jb_adams

yeah I thought about doing that already. I've done it to my other BPS reels and it helped a little So what would they do different besides adding oil and greese in the lube ports? Do they disassemble the reels and really check the gears, bearings, etc.? My other reels are over a year old. I'd like to service them to help them last longer.

You guys just described everything my jig using buddy has told me. I have yet to catch a bass on a jig but we fish docks and points and other structure often. I don't fish a jig as much as he does and that's why I haven't caught one yet. The action of the grub tails on a finesse jig can be deadly to a non-feeding bass. We used a Zoom green pumpkin dbl tail grub trailer on a green finesse jig but we used a "spike it" marker on the grub tails. Joe was killing them with that jig and swiming it too. I was catching on a spinnerbait (my bait of choice) and he was catching on the jig. He caugh more than me because it stays in the strike zone longer and that fluttering grub action is simply something they have a hard time letting pass by. I have felt the split second "3-tick" thing before with the finesse jigs. In a split second, you feel three "tick-tick-tick" and then it's gone. I have felt a small thump before but I have not seen my line move yet. My rod is sensitive enough that even on a slack line I can feel when the line starts to get tight again. I just haven't been lucky enough yet to catch a bass on a jig. Still trying though!

From an email I just received from BPS. Thank you for contacting basspro.com. We appreciate your business. I have listed the information for our ord and reel repair shop below. Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World Rod & Reel Repair Service 2300 E Turner Suite M Springfield, MO 65803 Monday - Friday 417-873-5274 Anyone know of any other options? I can not find anyone locally. I'd rather do it locally but everyone here sends their reels off to someone and who knows what they do to them.

They have a new store in Branson. It's at the Branson Landing. Pretty nice store too.

I thought about BPS. I just wonder if they are any good. Do you know if they have reel repair within their stores? I have to go to Branson in Jan. and I could drop them off for a few days.

I've got (2) BPS Extreme baitcasters, and a new BPS Prolite baitcaster that need to be serviced. The Prolite is new but I think it may need a touch of reel grease and I'd just assume have them all done at once. I also have an Abu Garcia spinning reel that should be serviced. I'd love to send these to a "certain someone" but he doesn't service BPS reels. Anybody know of a good place that's reasonable and very reputable?

You are so right BassBrat ;D Yep, Muddy and others talked me into buying a Pfleuger President over the Stradic. I'm not sorry I did either. My budget was $50 because I had a $50 giftcard at Amazon.com. I wanted to stay as close to the $50 as possible to preven the wife from nagging at me about buying more reels. I got the President with shipping for under $60. Recently, I picked up a President and a Stradic in the store. I agree with others that the President feels slightly smoother than the Stradic. I like the looks of the President better than the Stradic personally. Looks doesn't get the job done though in my opinion. I think there is truth in reputation and getting what you pay for so I'm sure the Shimano Stradic is a great reel. I personally am very happy with my President. I too have it on a St. Croix Avid rod. Except mine is a 7'-6" big ole worm rod with an extra fast tip. I can feel perch nipping at plastics and it feels like a small bass. That rod setup is so sensitive, I'd compare it to a GLoomis anyday! I love it! As far as which is best for $100, well that debate will continue to go on and on. For $50, I can say that the President is the best reel for the price in my opinion. I compared it to other Shimano reels within that price range and I'd take the President every day....all day for the $50 price range.

WHAT! NO JAVA! I thought she was a super cool chic until I read that. Get back on the hardstuff and she'd be a 10! Welcome to the best fishing forum around!

These are the spider jigs we use. Jewel Eakins Spider Jig Note the wire guard vs. the brush weedguard and a thinner/smaller skirt I always thought a plastic was a plasitc.....it's a trailer and not the jig itself. Am I wrong? It appears everyone is confused because I see the term "spider jig" on plastics and both types of jigheads. So what truely defines a "spider jig"?

HAH! dude your not alone : i think i have the idea, but what exactly is a spider jig? is it a soft plastic w/ many "tentacles"? From what I've seen, it's a finesse size jig like a 5/16oz. and it has a wire for a weed guard instead of the traditional brush style weed guard. The skirts are also thinner and smaller. I too use twin-tail grub trailers and I have yet to catch a fish on a jig so you are not alone. My bud catches fish on a spider jig or any other finesse jig all the time. He hasn't caught any large ones but they put fish in the boat. We'll flip docks for hours. He'll catch a few, I'll catch nothing. Not even a bite for me. I've got a quality rod so I can feel the bites if I get any.

