Needemp

Bad news, I have to work tomorrow > Not gonna be able to make it. So the title is up in the air for the taking. Sorry guys! PS if anyone catches Mrs 8 3, give her a kiss for me. Good luck y'all!

Using the internet to find access points is a great way to find them. If you can't find any with Google, then I don't know what to say. Again, I don't fish rivers, so I am limited. But there is a St Charles access off of 2nd street I think. I have been there several times. Very nice faciilities. Hey, it's just like bass fishing, you're going to have to do your homework in order to have success. Otherwise you will be like most fisherman and have some good days, some ok days but mostly a lot of not so good days. Some peolpe don't mind the bad days, but not me. Good luck to ya

I love big cat hunting second to bass fishing. However, my experience is only in still waters. But I would imagine, since you are so close to the MO river, you could just put in there, and look for key areas that should hold monsters. Other than that I can't help you with rivers.

OtterAKL, welcome to the board. Good to have ya! But watch out for that Jaskoh guy. He's all bark. If ya want to shut him up just ask him what his 'Biggest Accomplishment in Fishing" is? Otter, as far as how to fish that lake, I only know a small percentage of it, and I had success on one typical pattern. You can go back to our original tournament thread and see the results. (BTW, that bass in my avatar was the 8.3 that came from that tourney.) But reading those results applied to that day specifically. I fully expect conditions to be different and if they are, I have some different ideas of what to do. The best advice you can get is this; study bass! Not lakes, not spots, just bass. If you find what bass do in dirty, clean, stained, shallow, deep, sunny, cloudy, cold, hot, cooling or warming water and all the combinations, you will be on your way. Study bass and it won't matter so much what lake you go to. Also, all waters fish differently at different times. If a lake gets dirty from a bunch of rain, you will have to fish the lake accordingly. Otherwise if you are only going to fish Little Dixie, the results of last years tourney will get ya started. Good luck!

My vote is for $10 a boat or per person. I like the baits idea, but this way you can buy your own baits or whatever you want. Besides, we should just ask Carp7, he's gonna be the one collecting the winnings, right Carp?

Well if we are doing April 26, that is only 5 days later than last years April 21 date. Beside Carp, you can only catch keepers during practice I'm just kiddin'. Hey, no matter what it will be fun.

I think it is a good idea to hit Little Dixie again. I can't imagine there being more than 10 boats in our tournament, and not everyone is going to want to fish the east jetties. There are other jetties, and the dam and a couple of other places to fish as well. But even if we all end up out on the east jetties, as long as we don't mind at times someone getting close to us we will be fine. Last year I invited Gman and Valascus right next to me. There is plenty of room on those jetties. Besides, what are the chances those conditions will be the same. You remove one or more of those conditions and it could be a whole different ballgame, or fishgame!

I have read the book. it is very informative. I got a lot more from that book than I did any of the Big Mouth dvds. It is a definate read!!!

my vote is for the 26th

Honestly man, I do not find them to be worth the investment. Big Mouth is OK, but everything you need to know from it is mostly common knowledge today. Besides, the important stuff in Big Mouth is also covered in Big Mouth Forever. The Big Mouth Forever DVD is worth buying separately. It is the best DVD out of the lot. It has some good stuff in it. The last 3 DVDs, Feeding Habits of Bass etc., are very outdated and on a beginners level. You will learn more from the older In-fisherman DVDs, Bill Dance and some of the other shows on TV today. I'm sure most people will disagree with me, but IMHO if you are past the beginning stage of bass fishing, your $70 spent will not be worth it.

I would check out Harshmans. He can custom make jigs for ya. He has several jig head styles, quality hooks and he can make specific colors that you like. Good quality jigs. I won my club classic with them. www.harshmancustombaits.com

I'm in depending date and location

I have a '95 Evinrude, 50hp and I am having a problem with it. It use to be that in order to start it, you had to choke it once with the key, then you couldn't choke it again or it would flood it (this is what I was told). Now the problem I have been having is this. The only way I can get the engine to start is to choke it every time I turn the key. If I don't choke it, then it just keeps turning over and it never fires. Then once I get it started, I have to hurry up and put it in forward to keep it running. This takes several tries before/if it works. But once it starts going for about 5 to 10 seconds, it dies. The other part of this situation is that when I finally get it running, I give it full throttle and it only goes at about 25% of its normal speed and power. After several minutes of running it like this, then it will suddenly open up and be fine. Once it opens up, then I have no problems with it until it sits for a week or two. Any ideas what this is? Thanks for taking the time to read this and trying to help me?

Yeah Jaskoh, there's only three types of water you can't catch fish in... Muddy, stained and clear, other than that you do pretty good.

BassXL, if you look at your picture with the muskie, in the back ground, that bank that continues around the dam, it drops off into about 15 to 20 feet of water. If I was fishing from shore, that would be the place I spent most of my time during the winter. It has the steepest drop (bluff like bank), deepest water and you can fan cast the whole area. Just a thought

I'll be there for sure.

Ya can't blame the guy for trying!

Newton has some big big bass! 18" is a keeper up there. WOW!!!

Great job. That sure is fun to look down in the water and see a big fish at the end of your line. I don't have a problem with live bait. There are many types of fisherman and to each his own. The thing about live bait is that you won't get as much respect from those that use artificial lures. IMO, I am not as impressed if live bait is used, key words here, not as impressed. I am still impressed, but just not as impressed. Artificials require more skill and to me, that's what I love about fishing. But I also understand that that is not everyone elses goal. Have fun no matter what you do, ey! Just my 2c

I am over in the St Louis area and I am going out tomorrow and maybe Sunday BRRRRR!!!! I was going to fish a Coffeen tournament this weekend, but the water is not frozen yet over here so I have decided to fish for a winter bite. The practice should help me with fishing deeper, slower and with more finesse. But as soon as our water freezes over I will be fishing Coffeen. What lakes do you fish this time of year?

Jig man, we have used a candle and a lighter. Both created soot. How do you use the lighter without creating the soot?

We have some spinnerbait heads we are experimenting with. Two questions: 1) When heating the heads with a flame, there is a black soot that forms on the head. Is this OK? Does the soot deter the paint from adhesing? 2) Is curing in the oven at 350 necessary? Thank you tacklemaking junkies

I do some of the same things you do. I find my spots at home. I will categorize spots according to the 'what ifs?'. The 'what ifs' are basically this- what if it is this season or that, this weather condition or that, this water clarity or that, is it low-light or bright sun, the forage are doing this or that, etc. Then when I get on the water having used the 'what ifs' to determine what the fish could be doing, I will go over the spot to look at the structure and find cover. If there is cover or just well defined structure, I will fish it to determine bottom content. To find a pattern I will fish close by those spots that should hold fish and try to determine what pattern they are on. I have found that when you have good spots, the bass will a lot of times be close by. My ideal situation is to collect as many decent spots as I can and file them away for specific patterns. If I find bass are relating to something, I immediately look at my notes and my map, and go to the spots that are similar.

Last years AOY in our club had a huge muskie slam into his Yamaha Vmax 250 prop. His partner turned around after it hit and was able to see the fish. Stupid animal

How ya doing Dink? Anyone else fish Coffeen yet? It looks like I might fish the Dec 8th and/or 9th tourney. I haven't needed Coffeen yet because it has been pretty warm and the local water temps have been in the 50's. However this last cold spell might have pushed the bass closer to wintering. I might go out on the 8th to a lake here in town and check the temps, then fish Sunday the 9th at Coffeen. Not sure yet.