Logan S

Front/Boater will always have the advantage - If for no other reason than it's their plan and they can control what they want to do. Then the obvious stuff like having the first opportunity at targets and all the other fishing related things. Whether they execute or not is another story, but the raw advantage is still there. The trade-off is that the front/boater has more of a burden since he/she is operating the boat, making the decisions, etc...

Any size 2 ring should be fine and MB uses regular round rings, not ovals. Like was said previously, the ones intended for the Japan market usually don't have them on the front. I don't think there's anything 'special' about the rings MB uses, other then them being flat black as opposed to silver or metallic black. A snap would be fine too, but I would probably jut put the split ring on so it's the same as the rest of your jerkbaits...That way you don't need to worry about adding or removing a snap when you use or switch from that single bait. I have a few that came without rings too and I put rings on them for this reason.

I use the stock outbarbs, #6 for standard size 110's....But I have a buddy that uses the #5 Gamakatsu Nano-Finesse trebles and he says they are perfect, same weight as the original hooks. When I run out of my stock of outbarbs I plan on trying the Nano-Finesse ones. You used to be able to buy stock hooks in bulk from MB-USA but I'm told they don't do that anymore - I bought a big supply of them several years ago so I won't be trying others for a while.

The big question is what are you looking for or hoping to find? Because outside of some specific scenarios like schooled, actively feeding fish...Most of the time scanning is done looking for cover/structure, presence of baitfish, or just get general lay of the land in the areas you're fishing....IE, most of the time it's not actually a situation where if you find what you're looking for you're going to immediately catch a winning stringer. I generally don't do much scanning on an actual tournament day...Here and there sure, but really only to check or confirm something I already know about, like scanning across a point to see if it has what I'm looking for (bait or fish or other activity) for a single pass before dropping the trolling motor on it. It's very rare that I go out and scan/scout for new stuff on a tournament day itself. Most scanning can be done anytime beforehand...Whether its immediately before the event or not. I spend most of the winter scouting and scanning at places that I'll fish tournaments on the next season. Structure, topography, and most cover (besides grass) doesn't change...So you can find it in December and put it to work in May . Also, club level stuff is almost always just a single day (occasionally 2)...So you can't really compare that to practice for a 4 day pro level event, it's almost apples vs oranges. You need a lot of stuff to support 4 days of tournament fishing, so when you see the pros talking about scanning for so long in practice it's because they need at least 4x as much stuff. They need to account for the 4 days plus factoring in other pros finding the same stuff they did. Most of the time they aren't locals either, so they need familiarize themselves with the place as well. One day events can usually be supported on a single 'milk run', so the strategy for that relies more on your experience on the specific lake/river and what your backlog of successful areas/patterns is like. Even with zero practice you can put together successful single day tournaments if you have enough experience/history on that body of water. If you are fishing mostly local/club one day tournaments, a very good strategy is to focus on building up your own milk run for each place you fish...Whether that's deep, shallow, or a mix is up to your personal style and the types of waters you fish. Scanning is a big part of all that, but not really on the tournament day itself .

Yep, I was 99.7% and 112th overall - Crazy. Pure luck, I'm next year I'll be at the bottom like I usually am :) I do a small group with some fishing buddies also and whoever wins gets baits from the others - So I've got a little tackle coming my way at least :)

For the Silver Buddy specifically, replace the hooks with better trebles but don't add split rings (Buddy's don't come with them anyway) - Clip the hook eye and bend it out a bit near the base, slide on the blade and bend back. Do it in a way the at 1 prong of the treble faces down and the other two face up, then clip the downward facing prong off. If you do this to both trebles it's surprisingly snagless. Hookup ratio is not as good so I keep some with normal trebles and some with clipped trebles on hand, if I'm snagging too much I swap on one of the clipped ones. EWG trebles do a little better than round bends also, but further decrease hookups. Like this...Clip the ones I crossed out. But honestly even with this, you need a plug knocker and large supply of blade baits if you're going to fish them a lot . If they won't eat the blade, try a tail spinner fished in exactly the same way and in the same places you fish the blade on the River...Sometimes it works .