We have the FLW Tour come through my town every year. I never knew Jimmy was involved with FLW I guess. So me and my son are sitting in the truck eating lunch and waiting for the FLW Expo to open the gates. Then I see a fella in a Yukon drive by me and I thought, "that looked like Jimmy Houston." So a minute later, here comes Jimmy Houston walking through the parking lot as I'm trying to wolf down a sandwich before the Expo. With food in my mouth, I told my son "THAT'S JIMMY HOUSTON!" He was only 5 and had no idea who Jimmy Houston was. I turned to see if I had anything worth signing and I had nothing in the truck. I figured I'd leave him alone and not be one of those hounding fans. So here comes a kid running through the parking lot with a Sharpie and a hat. Jimmy smiles, shakes his hand, signs the hat and the kid said thanks. Jimmy was on his way in the Expo looked just as nice as he could be. On another note, a lady I worked with was neighbors with Jimmy's old neighbors. So she see's Jimmy Houston one day (she used to work for Zebco) and she introduced herself. She told him that they had a mutal friend and he was very excited to hear about his old neighbors. She said that he was a very nice guy and his neighbors had nothing but nice things to say about him. After all, he grew up next door to the couple. So, Jimmy must have been raised right.

Yep, so true! I was battling a pretty bad headache that day (My Mom's coffee was decaf) and I forgot some of my cold weather gear so, the couch was pretty toasty that day. If I had gone, not caught a fish, and a relative caught an 8lb bass.......A) I would not be able to shed the hard time family would give me, My fishing buddy would have never forgotten it, C) I probably would have gone back to fish in the rain the next day determined to out-do my relative. So in a way, I saved faced by not going. Well.....that's how I twist it around in my head anyway! Self-justification! ;D I think most of the vegetation has died off and surprisingly, most of the bass are relativey active. They feed brim daily off the dock and most of the brim do not come up to feed anymore. I figure the brim have gone into the deeper end of the pond. I've seen some huge bass follow the brim just below the dock. Some were easily over 24" long. I thought it was a catfish at first glance. So there is a large brim population that the bass can survive on. This is an AWESOME private pond. Bill Dance would even love this one. I've already talked myself into trying again at Christmas. I have figured out a way to temporarily mount a depth finder on the boat so I'll be good to go with a fish finder and trolling motor. I may even spend an entire day there. I'll keep everyone posted with some pics on the next trip.

Well here is a fish tale for you... The weather was a lot colder than I expected (high 30's) and the wind was blowing pretty good. My dad didn't want to freeze and I could tell he wanted to go as much as I did but we both felt it was just too cold for him to make his first bass fishing trip with me. Besides, he wanted to make sure he watched the AR / LSU game that day! So we stayed and didn't go. I was going to go but I kept watching and waiting for the wind to slow down first. It never did. My heart just wasn't in it either. SO, here is the good part. Well the interesting part anyway. We went to visit my wife's relatives for Thanksgiving the next day (where the pond is) and they really gave me a hard time. Why? Because another relative staying there over the weekend walked down to the pond, came back 10 mins. later asking for a scale. He caught an 8lb bass right off the dock with a plastic worm! > (I didn't ask what color or technique because I was too sick with ***!) Congrats to him, sucks to be me! :'( Like my fishing partner says....quit thinkin' and start fishin' If you think about wind, current weather conditions, underwater structure, where to focus on the pond, what baits to try, etc......you'll never catch one if you don't start fishing. Well, thanks guys for all the info. It was great info indeed. I will most definately save this for future reference in the spring and possibly around Christmas. I may just make a winter fishing trip on the pond in a few weeks at Christmas! Maybe I'll catch a lunker! (there is a few out there)

Thanks RW, I will give the jig a try for sure. That cold front was a real booger wasn't it! It was 34 in Rogers when I left and it was about 50 when I arrived in Little Rock, and then it was almost 60 when I arrived in South Arkansas. This morning, it's in the 40's with a steady cold wind blowing. Yesterday was a prime time to fish that's for sure. BIG NEWS!!! I invited my Dad to go fishing with me. He hasn't fished with me since I was about 10 years old and i was a Boy Scout. That was about 20 odd years ago! He's never been a hunter or fisherman so this is a big deal for me and I really don't even care if we catch a thing now. I'm fishing with my Dad!! That's so much cooler than catching a big bass! Since he really doesn't know anything about bass fishing, I'll rig him up a split shot rig with a curly tail 6" worm to start off with. That fire tail worm will get a bite on a slow day. After that, we'll try a spinnerbiat just to get him used to casting more. Probably won't catch anything with it but you never know. Meanwhile, I'll be jigging, X-rapping, cranking, and fishing the wacky worm. Either way, it's going to be an awesome trip!! ;D

Good idea! I will try that one. I bet if I stick a worm rattle in it, every time I tug on the bait, that rattle will be just the combo for a split shot rig on a senko or fluke.

