Wild Idaho

Ive fished since I was a little kid. Didn't care if it was a trout or a carp,just wanted to fish and hoped to hook a pig. When I was 20 I offered to build a pole barn out of town on a reservoir that has big smallies. The guy we built it for let us take his little 16' sled with a small outboard out on the water after work each day. I was just fishing night crawlers and hooked into a 5lb smallie. Absolutely hooked after that. Over the weekend I spent hours online and digging in field & stream mags on gear,rigs,lures and what to look for to fish. Bought a rod & reel & a bunch of plastics,mainly tubes and worms. I pounded the weeds,rocks & every point I came across. 12 years later I don't think I've touched a night crawler haha. I love steelhead fishing,salmon fishing and fighting sturgeon but bass takes the cake for me.

I use kvd's line conditioner on all my reels. Brand new line on curado and my bait caster abu revo. On the revo i used seaguar FC but only 12lb and i have zero issues. Never had a prob with FC on my bait casters but maybe it was just a bad spool of line...? I will have to switch lines to see. Thanks for replies fellas! Happy fishing

Fish with a lot of baitcaster for steelhead,salmon and bass. I currently use a shimano curado 200 hg and an abu garcia revo s bait caster on a couple of my bass rods. Never have a problem back lashing the revo. Something broke last year w the curado reel so I sent it into shimano over the winter and they shipped me a brand new one! I never had problems back lashing the curado before. I spooled the curado w seaguar 15lb fluorocarbon and my god what a mess... i have 12lb seagur fluorocarbon on the revo w no issues what so ever. I have adjusted the brakes and tweaked everything on the curado but just want to huck it in the lake....is it the 15lb flouro thats doing it? Used to love this reel...

Thanks for replies,you guys are awesome. Can't get enough of these forums and how everyone helps each other out. I have a couple quality rods just nothing worthy for throwing crankbait. Thanks fellas

Never had a problem or issue with casting the avid x compared to my other rod collection but maybe the regular avid does better. Fished the hell out of that x last year and loved it. Maybe I should pickup a regular avid and check it out,if it's better than the x I will for surely swap it.

Never fished the avid but own an avid x. Absolutely love that rod. The sensitivity blew me away when I first started fishing it. Worth every penny.

Hey fellow fishing guys! Finally warming up a little in northern Idaho and I'm itching to get fishing! Already got a few nice rods and this year I want to kick it off with buying rod specifically for throwing cranks in shallow to mid depth range. I want to be around $100- $200. Really like what I've read on st.croix premier crankbait rods just not sure if I should get a 6'6 rod or 7' and if I should go with mhm or mh... help me out fellas.

Thanks for replies. Going to hit it hard this weekend,might try getting way back in the weeds where it's really shallow and see if anything hits and then work some deeper spot. Maybe I'll have a pic of a toad to post

Fishing a lake in my home town and need some pointers fellas on a game plan for summer time large mouths. Over father's day weekend yanked out a 6lb large mouth in the shallows mid afternoon and about 5 other 2-3lb fish. Last couple weeks I have had no such luck. in 3 outings I've caught 1 fish. I've pounded the entire outside up tight to the weeds that's 4 to 10 feet deep with jigs,worms,top water, frogs,buzz baits,crank baits etc...best bait I've ever used is those skinny dipper swim baits out there but no luck. Water temp is 70 degrees. I know bass suspend deeper during summer time. The lake has some spots 20 or so deep..how do I attack this lake during the summer,what sort of lures should I be using in the deep. This lake is kicking my arse. From picture Water is way up right now and all weeds are in water..edge of weeds are 4 to 10 feet water depth all the way around

Looking to add another rod to my collection. Last year I bought a st.croix avid x caster rod paired with a shimano curado and was blown away by its sensitivity. Absolutely worth the money and couldnt be happier. I want to purchase a spinning rod with great sensitivity for jigging. Want to keep it around $150. I have heard alot of good things about about fenwicks elite tech bass rods. So as of now only rod on my radar is a 7' medium fast action fenwick elite tech bass rod. Mainly target smallouths on the river.Suggestions? Thanks fellas

Fishing a blowin out river from time to time makes fishing a challenge but I always seem to catch more fish and bigger fish during those times..I also lose a lot of lures haha. I'm stuck on the bank so I always thought that higher faster water brought the fish to slack or slower moving water closer to the bank to get out of the ripping river current. Good luck

Try a crank bait. I used to only use plastics but this year I have been plaing with crank baits. Wished I would have used them more before. Another good setup to try is some super fluke swim baits,baby bass color seems to produce for me. With the fluke in current I like to rig with a jig head and reel some and then pause retrieve. Not sure what your water temp is,but if you keep an eye on it you can really find some killer days to fish early when the temp is getting in the 50s. Good luck and be safe!