Last weekend I was down at Gaston for a 2-day club tournament, where we had 7 hours of fog delays...2 hours on day 1 and 5 hours on day 2. I've never seen fog hang around so long as I had on that 2nd day - It was bright sun and hot by like 10am but the fog persisted right near the ground/water...We could actually see the clear sky just above our heads very close but without horizontal visibility we were stuck. Been in a lot of fog delays over the years but never one lasted this late into the day. When we got to fish, we caught good numbers of spots but very tough to find them bigger than about 1.5lbs. I had a good LM pattern at the very end of the days where and caught decent LM (up to about 3 lbs) each of the 4 days we were there - Had to leave them biting to get to weigh in on the tournament days. Caught the spots on jerkbaits and fishing vertically with sonar and the LM were on lipless cranks. This picture was taken just before noon on the second day, right before we officially launched (my Co was clearly thrilled with sitting the boat for 5 hours before doing anything).

The 65 gets a TON of bites...As you'd expect a lot of smaller fish but you'll get quality ones too. I typically use it in places where I expect to catch smallmouth or spotted bass and most often in the fall. Hardest part is casting distance, I use a spinning rod and 6lb flouro to keep my casts reaching normal distances - So when you do get a decent fish it gets pretty fun with those tiny hooks and light line....Have a landing net handy .

Since you asked specifically about swingheads, that's one that I prefer lead. The point of the swinghead is to bounce/crawl along the bottom and deflect off things is bumps into....You get more of that with a wider head (why they are mostly all football shaped). The smaller and heavier profile of tungsten take some of that away. In general, I prefer tungsten for worm weights. For jigs I have mostly lead, but a few tungsten here and there - But that's more about liking the specific jig regardless of the head material.

HA! You know that's already in the works . I might make it inside to check out the house at some point too....Eventually

We bought a new house and now FINALLY my boat can be inside a garage...My boats haven't fit in a garage since way back when I had Tracker which was like 12 years ago now so I've had keep them under a cover in the driveway...Not anymore Here's the new home port...

I love the Megabass XX Diablo Spec-R for full size walking baits. Might not seem like it on paper, but it's fantastic for the full size walkers IMO. Loads well for long cast, tip is good for walking, and the mod-fast taper handles trebles very well even on braid.

I like MH/H power and regular/mod-fast taper rods slightly longer than 7' with flouro. I like both glass and graphite rods that fit those specs, but currently using graphite. I've used just about all the rod types, but this is what I've landed on as the best for my fishing. Not to contradict pros or other experts out there, but I notice a difference in how the bait actually fishes on different rod styles to be the big reason for my preference. I'm primarily fishing bladed jigs in shallow water with heavy grass, so the big key is ripping it out of the grass - And I've found that the MH/Regular (or mod-fast) rods do this the best. It's tough to explain, but it sort of lets the bait load up a bit and then accelerate away as it pops free as opposed to just more direct stop and go that you seem to get with a MH/F jig rod. For me it's about getting bites, I think I get more because of how the bait acts on my preferred rod style. I'm aware that's a pretty nuanced take and people might think I'm full of it or over analyzing...But whatever, it's what I've found to work for me over the course many years experimenting and many many many bass caught on bladed jigs with all rod types, it's a primary technique on many of my home waters for long stretches of the season - So I have plenty of time 'in the workshop' with it. YMMV depending on where and how you fish I'm sure .

You always upgrade electronics and in a few years the 'better' electronics will be starting to age anyway. Can't upgrade a hull. My advice is always get the biggest you can afford and store. Like many here have said already too.

What it usually looks like...I typically don't pack every single rod and piece of tackle into the boat, but it would all fit if I wanted to .

I don't own any of the P5's but based on my experience with other MB rods, I'd say the Cyclone would probably be the most universal medium power in the P5 lineup. But it's probably not a huge difference between all three....The ZCrank will likely be skewed more toward crankbaits and the P5 110 Stick will be skewed more toward jerkbaits and poppers - With the Cyclone being the middle of all of it.

