closer to understanding him. Why? Maybe I think that I also get closer to understanding myself... and others. We're all animals, and we share many of the same primitive instincts. To learn one species is to learn them all. Plus everything that everybody else said.

I'm wondering how much a leader might help prevent this type of breakage? Granted that now you're overall line strenght is only as good as your leader material (and knot). I'm mainly using the braid for the casting and sensitivity. Perhaps a couple feet of line with some stretch is enough to absorb the shock of a stuck spool. I'm debating on putting 12lb flouro on at then end. Anybody else use a seperate setup? Maybe even mono? Little extra strech on cranking might not be a bad idea, just don't want to end up with a leader material that's much larger in diameter to my mainline.

Thanks WIGuide! Great info. I'm going to get the trollperfect - it's exactly what I'm after!

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. If anybody is curious, I calculated the kinetic energy of a 1oz lure traveling at 44 fps at around 2 ft/lbs. Sucks that my 30lb PP can't handle that. :/

But it should be able to support a force of at least 30 lbs, right?!?!? A bullet fired from a handgun applies something like 10 lbs of force to what it hits (thanks, Mythbusters). I know that my lipless crankbaits are generating no more than a couple pounds of force at the end of my line - even going 60-0. So it sounds like braid doesn't tolerate immediate tensile forces well.

Ruined my day today. On the water for 3 hours and I bet I didn't make 100 casts. Argh! Better than going to the office, though!

Make your picks! Next tourney starts Friday!

Great feedback - thank you!

Yeah I don't get it. The guides are good, and the line is new. I was doing a hard cast, both times... there was 30 mph wind today for goodness sake! But still - If I can't trust the line to hold up against a stuck spool, then how can I trust it to hold up against a good fish (or more likely, a tree!).