Logan S

I've had my 20SS Extreme for the past 9 years and it's been a great boat. It had a 200 Ficht on it when I bought it, but that blew a few years back and I repowered with a new Etec. The Ficht was a strong motor and I really liked it right up until it gave out...I was good with regular maintenance and had the ECU updated by DFI Tech too, I don't think I could have done anything more - It just failed. Plenty of guys still running the 200/225 Fichts though, seems to be a luck of the draw type of thing. From what I've read/heard it was mostly the small block motors (150/175hp) that had the majority of problems which killed the Ficht's reputation. The boat itself is great and I've been very happy with it...It's very capable in rough water and has good performance for it's age. It's an excellent fishing platform all around. After this season I'll be shopping for a new rig, but it's not becasue the SS Extreme isn't getting the job done - I'm just ready for a new rig.

IMO, the stuff actually effecting the fish are the bigger changes - Like cloud cover, wind speed/direction, rain, temperature swings, and water levels/clarity changing from rain/runoff. I know some people swear by it...But it's too small of a detail for me to focus on. If I ever get to the point where I'm analyzing barometric pressure, I'm past the point of trying to figure something out and I'm just making excuses for why I ain't catching them .

The bow fisherman are doing a pretty good job at knocking back their numbers, I have noticed that in recent years. I think the biggest concern related to snakeheads is illegal stocking into other waters...The article touches on it briefly at the end but it's sort of a big deal IMO. The list of lakes/rivers they are turning up in is growing and it's more than what the article mentions. The Upper Bay, Eastern Shore rivers, and the Delaware River have them now and a few lakes in PA near the Delaware have been reported to have them too. There also was a semi-confirmed report that one was found in Lake Anna last year. Enforcement of anything on the Potomac is essentially non-existent so people are getting away with transporting them. My other concern is whether or not they are carriers of LMBV...I've head/read that that are or can be, but haven't seen anything definitive one way or the other. If there is a bad case of LMBV, having another species that can carry it is not a good thing...But I'm not a biologist so what do I know really? I'm pretty indifferent to them at this point (assuming they don't spread further), it's just another non-bass to catch in the river for me since I don't target them. Most bass fisherman aren't killing them these days since no one wants to chop up fish in their bass boat and you pretty much need to cut their head off completely since they are tough SOB's. But they are fun to catch. I caught this monster last year and it made my XH flipping rod feel like a drop shot rod.

We always have openings for non-boaters! Our club is big enough and we have enough boaters that we don't need to turn anyone away if they are interested. Membership is open year round too, not just in the beginning of the season. If you have any other questions let me know.

Hot streak still rolling... Took another win up on Conowingo yesterday with a 5 fish limit weighing 19lbs 4oz. These 3 certainly helped the cause. Water was really muddy from recent rains but the flipping bite was great...It was a single rod day and I probably caught 30+ keepers throughout the day. My co-angler also go 3rd in the Co division with around 12lbs, good day all around. Flipping a Black/Blue Rage Bug into the nasty stuff accounted for every single fish for me, definitely need a restock now!

There's no perfect line, you're always giving up something to gain something else when picking between lines. You don't need magic sprays, the most expensive lines, or any other voodoo to make FC work for you, you just need more practice. Some FC's are more manageable than others, but even the cheaper ones are fine if you do your part correctly. The other line types are more forgiving, which means they will cover up for the mistakes you make...To the point where you won't even know you're making them if that's all you've ever fished with. There's nothing that says you NEED to use it, but if you do try it you would be well served to put in the time to get past the initial learning curve before writing it off. Even if you don't keep using it, if you become proficient with FC it will make you much better when you go back to mono/braid. It's not hard to get the hang of it, but it does require effort on your part...Remember when you learned how to use a baitcaster? Took practice, time, and effort to get it down but now it's second nature right? Same principle applies to learning FC (or anything for that matter).

Tiny Paca Chunks and the SK Bitsy Bug craw trailers are what I've used for those small jigs. I've also used a 3" stik-o/senko, which looks/works better than you might think on a tiny jig .

They are 100% deserving of their price tag (all MB products are deserving of their price tags IMO)...But whether it's 'worth it' is really more of a personal thing. They're not magic and on a good jerkbait day pretty much any brand/model will probably work about equally...But on those tougher days or when you need a better than average fish the 110 definitely seems to be a standout compared to others. The fact that there are 130+ colors to choose from is great for people like me that like to get really specific with colors sometimes . If you're a big time jerkbait fan, I think you owe it to yourself to at least try one.

Our first tournament of the year is coming up this weekend on Lake Anna so I wanted to bump this. We are always open for membership and have a great schedule this year. Our first tournament has several open boats so we could especially use some co-anglers! . If you're interested and want more info feel free to respond here or shoot me a PM.