Disclaimer, I don't own the rod....But I think it'd be underpowered for 'normal' jig fishing with 3/8 or 1/2 oz jigs. I'm sure it will handle finesse jigs and the Dark Sleeper swimbaits very well, but when you talk about pitching to beaver huts with 3/8 or 1/2 jig I'm thinking at least an F5 and more likely an F6 (sticking with MB powers). FWIW, my jig/texas preferences with MB rod powers are as follows: F5 = 3/8 jigs (up to 1/2 if lightwire/openwater). 1/4 for texas weight size. F6 = 3/8 to 5/8 jig. Up to 3/4 max for texas weight size. F7 = Up to 1oz jigs and 1oz texas weight size.

Shallow water anchors will be spot lock 100% of the time in water shallow enough for them to hold....But they are useless in water that is deeper than than their effective holding depth. If you're picking one or the other, the amount of time you spend in shallow enough water should be an easy guide on which to get. Note that the effective range is about 1.5' less than the SWA's rating...IE with 8' poles the deepest I expect to get a solid anchor is about 6.5'. If it's dead slick calm they will hold closer to their max rating, but those conditions are rare. The bonus to shallow water anchors is the convenience they provide when docking, launching, loading, etc...

I think the rule is that there is no rule .

You can use a full 5 hooks in VA. In MD we're limited to 2...But you can still use 5 arms, just put dummies on 3 of them.

I haven't done it...But there's been many times on certain lakes where boat traffic churns up shorelines mid-day and I find active fish there. Makes sense.

I generally only make my own skirts for black/green since no companies offer that retail...But I use 2 tabs of black and 1 tab of green. 2 to 1 Seems to be the appropriate ratio to me (the one on the right I trimmed the inside strands out for a slimmer profile...was just a pic I had on hand).

'Unwritten rules' and 'moral compass' are the same thing IMO...Or at least the same concept. In all sports there are lots of things that are technically not against any formal rules, but are considered poor form - Thus going against an 'unwritten rule'. So how do you know? You generally don't when you're starting out, but keeping an open mind and being observant are how you learn. It's hard to quantify unwritten rules and moral compasses, but in reality most people know whether they're in the right or in the wrong. The original post isn't really hard to interpret IMO...The 'stump guy' was already being given courtesy for getting there first but now that he's "taken thousands" (shouldn't it say 'won'?), people don't want to be courteous anymore. Putting the specific spot details and the 9 acres aside for a second, if he was being given courtesy before why should it change just because he's been successful? As for what's too close and what's a community hole...Also hard to quantify since it can be situational and different on different bodies of water...But it's another case of "you know it when you see it".

For everyone saying that 9 acres is too big for 1 boat to 'claim', you're absolutely right...But I think the issue is that access is limited, so while it's a large area, it's not like a huge grassbed where boats can just pile in as a community hole. If it's really just 1 boat path through and the rest is inaccessible, it's not really 9 acres of fishable water...Just the sliver on either side of the boat path and 'half the perimeter'. I have no idea what lake this is or whats the spot's really like though, so just guessing based on the OP. I think if you really want to fish it and he beats you there, the answer is to hold back a bit and fish behind him at a distance. He may not like that, but it falls within the 'unwritten rules' as acceptable.

A boat race is sometimes a part of fishing tournaments. Two wrongs don't make a right. Those are my initial thoughts on this specific situation. I really hate the term or phrase "I'll give him/you this spot (or area or amount of space)"...I've heard it many times and it's even been said to me on the water. It's as if the person saying is doing you a favor by not crowding you or stealing your stuff, despite you being there first. Fishing pressure is another big part of tournament fishing. I can't tell you how many times I've made a run to a spot only to find a boat already on it - You say a curse under your breathe (to vent) and move on to another spot. Having said all that - There is a difference between a spot and a community hole. 9 acres sounds big enough to be a community hole, though the limited access might change that. It sounds like you know what the 'right' answer is.