Wish I had you guys in the boat with me sometimes! ;D My partner just says, 'you're fishing that?" (haha) Only reason I wasn't going to use a larger ribbon tail worm is the time of year. I figured it was too big. With the cold front blowing in and all, I figured the old reliable 6" Renegade worm would do me right. There's something about these things that beat a senko. I've used senko style worms on this pond and never had any luck. I will DEFINATELY try the X-Rap. I love those and I think it will be something different the fish aren't used to seeing. Oh yeah, this pond has a hefty lot of perch and some get good eating size so the bass are used to seeing bluegill. If I throw a sassy looking x-rap, twitch it kind of slow with an erratic action, I should catch a lot! Good suggestion! I've got some Shad Raps that would work well too I believe.

Thanks! I think you're right about the vegetation. It should be cleared out some by now with less algae and such. I thought about the search baits but I was affraid I would end up throwing search baits all over the pond for a couple of hours and figure out it wasn't working. I would much rather throw search baits than fish plastics just about anytime. There is just something in the back of my head that questions fishing something really slow when you do not know if fish are present. I feel like I'm wasting time jigging a plastic worm or jig on the bottom when I don't know what the fish are doing or where they are. If I had a fish finder, it would be a little different. I'm thinking the water temp will be in the mid to upper 50's and possibly even low 60's. Since it's really shallow stained water, I figure it will cool pretty quickly. It's in South Arkansas so it's in the South. Doesn't cool off as fast as northern states. Here is what I'm planning on throwing. You tell me if I am off. - white buzzbait (gotta throw, I tore them up one day with this bait, caught about 15) - white chatterbait fished slow off the bottom like a jig or slow rolled spinnerbait (my bud had great luck with this Sat.) - white fluke with worm rattle fished weightless t-rig near laydowns - white rattletrap slow rolled off the bottom (jerked out of weeds) - War Eagle spinnerbait (white of course) slow rolled near cover - t-rig 6" finesse worm (black/fire tail) Why white? Because it's ALWAYS worked on that pond. The water is so dark, white is the best contrasting and slightly natural color.

Be the bananna! Yep, the phrase "monkey on my back" is where it all started. The little bugger finds me on his pretty easy on his Alltel "My Circle" plan. I think he even has me on speeddial. By the way, don't make him angry....you wouldn't like him when he's angry! Trust me! ;D

Sounds like you should be teaching some of us how to call the hawgs! Those fish are some real pigs! Welcome! If you're a friend of Fish Chris, we won't hold that against you! ;D

Much like everyone, I will be traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday which allows me the opportunity to fish my favorite pond where I caught my PB. The water was really muddy and almost dark brown with a scummy surface this summer. The deepest part of the pond is about 8-10ft and the pond was low. It should have a few more feet of water in it by now. This pond has a lot of sludge and weeds on the bottom so it can be hard to fish jigs or plastics at times because the goo gunks up the baits pretty bad. I have a feeling, crankbaits reeled slowly in the deeper water might be OK. Other than that, I'm not sure what to use because I will not have a fish finder so I won't really know where to look. Otherwise, I'd dropshot next to any underwater structure. So for this time of year, what is the best techniques to try on a muddy shallow pond with lots of underwater vegetation? (plastics, I already know the answer...just hoping for something else)

Thanks guys! I took a look at that link. Pictures are worth so much more than words and that link has pictures and words. Thanks for the tip about the ping speed. I though I might need to slow it down for increased sensitivity.

You guys have got me feeling like a one-eyed monkey starring at a square peg and trying to force it in a round hole at at test lab..... OK, I'll play with the settings tomorrow. If the sensitivity is high, should the ping speed be slowed down?

OK, how do you see the bait? You don't see the bait actually moving do you? It's not a live motion or moving blip on the screen right? By the way, that's not a pig in your picture, it's the hole farm! What a fish!

I'm borrowing my father-in-laws boat right now and it has an Eagle Cuda 242 and the transducer is mounted at the back of the boat. It's kind of hard to use it at the trolling motor but I will play with the settings and see if it will pick up a bait at the back of the boat. My fishing buddy has the Eagle Cuda 168 mounted on his trolling motor and he has not had a lot of faith in it's ability. If we turn the sensitivity up almost all the way, turn up the grayline, set the noise rejection to low, we still can't see a bait on the graph. Are you guys looking at the instant graph on the side? That's the thing that makes little horizontal lines for instant graph feedback. I forget what that's called. Live track or something like that. He also has a Lowrance 480 mounted on the back and I've tried picking up baits on it and it hasn't worked yet. I'll try it again with the sensitivity turned up.

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that one! That's the best one yet!