Dandy fish mate. My biggest so far is 17", I'm hoping today I can find a girl this big ha. Up here in northern Idaho the river got up to 53-54 degrees and Smallies have been aggressive as he'll. couple degrees really makes the difference getting out early in the year

Weather is a lot warmer last 2 days. Yesterday water temp spiked to 54 or d**n close to it. Fishing was unreal. I'm stuck on the bank and hiking through weeds,trees and steep rocky banks to get places I think would hold fish. Yesterday I throw on my rapala countdown clown color and fish one side on a current break casting with the current for 15 minutes and not a bite. I walk the rocky hillside through weeds 200 feet up river and have another small bend,current seam and now casting straight at the ripping river..fish on! My arms were burning within an hour of fishing. I ended up loosing 4 crank baits but the fish would eat anything. Any plastic I threw. Smallies were extremely aggressive and attacking anything in site. Had an absolute blast. Only downside to my trip was forgot camera in truck and when I list my first crank bait I went to grab my Plano box from back pack and realized I left it sitting on coffee table at home haha but luckily fish were willing to eat anything I was throwing. Going out today and will for surely have camera and most importantly my missing Plano box of cranks ha. Biggest fish yesterday was close to 4lbs,bunch of 2s and 3s. Lost count but I caught at least 30 fish..crazy how a few degrees can change fishing that fast... Later fellas,happy fishing

This year I have been having luck with a Strike King KVD BlueGill Crankbait square bill and Rapalla xrap countdown Clown color.

Hey fellas,thanks for the advice. This site is awesome. Dig through the forums,lots of greta info and everyone just loves to fish haha,good stuff..Anyways, River temp has been down 47-49 deegrees,hasn't hit 50 degrees all week and the weather has been crappy. Raining,windy,low to mid 50s. River is pretty high,since my last post went out on the river a few times and found some fish. That KVD BlueGill crank was killer but after going through my arsenal of crank baits I was able to pull some fish in with other cranks. I still couldn't catch much throwing plastics so just sticking to cranks on tommorows trip. The river is pretty stained right now and after going through some different colors my red cranks seem to work really well but so far the lure that is producing the most fish for me is the Rapala x rap countdown in clown color. When the bite it slow I can get fish to hit the clown count down. Thanks for the advive guys,this site rules! Happy fishing

ha so on my return to the river today,water temp is back down to mid 48 at best. River is way up from yesterday and current is ripping on spots I was able to fish yesterday. Threw a handful of cranks and only had 1 bass take a look but totaly skunked. Tried throwing plastics out and no luck. I for surely need more weight to stay on bottom and with the water moving so fast it was hard to get the crank baits down there and stay down. Im bank fishing.Tough day but the next couple days its supposed to be colder, water temp will drop few degrees give me a couple days to come up with a game plan. Fishing the ripping current is a challenge for me for sure..

hey thanks for the replies guys. I tend to read into to much and make things complicated. For now I will keep banging that square bill and see what I can pull out. This site is really helpful and the members seem great. Hope to share some fish stories! Good luck fishing!

Hey guys,hoping you guys could give me a little advice or direction... I fish on a river and over the last 7 days the water temps get up around 51 and drops 48-49 degrees at night. Prior to last 7 days the water was low to mid 40's. I would say water visibility would be 2-3 feet max. I am new to fishing spawn or prespawn,not sure if they have started spawning or not. So on my days off I fished the last 2 days & I have thrown flukes,tubes,crawdads,grubs,senkos and other plastics in a variety of colors and have only caught 1 smallie. I've tried fishing slow,dragging,twitching,hopping,whacky rig in weeds and stumps..Tried just driftings plastics with not much luck... So Today when I went out after going through the plastics again,even breaking down throwing a pink tube bait haha and not having any luck I tied on a strike king KVD square bill "blue gill" and started fishing slow...10 minutes & Not a d**n thing..so I decided to speed up the retrieve and just let that square bill get to work on the bottom and my fishing day completely changed. I had 7 smallies on in an hour and missed a handful that didn't strike but took a look. I could retrieve that crankbait as fast as I could reel it and was getting fish...Biggest fish was maybe 1-2lbs. So my question is,what should be my gameplan from here for catching a lunker? I know I can find fish with this kvd...do I still throw plastics after I get in an area where they are hitting that crankbait and hope to catch a lunker coming in from the shallow or...??? I read during spawning or prespawn everything was a slower retireve but in this case they were attacking a fast retrieve and chasing. Hope I didn't make this confusing,but was hoping you guys could give me some pointers or maybe what your gameplan would be with what I posted above. Thanks guys