Usually 15lb flouro (sometimes heavier, but always flouro) on a Heavy/Fast glass rod. This combo allows the bait to behave in the most productive manner when fishing through thick grass (IMO of course). You're going to be fishing a lot of the same waters as me...And around here the overwhelming majority of chatterbait fishing is going to be in shallow, grassy water like the Potomac, Upper Bay, etc so you'll probably want to tailor your stuff to that. My personal thoughts and experience on this is that braid does pop out of grass easily, but it's actually too good at it for this technique...It just comes right out quickly and easily, sometimes without 'popping' at all. I find that I trigger more bites when I let the bait contact the grass and then load the rod tip slightly before doing a sweeping pop to break it free. The glass rod and flouro really makes this easy and efficient. The new class of rods made for this application aren't like your typical glass cranking rod at all and the few different models I've used are light, balanced, and sensitive.

The previous day's leader is the last to weigh, unfortunately if they do not take over the lead they get sort of swept away since it becomes the winner's celebration time. If you watched the previous 2 elite events, Wiggins at Cherokee and Horton at Okeechobee, they both left their fish in their boat since they weren't sure they'd take the lead so that they could come up and speak for a minute...Then returned to get their fish. Since it was the classic they may have told Ehrler not to do that or maybe he just didn't think to. I watched the weigh in and don't think Kennedy got swept away, but that's just my perspective. Regarding live cameras....Jordan was in 15th place on the final day, even if they had more live cameras he probably still wouldn't have had one. Same with Kennedy, don't remember exactly where he was but it was pretty far down. BASS does a pretty good job of improvising IMO, they took their spare live cam out to Evers' boat on day 2 when he was having a good day and they done the same thing a few other times at elite events. The did not have a live camera with Ike on the final day, but they ran out and got the footage of that big one so everyone could see. You can't really predict a guy jumping from 15th to 1st. If it was a regular event he wouldn't even be out there on the final day since the normal final cut is top 12 .

It's a logistical thing and nothing more or less. They need the facilities to support the expo and all the industry people and fans coming in. They also need it to be relatively easy to get to in terms of travel, which means it will have to be somewhat close to decent sized airport. As an aside, do you not think there are a huge number of bass-heads in Houston and it's suburbs? I think it's nice when they get out of the traditional comfort zone...An MLB stadium is a pretty cool place to weigh in.

Extension cords become a part of your life as a bass fisherman . Invest in some good quality, heavier gauge cords. A 100' cord is worth it's price tag. A few shorter ones will be helpful too as will a heavy duty splitter. Running cords from your hotel/motel room out the boat is common practice at places that don't have outlets near the parking or docking areas.

Use some braided line and tie off the R-bend like this...It keeps the wire from bending as much when you catch a fish. Another benefit is that the wire doesn't flex quite as much on hooksets . Just a few wraps and half-hitches and then a drop of superglue to keep it from unravelling. It will still break eventually, but it does last longer this way.

Flipping seems to be the term used by most anglers for short range cover fishing....Doesn't mean it's technically or historically accurate, but that's just what people say. I use it that way. It's really just semantics either way, if someone uses either term I'll know what they're referring to and I don't care enough to correct them. If you really want to get technical, a 'flip' and a 'pitch' could be seen as different types of casts and the actual technique is short range cover fishing....Which could be generically called 'flipping'.

I use other's opinions on tackle quite a bit...Not just anyone, but people who's opinion I would trust. There are people on this site that fall into that category, especially when it comes to rods and reels. It's impossible to get hands on with many brands out there so reviews and input are a good thing to have. On to ALX rods...I only have 1, but it has impressed me a lot. The model I have is the Zolo Brawler. Not really in the same category as the rods you're looking at since it's a 7'6" XH...But overall the Zolo line is impressive and gets great reviews across the board. If I was spending $200 retail on a rod the ALX Zolo would be at the top of my list.

Agree on this...It the only thing you'll ever get nearly unanimous agreement on during line debates .

The guys that cut you off like that are simply showing you that they don't have any other options and don't posses the skill set to do well in their tournament without 'their' spot. My typical response is to simply keep doing what I'm doing and then move on if they make that impossible...I rest easy letting them have the spot because they obviously need all the help they can get . More often than not I find myself skipping ahead of those types by the end of the day in the one place where it really counts....The tournament standings .

Will be a while before I'm slingin' frogs...But it passes the eye test for sure. Once we hit June I'm expecting our tournament schedule to be very frog friendly for 4 straight events so it'll get a workout .

Latest acquisition...Megabass X4 711. Was respooling the other day and snapped this pic too Also picked up a Tatula HLC 8.1 for my frog rod, which is a Zillion 7'4" H. Will be one of my few non Shimano/Megabass combos.

For casting I use a 7' H/F with 17 lb flouro. For spinning it's a 7' M/F with 10 lb braid and a 10 or 12 lb flouro leader. I can/do skip with most of my rods occasionally when needed, but those two are the regulars. The only other rod that I use somewhat regularly is my frog rod with is a 7'4" H/F with braid. Shorter rods can be a little easier but once you get some practice in it doesn't make too much a difference unless you're talking about a really long rod (like 7'6"+). As far as casting vs spinning, it's simply a matter of what bait I'm throwing...90% of the time it's either a jig or a finesse/stick worm of some sort (shakey/wacky/weightless/etc) and it should be obvious which goes on which rod . For skipping with baitcasters I find the reel doesn't matter a whole lot...Just use your normal braking setting and add a little spool tension. Practice is the key...A Shimano DC reel sure is fun though .

All I'm saying is that the complaints about it are far more numerous on the internet than they are in real life...And IMO can paint an unfair picture of the boater/co-angler dynamic. I'm not saying it doesn't happen or didn't happen before. I totally get what your saying about teamwork and it's all well reasoned and valid...It just doesn't really apply to non-team events in the real world. We're not a team, we're competing individually - even if not against each other, it's still individually.

Speaking specifically about rules? Nothing. Now that doesn't mean that it happens or we 'allow' it to happen...We just don't tell people what they can or can't do with their own boats, outside of obvious/mandatory safety rules. The one thing to be said about a division club like ours is that all the Co-anglers are in the same boat (pun intended) when it comes the challenges and disadvantages of being in the back. They also don't need to worry about competing with their boater or any of the other boaters. IMO the whole subject of back-seating or front-ending or whatever you want to call is overblown on internet forums....It comes up waaaaaaaaay more often on forums online than it ever does in real life. There are also some people out there that just won't ever be happy with anything...And they are often the ones more likely to get negative online or otherwise. I won't go into story time here...But I've had a few people over the years that would fall into this category. All you can do is just shake your head while thinking, "Really, dude?", in your head and keep on with your plan for the day. A team tournament, trail, or club is a completely different dynamic than a boater/co-angler or other non-team tournament, trail, or club. Some people prefer one while other people prefer the other. I totally get what you're saying, but it's an apples vs oranges comparison IMO. I'm not into team tournaments - I do fish them here and there - but overall I prefer do my own thing and compete against other individuals as opposed to teams. One isn't better than the other, they're just different.

I knew I'd forget something ... The way it works is that if you're a boater, you're a boater no matter what...So even if I fish in the back of a boat for whatever reason, I'm still in the boater division competing against the boaters for that event and for AOY points and my fee is still in the boater pot. Co-anglers can't fish as a boater without completely jumping into the boater division...That rarely is an issue though, but has come up when a co-angler buys a boat mid-season. They either finish out the season as a co-angler, or completely convert for the rest of the season...Things get tricky for AOY points if a co switches to boater, but we do have rule in place for it - No need to hash it out here though. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you want to get into the finer details of everything...I'm happy to talk about it but don't want to distract from the original topic any further, although it is probably at least a little helpful/interesting to others .

It's pretty simple...Both divisions are simply separated - completely. Boaters are only competing against the other boaters and co's are only competing against the other co's. Technically speaking, all our tournaments are actually two separate tournaments - The boater tournament and the co-angler tournament. Everyone is obviously bound by the same club rules, times, etc... Money/Placement wise, it's two separate pots. All the boater's fees are in the boater pot and all the co's fees are in the co-angler pot. Payouts are for the top 3 plus lunker in each division...So we'll have checks for the top 3 boaters plus lunker from the boater pot only and then checks for the top 3 co-anglers plus lunker from the co-angler pot only. Payouts aren't always the same since there can be more boaters than co's signed up, making the total boater pot bigger. For AOY, it's separated the same way...each division awards points based on placement and at the end of the year we have awards for Boater AOY and Co-Angler AOY. Pairings are done by random draw the week before the tournament. If there are more boaters than co's signed up, there will simply be boaters fishing alone. If there are more co's than boaters, we have a waiting list with a priority based on payments date/time (co's that don't get in are refunded so that money isn't in the co-angler pot). For some of the further away tournaments we allow boaters/co's to choose partners if they wish to make travel/lodging logistics easier (all the same rules apply). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would also like to point to out that team events are a completely different animal...Comparing a team club/event to boater/co (or combined) club/event is an apples vs oranges comparison.